New rules, changed plans and other random mutterings.

It seems to me that we are living in a golden age of wargaming, with rules and figures of quality all coming out with startling rapidity.  I have recently purchased 25mm Colonial British infantry, 25mm Dark Ages warriors, 15mm Cold War British and 25mm Crusader figures.  Not much has been painted, but it doesn't stop me buying them..........

Then the rules, Lion Rampant, Dragon Rampant, Kings of War, Men who would be Kings and Congo have all joined the collection recently.  Will I play them all?  Probably not as much as they deserve, but I still have them.  I really enjoy the Dragon/Lion Rampant rules, but they are not suitable for a large battle and some times it's fun to load the table with lead and have at it.  Hence Kings of War, which seems to be everything Warhammer could have been.  And now Congo has reared its head and has been the game of choice for the last 2 weeks.  I have not played it yet, but have run a couple of games for the Monday night lads, with the White Men winning one and the African tribes snatching victory in the other.  I keep getting drawn to North Star and Wargames Foundry to look at the bundles of figures they do but have managed to restrain myself......so far.

So, what do I plan to play next?  Dux Britanniarum is currently the plan as Nathan and I are running a game at Firestorm Games on Saturday 15th.  Also the painting list has been scrapped and replaced with suitable extras, such as carts and the like, for the game.  I have also been painting Romano-British figures for Andy and Nathan.  So far Andys 36 figures have been finshed and returned, while Nathans 19 are awaiting the imminent delivery of shields.  Then it's onto 70 odd other assorted Saxon and Briton figures for Nathans ever expanding warbands. 
 

Bad photo!

Here are Andys British, a mix of metal and plastic figures with LBMS shield decals to finish them off.  Sorry about the crap photo, it was a rush job as I was getting ready to go out.

So thats it for today.  It's just gone midnight and I have to be up early tomorrow for a pointless doctors appointment.  A GPs review of the tablets prescribed by the consultant, so they can't change them without his say so and he won't say so, but they have too see me to review the medication every 6 months.  So on that happy note, good night and I'll catch you all next time.

PS  By all I do mean the 2 people who look at this load of tripe every now and again. ;)

Too many new rules to keep up with

First up, apologies for the absence.  Things have been a bit rocky on the health front again so I have been keeping my head down and trying not to upset anybody.  Enough about that, onto wargames.

Gaming has again been somewhat limited.  A few Lion and Dragon Rampant games has been the limit of my action for the last few weeks.  It has got me painting some of the plastic/lead mountain though, which is good.  The rules are straightforward and give a decent game in a couple of hours, even if some people just choose to ignore the army size rules and do their own thing. ;0)

 So, first up we have a unit of Rohan infantry.  Most foot units are 12 figures in Dragon Rampant, so that is what I painted.  My thoughts are that they will be light infantry with added missile weapons, the leather armour and wooden shields rule out counting them as heavy infantry.  I will paint some more, this is just the first unit for a Rohan force.

The majority of my painting has been Uruk-Hai for an Isengard army as raised by Saruman in Lord of the Rings.  

 This is one of two units of 12 Uruk-Hai foot.  They are going to be "offensive" heavy foot, due to the heavy armour, big shields and large swords.  There are 12 more waiting to be painted but I have some 15mm tanks to do first.

The next unit is another 12 figures, heavy missile troops this time.  These crossbow armed figures are going for stupid money on ebay, so the odds are adding another unit are somewhat low.

The final full size unit is 12 Uruk pikemen, used as heavy foot with the Wall of Spears ability.  Less attack orientated but very handy against the Rohan cavalry.  The standard does nothing in the rules, it just makes the unit look nicer.

 The first support unit is a 6 strong unit of scouts, giving some skirmish ability as well as adding a bit of firepower.  Very fragile but also very annoying, these guys can run through the woods and are hard to hit.

Then some heavy hitters.  These 6 berserkers are used as Bellicose Foot with "Shiny Armour" to represent their toughness in the films.  They are a bit of a loose cannon with "Wild Charge", but they can really upset enemy units if they can get a charge in.



A troll Captain adds some serious grunt, I use him as elite foot with venomous to represent his mighty strength.  Currently I only have 2 trolls, so he operates as a single model unit.  Another troll has been obtained on ebay and then the trio will form the unit together.

 Troll 2, equipped with a mighty large hammer.  I really like these figures, they are lovely to paint and have a lot of detail and expression.  The ebay troll is the same figure but I will try to reposition the arms to make them a bit different.

The whole army of Isengard, gathered to reap havoc on the westfold.  It consists of 60 Uruk-hai, 2 trolls and Saruman currently.  I have 6 more archers, 12 more foot and 6 Warg riders to paint, as well as the third troll.  That should be enough I think.

 Finally I have started on troops for my latest "new and shiny" set of rules.  I have preordered the new set of Sharp Practice from Too Fat Lardies and have decided to do the American Civil War.  Other members of my local group have Napoleonics and the American Rebellion ahem, Revolution covered already, so I have doing the later conflict.  So far I have 60 Union infantry ready to go, next up will be some Confederate types to fight them.  One thing I am considering is getting some of the Perry's "British Intervention" figures to do some what-if scenarios.  Plus it's an excuse to buy some more lead.

So that's it for now.  I am looking forward to the local Legionary wargames show in 11 days time in Exeter, then we are finally getting back to visit Partizan up in Newark 3 weeks after that.  This is my favourite show in the country, but events have transpired to prevent any visits for the last few years.  Really looking forward to getting back up there and seeing some old friends again.

Right, I'm off to prep some Confederate infantry.  Catch you next time.

Happy 2016 and all that Jazz

Happy New Year, yes I know it's a week late but I have been busy.  Well, sort of anyway. 

So Christmas came and I got what I had bought for myself and then given to the family to wrap up for me.  So a couple of Airfix 1/48 modern kits joined the "to do" pile, a couple of rulebooks joined the ever increasing shelf of rules and some figures joined the painting list.  The surprise was my Secret Santa and I can only say a big THANK YOU to whoever it was.  I received four extremely well painted WW2 28mm figures which will join in the forthcoming Chain of Command games. So here they are in all their glory, sporting an apparently "modest" paint job.  Puts my work to shame.








The rules I got were a physical copy of Kings of War to replace the free set from the Mantic website and a copy of Dan Merseys Dragon Rampant.  The plan is to inspire me to paint some of the hordes of Lord of the Rings figures I have here.  That was the plan anyway, but the "ooh, shiney" syndrome has kicked in already and buggered up my plans for 2016 within a week.

Anyway, we gathered for our annual all day game at Zob's on the 28th and played a cracking game of Zulu.  More information can be had on Nathan's blog, but fair to say a good time was had by all.  After tea and biscuits we finished the day off with a game of Zombicide:Black Plague and just managed to win it, which was nice finale.

I then managed to get an infection in the partially done root canal work the dentist started back in early December.  Typically it kicked in on New Years Eve, after the dentist had shut for 3 days.  Luckily I got in to see the emergency dentist on the Sunday and got some anti-biotics and pain killers to tide me over.  Unluckily the infection was still there when I went to have the root canal finished and she couldn't do it, so I am back there in 2 weeks (hopefully). 

So while I was in pain and grumpy I stayed out of the familys way and looked at my projects for 2016.  As I said in my previous post I have a few projects on the go.  They have now been joined by a new one, more about which can be found at the end of the post.

After the New Year we played a game of Kings of War, 3000pts a side and 3 players a side.  Opinions were mixed, the 3 "elder statesmen"(50 plus) of the group were not overly impressed while the three "young pretenders" (in our late 40's now) liked them and plan to play them again.  So that was good.

Painting wise I have done very little really.  I still find it hard to concentrate, although being up all night for a few days did allow me to get some paint on lead plastic.  So here they are, just waiting on some bases to arrive from those nice people at Warbases. 











Fireforge Games Templar Knights with decals from Battle Flag.  One box gives 12 figures which is enough for 2 units in Lion Rampant.  I have decals for the Hospitallers, Knights of Jerusalem and Knights of Ibelin as well, so things are moving in the right direction on this project.  Just a few more to do, I have plans for about 120 cavalry and over 200 infantry in the end.  Yes, I know that Lion Rampant is a skirmish, but I want enough to do big battles as well.

Finally we come to the first unexpected new project that has already screwed my plans for 2016. I have pledged for this 15mm Cold War kickstarter to give me some Cold War British.  If I can afford it I will up my pledge later to get some VDV too, but I really want the British.  I am in for a platoon so far, but will be adding some Chieftains at the least.  This could get ugly!



So, there it is.  I am still ticking while waiting on the hospital to "get funding" for a gastric pacemaker so until then I will be up and down health wise.  Gotta keep smiling though, so bear with me folks.  Have a good one until next time.

WW2 in 25mm! WHY????? and other things

First thing, I'm still here so prepare for more pointless updates and ramblings about assorted crap.  After the best part of a week in hospital I am now waiting for the consultant in Chelmsford to decide on a course of action.  Hopefully sooner rather than later, but at least things are moving on.

Wargaming is still suffering due to my health, but I have managed to get a few games in and even finished off some figures that I have had for a while.  Gaming has been mostly Blood Rage, another kickstarter that we went in for.  The game is pretty good with some nice nuances to make each game different.  The best thing about it is the miniatures though, they are truly lovely and I hope that I can do them justice when we start to paint them.

I have finally finished off some of the Perrys DAK figures I picked up on the Bring and Buy at the Bovington Wargames Show back in July.  My original plan was to paint them up to sell, but things have changed a bit.  I was impressed with the look of the figures, more realistic than I expected and a joy to paint up.  I am not overly impressed with the selection of figures in 15mm for North Africa, so I have decided to keep a platoon of these for any future games of Chain of Command. 

DAK Infantry Platoon in 25mm

Instead of just doing the basic platoon structure I decided to add a few bits to the platoon.  The basic structure is one senior leader, three squads of ten men each with two LMGs, a two man AT rifle team and a three man light mortar team.  I have decided to use mine as a standard infantry platoon as opposed to an MG laden Panzergrenadier platoon, so only needed one LMG per squad.  I added a second senior leader, a two man FAO team and moving figures for the mortar and AT teams.  All told it comes to 44 figures.  The plan is eventually add a few (very few) additions such as a tripod MG, Pak gun and maybe a Panzer II.  I also ordered a box of the British figures to give them something to fight against, but they will take a while to get painted.  

Another DAK platoon

 My purchase at Bovington included the contents of several boxes of DAK figures, so I organised and painted up a standard rifle platoon as well, these are to go on eBay to recoup my initial costs.  So another 36 figures joined the painted list.

Dark Ages Saxons by Gripping Beast

The last bit of painting I have managed was to finish off the last figures I needed to complete a Saxon force for Dux Britanniarum games.  I have had a Romano-British force completed for some time, but never got around to finishing off the Saxons.  Now I have and just in time for Nathan to use them tomorrow at the Devon Wargames November meeting. 

Ten Gripping Beast plastic figures, all painted and based ready to pillage the lands of the British tribes.  The shields are LBMS transfers as I'm too old and lazy to paint shields. 

I have also decided on my long term plan for next year.  I like Lion Rampant as a game and have decided to get together some more figures in order to use the rules a bit more often.  After a bit of looking about and pondering I have settled on a new period for me.  I am going to get forces to play Crusade period games, specifically based on the events very loosely portrayed in "Kingdom of Heaven", where Legolas Balien does his best to hold off the forces of Saladin.  I know it's Hollywood at it's best but I like the film and it has got my interested in the period, so it's all good.  Fireforge games and Gripping Beast will be providing the majority of the figures, with transfers by Battle Flag and Gripping Beast being used. 

So that's it for now.  I will try to take some pictures of the game tomorrow, just like I will try to last more than a couple of hours.  Catch you all later.

Zombicide, a few tanks and off we go

Sorry but I'm here again, just when you thought you were safe.

I have done little in terms of gaming or painting since I was last here, hence the lack of updates.  I have played a couple of games of Zombicide with the lads on Monday nights and last week we had a bash at Lion Rampant again, but that's been it.  I don't have any plans for anything major either.  I am missing this Monday and probably the following one too, so gaming is going to be really light for the next few weeks.

I have managed a small(very small) amount of painting so here are some dodgy looking pictures of some averagely painted figures and vehicles.

First up is some Zombicide figures, 15 assorted zombies that I needed to get finished. There are 9 walkers, 4 runners and 2 fatties, which finishes my share of the group purchase for seasons 1 and 2 of Zombicide.  I now have season 3's zombies to do, but that's going to take a while.

 Then we have a few of the survivor figures.  I painted them to look like they do on their cards, at least as closely as I could anyway.  They are based on (left to right)
Steven Seagal in Machete, Nick Frost in Shaun of the Dead, John Goodman in The Big Lebowski, John Cleese in Fawlty Towers, Simon Peg in Shaun of the Dead and, at the back, Jack Nicholson in The Shining.  Nice enough figures as usual, my favourite is John Goodman. 


The rest of my efforts have been aimed at my ever expanding 15mm WW2 collection.  The recently finished Russians have some reinforcements in the shape of 3 BT-5's and a massive KV-2, all made by Zvezda and easy little kits to make and paint.  That is it for the Barbarossa Russians now, I don't need anything else for them.

Finally I painted up a Plastic Soldier Company Tiger tank that I ordered in a sale they had.  I usually prefer the more common Panzers but it is nice to have some options available for the Germans.  I need to add some more weathering to it but I am happy with it at the moment.  I need to get a new pot of MiG powder to dirty it up so it'll have to wait until I get into town.


So that's it for wargaming over the last month.  Not much to report and it's looking pretty rocky for October too. 


I am off to Chelmsford tomorrow to see a consultant surgeon in the upper GI department.  Quietly hopeful that he may be able to at least alleviate my problems if he can't cure it.  Appointment is on Monday, but we are staying up there as travelling wipes me out.  Most things wipe me out at the moment, so I hope he can do something about it.

Well, that's it.  I'm off now to prepare for the England-Australia game.  Not saying who I'm supporting but I won't be too upset if Australia win.

Lion Rampant with gunpowder

Monday night was spent playing a game of Lion Rampant using the ECW variant that I discovered on the Arlequins World blog.  Colin took the Parliament force, leaving me to fight for King Charles.  Colins force consisted of 1 unit each of pikemen, dragoons and a forlorn hope plus 2 units each of musketeers and harquebusier cavalry. This lot was supported by a saker cannon and crew.  His "Lion Hearted" General was in the pikeblock.  The Royalists had 2 units of cavalier cavalry plus 1 unit each of pikemen, dragoons, musketeers and Irish mercenary musketeers.  My General was obviously a student of Prince Rupert as he was in a Cavalry unit and proved to be "Rash".

 The initial setup saw Colins infantry deployed to protect his saker, with the cavalry on his left flank and the dragoons on the right.

 The Royalists were deployed out of sight of the saker.  The cavalry and dragoons were on the left, facing the Parliament cavalry.  It did leave my right flank open to those pesky Dragoons though.  The downfall of my plan was not checking what effect the fences and hedges would have on movement!  More on that in a minute.

 My first turn was a bust as I rolled 3 on 2d6 and failed to order anything.  God seemed to be on the other side today.  Colin moved almost everything forward, leaving a musket unit to guard the immobile saker.  Turn 2 and I managed to move everything, which was nice.  I pushed forward with all units, trying to seize the defensive hedge before Colin got there.  He pushed forward as well, with the dragoons skirting out wide to his left.

 Now we come to the flaw in my plan.  I checked up on moving over obstacles and came to the conclusion that it was a stupid idea.  So the musketeers swung around the village while the pikemen tried to clamber over the fences.  The horse all moved up as well, which was nice.

 My right flank was wide open though, protected only by some hedges that served to slow down Colin's dragoons.

 My dragoons rushed up to the hedge and dismounted, readying their muskets.  The musketeers skirted the village and the pikemen clambered through the fences and up to the hedge.  The cavalry did....nothing!  Stupid dice.  Colin pushed ahead where he could and his dragoons crossed the hedges and moved towards the pikemen.

 My dragoons opened fire on Colin's forlorn hope, who fired back.  Fire was fairly ineffectual due to the difficulty of hitting the skirmishing targets, compounded by the fact that both units were in cover.  One of the Parliament supporters fell though, so I was winning!

 My next move saw the musketeers advance, the pikemen move away from the enemy dragoons and the rest fail to do anything.  My dragoons fired again, dropping another of the forlorn hope who failed their courage roll and became "battered".  This prevented them from firing back, but they did rally in their turn.  Colin advanced his infantry and a cavalry unit forded the stream.  His dragoons failed to move though.

Marksmen picking away at the pesky forlorn hope as they skulk in the woods.  Bang....arrrghhh.  Hehe

 The next phase was a good one for the Royalists.  The musketeers fired, dropping one of the Parliament cavalry.  The dragoons fired again, dropping 2 more of the forlorn hope.  This was too much for them and they routed.  The pikemen advanced to try and stop the Parliament cavalry flanking the dragoons.  Colins dragoons fired, but missed.  Both his cavalry advanced towards the dragoons but were out of range to charge luckily.  His other troops failed to move.

What's that in the woods?  Dead Parliamentarians, that's what.  

My musketeers fired again, dropping 2 more of Colins cavalry.  The dragoons fired and dropped one cavalryman in the other unit as well.  The Irish finally moved, as did the Generals cavalry unit.  Sadly the other cavalry and the pikemen failed to move.  Colins dragoons advanced to get a better shot at my pikemen.  His infantry advanced over the ford and his cavalry failed to charge. 

 Parliamentarian cavalry loitering in a bad place to be. 

The next two turns were pretty climactic for Colins force.  My Generals unit had to charge Colins 1/2 strength cavalry, which they did and promptly wiped them out without taking any casualties in return.  The Irish and the musketeers both swung around to face off the advancing dragoons while the other cavalry did what it did best, nothing.  Colins dragoons fell back in the face of 24 muskets aimed at them.  His other cavalry advanced and fired at my dragoons as they sheltered behind the hedge and his infantry advanced again.  My General then had to charge again, against Colins remaining cavalry behind a hedge.  A much closer fight this time, 2 of the Kings men fell while 3 of the traitors were run through, the remainder promptly routed.  Nothing else of mine did anything, while Colin advanced his musketeers but failed to move the dragoons.

My  General leads his cavalry in a rash charge that, despite killing of Colins cavalry would prove to be costly.

 Colins dragoons struggle to get through the hedge as the Royalist muskets are aimed at them.

 Ah, see that's why you should check the fine print before hiring mercenaries.  Irish musketeers have Wild Charge, which means that they must charge if they can.  And they could.  So they did.  Best laid plans and all that.  Still, it went well as 4 dragoons died for 1 Irishman.  I didn't take a picture of the other flank.  Colins saker had finally spotted a target and fired at my General and his unit.  All 4 of them were smashed to pieces by a single shot.  Boo!  My musketeers and dragoons fired to no effect, while the pikemen moved up to cross the stream.

 Despite the loss of my General my force stood firm and things were looking good.  Until I tried to order them and failed after the first roll.  Colin was more lucky, with his musketeers firing and routing the Irish.  They didn't fire a shot, fought one fight against some outnumbered, outflanked and dismounted dragoons and then ran away!  Fighting Irish my arse. 

The final turn was good for me and caused Colin to recall his infantry and concede defeat.  My musketeers and dragoons both fired and hit.  Colin rolled low on both courage tests and both of his musketeer units were battered.  Then in his turn he rolled low on both again and they both fell back in disorder.  So the Royalists won the day, but at a heavy cost.  Colin lost 12 cavalry, 6 dragoons, 6 musketeers and 6 forlorn hope in total.  I lost 6 cavalry including the General, 12 Irish musketeers and 1 dragoon.  A victory, but a sad day for the king.

All in all it was a thoroughly enjoyable evenings gaming.  Lion Rampant worked pretty well for the period, although there are a few points costs that may need to be looked at.  Apart from that it was great and has made me dig out my Renegade Miniatures figures to see what I can put together. 

Painting wise, I have been busy painting some wild west hero types and putting together more monsters for Shadows of Brimstone.  All in all its been good until now.  Why now you may say?  Because it is 5am, I have a doctors appointment at 9am and I am still awake.  Stupid stomach.

Ah well, keep smiling.  Life is too short to be grumpy, unlike Nathan.  ;)

Devon Wargames and painting some French people

 Now that the grandchildren are out with my wife I can sit down and do a wargames update.  Last Saturday was the first meeting of 2015 for the Devon Wargames Group.  A large turnout enjoyed a mixed bag of games.  Jon has already done a nice write up of his AWI game, the other offerings were a Bush Wars Chain of Command by Steve and Chas or Star Wars X-Wing by Steve and Phil(I think). 

 First up is a pic of the X-Wing game, which included over 20 ships and seemed to be enjoyed by the people who played it.  I already have some ships for this, so it's no temptation luckily.  I can't say the same about the forthcoming Star Wars:Armada though.  I think this may be my first deviation from my plans for 2015.



Next we have a couple of pictures from Jon's very pretty AWI Maurice game, as detailed on the DWG blog.  As usual Jon put on a cracking game and the scenario was interesting.  Again, I already have figures for this, although it has made me get some of my unpainted Hessians out and start prepping them.

 The final picture is from the Bush Wars CoC game.  A very quick game with small forces, this was played twice before I left at 1pm and then twice more after I left.  I am not sure if the Zipra/Zanla types ever "won", but they did kill all the farmers at least once before running away from the devastating firepower of the RLI troops. 

 Now this month I have, so far, mostly been painting French.  Two sizes for two periods, so it's been interesting.  First up has been two 24 figure units of 25mm French Napoleonic Line infantry.  I believe that they are Foundry figures, but I may be wrong.  These have been my first foray into "larger" Napoleonics and, time wise, they have been a complete PITA!  I cannot yet paint these fast enough to ever be able to make a living out of painting them, although unit two did get finished quite a lot quicker than unit one.  They are carrying flags of the 54th and 55th Ligne, just because I had them here left over from Gus' collection.

The other figures have been a 15mm WW2 Chain of Command platoon of 1940 French infantry.  All told its 64 figures and one 25mm gun.  I just need to do a few little tanks up, plus maybe some odd figures like FOOs and engineers.

I have also been busy painting something completely different, which you will get to see once I have based them.  Next up is some Westphalian Napoleonics and some 25mm Medieval foot.  The Westphalians will end up like the French, being sold on eBay while the Medievals are for the planned Lion Rampant retinues.

Take care and keep rolling those dice.

2015 plans and all that jazz

My plans for 2014 were mostly sorted.  I have enough to play Chain of Command in 1940 and 1944 France.  I started (then stopped) my Longstreet forces.  I didn't buy too many figures, actually less than I painted for once.  I did buy too many new rulesets though, a couple of which will probably end up costing me money this year.

So, plans for 2015.

1. Paint my 15mm French 1940 infantry for Chain of Command (underway already)
2. Paint some 25mm Napoleonics that I have inherited (also underway)
3. Paint some more bloody Zombicide figures, as we have season 3 due soon!
4. Stop buying new rules (I have a rulebook "ooh shiney" syndrome)
5. Go to at least one of the Partizan shows this year.
6. Get the figures for a couple of Lion Rampant forces bought and painted.

So that's the plan.  As with all good plans it won't survive first contact with the enemy and the enemy in this case is anything new!  For example, I "received" a copy of Lion Rampant for Christmas from my youngest son(who is 20).  By "received" I mean I bought it, my wife wrapped it and put a label on it saying "To Dad from Michael" and then I unwrapped it on Christmas morning and said "Great, just what I wanted".

I have played 2 games of it now and am now planning on doing enough troops of each type to do 2 forces.  So the Perry twin's will be making money from me already and it's only January 7th.  Willpower of a damp lettuce leaf, that's me.

Here is a picture of my first game, with my "Scots" facing of against Nathan's "English".  King of the Hill, once I was up there he was in trouble and the Scottish spears ruled the field of battle.  It did help that he failed to move his heavy cavalry 3 times on the trot, allowing me to get up there and deploy in schiltron.  Plus he rolled double one on a morale roll for his archers after my skirmisher types shot 3 of them, so they routed early on.

Fun rules with a quick and easy system and enough difference in units to keep it interesting.  Thanks to Nathan for providing everything except the rules, including several cups of tea.

However, I should be painting up some of the 15mm ACW, 15mm AWI, 15mm WW2, 25mm Ancients, 6mm Seven Years War, 15mm Bush Wars, 15mm and 25mm Napoleonics or 25mm WW2 that I have here, not planning new purchases and painting.

I am a bad, bad man.

Still, it could be worse. 

See what I mean.  Happy New Year to you all.

P.S.  A quick shout out to Magnetic Displays, whom I ordered some magnabase from on December 28th and received on December 30th.  Awesome and thank you.