Taking the Pledge

What wargamer doesn't buy more models than he paints I ask you? The smart wargamer does!


Now, am I a smart wargamer? Well probably not in the past, but last year I certainly restrained myself on the model buying front to some extent. As from the end of July I knew I was going abroad for six months, and had to put my life into storage. Nevertheless I bought several hundred plastic Samurai, not to mention various 28mm figures. Even with my best efforts I doubt I out-painted that lot. I ended up with less models mainly as a consequence of selling a number of them.


Now this year I return to gaming and find a "painting pledge" running on one of my favoured forums. The idea is simple, aim to paint one figure for every one you buy. Well I have plenty of unpainted lead and plastic awaiting my attention so it seemed like the right time to start.


As it happens I have bought all of 3 figures this year, which is perhaps a bad start, as it only adds to the pile; but one of the first things I did on moving house was set up a small portable painting desk in a corner of the living room - one that could be put away each night so as not to be an eyesore. As ever, putting it within sight of the TV and the wife(!) ensures I can paint when I feel like it without being accused of being antisocial; a key factor to high output. The next thing was, for both painting an gaming sake, to retrieve a selection of armies from my brother's loft.


That achieved I could at the start of June get down to painting. To date I've finished 44 figures.


Not bad going, eh.


I started small with the free Roman Legionary from Wargames Illustrated. A fine little chap that only needed a few colours to do. I backed this up with a unit of 25/28mm Frankish cavalry for my Ottonians. 8 of the chaps. Now these did not prove all that satisfying, although they finished up nicely enough, the mixture of dull, randomised shades of browns, reds and greys, finished off with a grim looking black wash was, whilst undeniably authentic looking; ugly.

I wanted to do pretty and dare one say slightly cartoonish. So there was only one thing for it. Out with the Dwarfs.

Yes, the damn things had taken up space that could have been more sensibly invested in a few more clothes when I took them to France. But now they really could get themselves painted and earn their keep. To date two units, totalling 35 of them are completed, using a three layer highlighting process, uniforms (with a slight Marlburian hint about them) and autumn themed bases. Photo’s as proof when I have them. The plastic Dwarfs are a breeze to paint too; detail is easy to pick out whilst surfaces are otherwise pleasingly clean.

So for this month so far I am 44 for 3; which represents good odds, moreover another unit is on the table, and if I can maintain the pace, I could have and entire 2000 point Dwarf army ready in around 6 weeks. Which when you only have a handful of armies to hand, is no bad thing!

Here’s to keeping my pledge.

Where am I going now?

Well, I'm now back in 'Glorious' Bradford; and once again find myself hunting for a wargame club to help pass the time. Harrogate sadly proved to be just too far away from my new, five star executive rabbit hutch of an apartment; on the opposite side of town. It's a shame as I really liked the atmosphere at their club but a one hour drive each way is unacceptable for me.

So the next option was Leeds; my old haunt being first stop. Now this highlighted a regular problem with the club, there were three games going on, but none appealed (Gulf war insurgency game, DBA Doubles and some old GW boardgame). Secondly it was hard to arrange anything I would like; I find the players can be a little indifferent to the idea of actually playing a game, with figures, to a conclusion. I don't mean to sound critical, but after the six months I've been away, and knowing I may well go again at the drop of a hat; when I'm in Britain now I want to be actually gaming, not just talking about games, or the rugby or Indiana Jones or...

With that in mind I took a chance on yet another Leeds club, just up the road from my old one; who I hasten to add I will still be a regular (if less frequent) visitor to. This one being the Leeds Nightowls; an ostensibly fantasy gaming community, with a growing slice of historical gamers.

Remarkably, I was able to arrange a game on my first visit; thanks to the club's natty web forum. My game was a Historical WW2 match up using Westwind's Secrets of the Third Reich rules (more on these in a later post, when I can get photo's up). And an enjoyable experience it was too. Enough that I arranged a second game for their Sunday session. Where I was able to get a decent little chat with some of the clubs historical gamers too.

Two of the best points in favour of the place are that it is busy (both sessions had at least six games going on and a good twenty or more in attendance); and has a 'You bring it and we'll play it' attitude to games.

Still, at a thirty five minute drive each way, it's still not ideal; though certainly pretty good. My last option is the Halifax club, the Pennine Raiders. Now I don't know anything about these guys, except that their big on Fantasy gaming and about fifteen minutes from my door. The problem is they clash with the other club nights. So; do you go with what you know, and endure the cost and stress of the longer drives? Or try somewhere new?...

Choices, choices; as they say.

In other news; The internet is still very much an unknown land at home, so no photo's as yet; by the time I get to those there'll be lots to post that I'm sure of. So please, stick around!

Hallelujah! Plastic comes to 28mm

Whilst I was away, what I have been long hoping for has finally begun to happen. Plastic figures for historical wargaming, and in the traditional 25-28mm scale have finally begun to appear on the market.

First off the line appear to be the Perry twins, with a pair of packs providing American Civil War infantry and Cavalry. The castings, as you can see below are classic Perry sculpts, with all the informed design of modern fantasy range's plastic mouldings.

I have to say, that as a subject, it is not one with a huge apppeal for me, but apparently in the near future, Napoleonics are due to arrive; which could be more tempting. At £12 for 36 infantry, or 12 cavalry, these are about 1/3rd the going rate for high end metal castings; a great price!

Elsewhere, two companies are launching into the ancients field. The first to come to my attention was Warlord Games, who are starting with Imperial Roman Legionaries.

The castings are again crisp, and this may have something to do with the company involed in manufacturing - Renedra Ltd, who cut their teeth on old Matchbox kits and large amounts of Games Workshop plastics. At £17 for a pack of thirty these are pricier, but still represent good value.

Lastly, an American company called Wargames Factory is entering the field. In partnership with Slitherine Games and Osprey books, as part of a major attempt to either popularise or conquer the figure gaming genre with history buffs. They are kicking off with Caesarian Romans and Celtic tribesmen.

Fot my money, these figures aren't as crisp as the British models, but they seem very dynamic, and the value is extraordinary: $30 for 48 figures. That realistically will mean £20 in the UK, maybe even a bit more, but is still less than 50p per figure.

Wargames Factory, also claim to be doing figures for the Hundred Years Wars next, amongst other things.

Right now, may not be the cheapest time to buy plastic figures, but it's still a whole lot cheaper than metal. Not to mention lighter and easier to work with. I applaud these efforts, and can't wait for a flimsy excuse to buy a pack or two.

It's about time some one did this, and I for one think three companies having the same idea at the same time is only a good thing. Hurrah!

Roman glories and castles

So, the last few days of my time in Europe. We recently road tripped to Rimini in Italy. A beautiful city with a great beach , some cool bars and a lot of history.

Obviously there was plenty of Roman history in the city. Mostly of the Imperial period, when Octavian, Trajan and Augustus all supported the city at various times. The city gate in particular is a massive construction; so large in fact that at the time the gates could not be barred by conventional means.

The brick work is the later medieval walls. Impressive. Below is a statue of Octavian himself, I doubt from its' excellent preservation it is a Roman statue though!

There was also time to go to San Marino, Europes' third smallest state. It is home to the most tacky shops and is in particular the place to go if you want to buy [not always replica] guns, sword, chainmail or crossbows. Alongside knock off Italian hand bags and cheap perfume. San Marino has a defensive military tradition and operates a small number of regular units; here being one of the city guards, doing what his title implies...

The fortifications themselves are spectacular, standing on an inaccessible rock some 750m above sea level.
Inside one of the towers is a fine collection of late medieval weapons and firearms, worth the 3€ entry fee on their own, my favourite was the twelve shot twin-barreled revolver; where each barrel was also part of the handle when using the other barrel. Strange.

Elsewhere the English run torture museum was worth a look, if a little creepy. All in all if you like castles; San Marino is a place to go.

Thoughts of returning...

So I've been very quiet for the last four months, not unsurprisingly; seeing as I've been enjoying these sorts of views:

Almost 70 days snowboarding, and to be honest, an awful lot of beer.

However, the season now has less than a month to run, and I'm six weeks from my return to work and mundanity. What to do?

Well, obviously, once I'm all settled, I can return to my summer occupations - avoiding the sun and wargaming. Loose plans at the minute would be to expand my Spartans and finish my ECW armies. I'm unlikely to be able to set up a home table on this occaision though, so gaming will be at my local clubs, hopefully the same ones as before.

As for the intention over the season to paint up a Warhammer Dwarf army; well that was a non starter, they stayed in the box all season, aside from two half finished elven Mages, I've not done a thing all winter.

Can't do everything can you!

En Advance

Well surprisingly I have something to report.


Been in France for a little over five days now, and with only training and a limited amount of work at present a lot of time has had to be devoted to video games and books. As far as reading goes it has been "May on Motors" by the bloke off Top Gear. As for gaming, well lets say that in an extreme sports operation, strategy games are limited to football and golf. Never the less, before leaving Blighty we packed up the Gameboy Advance (previously used solely for Tetris, in something not entirely dissimilar to colour).

However, one of our last nights in England was spent at a friends and discussions naturally got around to what we were taking with us; the gameboy was mentioned. Before I knew it I'd been given free range over his dusty GBA collection, which included this little gem:


I must admit there has been rather a lot of it in the last couple of days.

Basically, what you have here is a wargame, with limited role-playing aspects. The game mainly operates in a map mode, with cute little vehicles moving around a cute little region.

All this is managed with only four buttons and the minimum of menus. When forces are engaged there is a pretty little cut scene to show the actual fight, though by that stage the result is already largely determined and you can't then influence it any further.

There is a campaign mode that slowly is introducing new features to the battles, and there seems to be any number of scenario building and training modes.

Ok. It's not rocket science, but it is easy to pick up, highly portable; and a lot of fun. If you or (more likely) your kids have a Gameboy Advance knocking around, and you have time in the commute to kill or similar, you could do worse than using a copy of this to entertain you.

It's certainly filling in my gaming buzz, until I get my painting space back again.

Final Fight

Well, this is it, my last game of the year, and probably the last wargame (with figures and an opponent I could shake hands with or flick peanuts at ) I'll have for six months.

Having already packed all my models and even my dice into a relatives attic; I left the game in the hands of Chris to arrange. And was duly presented with two 1250 point armies for 40k.

We set up some terrain across a 6 x 4 foot table and rolled off for who got what; luck was on my side on this and I got to choose. I selected the accursed Blood Angels; who Chris has used to defeat me so many times in the past.
The objective of the battle was to control the round house in the centre of the table. I chose to hold some of my assault marines as reserves, enabling them to strike deep into the battlefield. Chris employed standard Tau tactics of deploying well back to use his superior weaponry.

Initially It was going well for me, my artillery Whirlwind was deadly accurate on it's first turn and routed a unit of Fire Warriors straight away, Elsewhere my Predator and Attack Bike were able to thin out the Stealth Suits, which usually cause me such a problem. However all that good work was undone the next turn when Chris destroyed both the Predator and the Land Speeder.

With no reserves, I looked on the face of it; badly outnumbered.

Nevertheless, one group of Assault marines occupied the objective, whilst the others charged the Stealth suits. In principle this should have been a slaughter, as Blood angels are made for close combat, whilst Tau are not. In the event this combat lasted three rounds before a casualty was even caused, we both rolled terribly - except for our saves.

Finally I broke the stealth suits, though not quite catching them in the retreat. In the mean time though the other Assault squad had been wiped out. Fortunately my veteran squad of Assault Marines had dropped in and were causing casualties. The Tau had withdrawn to consolidate even further, Only the squad of Drones and a Crisis Battle suit were showing signs of advancing.

For the Assault marines on my left the Idea of a slogging match with the Stealth Suits held no appeal, so when the opportunity arose they broke left and charged the fire warriors. This left the Stealth suits with no viable targets and meant the Marines could chop through a soft target instead.
Indeed the Fire Warriors were easy meat and my Assault marines were able to move to threaten the Tau rear. The Chaplain and the Death Company also arrived and with the veterans moved to hold the objective. The Veterans were able to eliminate the Drones and secure the perimeter, whilst the Tactical marines gave covering fire. A passing mention of the Whirlwind which after its first turn success had failed to hit anything at all. Chris wasn't even wasting time shooting at it any more, a sure sign of how pointless it had been.

Instead he expended everything he could to try and destroy all the troops on the objective. Fortunately for me one member of the Death Company survived, and at the end of the game I had the objective in my control.

When we worked out the victory points there was only 40 points in it, which made it a draw; well you can't say fairer than that. The blood Angels had suffered terrible losses to secure the objective. It was great to finish with neither a win or a loss though. We all came out as winners.

Elsewhere most of the club was embroiled in their Formula De (F1 racing Game) campaign. eleven players clustered round the board.

Also knocking about was a 10/12mm Italian WW2 army that I had to get a couple of shots of. Here and M13/40:

And a command version:

Later on the usual crowd were playing the Arkham Horror, Cthulu board game.

Further to this the was a Pacific Naval board game and a 20mm WW2 game; but neither were especially photogenic.

So, that's all the wargaming done for the year. What's next?...

The end of Sparta

Well, for now anyway; all the toys are out the proverbial pram.

Over the weekend I had to pack up the painting table, and the last of the wargaming figures; to put into storage. The successes from the painting table were limited in the last month or so. I did finish another Necromancer model, and some other scraps. But there were only two major successes; firstly there was a small army of Russian WW2 infantry and a couple of tanks for my buddy Chris. And secondly I managed to finish the blooming Spartans.

In fact it was at the eleventh hour, literally. I finished them on Friday night, knowing they needed to be packed up on Saturday morning. Those bloody Old Glory Thracians! Awful, demotivating figures.

Anyway, as you can see below I managed to grab a few snaps before finally sent them to familial loft based oblivion.

An all infantry army of almost bang on 2000 points, they feature 68 Hoplites, 30 Thracians, 26 skirmishers and the 3 fates (The oracle). A total of 127 figures.

The mass of heavy infantry. More horrible to paint but cheap to buy Old Glory at the front, backed up by Black Tree miniatures and a couple of rogue Foundry figures.

Slingers and Javelinmen, bought second hand and then repainted, these figures turned out to be some 28 years old. But aside from a lack of poses they look alright.

Finally the last of the Thracians; I won't be painting any more of these in a hurry.

So that's them finished. And now the table is bare; oh so very bare. In two weeks time as of today, I set off with the wife for the French Alpes; to run a snowboarders chalet for the winter season. This is a wargaming blog, and gaming is my passion I guess; but snowboarding is my other passion, and certainly one that a golden opportunity has arisen for.

This isn't farewell by any means, but games are going to be thin on the ground until I return to jolly old England in May 2008. Over the winter months I have a Dwarven army to keep me busy when time allows (or more accurately, money to go to the pub is expired, or what they call whiteout conditions prevail and sitting round the chalet is the only option), and hopefully Chris will supply a few shots from the Leeds club for me to post.

Other wise, tomorrow night is my last wargame for six months.

Gulp!

Running the Slot 1943

It was the last opportunity for the ships to come out to play, and on this occasion - last Wednesday - we had an added feature to try; a set of "sealed mission orders" from one of the regular posters on the War at Sea forum (find them here: http://boards.avalonhill.com/showthread.php?t=22675)

The sealed orders offered 13 sets of orders, and we were each to choose one at random and try to achieve it. I had orders to draw out the enemy bombers, with a fleet of up to 100 points accompanying a convoy; I of course had no idea what Chris' orders were, but when he fielded a fleet of Submarines and dive bombers, I was able to make a guess that he needed to sink my merchant shipping.

As usual we played using my tabletop variant rules, in this case over a 7.5 x 5 foot table (well, over 6 little tables butted together) . Chris was entitled to deploy a couple of extra islands as part of his orders (i.e, he was able to pick where to ambush me). The result was I was forced to sail a narrow slot making it easy for him to hunt, me.

His streams of dive bombers started to attack my merchant men, however I was not afraid. I had elected to play American (having won the roll to do so) and with a limited fleet of 90 points had chosen an air defense force with a mid sized punch in the form of a battle cruiser. He could have ended up with sink the fleet orders and a 125 points of battleships, but it looked like my gamble would pay off. In the end the Baltimore led the fleet without firing a shot.

Chris managed to sink one merchantman, but the USS Atlanta, and it's ability to target multiple aircraft attacks saw him lose a group of dive bombers. Elsewhere my Catalina was busy discovering Japanese submarines.

As the subs became exposed I was able to send my Flecthers to track them down. The merchants reorganised themselves around the Atlanta, and were never seriously threatened by air attacks again. My Wildcats launched from the Princeton were the ultimate screen, protecting the airspace over the fleet.

In time all Chris' submarines launched attacks, and in the process I lost on Destroyer, but that was all; two of his subs and all but one of his bomber wings were destroyed. Soon I was within striking distance of the opposite end of the table.

Chris conceded! His mission was to use subs and bombers to sink either my merchant fleet, or if my force didn't have one, my two largest ships. It proved to be a cagey game, and not truly knowing what the other guy needed to achieve, really made it fun, and feel more like a real historical engagement.

A fine end to War at Sea for now, and my third win in a row!

Elsewhere the club was bristling with games; pick of the bunch being a 15mm American Civil War game using the Fire and Fury Rules. Both players had attractive armies, and made an effort to present appealing scenery.




Another was a board game with high production values:

The main game in terms of players was one of (fairly) modern jet fighter combat. 1:600 scale Mig21; nicely painted, the base needs some work.

Leeds generally has one game anyone can join each week. It's a good thing I guess, but they do tend to limit it to games of low visual impact, and it reduces the tendency of players to join other games, which seem always to be seen as private affairs.

In a year of running games at the club, I've only had a handful of other opponents; which can be a shame, and it certainly (in my view) encourages laziness in the players, who know they needn't invest time and effort in bringing their own model, and arranging their own games. Last Wednesday was great as their were a total of 5 games on. Often there are only two or three.

(I'll resist a pun) Fiasco 07

Well, last weekend i was at Fiasco; notionally helping the Leeds club set up and strip down the show. That also left the bulk of the day ambling around the traders, and trying to sell some books (not particularly successfully as it happened). I wasn't theoretically in a position to buy much; there seemed little point, when I'm moving in a month and everything is going into storage. But never the less I came back with twenty quids worth of second hand 28mm Spartans and Medievals; 32 unpainted Foundry and Blacktree figures - a bargain.

That aside I turned a twenty quid profit on the day, after selling a board game, and a handful of Role playing games.

As for the games on show, well, it wasn't all that inspiring. Firstly I apologise for the picture quality, but the Royal Armouries had apparently elected for 'mood lighting' in the main hall.

First A War of the Worlds game that I've seen at a couple of shows. It is always popular and well attended. The painting is not bad and it looks attractive. Though obviously, it their out at sea the tripods feet should not be showing!



Secondly a Napoleonics, or similar period game being played using the Piquet rules in 20mm. This was an appealing looking game, despite the hex terrain, which I'm not normally a fan of. It was nice to see someone using 20mm scale, though so far as I could tell, all the figures were metals.

Next an excellent looking display set in the Russian Civil War. Probably the best looking display at the show, with excellent scenery and pretty good figures.

You'll note I call it a display though. I never saw a dice rolled or a figure moved all day, those cavalry were weaving round the docks for seven hours.

How not to do a display game. The society of ancients game was presumably intended as a participation game, but it looked so ugly their stand seemed deserted all day. I've often seen the SOA at shows and it always appears to be two archaeology students re-fighting Cannae with twenty 15mm figures each over some bits of fuzzy felt. They do themselves no favours on the presentation front.
The Lance and Longbow society did a far better job by comparison, not the best painted figures or scenery, but clearly done for regular use; not merely for shows. The impact of seeing hundreds of 25-28mm landsknechts storming the earthworks was really nice. Old school wargaming.


Upstairs the Rules of Engagement people had a participation skirmish game set up. Basically just infantry and Hedgerow on a four by three table. The figures looked good, and the rules may be one for the future...

Lastly there was a game based on The German assault into the Romanian capital after their coup (I think, I am now pretty hazy on what their blurb said). Lovely scenery, and some nice models; another popular game.

So what have we learned? A game with visual impact makes for popularity, even if it is virtually static all day. A game that people are familiar with from other shows will likely find players. Helping traders to set up and strip down, is nice, but not recompensed by free entry to the show (especially when it means starting at 7am). And even when I know I can't I will still buy little models for some unspecified time in the future.

Oh well.