Post rant fallout

Well, I've had several responses to my post about the LWC; I've put them all up as I consider it only fair that it be a balanced argument. I'm not looking to make any enemies here, but I would contend, unlike one of the respondents, that I am entitled to my opinion, in public if I so wish it, as that is the point of the blog.

I also accept that what was written in one sitting, based on the experience of a couple of recent visits is probably not representative of the club over a long period of time. I did go overboard, but I still hold to my own opinions; which I did express rather excessively. I also recognise not everyone will agree with them; clearly most of the LWC are perfectly happy with their club. It would seem I should try visiting one of their Sunday games which sound like they'd be more to my expectations.

Still I hope that my post has got both sides thinking, and that is never a bad thing, is it?

As for insulting club members; well yes that certainly could be taken personally. But the 'American Football' fan observation is one you can see at most any gaming club, I've been to 5 different wargames clubs in the last few years and there was at least a couple in each one... Still it was a bit overboard. To that end I've chosen to remove the specific paragraph.

War is back, and this time it's waargh!

It wasn’t my first game of the year, but the dubious honour of that went to an encounter with Epic Armageddon which was so one sided it was really only an opportunity for me to take my models out of their box briefly before putting most of them away immediately. So my second game of the year with another opponent is what I discuss today.

And a little gem of a game it was too; 40k using my Orks, against a nice young chap called IIRC George and his beautifully painted Tyranids.

It was a close run thing too. I tossed a coin and went for the heavy armour choice of my two army lists. With a Battlewagon, Warbike, Warbuggies, Killa Kans, Nobz, and lots of Boyz. As it turned out, the Tyranids didn’t seem to have any heavy firepower, being geared up instead for close assault. So in a rarity, my Battlewagon rolled around with impunity all game.

Elsewhere I got the drop on the Tyranids very early on, and George later admitted to thinking it was all over. Several of his smaller units were wiped out with ease. But then his big stuff got embroiled in the assaults; my luck seemed to fail at this stage, whilst his rallied, In particular a Hive Tyrant – called Mr Gribbley – survived four turns, eventually routing two units of Orks, despite suffering around ten wounds per turn, it saved all but one!

So after two turns I was up, after four it was fairly even, but when his reserves arrived the gig was soon up. I had no available reserves capable of stopping them seizing their objective. Whilst my reserve – the Nobz – were deadly effective, but simply too far away.

So when it ended I had lost, but it was a darned close run thing, I occupied his objective, though he could contest it; but he had secured mine. It was a great little game though, in which the report was not really important. Here’s to a few more like that.

Elsewhere in the club - The Thursday night one this time, in Leeds - it was a very busy night, with about 8 games of 40k going, along with some Warmachine, Bloodbowl, boardgames and DBMM ancients. Lots of lovely looking 15mm ancients in implausibly perfect lines marching towards one another over geometrically orderly terrain.

In many respects the complete antithesis to games of Warhammer/40k. Though that is no bad thing.

Apologies for the rant, but...

This is not what a wargames club should be like is it?

I’ve been to one of my local gaming clubs a couple of times since getting back to the Bradford/Leeds area. I have to be honest; it is not inspiring. One of my old mates goes there regularly, so I don’t see me not going, simply as that is where I can get a game against him. But really, the point of a wargames club, should be to put on wargames; shouldn’t it?

Maybe I’ve been spoilt by the club I used to go to all those years ago, the Grimsby club, I guess the fundamental influence on my gaming. It was not the sort to put on display games, prior to blogging, I doubt it was even that well known; but it was the sort that had high quality scenery, painted figures only on table, and a preference for easy going games that got as many figures on table as was reasonable.

So what is wrong with what they’re doing in Leeds?

Nothing, I guess; if what you want is sports games, out the box system, board games and the like. To me, a Tour De France board game with paper models does in no way make me want to grab the dice, or paint brushes and get joining in. That was the focal point of gaming on Wednesday night; other than that there was an American Football game with a handful of cribbage pins on a board, with all the visual appeal of a 1970’s accounts book, A board game with wooden blocks for pieces (and with two habitual rule quibblers playing, a little tedious to watch), and a game of Warhammer 40k – which at least had nicely painted models, but still had tired old scenery, and attracted no interest from anyone but me.

OK, I have high expectations; true, but the club scene can be a little frustrating to say the least. I don’t see why clubs Like the Leeds Wargames Club, who run a major wargame show for crying out loud, can have such a low opinion of actually having decent games on; it’s as if they’ve convinced themselves that it is impossible to do so in an evening; in fact, I’ve heard as much said in the club. Yet in the past I and others have tried to put on grand games there, with plenty on table and the offer to involve others. Usually to no avail.

I’ve nothing against club games, but in a wargame club, shouldn’t they be, you know ‘War’ games; there’s a board game society in Leeds already, two so far as I know. It’s not a time thing either, as the other main club in Leeds runs for shorter hours on a Thursday and yet its’ members see no problem with playing proper games. Ultimately I think it’s an issue of effort, and who directs it, and in this club in particular those who direct it would rather play quick to set up, low commitment games rather than anything that requires putting brush to figure.

I can level different criticisms at the Nightowls (Thursday club), a place where unpainted figures, fantasy and overly competitive games rule the day, but at least they are wargames; which is what I’m really after! And they are much easier to communicate with too.

So is this a rant with no point, well not entirely; a warning, or a challenge if you will. If you go to a club, or if you want to set on up. Consider how it looks to people; is it welcoming, is there a centrepiece game going on that will make people think ‘cool’? You are very, very unlikely to have people who’ve never played a wargame before come through the door, so if you are going to win someone over nothing beats, welcoming attitudes and a table of glorious scenery with masses of figures.

It’s only my opinion, but I think the point of a club should be for it to offer what you can’t get at home; and that may seem to be just opponents, but for most gamers in this day and age, it is also, the visual impact. Most people can’t build great scenery at home, so a club is the one place they ought to be able to do so. They shouldn’t have to make do with a bit of green chipboard and some scraps of felt; or just be offered a game with cardboard cut outs.

Little men and littler men too...

Well, I've been quiet on the blogging front of late, but at least more painting has been achieved.

The ratio of painting is so rapid in fact, that the blog can’t actually keep up; it is the simple fact that I don’t have the money to anything very much at the moment, no nights out, with the exception of the wargaming club (and that really is not the way it should be, I only get away with it thanks to an understanding and equally skint wife!); so a great deal of time for dipping in to the rapidly diminishing pile of unpainted models.

The American Civil war progresses well, but are not yet photographed, so I’ll save them for another day, but after doing one bunch of Dwarves, I did another.

These were the 20p per figure ex-grenadier models I got from EM4, chunky, but with reasonable detail. The worst part was having to cut down the bases from a pre-moulded 25mm square, down to 20mm. A real chore.

Less bothersome was converting the spearmen figures to a musician (judicious bending of the spear shaft, and some putty – clearly a rush job) and a standard bearer (insert 2cm of rod into spear shaft). Oddly the figures are made from a plastic which though hard, does not respond well to polystyrene cement, superglue is the only solution.

The end result is an awfully cheap unit to buy, but makes a healthy 200 point addition to my Dogs of War army. As for a name for the unit, well in keeping with the food puns of the units so far I'm declaring these are the Dwarven host of Kazak Kuyrdak - that's a Russian (Kazakh) dish of Horse Offal!

Those aside, I also managed a squad of German infantry, destined for eBay. These guys were cobbled together from the many 20mm Valiant Germans left from previous projects.

I’ve painted them based on an illustration of 1st SS division in Belgium/Holland 1944; tasteful huh? Hopefully a few valuable quid into the PayPal account.

So thats another 22 models to the good...

Half a Brigade, and then some...

Well, something like a painting table has now been set up in my new (temporary) home and as a result, I’ve been able to progress on the American Civil War project. The half finished unit of the 27th New York were completed first, and they were followed in short order by the 96th Pennsylvania. Both units are subject to a little variation and experimentation, but the 96th (below) definitely came out the best, having in particular a more gradual shading of the coats and a really good skin tone (achieved by starting with some Cavalry Brown mixed into the Medium Flesh tone).

A close up of the command of the 96th:

As I’d noticed some slight warping on the cavalry I based back in November on 50mm square bases, I opted to use thick black Plasticard for these figures instead. This certainly has several advantages here for these figures; as I could cut it very precisely, and then cement the figures to it very easily with normal plastic cement. Still it is pricier, but it’ll never warp. For reference I used '60 thou.' Card.

So two units finished, two more to go; though not just yet as I need a break from painting all that blue. This brings me neatly to the painting and buying totals for the year so far. Well obviously from the pictures above, I’ve painted 36 American Civil War miniatures, but also in the time between finishing them and updating this blog, I’ve also managed to knock out a unit of Dwarves too.

A simple job for these chaps; who represent one of the militia units in my Dwarven army, hence the mixture of greens on the costumes. This unit benefit from a better skin tone than my old Dwarves (influenced by the experiments on the ACW guys above) but equally suffer from in some cases, caked on layers of glue and enamel paint obscuring the detail (as on the sample chap shown) so are as good a job as I could manage quickly.

I have however, in the same time bought some more figures; two came on the cover of Wargames Titillated whilst I succumbed to buying the other 12, new, for the extortionate price of £4.10 including postage. I picked up a small unit’s worth of the old Grenadier plastic Dwarves from their present distributor EM-4 Miniatures; the figures themselves were only 20 pence each, a bargain! Postage was almost as much, but as the items arrived within 48 hours of ordering, I really can’t complain. The figures themselves are basic but perfectly proportioned to go alongside GW figures, as a budget option for Dwarf or Orc players, the range provides an alternative to trawling eBay and bring & buy tables. Their website even provides suggestions on how to convert the figures. Well worth a look.

So how does this leave the running totals for the year?

Bought: 14
Sold: 0
Painted: 56

A ratio of exactly four to one. Not bad so far!

New look magazine

Whilst I was away the company behind the enormously successful Flames of War (Battlefront Miniatures) has procured the long established Wargames Illustrated, The Last I knew, it was still operated by Duncan Mcfarlane (whom, to name drop I once had a pint with, and more remarkably, managed to extract payment for an article from!).


Now, I can't pretend to know the reasons behind his selling the magazine, though I guess there are several obvious contenders, but from first sight it is obvious why Battlefront would seek to buy it. Reading through the magazine now in its' revamped format is a mixed experience. Compared to one of last years issues I had lying around, it is a thicker volume, as it states proudly itself on the cover. The new thickness seems to allow for more in depth articles, and this certainly must be a good thing, however it is very apparent that almost, if not every, article is written with an agenda.


I don't think there is an article that isn't directly plugging a product, most obviously Flames of War itself - clearly WI is now to become the official organ for pushing this game system, no more Rapid fire articles I'm sure! By my count there are 23 pages devoted to FOW. But that aside there isn't an unbiased, non-selling article. I know things have been moving this way, but it is really obvious the difference to a couple of years ago.


Of course many won't mind that at all. After all many gamers nowadays do not look beyond the glossy published systems. In an age of new populism in wargaming (as I see it any way), the simple, hassle free route of straight forward full colour rule books, massive supplementary guidance and units in a box, requiring no research to get the ratio's right, it would be counter intuitive for the most read magazine on the subject to support obscurism. For the obscure, there is the Internet; WI has to play it safe and go mass market.


And with that does come some positives, Battlefront's clout means that the articles can now be supported by top notch production values; lifting maps and other material from Osprey publications to support several articles. The realigning of the magazine as a purely historical gaming magazine, will doubtless please many too.

Overall, I remain divided. I admit I've never been a regular buyer of the magazine, generally picking it up only when there were specific articles of interest, probably about two or three times a year. It is in some respects an improved package; but that comes with a massive caveat of every article seeming like an advert for something - in other words it's gone a bit Games Workshop. Slick but surprisingly - despite that extra content - a bit shallow; soulless.

For those who would rather, there is still Miniature Wargames of course. Maybe I should pick up a copy to do some comparisons...

Out of Practice...

It seems that if I want to set optimistic expectations beforehand and then have them crash to earth in spectacular failure; I can do little worse than set myself a painting goal for while I'm out on the winter season.

Once again the blend of working/snowboarding by day, usually also working in the evenings and then the easy temptations of a cheap bar - not to mention terrible accomodation space and lighting, resulted in precisely FOUR painting sessions over the course of the last 5 months. I can't pretend to be surprised though, and at least this time I've actually finished some figures.

So here are the first half of a unit of ACW Union infantry - The 27th New York.

As can be seen from the close ups below, some of the work is a little grubby, the blue jackets in particular do not look so good under the microscope. But those parts were done in less than ideal conditions.

Still given the actual size of the mini's I think some of the later detailing I managed is ok. And when based up properly I'm sure they will look fine.

As an aside, I'm rather taken with the old-school, toy soldier finish of the bases, something very traditional about how they look at the moment.

And so this brings me to the Pledge once again, for it's second year. Trawling the forums I find the pledge is alive and well, in various guises. So I signed up to the same one from last year, and I may as well keep you informed of the progress here. Well it is pretty obvious from the above what I've achieved, but here goes:

Figures bought: 0

Figures sold: 0

Figures painted: 9

I aim to start the rest of this unit in the coming days, but as I leave France on Thursday, and need to set up home in the UK again in the next two weeks, progress is unlikely to be fast.

Still, things are shifting into their summer pattern again.

First [solo] game of the year!

Hurrah! I held up on a promise to myself, and despite the easy temptations of DVD's, a bar next door and large sofas'; I managed to set aside a couple of hours to try the Trafalgar rules out.

The Pirates cards I'd picked up on saturday supplied a total of 6 ships, two [in game terms] mid sized multi-deckers, three standard single deckers and a large schooner type. It was easy to define the multi deckers as ships of the line, and the smaller boats as frigates; the schooner was not a lot of use though. Still I had enough to get something together.

A quick flick through the fleet lists and I decided on a small engagment between a French Ship of the Line - L'Hercule, and a pair of Portugese 6th rate frigates - El Rayo and La Trinidad (captured from the Spanish with a name like that, no doubt!). That worked out neatly at 200 points a side. The rules suggest games of 500-2000 points, and we'll discuss the practicality of that later.

As shown in the first photo, the French ship started some distance from the two Portugese vessels, closing in on it independantly. They were running with what turned out to be a squally wind.

One of the Portugese ships prepared it's guns with double shot and managed to cut across the bows of the French ship, firing as it did so. The damage to the hull of L'Hercule was significant but not yet critical. L'Hercule swung away from the El Rayo and instead exchanged broadsides with La Trinidad. Damage was light, and both sides temporarily disengaged as they found themselves against the wind.

Although it had lost its' Caronades (short range heavy howitzers), L'Hercule was still a potent source of firepower; and using the French skill in aiming at enemy masts, it was able to savage the El Rayo on its' second pass. Destroying two masts. It was then able to turn on La Trinidad, which although managing to retaliate in some kind (causing dangerous losses in the French Crew) was set afire and then left helpless; whilst the crew first tried to quench the fires and thence to save themselves.

At the Victory was to the French. L'Hercule was battered but managed to destroy one Frigate and force the other to strike its' colours. The Portugese had the advantage of numbers and were initially able to run rings around the lumbering giant, but when they found themselves disadvantaged by the wind the vast firepower of the French was able to bear with devastating effect.

So, thoughts on the rules now I've tried them. Well, I'm sure there is nothing too new here, but the sailing rules work well enough; ships cannot move around at will, their actions are dictated by the wind - as they should be, and the command roll works well enough to limit the use of complex maneouvers. The initiative system is sensible, but in smaller games certainly will allow those who move last a very significant advantage for making bow or stern attacks on the enemy - the most devastating kind. The fire rules are exactly the sort you'd expect from a 'Warhammer' game, but the damage system works well.

The main criticism I'd say at this point is the time a game may take. Now this was just three ships, and solo play, so there were no disputes or discussions of rules. Still it took an hour and a half to play to a point where the result was clear. I think a 500 point game would take easily two to three hours, and for anything larger I'm sure you would need either an entire day or several players per side.

Still overall it works well, and I'll be pleased to introduce the rules to other players.

Once again the Pirates ships served their purpose well; but in this case I can also be pleased that my duvet cover happened to be a nice shade of blue! It's a good job that scenery wasn't needed! My socks are fairly unconvincing as the Iberian coast...

New posts are obviously lacking

I know, it's not a good showing in the last two or more months; and this doesn't really serve to do much more than refresh my blog's status on other peoples blogs/in their minds. Still it is a slightly relevant post.

I'm still in France, covering some odd jobs until the end of May at present. But as last year, thoughts are turning back to gaming. Today I even managed to visit my first gaming shop in five months, whilst hanging around in Annecy. My only purchases, after some garbled French, was a few packs of Pirates cards; ideal for allowing me to test the Trafalgar rules; which I hope to do so, in a solo fashion in the next few days.

Additionally in the last couple of months I managed to read two Paddy Griffiths' books on the American civil war: "Battle Tactics of the American Civil War" and another illustrated one whose title escapes me but is basically the same. Both are very good and Paddy does a convincing job of dispelling the myths that have developed in relation to the war and why it was fought the way it was. Both good reads too.

Anyway; there is a glimmer of gaming hope on the horizon; but for now I must return to the mountains.

A demain....

Trafalgar!

Well, I'd been looking forward to this release from Warhammer Historical since it was announced. The release date seemed sooner than I expected, but it did mean I could reliably put in an advance order for delivery to my French address.



Amazingly, my copy arrived the day after the official release date; despite where I am. Pretty impressive delivery GW/WH! The book itself is a large softcover A4 volume with, as one would expect, high production standards throughout; particularly the extensive use of full colour in most of the book, and the high quality illustrations.

The rules themselves only take up 22 pages of the book and are in some ways typical GW fare: all D6's and some simple solutions to complex issues; but in others they break from the GW norms. For example the rules do not operate on an IgoUgo rationale, but rather sequence vessels based on their proximity to the direction of the wind. Shooting and other key actions are considered simultaneous.

The rules make large use of data sheets for each class of vessel, and so details of all ships from 1st rates down to gunboats are included.

This is where the real strength of the GW design philosophy starts to show; as these are covered in the sort of clear, but reasonably comprehensive detail, that allows someone with no knowledge of the period other than what is in this book to get a lot of good information. On top of this data the book also includes an extensive introduction warfare in the age of sail, timelines for 5 conflicts, a detailed essay on the Trafalgar campaign, and a glossary of terminology.

By the end of this any beginner could bluff his way through a discussion of the age of sail.

There are also fleet [army] lists for 8 nations and the 'Privateers' (who also allow for Barbary coast forces, which could constitute a ninth nationality), a half dozen standard scenarios, a campaign based on Trafalar itself - though very linear in design - and the usual hobby section, mainly devoted to painting and rigging 1/1200th scale model ships. I should add that the rules favour this scale, but include scale adaptions to work with anything from 1/2400th to 1/100th scale [personally my 'Pirates' card ships will ably fulfill the role of fleets for the game].

It is hard to fault the book as it stands, my biggest concern will be how the game will stand up to play; that is something that I will maybe get to find out some months from now; but as a primer on the history it works really well, and one can't fault its' presentation or scope. It isn't perfect, for one I'd have liked to have seen a couple of other fleets included and a little more detail on the war in the Mediterranean. But those are minor gripes really.

Overall, for the asking price (£20) this is one of the best presented sets of wargames rules I've ever seen; I really hope they are a sucess, and I hope I get a chance to try them out soon.