Smoggycon

Well, Smoggycon is now just a week away, so just a quick reminder that we'll be putting on the Battle of Trafalgar, so if you're going please feel free to pop along and say hi. We'll be in the bar, much to Peeler's delight I'm sure lol.

10mm ACW

In my last post I mentioned that I bought some 10mm ACW. Well after a bit of painting I've just finished my first base of Union infantry, so here they are. I've uploaded two pictures, one with the flash and one without. I couldn't decide which was better.


They are based on 100mm x 30mm magnetic bases. The figures themselves are from Magister Militum and are pretty good value in my opinion. A pack of 30 infantry costs £4.50 or the same for a pack of 12 cavalry. They also sell brigade packs at £21 each which include 4 packs of infantry or cavalry, 3 artillery with crew and a brigade commander.

Showtime in Derby

Yesterday, me and Doug went along to the Derby show. Early start for us both but we didn't suffer too much. We arrived just before the show opened and went off for a look round. This is a picture of the venue to give a sense of how big the show really is.
First I went to have a look at the Leipzig Lite game put on by Baccus. It uses a quick play set of rules allowing the battle to be fought in about an hour. I had a go with the French and got hammered by a little kid, not good I know but I had been told the French never win so I took comfort from that.

Next to it was another 6mm Napoleonic game using Baccus figures, this really did look impressive and really demonstrated the pros of using 6mm figures. The last picture shows the sheer scale of this game.


Next up was a 6mm Seven Years War game. I've met the guys who run the game before at the Baccus gaming day, really good guys who don't take themselves too seriously. They certainly know how to game too with music from the period and drinking wine.


Upstairs was a nice Wargods game. Basically an Egyptian Mythology game.

One game you couldn't miss was the St Nazaire game. I have seen this a couple of times before and it really is impressive.
I went round and got a few goodies including some 10mm ACW which I have big plans for, so watch this space. Also some Kallistra ratmen for our 10mm DBF games, then had a look round at the rest of the games on offer.






We set off at about 3:45 and went in search of somewhere to have tea, or more specifically a KFC. I got back home just before it got dark, completely exhausted but worth it. It was a well needed day off to help me forget about things. Thanks once again to Doug for his company.

Nazi Zombies gameplay

Some of you may have read various rambling posts going on about Nazi Zombies. Some of you will know what I'm talking about, but for those who don't, let me explain. On Call of Duty World At War there is an unlockable mode which is a zombie survival where you go up against wave upon wave of zombies. You can play this with a friend or go solo. Here is a video I created showing some gameplay footage from the PC version http://uk.video.yahoo.com/watch/6091168/15827704. Please let me know what you think.

Battlestations Pacific gameplay

Here's a video I created showing some gameplay footage from the new Battlestations Pacific game. It is the follow up to Battlestations Midway. This time round there are more units to choose from as well as uprated graphics. My brother and I really like this game and have had plenty of fun on the multiplayer modes.
To view this video click the following link http://www.gametrailers.com/user-movie/battlestations-pacific-gameplay/326891

The Falklands in 1/600 scale

Here is a little work in progress. It's a few of my Tumbling Dice planes which I've finally got round to photographing. I still have a few more to do, but here's the Argentinians so far.

First some Mirage IIIs

Followed by some Super Etendards

and finally a couple of Canberras

Then just to finish, a few group photos

6mm Republican Romans

In my St Helens post I referred to a 6mm Roman army which I found on the bring and buy. Well I've now taken some photos of the army to share with everyone. They are based so that I can use them for either Warmaster Ancients or DBA, which I'm quite pleased about.

Phalanx 20th June 2009

Well it's been a busy few weeks for me but hopefully now I should be able to be a bit more active adding new content to my blog as my computer is now complete. A couple of weeks ago I went to the Phalanx wargames show in St Helens along with Peeler, Mini Peeler, Doug and my brother (alias Gman).
We started the day off by having a light breakfast at the Highwayman near York.

Fully fueled up and ready we set off for the show. First we decided to have a look at the bring and buy to see what goodies we could find. Peeler and I were really pleased to find two 6mm ancient armies fully painted and based, I got a Republican Roman army for £30 and Peeler got a Carthaginian army for £40 (look out for future battle reports). After that we made our way into the show to have a look round. Here are some pictures of some of the games.

Elvington weekend

OK I'm a bit late putting this up as it has been over a week ago but better late than never I guess. A big thank you to Peeler for a great weekend, we went to have a look round on the Saturday and then put a game on the following day.
Here's a selection of pictures from Saturday.

Even tanks need to be fully road legal.
A stunning backdrop for the show






















Well that was the Saturday, but the fun continued with the game on Sunday. The sides were as follows, Peeler, Mrs Peeler, Norman D Landings and Alex Testo commanded the British while Mini Peeler, Jordan and myself commanded the French, we were joined by Alex later on after he abandoned the Brits. Here are some of the pictures I took of the game, a full write up can be found on Peelers blog.


Peeler asked if I could paint up Napoleon ready for the battle, I was only too happy to oblige
I even got one of my French generals painted up for the battle seen here ready to attack the farmhouse





Just took a bit of a time out to watch the gun firing




The French capture La Haye Saint. Hoorah!

Help needed.

This is sort of a follow up to the Celtos post I put up a few days ago. I'm looking for some 25mm Celtic looking scenery to use in future Celtos games. I'm not looking to spend a fortune. I was just wondering if anyone could recommend some good scenery which is not too expensive.

Celtos

Ok something new this time. I came across these rules at Salute and decided to get some figures to give me something different to my WWII. Celtos is a fantasy game based on the Warhammer ruleset. There are five races available which are:

The Fir Bold - Undead
The Sidhe - Elves
The Fomorians - Orcs
The Gaels - Humans
The Vanir - Dwarves

The rules themselves are really straightforward. Like Warhammer, the size of the armies is based on how many points you want to use. The following is a little skirmish game using about 180 points per side.

The battle is between the Fir Bolg and the Gaels. The forces were as follows:

Fir Bolg

1 Lord
4 Archers with commander
4 Spearmen


Gaels

1 Chieftain
4 Warriors with a champion
4 Warriors with a standard bearer

The armies set up on the battlefield. The scenario is that the Fir Bolg are attacking a small Gael village and it is up to a small force of guards to repel the invaders.
The Gaels set up in the village.




While on the other side the Undead set up in the hills.



The Undead win the initiative and the archers take position on another hill closer to the village.


Meanwhile, a unit of Gael warriors moves forward and clashes with the skeleton spearmen in the centre. The Gael's manage to kill one of the enemy spearmen but the skeletons pass their morale test and continue to fight.


On the other side of the battlefield the Gael chieftain moves forward but foolishly is spotted by the waiting archers, they fire a volley of arrows and kill the chieftain making things a bit tougher for the Gaels.


The melee with the spearmen begins to heat up as one of the Gaels is slain who then fail their morale test sending them into a panic, they can still fight on in the next turn but are less effective.


The other unit of Gaels moves forward to try to get stuck in to the archers before they take too many casualties. The lack of cover proves to be a problem though and one of the Gaels is killed.


After starting to panic in the last turn the other unit of Gaels amazingly manage to kill two of the remaining skeletons but they also lose two warriors in the conflict. The remaining Gael warrior then fails her morale test and flees.


The remaining unit of Gael warriors continues to move forward but is caught in combat with the Skeleton lord. His extra strength proves too much for the Gaels and they are soon killed. Meaning that the Fir Bolg is now free to destroy the village.


I'm hoping to do a much bigger battle next time as I have lots of plastic GW skellies to paint up as well as plenty more Gaels.

Salute 2009

OK first things first, I would like to welcome Mr Farrow my latest follower, thanks for joining. Last Saturday me, Peeler and mini Peeler all went to Salute. Great day out even if it did mean getting up early. I set off from my house at about 6:00 to meet up with Peeler at his place, from there we set off to Salute. We stopped off for breakfast at Macky D's to fuel us up for the journey ahead. The journey took us about 4 hours to get there. So we parked up then went off to browse around the show. Entry was pretty painless and we only had to queue for a couple of minutes. On entry we were given a goody bag which included a nice little Zulu diorama and a magazine. There were plenty of games on display as well as a number of participation games. The venue wasn't too crowded which made it easy to move around the place. They even had a radio controlled Tiger tank roaming around the venue.

There were some very impressive games on display including an escape from Colditz game. All in all it was a good day out with plenty to see and do.

Thank you very much Peeler for taking me. Here's some photos I took.

Going's on

Well no game as such last week but I did call round at Peeler's place last week for a chat and a game of Call of Duty, great fun on Nazi zombie mode. I think our inexperience showed though. Still at least we had a good laugh, I liked it so much that I went out and bought it for my PS3.
Anyway, looking ahead I've got a trip out to Salute this Saturday with Peeler so I'm really looking forward to that, I'm quite tempted to take Old Glory up on their offer of refunding the entrance fee when you spend over £60 at their trade stand.
I'll hopefully be taking my camera along to take some photos to put up on the blog but I will be setting off to meet Peeler pretty early so I'm not sure if my brain will be in gear to remember things like that.

Silent Hunter III gameplay

OK time for something a bit different. Following on from the post I put up about Silent Hunter III, I created this video of actual gameplay footage. If this proves popular then I will do the same for any future computer games I put on here. If you want to view a full screen version of this you'll find it here http://www.gametrailers.com/player/usermovies/310170.html

Going's on

Firstly, I would like to welcome my new follower Sajjad Ahmad Mughal. Well, my brother's now gone on his exchange trip to Sweden for the week so the house is a little quieter than usual. I guess I still have my day at Salute with Peeler to look forward to though so that should be a good day out. Also I've got a night out planned for April meeting up with my mate Doug to watch Wrestlemania.
The thing I'm looking forward to at my local gaming store is the Operation Bagration WWII campaign they're planning, so I'm frantically painting up Germans to use in the game. They're doing it to celebrate the release of the new campaign box set which I'm very tempted to get.







The set retails for £35 and includes the campaign board, miniature counters and a rulebook. Here's a bit more info on it from the publishers:

"Firestorm—Bagration gives you the tools to recreate the 1944 Soviet offensive in Byelorussia. On 22 June, more than 2,000,000 Soviet soldiers stormed the heavily fortified lines of the badly outnumbered German Army Group Centre. The German defences quickly crumbled under several sledgehammer blows. German armoured reserves rushed forward, desperately counterattacking to stem the on-rushing Red tide in the climactic Battle of Minsk.

Firestorm—Bagration
In Firestorm—Bagration, you command the Soviet or German forces fighting for Byelorussia in the critical months of June and July 1944.
Put yourself in command on the Eastern Front using your Flames Of War historical miniatures on the table­top. Each battle recreates a major engagement. The outcomes of your battles determine the fate of the campaign.

The General’s Wargame
The General’s Wargame is a fast-paced two-player Board game based on Firestorm—Bagration that uses all the contents of the box and takes 60 to 90 minutes to play.

Total War
Total War is designed to put big armies on big tables. Instead of a mere company, you can field your entire collection with thousands of points of Flames Of War troops arrayed across a large battlefield.

Partisans & Polizei
While the generals plan their campaigns, more personal battles are being fought. Vasiliy Kravchenko, a partisan leader, and his Polizei nemesis Dieter von Gaudron wage their own war in the fields and forests of Byelorussia.

River Crossings & No Retreat
Also included are new rules for crossing rivers, common yet formidable obstacles in Byelorussia. Use these rules to succeed in the new River Crossing Mission and the Crossing the Drut scenario, both found within. Then try holding the line in a second new mission, No Retreat.

As you can already get some sense this is something never done before and we are excited about what this could mean for the future."

I've been told by my mate at Space, Myth & Magic that depending on how well this set sells then Battlefront may design other sets for other campaigns.

Silent Hunter III

In my opinion the Silent Hunter series is the best submarine simulator available, and Silent Hunter III is no exception. I know there's a fourth game in the series but being of German ancestry I prefer the earlier games as they put you in charge of a German U-Boat rather than an American submarine.
Because Silent Hunter III has been around for a while it is rather cheap, also if you don't have a gaming store near you the game is now available on Steam. So if you go to the Steam website http://store.steampowered.com/, simply download the application then you can purchase games through their store and download them.
Silent Hunter III has a campaign and individual missions containing everything from the aftermath of the sinking of the Bismarck to sinking convoys.
The game also features a fully detailed control room as well as detailed lookout positions on the bridge and a free roaming camera feature for getting great screenshots.
You can also change the realism of the game, for example you can set dud torpedoes to on or off as well as a whole host of other things.
The campaign mode offers the player to upgrade many features on their submarine such as radar, deck guns and engines. When you start the campaign you select a U-boat to start with by purchasing it. Depending of the year which you start the campaign the selection of U-boats on offer will vary. So if you started in 1939 your choice would be much less than if you started in 1942.
The other feature I like about the game is that there's an action camara which comes up with a little window which displays things like when you fire a torpedoe you can track it's progress. If you click on this smaller picture the game jumps to whatever event is currently happening allowing you to see the action in full screen.
If there's one criticism I have about the game it's that there's no feature for linking it up to a sister game, only another Silent Hunter III gamer. In Silent Hunter II it featured an option to play against a fellow gamer playing Destroyer Command, in which one person took on the role of a U-Boat commander while the other person tried to track them down and sink them in their destroyer.
Other than that though it really is a good game, but if you really do want to battle it out with another person on the surface then Silent Hunter II is still just as good with only slight graphical differences.

LOTR Arwen

OK time for a change methinks. This is my GW Arwen figure. I painted this up so long ago I'd forgotten I had it until it came time for a major clearup of my room. I painted this up when I was practising my shading techniques. I only tend to do this on character figures as I think they require a bit of extra attention to make them stand out. When it comes to just basic troops, as there are often so many of them I usually just settle for a basic scheme.

Here come the Brits!

Here is my first base of Baccus 6mm British for the War of Spanish Succession. I painted them using a mix of Citadel and MP paints. The base was done using the new Baccus basing kit.

40K Templar mission

This was the game me and my mate Doug played today using our 40K armies. Doug was using his Black Templars, and in a change to the norm I was giving my Tyranids their first battle. The objective was for the Templars to get their Rhino filled with spare parts to the disabled Baneblade in the centre of the battlefield.
I set my Tyranids up in a wood and we were then ready to begin. I won the initiative and moved my lighter troops forward to try and slow up Doug's advance. My Rippers moved in to prevent his fast attack from speeding in and creating havoc while my heavier units stayed back and fired their heavy weapons from a distance hoping to soften the enemy up as much as possible before assaulting.
Meanwhile, Doug began to move all his units forward, but remained cautious as he knew that he had the upper hand as his ranged units were far superior to mine. This meant that I'd have to try and get into combat as quickly as possible so as to not sustain too much fire from his units.
Sadly for Doug, the Baneblade fell victim to a series of blasts from my Zoanthropes and was destroyed before the Templars could reach it. This meant that Doug could at least salvage something from the battle by getting his Chaplain away to safety.
My Rippers did their job perfectly and held his Assault Marines up long enough for the rest of my army to get into a good position. The Rippers did all get destroyed as I'd predicted. Doug's Land Raider meanwhile was making short work of a unit of my Genestealers as well as one of my Raveners leaving me lacking in fast attack choices. The Land Raider now faced a new threat from my waiting Lictors who attacked the Land Raider along with the remaining Genestealers.
Over on the other side of the battlefield my other unit of Genestealers had taken a pounding from two units of Marines leaving my Carnifex to deal with his Dreadnought and second Chaplain. The Carnifex made short work of the Dreadnought leaving a straight fight between him and the Chaplain. The Marines who had eliminated the Genestealers now faced a new threat from the advancing Zoanthropes who caused a great deal of damage using their warp blasts before finishing them off in assault.
The Emperor's Champion then made a bid for glory by assaulting a unit of Termagaunts on his own. This melee went on for some time but didn't really amount to anything.
Meanwhile, the Lictor's and Genestealers had finally managed to destroy the Land Raider while the remaining Ravener made it's way over to cut off the Chaplain's escape route while the Warriors held up the bikes and assault marines eventually defeating them in combat. Things were now looking even worse for Doug as I still had a lot of my heavier units still remaining.
The battle ended after the Ravener won in combat with the Chaplain forcing him to attempt to flee, but he was easily caught by the quicker Ravener and killed. Handing my Tyranids their first victory.

War of the Ring

OK, I'm sure everyone knows Games Workshop, and I'm pretty sure you'll all agree their prices leave a bit to be desired. However, in my opinion the best value range the do is the Lord of the Rings range. For example, in 40K a box of Assault Marines costs £15 for 5 figures. In Lord of the Rings the same price will get you 24 warriors which for Games Workshop isn't that bad.

War of The Ring is the game of massed battles in Middle-earth; it's the way to recreate the epic encounters described in The Lord of The Rings. In War of The Ring you collect an army of warriors and unleash them on the field of battle in a size and scale never before attainable with Games Workshop's The Lord of The Rings miniatures.

In this article I'll be taking a look at how to start preparing for the oncoming War of The Ring and examine the best ways to begin or expand your The Lord of The Rings miniatures collection.

You might have already formed a couple of questions, so I'll take a stab at the two most commonly asked ones before I push on:

So, does this replace The Lord of The Rings Strategy Battle Game?
Absolutely not! The Strategy Battle Game is the perfect format for recreating many of the thrilling scenes that take place throughout The Lord of The Rings - the blistering fight in Balin's Tomb, the daring escape through Dwarrowdelf, the Ambush at Amon Hen and more besides. Much as we love that system, however, (and I really do, with a massive collection of miniatures that grows ever larger) we realised we wanted something that let us fight the greatest battles in The Lord of The Rings - so we invented some rules to play big battles, and the War of The Ring was born.

So, if you're a fan of the Strategy Battle Game, it's all good news! War of The Ring has given us even more enthusiasm for our range of The Lord of The Rings miniatures and of course everything we release for one system can be used for the other (so keep your eyes peeled over the coming months for even more great releases and rules). Meanwhile, if you're interested in fighting massed battles in Middle-earth, you might find that War of The Ring is just what you've been looking for.


The first thing to learn about War of The Ring is how models interact with each other. Unlike the skirmish game, miniatures are grouped onto bases called a company (eight infantry models or two cavalry models form a single company). These fight as formations, which are several companies all chosen and grouped together. The warriors in a formation are generally all armed in the same way. Monsters are considered big enough (and dangerous enough) that they aren't grouped into formations.

In this picture we've arranged two formations and a monster. You'll notice that the infantry companies each have eight models (and are all armed in the same fashion) and that the cavalry companies have two models. The monster is on his own.

Generally speaking formations can be anywhere in size from one company to six companies in size, although a few particularly elite, or weak, formations can be smaller or larger in size.

If you're looking to collect a War of The Ring force, it's worth thinking in these numbers - the plastic box sets for The Lord of The Rings are generally packaged in a manner which lends itself to these numbers too, so it's fairly easy to get started.



So, what are those bases all about?
Well, companies in War of The Ring are mounted on movement trays. This makes them easier to move about the table, and also helps us to keep track of the space that they take up on the battlefield. We're releasing moulded plastic movement trays (on the 28th of February), which are ideal for mounting your miniatures on, but there's nothing to stop you making your own out of cardboard, plasticard or some other suitable material - I've used plasticard to make my own bases.

To make the game fair, and to keep things consistent, there are minimum sizes for these movement trays:

Infantry: Infantry companies are mounted on bases at least 110mm wide by 60mm deep.
Cavalry: Cavalry companies are mounted on bases at least 90mm wide by 50mm deep.

If you're making your own bases, it's important that they adhere to these minimum sizes, and they probably shouldn't exceed those measurements by too much either - the game is fairest for everyone if the movement trays are all equally sized, but a few millimetres at either side isn't going to be a problem.

So how do Captains, named Heroes and Banner Bearers fit in?
The Lord of The Rings is a story about heroic acts, sacrifice and glory - and the heroes of the story feature heavily in War of The Ring. Generally speaking Heroes are added to a company within a formation at the start of a game (and Epic Heroes can move from one formation to another during play). While they are part of a company, it benefits from some of the Hero's statistics, and the whole formation will gain access to certain special rules.

The same is true of unnamed Heroes such as Captains - in fact, as you play War of The Ring, you'll soon come to realise that Heroes, in all their shapes and sizes, are essential if you're looking to get the best from your formations.

Banner Bearers (and other models such as Drummers, Hornblowers and so forth) each confer additional benefits to the formation, and you'll probably want to add some into your collection once you start playing.

and now for something a bit different

OK so I've been putting up a fair bit of 15mm WWII recently. So for a bit of a change here's some of my 6mm WWII, namely some Panthers, KV-1s and T-34s.

Barkmann

This is my 15mm figure of Barkmann in his Panther with repair shop.

Ernst Barkmann was a farmer’s son born in Holstein, Germany, on 25 August 1919. At the age of sixteen he applied for service with the elite Waffen-SS, the armed force of the Nazi Party.

Barkmann saw his first action of the war as a machine gunner with the 9. Kompanie/III. Bataillon of Germania. Distinguishing himself, he was promoted to Rottenführer (Corporal) and received the Wound Badge in Black. He next saw action in 1940 with the invasion of France, earning the Infantry Assault Badge for his participation in three days of battle.

Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, saw Rottenführer Barkmann seriously injured near Dnieprpetrovksk, for which he received the Wound Badge in Silver. He spent the next year recovering and training SS volunteers. Late in 1942 he returned to the Eastern Front.

Assigned to the second company of the ‘Das Reich’ SS-Panzerregiment as a gunner in a Panzer III tank, he proved himself an excellent shot. He was subsequently promoted to Unterscharführer (sergeant) and given command of his own Panzer III just in time for the Third Battle of Kharkov.
He continued to distinguish himself during the mammoth tanks battles around Prokhorovka during the Kursk offensive. In August 1943, Das Reich was withdrawn into reserve. Barkmann was transferred to the fourth company and given a new Panther D tank for the defensive battles in Southern Russia. He was awarded both classes of the Iron Cross for his actions during this time.

In January 1944, Das Reich was ordered to southern France for refit and Barkmann’s battalion was upgraded to the new model Panther. Unfortunately the Allies choose this particular time to mount their invasion of Fortress Europe and ‘Das Reich’ quickly found itself embroiled in the fighting. A month after D-Day, elements of the division went into action against American forces near St. Lô. Here, the legend of Barkmann’s Corner was born and he received the Knight’s Cross and a promotion to Oberscharführer (senior sergeant) for his actions.

During the Ardennes Offensive in December 1944, Barkmann spearheaded the main attack against the US 2nd Armored Division. He finished the war knocking out Soviet T-34 tanks near Stuhlweissenburg in March 1945.

Reviving an old project

Well I've been having a good old clean up today and while doing so I came across my collection of plastic Napoleonics.
I will post up more pictures as these progress.

DBF

Just got back from Peeler's place after having a good natter and a game of 10mm fantasy DBF. Thoroughly enjoyable, fast playing game with easy to learn rules and good company. Just what wargaming should be about. Needless to say I lost but that's not important to me. For more info on the game why not head of over to Peeler's blog.

Let it snow!

Well so much for the weathermen saying the worst was over. Just sat down to have my dinner and noticed some tiny snowflakes. By the time it came to me going to work BAM! Total whiteout. Luckily because I live in one of the outlying villages my boss gave me the day off. So I thought why not get some stuff painted or clean up my workspace a bit. Needless to say that neither got done as I have been trying to resuscitate my laptop with little success as it appears to have developed amnesia. I have been thinking recently of ideas for a future show battle. I will be posting more on this as it develops so watch this space.

Trafalgar game 09

Here are some photos of a game me and my group put on at Vapnartak 09.


A big thank you to everyone who came along and offered such positive feedback. Also thank you to Peeler for taking the photos and of course to the rest of my crew namely my brother Gaz and his mate Stuart.


The game was played using 1/2400 scale ships from Noble Miniatures and made use of the Grand Fleet Actions in the Age of Sail rules by A and A Games. The rules themselves are pretty straightforward and allow fast flowing play. A good day was had by all we all had a good laugh and I am hoping to put on another next year. The game followed history and resulted in the British triumphing over the French and Spanish navies.

US M3s

Here are some M3A1 Halftracks from an American Armoured Rifle Company set I bought a while ago.

Panzergrenadier command

Here's the unmounted command team along with their 2nd in command.

Welcome to my Wargames space

OK time to kick things off. I've recently got quite interested in WWII gaming and have begun assembling the start of a 15mm German army. First up I have some Panzergrenadiers which I've been working on starting with the command halftrack complete with crew.