Armed Services Day

Today is armed services day in the UK. We don't give as much thought as we might to our men and women especially those who are currently serving in the  Stan or the Graveyard of Empires as it was formally known.

Just give it a little thought and if you are so inclined, remember to give a little bit of cash to the right charity next time you have a chance.

A bit of Kipling to keep you going.

When you’ve shouted “Rule Britannia,” when you’ve sung “God save the Queen,”
   When you’ve finished killing Kruger with your mouth,
Will you kindly drop a shilling in my little tambourine
   For a gentleman in khaki going South?
He’s an absent-minded beggar, and his weaknesses are great –
   But we and Paul must take him as we find him –
He is out on active service, wiping something of a slate –
   And he’s left a lot of little things behind him!
Duke’s son – cook’s son – son of a hundred kings –
   (Fifty thousand horse and foot going to Table Bay!)
Each of ‘em doing his country’s work
   (and who’s to look after his things?)
Pass the hat for your credit’s sake, 
                             and pay – pay – pay!

There are girls he married secret, asking no permission to,
   For he knew he wouldn’t get it if he did.
There is gas and coals and vittles, and the house-rent falling due,
   And it’s more than rather likely there’s a kid.
There are girls he walked with casual. They’ll be sorry now he’s gone,
   For and absent-minded beggar they will find him,
But it ain’t the time for sermons with the winter coming on.
   We must help the girl that Tommy’s left behind him!
Cook’s son – Duke’s son – son of a belted Earl –
   Son of Lambeth publican – it’s all the same today!
Each of them doing the country’s work
   (and who’s to look after the girl?)
Pass the hat for your credit’s sake,
                             and pay – pay – pay!

They are families by thousands, far too proud to beg or speak,
   And they’ll put their sticks and bedding up the spout,
And they’ll live on half o’ nothing, paid ‘em punctual once a week,
   ‘Cause the man that earns the wage is ordered out.
He’s an absent-minded beggar, but he heard his country call,
   And his reg’ment didn’t need to send to find him!
He chucked his job and joint it – so the job before us all
   Is to help the home that Tommy’s left behind him!
Duke’s job – cook’s job – gardener, baronet, groom,
   Mew’s or palace or paper-shop, there’s someone gone away!
Each of ‘em doing his country’s work
   (and who’s to look after the room?)
Pass the hat and for your credit’s sake,
                             and pay – pay – pay!

Let us manage so as later, we can look him in the face,
   And tell him – what he’d very much prefer –
That, while he saved the Empire, his employer saved his place,
   And his mates (that’s you and me) looked out for her.
He’s and absent-minded beggar and he may forget it all,
   But we do not want his kiddies to remind him
That we sent ‘em to the workhouse while their daddy hammered Paul,
   So we’ll help the homes that Tommy left behind him!
Cook’s home  - Duke’s home – home of millionaire,
   (Fifty thousand horse and foot going to Table Bay!)
Each of ‘em doing his country’s work
   (and what have you got to spare?)
Pass the hat for your credit’s sake 
                            and pay – pay – pay!

I  think it says a lot about the UK that the top of the search list for the word Kipling is a site trying to sell handbags.

Where am I going next?

I am looking at what to do next as I now have a lot of time on my hands. 

Most of my terrain is done. I still have some (some ish?) 15mm figures to do and there is still some terrain to sort out. Then there is the matter of basing. I have a traveller scout ship to finish but that strikes me as the kind of project that stops and starts as I have the iniative and the parts to do it.

I am tempted to move on to a new theatre of operations. When I was looking an Flames of War the Western and Eastern European battlefields were being considered. I already have much that I need but I think I am waiting for a little bit more and can't really afford any new stuff at the moment. This may well be my year of frugal gaming.

15mm zombies is the obvious answer is some more terrain, the craven need for flesh is not at the top of my agenda (although I really could go for an ostrich burger on an Unlucky Fried Kitten around now). I have some terrain to finish but need something to act as a roof.
X-Com is tickling me again. I wandered off in the middle of writing this post to play .......... back again. I've just knocked over an alien base and a harvester ship.

The Napoleonic thing is on my mind. I have spent a lot of time looking at Baccus but don't feel the urge to buy anything. Well that is a lie, but in my defence ........ . Where was I?

I also have an urge to do a post apocalyptic gladiators. This has been in the back of my mind for some time. I have worked out the bones of a rule set but don't have much in the way of figures. the plan calls for a lot of conversion of minis but little terrain. I would love to do this in 15mm but think it will have to be 28mm because the figures are out there and I don't want to do big conversions in 15mm.

Mmmm. What to do?

6mm The Napoleonic Wars

It's a little off topic today. I had was 6mm. It was 6mm WW2 US and it was back in the early 1990s and now it's Napoleonics. I don't want to start another blog about it just yet so I might change the blogs raison d'etre again.


The trouble with Napoleonics is that there is just too much of it to take in easily. There are enough Osprey books to take up a long shelf. More to the point, I am finishing of a unit of cavalry that is going to have pink lapels. Pink? On a mini? Where am I really? Mars? Ash's blog?

Martin, Spike, if you read this we need to talk about the rules and organisations.

When I was playing the Napoleonic Wars we discussed using the game as a scenario generator. As the game covers the period 1805 to 1815 so this could be a lot of scenarios. I suggested that it would end up finishing some time shortly after I retire. I don't expect to be retiring early either. I kind of like this.

This is the way thing seem to work with my mates. Me Spike and Martin come up with an idea. We buy some figures. Then Spike and Martin go tangental and (and poop on) everything ends up on hold (with the odd exception). Then a few years later we pick things up again and put them down again. The only thing we seem to consistently play is D&D (or dad as I call it) and Idon't much care for that.
-
-
-
-
So I have been painting some more French cavalry.

I get to play the French because of my superior tactical skill and my ability to put up with getting picked on by my mates. They do not have my broad shoulders and will learn to love the taste of defeat (he said laying the ground for an EPIC FAIL). After last weekend I know Martin knows how to roll over and play dead. :-)

I wouldn't have pegged myself as a Napoleonic gamer a few years ago but I am having a change of heart.

I'll post some pics when the figures bare painted.

Even more (different fencing)

This is the stuff I got at Phalanx recently. I am glad to say that the burnt rotten mackeral smell caused by the laser cutting process has dwindled away since they were removed from the zip lock bag. Until it's gone they will have to live in the garage.

Although I have painted the bases I have left the fences they way the were when I got them. They have a nice treated wood look.

The shorter sections are not so hot. As they don't have as many points of contact as the larger sections they are a little loose. They are fine with a bit of glue.

For £8 I would say that it was a pretty good deal.

Walls

I have been a little busy on the barrier front just of late and I am now really just wrapping the terrain building surge up. There are now plenty of walls for the table top. The high and low walls are just foamcore sections on fairly thick card. These are covered with pva and sand and then painted. All the terrain is pretty much painted with a sandy coloured household emulsion paint and then toned through a variety of means. I guess these are still not finished but then very little is ever finished.

These a just a few of the fifty odd sections that I have done. I still think I could use some more but I got bored in the end.

I want to move on to doing some hedging and a few more bits and pieces. I'll see what happens after that.

4000th view

I think I am quite proud.

I may need to stop harping on about it tho.

Hey I Have Time on my Hands so it's More Terrain

This is just some odds and sods I am working on. I have just been toying around with stuff recently. most are still not complete but are pretty close.

I wanted some larger satellite dishes. the one on the left is Critical Mass and the one on the right is GZG.

I have been after some street lights for a long time. as to get model railway ones costs stupid money I have also thought about it and not done anything about it. Critical Mass have done me proud with these.

These are some toys from tesco. They are just a little too big for 15mm but I think I can live with that.

This statue is one of two I have in mind, the other being  Droyne for a campaign idea. The base is just foam core with pva and sand painted to the same colour as the rest of the terrain I have been doing. The figure is an old Brigadier Leightbridge Stewart Figure I have had primed for nearly 20 years. It seems like a good use for a miniature that seems to have passed it's sell by date.

Fencing

Now that I have finished the bio hazard clean up project that is the aftermath of the weekend I have had a chance to take some pictures of the fencing I finished over yesterday.

As part of the big terrain project I have made some wire mesh fencing. It's about 25mm tall so looks like a huge fence in 15mm. Although it's done now I originally got the mesh about five years ago for what was going to be the original 28mm post apocalypse project that didn't really happen. Shows how quickly I get round to things. I have a wiggle on at the moment so stuff is getting done.

 

What do you think?

This ends up in the pool of generic terrain for modern, SF and zombie games.

The Projectile Vomiting Family Fun Weekend and some gaming

I guess you can tell from the title of the post events have been kind of overtaken. I was so bad on Friday that after a bout of projectile vomiting and fluid passing through the other end that can only be described as passing boiling flaming acid with miniature razor blades. I actually managed to fall of the toilet and bang my head. Now Swimbo has something similar but not as bad so I am in the dog house.

So much for man flu. She has women flu. This is a conditions that causes a woman to complain about everything and act without thinking. This is a chronic condition. Unlike man flu which is over in a week, woman flu can (and frequently does) affect women fifty two weeks of the year. I was thinking I should set up a support group but then realised that this is called the pub around the corner.

THE IMPORTANT BIT

Yesterday I did manage to get some gaming stuff done and even eat some real food.

I spent the morning touching up some terrain that I have been working on. I managed to paint the posts for the mesh fences and cover some bits in flock to hide gaps in the paint work and turn some of the lumpy bits of sand into plants on the fences and wall sections.

I also added a few more shades of grey to the lamps posts and radar dishes that I picked up from Critical Mass at Phalanx. Almost done.

Then I went over to Martin's to play The Napoleonic Wars. I was never a fan of the concept of Napoleonic gaming until a few years ago but I have more than a passing interest in it now. This is what it looks like, I took a copy of an image from Boardgame Geek not the game we played.

Now boardgames with Martin and Spike (and usually Steve) and what I usually describe as shaft as shaft can. This game is unusual in that from the start the game is set up with Martin and Spike doing their best to stop me. Spike normally decides who he wants to win or plays a game so often by himself that he knows all the angles. This was always going to be an interesting game.

We played the 1812 scenario with me (un) ably assisted by the Prussians, Austrians and the plucky Danes and the big guy himself  attacking Russia and defending Spain to stop the British from invading through the Pyrenees. Spike played the British, assisted by the Spanish and the Swedes (I didn't realise that they even had an army) and Martin played the Russians.

I knew Martin didn't like his situation partly because he was on the defensive and he is never good on the defensive but mostly he kept offering me surrender terms. I suppose that because of the scenario Martin was always going to get a tattering. Spike just got on with it and used a few rules in interesting ways.

This is a game about playing for time or burning time (in the form of cards) depending on which side you are on and how well the war is going for you. As Napoleon you want as much time as you can muster until you have reached your objective then you want to get rid of the opponents time as quickly as possible.

We played one turn which is give or take two years in the war. I have to control a certain number of key points which includes holding on to Moscow or St Petersburg at some point. My original aim was to get to St Petersburg and knock out a few key areas on the way. I never got anywhere near as Moscow quickly became the obviously weaker target. Although I didn't knock out Russia by the end of the turn, I was actually close to St Petersburg as well as having control of Moscow and most of the key points. Russia would have been wiped out the following turn with little effort More of my interest would have had to have been focus on defending Paris which was starting to look a little vulnerable to a counter attack.

I gloss over what went on in Spain, which was a bit of a disaster but in terms of the scenario at least, the overall game was a victory and I did get some less than generous rolls in the Iberian Peninsular.

I really liked the game. I haven't played it before and now want to play the full game. The combat is fairly simple but interesting. The availability of cards makes the combat and the game turn in unexpected ways quickly. Possibly on the downside (although not for me) is that the game does take some time to play. We played one turn which took about four or five hours to play out. The Geeks say it lasts about 4 hours. I think that they lie. Maybe we over analyse stuff a bit.

We have talked about using this as a campaign system to run the whole Napoleonic War. I quite like this as a concept and happily acknowledge that this would probably take us into retirement to complete.

Martin did cook a fantastic curry which despite my condition the day before proved to be the cure I was looking for. Thanks Martin.

Good News Bad News

As of today I am out of work. It's been on the cards for a while so not unexpected. On the down side I am now worried about money. On the plus side I hate the job and most of the people. There are a few people I will miss but by an large are a lot of people I won't  miss. I certainly won't miss the job. I can also say I won't miss Ellesmere Port. As the second most polluted place in Europe I won't miss the smell either. When I drive in I can smell it fom two miles down the motorway.

It is not all doom and gloom (well only about 90% doom and gloom). I recently started the ball rolling on fostering which is going to take a few months. Then imagine how much time I have going to have to spend on gaming.

Maybe I will have the time to finish off the scout ship.

A Slight Diversion or a Traveller Scout Ship

I have a few days off and I thought I would do a few things that have been on my mind to do. The two ideas I have were a small town hospital and a traveller ship. The hospital was in theory for a zombie game. I had been thinking about a few traveller ship for a while. Then I saw something about Traveller ships on The Miniatures Page talking about the idea.

The problem is that even a small hospital was is a large project. I had a look at the resources I had in the house and decided that I didn't have enough to do the hospital.

So the Traveller ship it is. I have used up a lot of foam core and pins the morning but I now have the super structure done.

I had a look for a deck plan and found a scout ship for Mongoose Traveller. The plan is is not my own work so I thought you might want to look at where it came from. Not quite the same as the classic Traveller ship but I thought it would do. I am not sure that I want to do the lower deck because it will involve doing the underside. I already have an old nozzle that I think will make a great turret.

I wanted a big objective fr Tomorrow's War and thought that this would be a nice addition to the starport that is on the way. I am worried now that I have bitten off more than I can chew.

This is the biggest and most complicated foam core project I have undertaken. There is a lot of foam core, glue and pins in this. I will see where it end up.

I did a few small craft templates as well. These will get done as well in time. Maybe I should have started with one of them.

The Newsflesh Trilogy

The Newsflesh Trilogy by Mira Grant is the latest sequence of zombie novels I have read. It has a different take on most zombie stories which marks it out as different. The main characters are all on line reporters (apparently very big in a world with zombies). They hunt down stories around a world partially infested by zombies twenty five years ago. The virus was caused by an attempt at a cure for cancer that turned into a mutated virus turning people into flesh crazed zombies.

It is not cut in the classic mould of the zombie story. There are no shopping malls or waking up just as the outbreak starts. The two main characters are well written and whilst not always likable they come across as people you would like to know.

The three books give a nice story arc which you can really get into. It has a political back story where the team are closely associated with the President and Vice-President on the United States. As well as the zombies there a government agency at work. The Centre for Disease Control has ballooned since the outbreak and has developed a status somewhat similar to the CIA making decisions behind the presidents back.

The virus has been around long enough for the world to change. Buildings have excessive security. There are portable testing kits, a decent bio hazard kit including portable testing kits. Most terrifyingly as all mammals above a certain weight turn to zombies when they die, most people are now vegetarian. Imagine that a world full of vegetarians. i would sooner have the zombies.

My only critique would be that are slightly too many "poignant" deaths of important secondary characters whenever there is a dramatic climax.

If you like zombies, it's worth a read.

Phalanx

I've been to St Helens today for the Phalanx show. As a Widnesian I feel somewhat soiled by the experience and had to have a shower when I got in. Only joking. Phalanx is a good little show. I went with some of my mates (that's actual mates not "people I met"). One of them being Martin. I have passed the URL for this so I expect sudden sarcasm.


Critical Mass Games was in attendance so I spent a bit of money there and even took some pictures. i wasn't there long enough to play a game but did chat with a few of the people. I like their stuff and if you like Halo then the Arc troopers are for you.

 

 

I am still after some bits and pieces to dress up the tabletop. I have been after some lamp posts for a while but have always put off buying them because the tend to be really expensive. Critical Mass have some new terrain bits which had some and some few other bits and pieces. For £4 I thought it was a very good deal. They will work for all the genres I am working on at the moment.

  

I also got some laser cut terrain. For £8 I got a 1.5m of fencing which seems like a good deal. This is the first laser cut terrain I have purchased. I have some laser cut bases which were pretty good but I was mightily impressed. The only drawback was the smell. the smell? Imagine rancid burnt mackerel. When you get it out of the bag do so in a well ventilated room.

 There is a nice range of types. Short and long fences as well as small and large gates. I wish I had got some more now.

I will post more pictures as I get them painted up.

Urban Environment

I have a lot of desert style buildings now. The plan is to have multiple styles of buildings. Partly it can break up the existing terrain and maybe even give it a feel of their being districts. Mostly I thought it would be good for zombie terrain and maybe post-apocalypse as well. I was trying to remember what some of the buildings in Fallout look like.

This is the first stage of the building process and there is a lot of tarting up to do yet. I need to put some edging on the corners which just needs some painting and get some suitable windows and doors. Just one more order to place. Not to mention putting roofs on them.

I got some more of the plastic sheet to work with. Think I am going to make a few more buildings and particularly some two story buildings. I am working on the small town America vibe (maybe big village America).

I want to do some slightly more industrial buildings like a garage and maybe use some of the sand and PVA buildings but painting to look more appropiate.

I have the frame for a diner done as well which I think I am going to cover with tin foil if I can get it to work.

Now I am looking for some wooden church or something that I can make into something that looks like a wooden church.

Prometheus again

Swimbo has just made me laugh. She spent two hours talking to Sky yesterday getting the usual run around. She later posted that "There's two hours of my life I won't get back." One of my mates then asked her if she had been to see Prometheus then? That was a bit harsh I thought. Funny, but a bit harsh.

Nazis. I hate these guys.

In between waiting for the PVA to dry I have been catching up on said mins that have been sat half painted in a draw for some time. Late war SS infantry for Flames of War. They were purchased with a view to do some weird war two a while back. Having watched Iron Sky a few days ago I was half inspired again. I was talking to one of my mates a few weeks ago and we rehashed the idea on a game inspired by the history of the Conspiracy-X RPG. As this is one of my favoruite games I thought, well maybe it's worth it.


I really am starting to hate these figures. Indiana Jones had it right. I can get them so they look good at a distance but they look a little odd close up. I have had similar experiences with other complex camo schemes most recently with the modern US infantry I painted a month ago.

The Waffen SS were never really my scene. The Germans were always more for the slightly more O.C.D. type of war gamer. You know the type, the ones who own more Tiger tanks than anyone else and probably more than ever existed or could spot a uniform mistake on a Napoleonic figure at ten paces.

There are a lot of the buggers tho. Not as many as I would need for a FOW army, which is a bit of a mercy. I don't really know what to do with them now. I have finished the base paint job now I need to sort out the finer details.

Back to waiting for the PVA to dry.

3000 views

Hurrah. Things seem to be going well. I have managed to get a few hours in with PVA and sand. I now have fingers that could sand diamond smooth. Only joking. It has meant that the latest round of terrain building is getting closer to completion. Swimbo keeps asking when i am going to sell some and I keep saying errrr.

Can't stay for too long as I have to go and write down five things I love about her, apparently. Then I have to do the washing up. Ho hum.

Buildings 2

Life has been a little busier than I would have liked over the last few days but today I have had chance to do some more work on the terrain I am working on. In between other things (mainly sleeping) I have been adding to the collection.

There are the three building that I have previously shown but now they have roofs and even one with a second story. There are a few smaller buildings to fill out some of the space on the table.  I have also put some ruins together. There are ruins with four walls and some parts of buildings. I have also put together four bridges which will hopefully fit in with the existing road sections I have.

As terrain goes it is middling. It's not all singing all dancing but it won't be all that shabby either. I have been going for the "quantity has a quality all of it's own". I see a lot of games with very sparse terrain which I always think lets a game down.

Next step is a thick coat of PVA and a dusting of sand. Then they will start to look a lot more like buildings. They will look fairly middle eastern but at the same time close enough to Afghanistan and good for a few SF games as well and ruins are always good for the apocalypse.

Iron Sky

I don't have that much to say about this film. If you like Weird War 2 you will love it. It is a pretty looking film. It's got some very nice visuals. It's plot isn't bad but it isn't that good either. It got panned by Rotten Tomatoes but they tend to pan everything.

The funniest thing in it is the right wing female president of America who looks like a decidedly like Sarah Palin. Well at least Palin isn't going to be president any time soon.

I don't see it making it onto the Lead Adventurers Forum somehow.

RAFM Dracos Warriors

RAFM kind of made my day when they re-released these figures. The originals were going for a small fortune on eBay at the time. Having done the Car Leonis (Aslan) and the Warhounds of Sirius (Vargr) I thought it was about time I completed the third of the Traveller alien races, the Droyne. They are produced by RAFM in two packs. Most are in Dracos Warriors pack and there are a few in the Support Staff pack.

The base coat is dark angel green which was highlight with a variety of greens to give a little bit of variation.

I just need to get another Traveller game going again.

Ray Bradbury RIP

I have just found out Ray Bradbury is dead. It's a bit of a shame. I first came into contact with him because of a TV adaptation of the Martian Chronicles when I was a kid. It started a life time of interest in the planet Mars. Then with films of Farenheit 451 and something wicked this way comes are all stories that changed my mind. His stories were  a little twisted but then it seems like it ran in the family as one of his ancestors was tried for witchcraft at Salem.

Prometheus

This has been a movie I have been waiting for and for a long time. Why you ask? Alien and Aliens are in my top ten all time films and Ridley Scott has proven himself to be a fine director over the years. anything that is going to add to the Alien Franchise has got to be good.

It wasn't quite what I was expecting. It explains the shuttle jockey from Alien and gives it a lot of back story and even explains the origin of the Alien itself. It does not quite explain everything and even leaves a few unanswered questions. It does explain the birth of the alien but I kind of expected that they would have played a much bigger part. I don't understand why they picked Guy Pearce as the make up ageing him is good but far from perfect.

As a prequel it's pretty good as a stand alone film it's very good. Well worth a watch. It also makes me want to drag the Space Demons out of the box.

Phalons

I don't really remember why I got these. It must have been a whim. They have painted up well enough so I might get some more. I kind of have them figured out as another race for my alien slave army that I am putting together in line with a novel I am trying to write.

GZG Phalons

The models are still  a little like men in rubber suits but the heads and legs give them a slightly more alien appearance. I painted the eyeball red blue and green from an idea that I think I stole from the 1950s war of the worlds movie.

The next aliens I get I will have to paint them something other than purple or blue.

Eureka Zombies

Just found some more zombies whilst I was looking for some masking tape. It's amazing what I find when I am looking for something else.

These zombie from Eureka are amongst some of my faves. They do look like a well ravaged and rotten hoard of shambling dead. They seem to drip fluids where they stand.

They do evoke the Feral Ghouls from Fallout to me and I have seen some on the web that have been painted up really nicely as Glowing Ones both from Fallout.

Even More Terrain

I can see that I have done a lot of terrain lately. No of it is actually finished but is just about in one piece. I am putting it off because it means mucking about with PVA sand and paint which could take a little while. When I get down to it, it will all get rattled through pretty quickly.

So I have decided that I needed some walls and other barriers to go with the buildings. With some offcuts of foam core I have done some low walls. I have already done some taller walls but these must be hiding in the garage. I got 100 wooden skewers for a pound which I figured I could use to building some fence and prop up the chain link and even some billboards and hoardings. Then I found some off cuts of plastic brick wall sheets which I though I would glue together to see how they worked. Look okay at the moment but we will see. Still a lot of work needed to finish them off.

Kitbash or Katbash Tigrid / Aslan dropship

I think the picture pretty much speaks for itself.

I nearly wet myself laughing.

Happy (Official) Birthday your Mag

Imagine having two birthdays? More presents that you don't want but with cake.

Copplestone Zombies

My honour has been impugned. Twice. In a matter of days. During the Thames Pageant on Sunday one of my mates was calling my zombie purest roots. I do like zombies. As the 15mm stuff and the terrain are still a bit away down the queue I thought I would drag out some not 15mm stuff to justify myself. I have a fair few but haven't had much excuse to use them recently so most are still in boxes. But I did find some Copplestone Zombies to put on display.

 

Being a big George A Romero fan I decided early on to make the zombie looks as much like George's as I could. I don't think they came out to bad. I think I could do better now.

I have seen a few too many long dead bodies over the years and think that a slightly browner colour would be more realistic. Something more like a baked potato (with wriggling cheese don't ask but I think twice about eating a baked potato with cheese even  today).

 I think I might get a few fresher zombies with slightly more normal skin tones. These are probably all going to be in 15mm though.

Dropship Horizon

I have been a fan of Dropship Horizon for a while. As a 15mm SF gamer I have a spiritual home on the net as Vampifan is the place for zombies.

I speak as a fan od the Dropship and not a critic. I have gone to look on the web as I usually do on a Sunday whilst waiting for things to dry and there hasn't been much in the way of updates for a while. One of my most beloved blogs is dying on it's asre. It was the place I went to find out what was going on and to look at what other people have been doing.

Please guys, put a bit more life into it and keep an old stalwart going.

Operation Prestwich

I haven't play Force on Force much since I got it due to a lack of opponenets. What I have played I have liked a lot. I got an oppoertunity a couple of weeks ago to play / referee a game (and a game of Trafalgar (for another post I think) and really enjoyed it.

I apologise for the quality of the pictures but light was in short supply and the flash did not help but actively hindered.

As I lack any painted figures that would as an enemy force I decided that I would turn it on it's head and run a game with what I have ready. So the army figures became the Texas National Gurad and the opponenets became the Texas State Militia. I have another idea for a series of linked scenarios revolving around a second American Civil war / New World Order setting.

The game starts with two teams of eight militia holding a small container port on the way into a small town. This effectively cuts off the line of advance. One team gets a law and that was about it. Reinforcements would trickle down as soon as the shooting starts. They got lucky and their TQ got moved up from D6 to D8 because of a fog of war card. Morale was D6. They also got a card which created a burning building. The figures were mostly Rebel Minis.

The national guard had two teams of four for the national guard recon and two two man special forces teams. The mission is to get into the container port and get rid of the opposition or if this is not possible find them and fix them so that artillery could do the final f and keep their heads down when the main force drives by. The troops were D8 TQ and a two man special force sniper team and another two man team with a SAW who were D10. Morale was D8 and D10 respectively They got a fog of war card which gave them a two man LAW team to give them a bit more punch. The recon figures were Rebel Minis modern Americans and the special forces were the Seals from Khurasan.

The National Guard were able to dislodge the Militia from their original positions with heavy weapon fire. For my money, the National Guard were a little too cautious in their movement and could have got very close very quickly but concentrating their heavy weapon fire at their primary target.

After three tunes without much happeneing some reinforcements for Militia arrived. They got a fog of war card and basically this blw any chance of them advancing towards the enemy. They spent the rest of the game hading in a building.

With only a few casualties on each side, the Militia were eventually driven out of the buildings and caught in the crossfire.

It was at this point we ran out of time and energy (the curry had kicked in) so we called it and give it as a marginal victory for the national Guard.

Uxoricide

uxoricide Look it up, you will see what kind of day I am having.

Mecha Upright

As someone who seems dead set against battletech I seem to be making another post about combat mecha.

The trouble with it is that there are so many bits that it takes a long time to glue the little bugger together. Then because of the shape, you have to come at it from all sides with the spray paint to get a good coverage. I know that Lord Siwoc from Brains & Guts commented that it looked like a complicated build. Whilst not completely intuitive, it wasn't that difficult. I seem to have aquired some extra bits when I got it. I can't help but think it has a thorax part missing.

It kind of looks like me when I get out of bed and I am just trying to remember how my back hurts without provoking too much pain. Think I am going to have to crack it and reglue it. It might also make it possible to get to the parts other spray cans have missed.

Below are a couple of work in progress pictures. See It's easy.

Terrainfest

I have found the right lead. I did it almost as soon as the last post I put out. Think there is something to that? I might as well get June going with a flurry.

***

I almost forgot. 1st June is the birthday of my best mate from school Andy who is sadly no longer with us. Even sadder still is that it has been a long time since he was. I make a point of thinking about him on his birthday. If you are out there, I am thinking about you mate.

***

One of the main aims I had for Triples was to get some terrain bits that I could use to jazz up my exisiting terrain and the buildings I am working on at the moment. In some respects I was a little dissapointed but I had a few unexpected finds that helped as well.

The biggest project on the terrain scene is the factory. This will be the largest 15mm building to date with some infrastructure and barriers to support it. I found some generators at Urban Construct Wargames terrain. I thought these would do as part of the production line. When I get round to doing the post apocalypse game, this would make a nice place to investigate. I got a few other bits including some rubble, tank engines, a pressure vessel and a few other bits and pieces.

I also had a quick look at Ainsty castings and came away with some large liquid tanks  and some odds and sods storage units. There are also a few bits from Urban Construct / Wargames Terrain. Some of these will be for the factory complex and others will end up being part of the general scenary.

Ainsty and Urban Construct. Not really 15mm but will do dor what I want

My other two stops were at Magister Militatum where I have brought a lot of fantasy stuff in the past. I got some small bits from their Baueda stock mainly barrels and boxes. I also went to Ground Zero Games to increase the lead pile a bit more. The GZG stuff was more like I was looking for. I am going to use this to add a bit more colour to the buildings. With a bit of luck I will get an order off to The Scene at some point and add a bit more of a tech feel to the buildings.

GZG terrain bits

Better get painting then.

Missing camera charging lead

I have had a fairly busy weak.Between the craft knife and the spray can I have been fairly productive this week. Unfortunately I can't take any pictures because I can't find the the right damn lead. I probably shouldn't have tidied up. I can never find anything when I have been tidying up. The second smallest room in the house is supposed to be the place where I don't have to tidy up but I guess I was wrong :-)