Christmas Game 2010

Ah! the Annual game Vs Graham in my Gaming room . This year, Samurai again using Field of Glory Rules. Plus I have added the Warrior monks to the mix.

Graham thinks on the first move. Yes, those are reptile vivaria behind him! Graham had brought his Chinese and Mongol army to take on my Japanese.

My new Warrior Monk Abbot, on a cart, with Skilled Fighting monks in foreground, and Battlegroup of "Other Monks" on the crest of the hill in the background.

Grahams Light cav Xbow Mongols advance over a hill, the massed horde arrayed in the plain to thier rear.

The armies clash, with cavalry slugging it out in the fore ground, and my Bushi whaling on some chinese peasants in the background!

The battle goes well for the japanese on the right flank near the town, as can be seen in the top picture, but the Mounted Bushi with supporting Monks find it harder going against the Mongol cavalry, slowly breaking off and fleeing one battlegroup at a time. soon the Mongols manage to break through and the Monks try to muster a defence on the hill, as seen in the bottom picture.

Grahams Chinese and Mongols soon wrap up the game for him, but it was a close run thing. These are usualy the best kind of game, as both sides can see the possability of victory untill the last move of the game.
 Great fun. We plan to have another game some time before next Xmas, but think that the next Xmas game will involve Vikings, and maybe Saxons..or Normans!

Board Games

Been a bit busy with work again of late...nights now, would you believe, Ye gods! Anyhoo I had time to pop over to Wargames Workshop http://www.wargamesworkshop.com/ in his new Northampton Location on opening day. I met up with some of my mates from Rushden Phoenix club, and we had a great time checking out the wares in the shop. I came away with a card game I heard reviewed on D6G a while ago, and had always meant to get. Space Hulk Death Angel

This was as good a game as I had heard, and as it allows for single player, I gave it a run through. It basicly runs the Space Hulk scenario, squad of Terminator Space marines fighting through a derelict space ship, but using some nice card mechanics to spawn 'nids . There are options for multiple players up to 6 in one game, and I can see this being a great multiplayer game. It certainly works very well solo.

I also recieved my copy of Ultramarines the 40K film.

For 40K fans who are already versed in the fluff, this is a must, I think. I certainly enjoyed it. But when Lyn, my wife was invited to vew it, she didn't enjoy the experience. She said the plot was a bit weak, and she couldn't empathise with the characters,especially as she couldnt make out who was who under the power armour. Also the main plot twist is a little obvious. Maybe. but as the first official 40K movie it is a great beginning and I hope they make lots more.
 Tomorrowv it is back to club, and a game I purchased a couple of years ago but didn't really play much afterwards. Tannhauser, by Fantasy Flight. There has been a revised issue of the rules, incorporating all the expansions to date, with a much clearer explanation of gameplay. I had purchased this V2.0 rules back in June and so we will see how this plays.

ON the painting table at the moment are lots of Samaurai Monks for the traditional Xmas game with my good chum Graham. so Field of Glory action to be reported on in a few weeks.

For the King!

12th December 2010 saw the ECW gmae I have been working towards played out. It certainly was a great site to see so many models on the table, and nearly all my ECW 28mms in all thier glory.

Here we see the commencement of battle, with the phoenix lads (plus one Gladiator) on the right, defending the village, and my army on the left by the river. The basic scenario was that the Royalist forces (my minis) are to press forward an attack on the parliamentary army in the town, and the Northern Army commanded by Prince Rupert ( Barry Warner's minis) are expected to arrive on the main road leading to the bridge in support.

Astleys foot and one of my Cavalry regiments advance on the rebels!

The Gentlemen Pensioners,and in the distance, His Majesty with Sir Edmund Varney,and a man of the cloth. No doubt His majesty is at prayer before giving battle!

Parliamentary Dragoons, from the collection of Carl King, take position in an enclosure.

The Parliament presses forward with it's attack. Prince Rupert was a tad tardy in urging his forces to the King's aid, and parliament makes good use of the delay surging forward to attack the numerically weaker Kings army.

Parliamentary Cavalry emerges from the woods.........

The King's forces advance to meet the challenge.

Prince Rupert's troops of the Royalist Army of the North, finally begin to arrive, but is it too late?

 The bitter contest in the centre, the weight of numbers beginning to tell on the Royalist foot.

Cavalry engage on the Flanks, whilst the Push of pike continues in the Centre. Eventually darkness falls, and the Kings army is Beaten, retreating as best it may across the River.

 A great game, using Black Powder rules, adapted for use with the English Civil War. We must do this again some time!

Achtung Panzer !

Well, you have seen some of my ECW minis, and  Malifaux. As people who know me will know, my interests in wargaming are varied, and the next entry demonstrates this! After purchasing the Tank Suppliment for Rate of Fire, and having a read through, I am keen to have a try out of the rules. The Infantry skirmish rules, as I said are very smooth, and have the feel of a 40K game, or FoW but not using any of the mechanisms. You do throw lots of D6 though!
 Anyway, the recent products of my painting table, have been the StuG 3 and Pz 4 I picked up from the Bring and Buy at Colours.

The StuG 3 with a nice easy paint job, based on the Fallschrimjager platoon I already have.

The Panzer 4 with the same paint job. I feel this gives a uniformity to the army and brings it together.
 The scheme is simply, base coat in Black, then using Vallejo paints I applied German Camo Beige all over, then using foam left over from a pick and pluck army box, apply a stipple effect of German Brown, then the same in Luftwaffe green. Tracks and so on in natural Steele. I then used a GW wash. This one is a must and should be in every ones paint box, Devlin Mud. Finally a look through my bag of transfers found suitable decals that were then applied. It is always a good policy never to discard any decals or transfers you acquire. you never know when they will come in useful!

I also painted my three SdKfz 251 Hanomags made by Bolt Action from Warlord Games.
I like the way these go together, the base has the track and wheel sections on it, and you just glue the hull to them, then the MG42 and gunner, nice and simple.

The interior is nicely detailed too, with all kinds of stowage moulded into the shelves inside.

And next my last FJ squad to add to the platoon. if there is one criticism, it is that there are lots of  StG44's
and not enough rifles. It would have been better to have the blister with Rifles then buy extra StG44 armed figures if you wanted to go down that route.

And lastly the complete FJ platoon,ready for action. The only thing I may get for them now is the PAK 40 from Warlord. Obviously the first game with these will be reported on here!

Work gets in the way!

A little longer between posts than I would like, this is an enforced interlude due to work demanding a sick ammount of hours the last couple of weeks. Anyhow, I did manage to finish the ECW cavalry, and visit the last major show in our calendar this year, Warfare at Reading.
 Warfare is one of my favourites. We usually go as visitors, and buy up lead for painting over the Christmas period. I got myself the Tank supliment for Rate of Fire, the 28mm Skirmish ww2 rules from Crusader. I do like these rules, the mechanisms are clean and simple, and in a 40k/ Flames kind of flavour. I already have some vehicles for 28mm, but I did buy a third hanommag to make a good 3 vehicle platoon of transports for my Germans, whilst at the show.

I also purchased some very nice trees and a walled enclosure from a very nice trader whom I cannot recall the name of, apologies! He doesn't appear to be listed on the show programme either, but old hands will know the chap with the hand made trees, rivers, fences an the like, all great stuff!

 Also Bicorne miniatures were visited to purchase the Kings Gentlemen Pensioners, basicly the command pack and one pack of troopers from the Life Guard. These have beed prepped and based ready for priming.

 Which brings us nicely to the 2 cavalry units I have been working on.

These are the 25mm lead miniatures I found in a box full of ECW stuff in a cupboard, came up nicely I think.

And the Warlord 28mm Cavalry, a bit more experimentation with horse colours here, a base coat, highlight and ink on each. The white horses, undercoat grey, top white. The bay, GW dark flesh, then 50% dark flesh, 20%white 30% firey orange highlight. The sandy , GW foundation- taoucept ochre, then highlited with the same and a little white . All are then inked the usual nut brown.
 The big ECW game is only a couple of weeks off now, so we are just about ready..oh I also purchased some rubber roads from LKM, need to get some junctions and so on, as they had sold out at the show, but a nice looking addition to the layout.

Gamescon Leicester

On Sunday 14th November was the first Gamescon Leicester. Held at the Racecouse in the City.
 I was taking part in the AT43 tournaments. As usual, I came last ( hence Dice like Dave, as the title of this blog!). For all that it was a great inaugral convention, with a good selection of traders. Unfortunately due to forgetting the key to thier trailer, the Bitz Box had to turn around and go home, a shame. The ground floor had the traders, and a lone club display from our own Bedford Gladiators, with the Elven Civil war game we displayed at Colours back in 09.

Here are some shots from Colours 09 of the game, as I didn't get to take any pics of the game at Leicester. But you get the idea! Basicly the game is Pickets Charge from the battle of Gettysburg, with High elves as the Union, and Dark elves as the confederates.

A couple of shots from the AT43 tournament, the top pic shows my Cog Sharpshooters, and Marauder taking cover from the Red Bloc, below Dave Brown of the Cranfield Conquerors, and long time AT43 devotee.Note the prize pool behind him, that just managed to get to the Con, before Rackham whent into liquidation.

 The upstairs gaming area also saw CCG tournamentss of magic and Yu Gi OH. And Warmachine ,Warhammer, Flames of War and 40K tournies,all well supported.
 In the moments between tournament rounds, I had a great time looking over the traders, and chatting to fellow gamers. The first purchase was some Malifaux miniatures, the Hog Whisperer, and some Piglets..well the Gremlins are sort of addictive! Next I decided I wanted a new box game. Mark  (  http://ahobbygonemad.wordpress.com/ )was very helpfull in advising me on the various games on offer. Eventually I purchased a copy of Runebound .

This looked a good fantasy adventure, and Mark described it as Talisman for adults. As soon as the fact that there were figures in the box wa mentioned, I was sold!

 On getting it home I opened the box, sorted out the pieces, which badly needed some form of storage, beond an area for the cards and the models and dice, the plethora of card counters were relegated to a large recess in the box. A quick look round and I found an old plastic container that one housed a Flames of War US mechanised set,this is ideal and I soon had the components sorted and ready for a game. I read through the rules, and it seemed that he game must be from a similar line to another game of mine, Descent. on looking up the FFG site, I was more convinced as some of the expansions (games always have expansions it seems, nowerdays!) there are some shared miniatures with Descent, a nice surprise!

The figure painting goes on a pace in the mean time. Whilst the Warlord Royalist cavalry were drying after being primed, I set to work on 10 cavalry in lobster pot helmets that were in that box of Miniatures I found a couple of weeks ago. They are nearly done now, just needing a guidon and basing...update soon!

Gremlin Goodness

So, the malifaux Gremlins are now painted. I decided to have a bit of a clear out and general tidy in the gaming room...too many half done projects on the table....so the Gremlins took longet to get to the blog than I thought, but not long in actual brush on mini time!

Ophelias crew all done and dusted.

Pere Ravage. I liked painting this mini, as it is perhapse the most ammusing and characterfull. I had to do a little modification to the base, as the slot would have put the two minis in a line, and I wanted a more dynamic pose. The easy solution of course, to cut another slot transecting the first, and put the pig in that.

The next thing , of course is to work out how to play this crew. As I said last time, they copy the Ortegas, so are a shooty crew, and they have similar (kin) companion rules to the Ortegas. But as Ophelia is Henchman*6 this means she can act as a master, but have an extra 6 soulstones to recruit her crew, so on a 25 stone game she can recruit 31 points of minis...nice! This is probably as Henchmen don't (I think!) have the inate ability to use soul stones as masters do, unless thier profile specifies they do of course!

here are the Bayou Gremlins, they all have the same stats,but the minis are fun.

and the Warpig I painted a few months ago. Lookingthrough the Rising Powers book there are alot of interesting minis to add to the gremlins, like the Pigapault...I have got to get me one 'o those!
 Now for a bit of a completist thing...and you know how us geeks are completists.. the other box sets I have.

Lileths crew, the first set I purchased. I have Young Nephalim as well (oh yes and one to paint up too!) a very dangerous lady!

Marcus. A beast of a crew! I have another Cerebus, but maybe not my fave crew to use at the moment.

The cult of December. Rasputinas crew were nice to paint up. I have some AT43 Crystals based on 50mm bases and painted for use as Ice Crystal counters.

So there we have it......I am already started on the next project, the ECW Cavalry !!

And now for something different

So , as promised the Kings Lifeguard Regiment...............

A nice easy little unit to paint. The dark red or maroon trousers and jacket were achieved with Citadel paint Red Gore,then the usual wash of Windsor and newton nut brown ink.

A close up on these fine gentlemen. As you see my style won't win any golden demons ( as a friend recently commented) but I consider it a good wargame standard, and it can pump out units at a good rate, which is the point for a wargamer! Part of the trick is to use the black undercoat to give a black line effect, adding to the shading.

This technique can best be seen in this pic,note the faces on the musketeers, by only applying flesh pigment to highlights and leaving recesses black, it accentuates the sculpt. Also where a mini has a helmet, only paint from the eyes down, this gives shading to the forehead under the helmet.
  And there we have it, all ready for the December game. Now, after doing alot of a particular miniature, that is 2 regiments of Pike and Shot in succession now! I like to cleanse the pallet with something completely different. And Malifaux http://wyrd-games.net/shop/home.php certainly is that. It also has the advantage of small "units" as it is a skirmish game,so can be pushed out quickly, ready for the next major unit from a main line army. I already have 3 crews for Malifaux, but as fans of the game will know the second book has recently been released and with it a plethora of new minis.
   Whilst at Colours the Bayou Gremlins took my fancy. I had already painted the Warpig, and the new Ophelia box set looked fun. The fluff behind it is also rather amusing. Not that I tend to be bothered by fluff much, but these little guys are enamored of the Ortega crew, apparently, so try to emulate them.

Yes, I purchased the Bayou Goblin set as well. If truth be known, there is another Young Nephalim in the bag as well, but I will sort him out later!  the minis for malifaux are quite slim, and any joints are too small for pinning, so the use of an Accelerator for your superglue is highly recommended.

The Lacroix family. After assembling the miniatures, I add base material, using watered down PVA and an old brush, carefully painting the glue into the recessed base. Then scattering bird grit on and cleaning up any overspill. Bird grit is easily obtainable from most pet shops. The last batch was 70p for a kilo, and it lasts me years!

Pere Ravage, an amusing miniature, more of a vignette the pig set to ignite  with a can of oil on its back, and Pere holding his torch in readiness! It is touches like this thatmake painting malifaux models fun.

The bayou Gremlins. Again good examples of fun poses. I like the gremlin on the right, checking down the gun barrel, but fitting the rifle and arms assembly to the rest of the model, connecting at the elbows, was tricky. and again not enough room to pin, activator is the only way!
 Now if you are not familiar with Superglue Accelerator, a word of warning. It is basically a catalyst, that causes the cyanoacrelate to harden almost instantly. This reaction makes ALLOT of heat. so if you have any superglue on exposed skin, and you then get accelerator on that spot, it will hurt! so carefull.