Last Game And Defeat Of 2014

Popped over to GHQ as planned yesterday for the final game of the year, we had not decided on a particular game, we would decide on the day depending on how we felt. We decided to wheel out the forces of Pompous Maximus and Baldinus for a final time in 2014, we would be using Neil Thomas's Ancient And Medieval rules. Both sides would have eight units, Pompous (Dave) would be attacking the forces of Baldinus (Me) positioned at the crossroads through the Thingswill Pass.

The Initial Set Up Positions

We decided that the game would last for twelve turns, with this in mind Pompous ordered an immediate advance, whilst Baldinus just manoeuvred his force to best meet the advancing enemy. The usual missile exchange took place with things fairly even, although I did many casualties I could not do enough to seriously diminish the advancing enemy, luckily I was able to save many casualties. My initial dice rolls were spectacular but would not last, where has Dave's although not as spectacular were more consistent, this would finally tell. At turn ten it was clear that Pompous would win the day, another defeat for the would be pretender.

The Battle Is Lost

   With a couple of hours to go before I had to pick the better half up from work to join Dave and Sue for dinner, a rather delicious steak and ale casserole made by Sue, we decided to have a Wings of War game. Now these are usually all over within an hour but this one took one and a quarter, was it expert flying, really crap flying or just good luck? Whichever yours truly was to come second again, lets hope I can do better in our first game of 2015 next Monday, a late Great War game using modified Bolt Action rules. 

I have posted pics of the truck featured in my previous post over on the dedicated blog True To The East, click the link if you are interested.

All that remains is to wish all my followers, regular and random visitors a very happy and prosperous New Year, and may the dice gods favour you in 2015.

TTFN

Present and Painting

Here is my only gaming related present, a Matchbox Models of Yesteryear truck for my Back of Beyond Soviets from Dave.

Based and ready for weathering for service in Rhanzlistan

Finally some painting for my own First Carlist War project

British Auxillary Legion Rifle Contingent

Carlist Navarre Guides

Hope to get another post before year end.

TTFN

Merry Christmas



Merry Christmas

Frohe Weihnachten

Joyeux Noel

 ¡Feliz Navidad

Buon Natale

To You One And All

First Carlist War, Last Game of 2014

Dave popped over today for our last game at OHQ for 2014, I chose to do a First Carlist War game, inspired by a recent conversation with Saxon Dog I have started another two units for my project and I thought this would keep the momentum going.
We would be using my slightly modified Neil Thomas 19th century rules and a scenario from the same authors "One Hour Wargames" book.
The Carlists had discovered a river crossing, their objective was to seize the crossing and prevent the Isabelino's from sealing it, to do this no Isabelino unit could be within 12" of the bridge at the end of the designated number of turns.



Both sides would have six units determined by the tables provided, the Carlists would start with one unit within 6" of the bridge on the right hand side of the river in the above picture, in subsequent turns they would get get additional units entering from the road at the bottom left of the picture. The Isabelino units would enter in designated turns, dicing to see at which point they would appear, this could be at the road on the right of the picture, the hill at the bottom right or at the line of bushes at the top of the picture. The first Isabelino unit, artillery appeared at the top, just right to enfilade any Carlist unit facing the road to the right, the rest of the Isabelino's entered at the road, the worst possible place for the Carlist cause, as this enabled the Isabelino units to advance quickly and bottle the Carlists in at the bridge. This made them unable to bring mass musket fire to bear has they they had to cross the bridge piecemeal, this left the Carlists on the back foot for the majority of the game. By the time they made headway it was to late to fulfil the objective before the last turn, it was a hard fought and really enjoyable game nonetheless. Below are some pics and captions from the game, a well deserved victory for Don David and the Isabelino cause.

The Carlists Are Hemmed In

A Carlist Unit Forms Column And Bravely Advances Towards The Isabelino Artillery, Unaware Of The Lurking Isabelino Cavalry



Isabelino Cavalry Lie In Wait



The Carlist Infantry With Nowhere To Go Are obliged to Form Square

The final game of 2014 at GHQ will, all things being well, take place next Monday. I will post pics of the Carlist War figures I am working on before the year end.

TTFN 

A Little Diversion Into -

Sci-Fi - over on the Lead Adventure Forum the latest 100 painting club subject is on the Future Wars board. I have had this Studio McVey figure assembled, primed and based for a while now, I could not resist getting it I just like way Kev White has conveyed the sense of the unseen menace in the piece. This was just the excuse I needed to get it completed and have a break from painting wargame pieces.

   

Lt. Kara Black

I glued the base that comes with it to a round MDF base covered with plastic card chequer plate and extended the goo, I am not sure I like the way I painted the goo, I may redo this at some point. No game next week as I am away for a few days, and yes the painting goes with me, no rest for the self-employed. Hopefully we will get a game in the week after before the Christmas festivities, a First Carlist War or Spanish Civil War game is planned.

TTFN

One Hour Wargames, Well Almost

This week I again popped over to GHQ, we had planned another Ancients outing using Neil Thomas's Ancient and Medieval rules, I had recently purchased Neil's new book "One Hour Wargames".and we were going to use a scenario from them. Although I have and play his Ancient and 19th Century rules, I really bought this for the 30 scenarios as the previously mentioned rules play quickly and we usually have a three hour window in which to play. It so happened that we were both feeling our age that morning, so I suggested giving the rules in the One Hour book a try. I randomly opened the book at one of the scenario pages and strangely enough it was a dead ringer for how Dave had laid out the boards so that it was just a matter of laying out the required terrain features required. We generated the forces from the tables in the book and set to, the scenarios all have between four and six units per side. To say that the rules are simple would be doing Neil a disservice as clearly he has put some thought into how they represent the various periods, there are rules for nine periods with Neil giving reasons for why he classifies the troops and the relevant rule mechanics for each period, whilst not everyone will agree with him, to me they all have merit and as with all his rules are easily added to or ignored if desired.

For what was to be the first game we stuck to the plan of an Ancients game so chose the units from Dave's Late Roman/Arthurian collection, the game was to last fifteen turns with the victor being the side to be controlling a nearby hill at that time. Forty minutes later that would be Dave's forces, it would probably have lasted longer if not for the fact that I overlooked that in hand to hand combat, the attackers/defenders only inflict casualties in their half of the turn. Did I mention that we were feeling our age that day?  Of course we were up to try another scenario, this time we would use the Horse and Musket rules with the forces selected from Dave's rather splendid and growing French Revolutionary Wars collection. We chose a scenario with the same basic terrain layout and added the different scenery required, again it was a fifteen turn scenario with the victor being the one in exclusive control of a nearby hill. Another victory for Dave with his French being full of revolutionary fervour carrying the day. There you have it, like them or loathe them they certainly do what it says on the tin and good fun to boot.

Below are some pics taken during the games.



TTFN

Missed Pics And Photoshoot

Here are the casualty/shock markers I mentioned in the previous post but forgot to post them. If you are interested in the recent photoshoot for WI also mentioned in the last post pop over to Dave's Blog where can get an insight of what goes on at such things and see amongst other things that I was also chief sky holder upperer.

A & A Miniatures, LBMS shield transfer

Gripping Beast


TTFN



We All Do It Don't We?

There you are sitting at your work station/desk/dining/kitchen table (delete as appropriate) gently squeezing that pot of Vallejo, nicht, nowt, zilch, so you squeeze a little harder and gush enough paint to paint the QE2 for these eventualities I try to ensure I have figures on hand to splash paint on, the same goes when you get the amount of paint on your pallet that you think you want and realise you didn't want that much after all. This does have its advantages as I now have another base worth of Goths and Bob Murch's latest Movember figure done, OK I did have to get the odd colour out to complete them but not much, while I was basing these and some commission stuff I finally got a couple of casualty figure bases done as well.
No games last week due to to elderly relative issues, I will however be popping to Bickley Towers with the forces of SPIFF (see my "True To The East" and Dave's "Tales From Rhanzlistan" blog for info on their exploits) for a WI photo shoot to accompany Dave's forthcoming article.

Standard Bearer Is A Foundry Figure, The Others Musketeer, All With LBMS Shield Transfers

Ronnie Rawnsley, Tommy Gun For Hire


TTFN



KBO

Family health issues continue to consume my time, any free time is currently being spent painting the paid stuff so to keep the blog ticking and me sane, here, as they say is one I did earlier together with with some pics of the recent French Indian Wars game at GHQ, where you will also find a write up of the action.

SHQ Miniatures Panther AusfG

Major Joroas plans the defence of New Cheltenham

British Regulars prepare to stoutly defend Fort Aston

Col. Robinspierre's French Regulars advance on the township

The townsfolk prepare to sell themselves dearly

French Regulars storm the bridge

Chief Biccachook's Braves enter the town

Fierce fighting ensues

The French get hemmed in by British Regulars, meanwhile the Town Militia hold at bay the French irregulars and Indians

For those folk who like to know such things, the stone house is by Architectural Heritage, the blue farm building was scratch built by Dave and myself, long ago, far longer than both of us care to remember, the shacks etc were also scratched by Dave, although I think I may have done the piggy sty. The bridge is an old Ian Weekly piece, trees, fences, fields etc are from The Last Valley, I built the boards, a commission for GHQ. Dave picked up the fort from the Derby Worlds one year for the princely sum of £14 painted, those were the days when you could really find a bargain, we believe it is a Grand Mannr piece. The figures are all wonderfully painted by Dave and are mainly Redoubt figures.

That's all folks.

TTFN 

Giving Up?

Hi fellow bloggers, it has been over month since the last blog entry, where does the time go? Pretty heavy here on the business and family front of late. But apart from finishing off a couple of commissions I have managed to assemble and paint a box of Plastic Soldier Company T70's, not a very effective unit but as annoying as gnats to the opposition. Also got a trip to New York in for my wife's "big" birthday, had a great time but very tiring, so much to see and do four days was no where near enough, still a good excuse to return in the future. Speaking of the future I was seriously considering just letting the blog slowly slip away, I sometimes wonder whether it is worth the time and effort involved, then out of the blue I had an email from a fellow blogger who's work I admire greatly, saying how my Carlist War project had inspired him to perservere with his own, this together with the subsequent telephone conservation swept away my negative waves, at least for now. Anyway, back to more cheerful things, the gnatski's, a Civil War monument in Brooklyn and a couple of shots of the Chrysler Building because I like Art-Deco.



 Only managed to get one game in so far this month this was a 1920's ganster game over at GHQ, click the link for all the gory detail. All things being well I will be over at GHQ again this Thursday, John is coming up from Cheltenham for a three way FIW bash.

TTFN

Defence Line Ost 1943

Dave popped over yesterday for our Eastern front WWII game using Battlegroup rules, the scenario was taken from the Kursk book.

The Soviet objectives apart from destroying the fascist invaders are the crossroads, the rise at the end of the village and the railway siding just out of shot on the far right. The German dice throw gave them just four units with which to form the initial defence, luckily only one of these became pinned by the preliminary Soviet bombardment, it was however my poor choice in these initial units that lead to my eventual downfall. Not however did it take away from Dave the finesse of his attack plan which always had me on the back foot throughout the game. As always i can remember what took place in the early moves but as things hot up and further units appear on table one gets caught up in the action and cannot remember the fine detail, therefore below is a little photo montage with narrative which will give a flavour of the action I hope.

Aerial view from the Soviet start line.

The initial German defence position.

One of the few German successes, a T34 burns

It could have been worse, the result of a Soviet 120mm mortar battery strike

Soviet infantry work around the German right flank

And Lo! things were worse, a hit from a Soviet T34 destroys a German PzIII

Anti-tank grenade attack! Ivan Upyaabhum scores a home run.

The Russians steam forward along the entire front

Another PzIII bites the dust, side swiped by the T34

A Soviet KV1E follows up in un-needed support

German grenadiers shelter behind a burning PzIII

By turn seven the Soviets had gained two objectives with the third about to be attained next turn, the Germans needed to unpin units for that turn if they were to stop that happening, the resultant battle rating counter took them over their total, so the remaining units quit the field. An impressive Soviet win, breaking Dave's current run of defeats.

Ps. ITS MY BIRTHDAY TODAY!

TTFN