Salute 2013 - A Show Report - Part 2

The last photo's:

5 Go on Holiday? And burn and pillage a Trojan town?

A large Waterloo game. That's Napoleon top left, honest.

Wolsung skirmish board, a very well filled 2' x 2'.

Ninja skirmish game.

Mars and... Martians. Oh, and Earthmen.

Japanese castle siege.

Hordes and Heroes. Medieval in the foreground, Dark Ages behind.

Stoke Wargames Group's Wargods of Aegyptus skirmish game.

New fantasy skirmish game system and model range, Twilight.

Snit, from Dragon Magazine. I love it.

Sound El Deguello. Oh, too late. Mexicans parade around the Alamo.

Da Clash! Intriguing.

54mm action from Victrix. Gorgeous.

Back home by 9.30 p.m. and my lift is already sorted for next year...

Salute 2013 - A Show Report - Part 1

Okay, not so much a show report as a bunch of photos. I haven't got time to do this show justice it was so big (and quite good). Even then there was a lot that my camera missed so the photos are just a cross section of 'things' that I found particularly interesting.

My lift arrived at 5.45 a.m. and we reached our destination at 9.30. A trader / display game badge got us in early and by 9.45 I was at the Peter Pig stand picking up almost £100 worth of AK-47 stuff for my fast approaching Mbogo campaign. After that I spent very little; £5 on a 1/100 Mi-24 Hind kit, £5 on a bag of 75 (!) small scale trees, £3 on a pre-painted 1/72 Ferdinand and a couple of quid on some mdf bases. We left at 4.00 p.m. and I just about had enough time to see everything once.

The photos, in no particular order:

The display stand for the official D&D miniatures range. Wow!

Dropzone commander?

28mm Mexican-American War

A peculiar rooftops and viaduct above the smog game. Bizarre...

Views from either end of the Operation Overlord display game. Nice.

Devil's Den as featured in this months WI.

Jason and the Argonauts in 'Action Man' scale.

Busy Stalingrad terrain with very few figures for the table size.

That's about half of 'em, more to come.

Club Night 12th April - Bolt Action: Hold Until Relieved

After painting up the new vehicles I was itching to get them into a game. Our three previous games of Bolt Action were a larger British regular force against a smaller veteran German group but because I'd mainly painted Germans the British were now seriously 'outpointed'.

So for our fourth game the situation was reversed, British vets. against German regulars (mostly old men and boys. This allowed me to squeeze in all my new toys - our biggest game yet.

Scenario: Hold Until Relieved

Germans (Keith and John) 1703 pts	British (Barry and Matt) 1703 pts
HQ	HQ
Regular	Veteran
Sdkfz 250/1	AFO
Regular	Regular
Squad 1	Squad 1
Regular	Veteran
Squad 2	Squad 2
Regular	Veteran
Squad 3	Squad 3
Regular	Veteran
MMG 1	MMG
Regular	Veteran
MMG 2	Medium Mortar
Regular	Veteran
PzSchreck	Firefly
Regular	Veteran
PzIVH	Sherman 75mm
Regular	Veteran
PzIVH	Sherman 75mm
Regular	Veteran
PzIVH	PIAT
Regular	Veteran
75mm Pak 40	Dingo A/C
Regular	Veteran
Maultier
Regular
Sdkfz 222
Regular

Deployment

The Germans set up one squad in a walled graveyard near to the bunker objective and a MMG in the first floor of a building overlooking the bunker. The British then deployed their infantry on three sides of the Germans, only leaving the route to their baseline open.

Turn 1

The British opened the turn by firing their mortar at the graveyard squad; 6! Half the squad dead...
It was the Germans however making all the moves as their 1st wave came on. Taking advantage of the Brits' temporary dearth of AT capability the Sdkfz 222 cheekily rolled up to point blank range and riddle a squad on the British right, causing a couple of fatalities. The squad weighed up the chances of a successful assault and fled around the corner of a hedge instead. A Pz IV arrived on the German right.

Photos from the end of turn 1. Two whole table shots (6' x 7'); first from British left, second from the right.

 

The British left flank cowering behind a house.

German 1st wave arriving...

 

Turn 2

 

The Pz IV went into ambush and incredibly 10 of the first 11 dice pulled were German allowing a relentless advance across the whole front. They did fail a number of reserve roles however so the 'Schreck and the other Panzers were delayed. The 222 repeated it's point blank attacjk but only managed a pin, even with the help of the first floor MMG. Random chance had turned the game into IGoUGo and it was now the British turn!

 

All the British reserves arrived and one of the Shermans opened fire on the 222 but it retreated and hid (recce.). The Pz IV in ambush fired on a Sherman arriving on the opposite flank which returned fire, both missed. Lots of fire was poured into the graveyard but to no effect. This included a cheeky run by the Dingo trying to emulate the 222 but the hard cover of the walls resisted it's efforts.

 

End of turn 2. The Germans advance...

 

Unless they're hiding...

Whole table. Good luck spotting the differences...

The Sherman that saw off the Sdkfz 222 and infantry attacking the graveyard.

The cheeky Dingo.

Pak 40 moves into position.

 

Setting up took a lot of time and it was now 11 p.m. (we talk a LOT) so we called it a night. We'll finish this Friday. Watch this space.

 

 



Bolt Action Progress II

A final push on the painting yesterday, followed by basing this morning means the next batch of 1/72 WWII goodies are ready to present to the world. They're a little darker than I wanted but not as dark as the photo's suggest. These should see their first game of Bolt Action next Friday so look forward to a battle report...

Pz IVH platoon - camo. based on a Google search but absent the green on yellow spots that I put on my Stug IIIG's.

Recce: Sdkfz 250 and Sdkfz 222 - camo. copied from my prepainted Jagdpanther.

The Pak 40 finally gets a tow; a Maultier halftrack. I went for a '2 men were given 2 paint tins, 2 brushes and 10 minutes' look to the camo. as it wouldn't normally be factory applied on softskins. You can see how the Model Colour US Drab (Maultier) is a great match for GW Graveyard Earth (gun and crew) on the bases, as mentioned in my previous post. I wish I could remember how I did the yellow on the gun...

Finally, the Daimler Dingo recce armoured car. How long will he live on Friday?

I remember reading a quote from a soldier in a British recce. squadron based in W. Germany in the 80's. He basically said that if the Cold War went hot it would be his job to mount up and go locate the Warsaw Pact troops and that from that time his life expectancy was estimated at 10 minutes. Grim.

In the next week I should get some more Wars of the Roses stuff painted and my first game of Armies of Arcana in, so lots coming to this blog soon.

Wars of the Roses Skirmish Project

In a previous post I mentioned a bit of fund raising, flogging stuff on Ebay. Some of the money went on a couple of boxes of Perry Miniatures Wars of the Roses Miniatures. I've not mentioned this previously as it was going to be a surprise for one Friday at the club but Jason has started a WotR project so I've let the cat out of the bag.

Where Jason is thinking of big battles I'm only looking at a small skirmish set up. I'm going to use the free Savage Showdown rules to run a fictional narrative campaign between two feuding families in the area in which I live, the Deaville and Delves families. Each family will start with the contents of one box of figures; mercenaries and mounted men-at-arms will feature later.

I assembled the first box weeks ago, before the inevitable distraction from other projects, but only got around to painting some of them this weekend while away in my caravan. I've just finished the men-at-arms and the billmen for the Deaville family and started on the archers. Here's what I've managed so far.

Sir Thomas Deaville and his son Sir Mark Deaville (Wild cards)

 

Sir Ernest Hobson and Sir Gary Pointon (Wild cards)

 

 

Sergeants Jackson and Reeves (Wild cards)

 

Billmen

 

Butt cam

The mould line on Sir Thomas' head is almost invisible... except when side lit by direct sunlight! Archers on the way.

A Basing We Will Go...

Until recently I was using GW Graveyard Earth for all my basing but then they stopped making it. Bugger. (This is the second time they've stitched me up; I'm not commiting to their new range).

I managed to scout out half a dozen pots* for matching in with old projects but I needed something similar for new projects. After all, my whole table is based on this scheme.

At WMMS a few weeks ago I scouted through all the different paint ranges that were available. Research had told me I should be looking at Game Colour 72062 Earth but on closer inspection Model Colour 70873 US Field Drab was a much better match. There was an amusing situation where I was 'stopped for shoplifting' as I put my GW sample back in my bag. Soon explained away...

The Stone Golems were the first thing based with my new discovery and yesterday I based a few of my older Bolt Action 1/72 WWII tanks. I know basing vehicles is a matter of taste; I like the look either away. Based vehicles are just that little more robust in storage and less likely to sidescrape paint off each other.

Jagdpanther

 Sherman platoon inc. Firefly

Stug IIIG's

These aren't the only things I've based today. More tomorrow...

*and 20 pots of Ogryn Flesh Wash :)