Wow! Productive week!

Well, for me anyway! Went from painting apathy to full steam ahead.

First up was another unit for my Carthaginian Impetus army. Love these Xyston models! Very very well sculpted but not overly deatailed so as to make them a chore to paint. Also, even if I do say so myself, they've turned out pretty well!

Next off the paint table are these 2:

The guy on the left being the German Officer I mentioned in my last post that was painted but not photographed. The other is my Kubelwagon! Bought this to add a cheap vehicle to my army but also so that next time we play Bolt Action we can get a feel for how vehicles work in the game. Plus it gives me some added firepower with its medium machine gun....

Finally are these:

Now, for these, an explanation is needed. It's all Kierons fault.

Maybe I should expand on that! These are a British machine gun platoon which were given to me by Kieron as he'd received them for free, wasn't going to use them, and I had mentioned some plans for doing a British force at some point. As my other armies are tank based I have been wanting to do an infantry force. My worry was that I'd get bogged down painting infantry and never get to use them. These therefore were a test to see how much I enjoyed painting them as how quickly I could do them without them looking crap!

The test went well! I painted and based the whole platoon in only 2 days! Quick for me. As other have pointed out, the Battlefront infantry can be painted without too much care needed to the finer details and given a wash. The Plastic Soldier Company Russians I have on the other hand need the detail painting or they would look a bit flat and lifeless.

All in all this has resulted in me buying a command and 2 rifle platoons, which arrived in the post this morning, and also buying 3 Sherman V tanks from Matt which he has decided not to use.

Thats it for now, I just hope this painting frenzy of mine continues!

I am still alive!

Just not had much chance to do a great deal of painting recently, due to holiday, work and general apathy!

Even the 1 model I have managed to paint recently hasn't been photographed so you'll have to use your imagination. Basically, its a German NCO with a submachine gun for my Bolt Action army.

Currently on my painting table, which I will continue to paint this afternoon whilst listening to the footy (Up the Millers!), are a base of my Carthaginian infantry. Had painted one of the models a couple of months ago as a test for the paint scheme I want. I always do this to ensure I don't get halfway through an army and decide that the main paint scheme I've chosen looks crap or is a right pain in the arse to do!

Once question I do have on the painting from is regarding paint brushes. Which brushes do most people use? Any you can recommend? I currently use Galeria brushes from Winsor and Newton after getting annoyed with GW brushes shedding more hair than both my cats put together. The only problem I find is the end of the bristles tend to curl. I'm not sure if this is something I'm doing wrong or if its the brushes.

I have managed a game since returning from holiday, this was for our flames of war campaign and was with my Germans against Matts Americans. Or "Cheaty 40K Sherman Tank" Americans. Matt was using a list from one of the newer really really really late war books. You know, from 1983, with massive Shermans covered in freakin lasers and foot thick adamantium armour. Not that I'm complaining or anything... I'm sure you can tell he won. Once again though I realise the errors I made during the game. Turning up was the first! Second was steaming across the table with a squad of Panzers at a time, as they arrived from reserve, rather than hanging back waiting for more to turn up and then advancing. My inablilty to sucessfully roll any moral checks with Matt passing his didn't help either!

Have ordered a few more bits this month to add to my terrain supply. As Kieron has now selishly moved house and taken his woods with him I managed to find some cheap trees on ebay. They are a bit green but I may try giving them some kind of brown wash to sort that out. They also need a bit of flock on the base nad some highlighting on the base so that will be done at some point. Not bad though, 17 trees for about £15! Also ordered the "Battlefield in a box" ponds. Managed to find a doormat for £7 which will be cut into pieces and used as corn fields.

I leave you with this picture of me looking manly in Laos. Lovely country, highly recommend visiting if you get a chance. Take an umbrella though.

Peace out.

Thumbs up!

Well, 2 actually! The first to my own thumb for healing and allowing me to paint again! Hurrah!

The second, to Andy over at Loki's Great Hall for giving my blog a shout out and more than doubling my followers in 24 hours! Cheers dude!

As a result of this, and because its too bloody hot to do much else, I've taken some pictures of the majority of my painted models. Another reason is that i've never seen all my Soviet flames of war army all out at the same time! So here it is:

I think in a late war game I can muster nearly 4000 points. I think we may need a larger gaming table to play a game of that size on though! I run on 2 basic rules for this army.

1. You can never have too many tanks.
2. Ignore what Kieron says about infantry.

My second flames of war army is my early/mid war German force which can be used in a late war game if you don't mind a Panzer IV D being used as a Panzer 4 IV H...

Its mostly Zvezda plastics so didn't cost much at all and gives me a second army to use.

Change of gaming system now and here are my Saga Vikings:

This was my first post "I hate Games Workshop" army I started. Really enjoy this game and will do a second warband for it at some point as I loved painted these and its a good game if you don't have alot of time to spare or a few of you want a massive brawl!

As you know I have just started some 28mm Germans for Bolt Action and these are coming along nicely. Matt and I played another couple of games the other night, managing to stretch our forces to about 450 points. I lost one and we drew the other but again it was alot of fun! As a result of Matt taking a sniper, I realised that for 50 points they were quite handy to have, so I painted one and a spotter! Also painted my medic, who was rather harshly, and against the Geneva Convention, taken out by Matts sniper...

Since playing a few games we realised that its mostly about grabbing objectives, as it was in real life. As a result you really do need a mobile force if you are the attacker. With this in mind I am awaiting delivery of a Kubelwagon! Only 21 points on its own but you can add a medium machine gun to it for 15 points more. Should give us an idea of how vehicles work in the game as well.

My last bit of painting is a base of Numidian Light Cavalry for my Impetus Carthaginians:

Not sure I'll get much painting done for the next month as I'm off to Vietnam, Laos and Thailand for my holiday!

Once again, hello and thanks to all you new followers for having a look and commenting. It really does help to spurr me on to paint more stuff.

Cheers!

Finally, some action!

Bolt Action that is! Matt and I  finally had our opening game last night, but more of that later!

First up, I haven't managed to do anywhere near as much painting as I'd have liked recently due to the following:

Thats right, I managed to sprain the ligaments in my thumb! So, how did I manage to do it? I'm sure you've all seen at least one of the Mission Impossible films, well it was nothing like any of those... I did it gardening. Nothing heroic, just pulling out bramble roots! So even with a fortnight off work I wasn't able to paint anything for the first week as I couldn't grip anything with my left hand. Its still strapped up but is getting back to normal so have managed a bit of painting.

Painting 15mm models however was probably out of the question so concentrated on my 28mm Germans.

So now I have a legal German force for Bolt Action! Weighing in at a colossal 214 points! I really do like the Warlord plastics though. Lots of options, fit together well and you get a good number of well sculpted models for the money.

So, on to our first game. We played with 300 points a side, boosting what I have painted with unpainted models. Matt came with a Russian force. I thought I might be a bit screwed from the start in such a small game as the Russians get a free 10 man squad as one of their special rules.

However, it wasn't that which really decided the game! I knew I was truly boned when we randomly selected the mission - Point Defence - which gave Matt as the attacker a Preparatory Bombardment before we've even loaded our shiny new guns! As a result both my commander and the medic I had in my force were blown to pieces and the rest of my force was pinned down.... Awesome.

Still managed to enjoy the game though, which Matt won by capturing the objective. Think we managed to play the majority of the rules correctly with a post game rulebook read resulting in only a few important things we missed. I really like the game mechanics and it flows well without being too simple or getting bogged down.

As a result of this game and wanting to boost up the points value of my force I've ordered a Tiger II which comes in at 555 points.*

We also managed to fit in a game of Impetus. Again, 300 points a side with Matts Romans against my Carthaginians. As I haven't managed any painting I simply PVU glued a model to the bases I would be using to represent the units I intend on having. I know this doesn't look good but it means I can plan my force in finer detail, rather than painting it all then realising I need to change stuff.

Again, I lost, but I did learn alot! Gallic warriors are going to be better in big units, as are my elite Lybian infantry. Elephants should just charge straight up the middle! And don't but heavy cavalry behind light cavalry if you aren't going to move the light cavalry out of the way!

Anyway, its all good fun! Strapping should be coming off my thumb this weekend so hopefully should be up and running again on the painting front! Hurrah!

Word up.

*I haven't really!

Picked a new project!

Woo hoo! Discussions were had, models were researched and then a test game was had. After all this I decided my next project would be a 15mm Carthaginian army for Impetus.

However, before all this was decided upon I managed to finish my first Bolt Action German infantry squad! Hurrah! Another 5 man squad and a commander and I'll have a legal army...

Matt that I regularly game with already has a Roman army, so it seemed like a good plan to create an army based around one of there earliest and deadliest foes. The Carthaginians under Hannibal weren't far off destroying the early Roman empire before he decided to put his feet up a bit and the Romans finally pulled there fingers out and went about taking over the whole entire universe.

I decided to start with to buy the options from the Basic Impetus list for this era. This gave me a nice sized starting army which on further research comes to about 300 points in a normal impetus game. Model research showed that Xyston miniatures were the best looking models I could find.

And here it all is in its shiny bagged up glory! As I'm sure Kieron will tell you I have 15mm infantry coming out of my ears, so the prospect of painting all this was a bit daunting at first. However, with the quality of the Xyston miniatures means they are a pleasure to paint. Good job really! All this roughly comes to 10 bases of models, with a mix of infantry, skirmishers, cavalry and an elephant! So enough variety that it won't get boring.

I have painted 2 units so far, the first being some Gallic infantry:

And the second being some Numidian skirmishers with javelins:

Drilling out the hands which the javelins are wielded with is nervous work, but went quite well with me taking my time. I need to purchase some bronze coloured paint before I can start my main infantry units and also some chesnut brown type colour paint for the cavalry.

I think its only fair to mention the intro game of Impetus that Matt and I had. Long story short, I won. I might even retire undefeated from the world of Impetus and just paint my Carthaginians as a trophy to myself...

A further 2 games of FOW have been had recently as well.  Both resulting in defeats for myself. The first with my Germans against Matts Yanks. I mainly lost this one due to over confidence and not going for the objective early enough. Bloody rules! The second being against a hybrid Kiermatt joint gang up, pitching my Germans against Kierons Americans led by Kiermatt... That and the fact that the Americans had started using proper ammo and manufacturing M10's that were clearly made of adamantium.

So, plans for now are to continue with my new project and to intersperse this with more Bolt Action Germans to break it up a bit. Mainly so I don't get bored, and also so I don't go blind painting 15mm models...

Painting has occured!

I've finally painted something! Yay! I haven't taken a picture though.

Finished another stand of Russian flames of war infantry and also the 4 remaining stands of Maksim HMG's. This means I only have the PTRD anti-tank rifles left to paint from the PSC heavy weapons set. Not sure when I will do these but I'm sure they will be done at some point.

Gaming wise we decided not to play the Tank Aces thing for now. The first game on my 6'x4' board was christened playing Kieron at FOW. 1750 points of late war Russians against his Panzergrenadiers. He only took 3 Panthers this time but the "Panther Bastard" monica still applies.... He did however, manage to stretch his award winning losing streak out for another game as I managed to beat him. You can read all about it on his blog!

The seconds game was the start to our Firestorm: Lorraine campaign. I played Matt using my Germans against his Americans. Now my Germans are modelled and painted for early and mid-war, but as we're not the finicky about the fine details, Panzer 4's are still Panzer 4's etc Using most of my tanks, 3 of Panther Bastards Panthers and some of his infantry, we managed to make up to 2000 points. I didn't think think was going to go well at all as Matt had more tanks than should be legal to put on a gaming table. And I'm saying that usually being of the good end of a Tankovy force! However, Matt being rubbish at rolling dice and a tactical masterclass from myself meant the Germans won and the Yanks first push was stalled. Again you can read all about this on Kierons blog! One thing we all learnt from this game is that Panzer 3 and 4's don't suck as much we thought they did.

Next up was my first trip to Triples. There seemed to be more to see here than at the York event but as Matt points out, this may be because its all mostly in 1 room. I did buy the worlds most depressing cheese burger for £1.90. On the plus side I managed to find more stuff that I didn't necessarily go to buy.

The above shows my purchases! 3 BA-10's for my Russians provides a small cheap unit. Another 2 Panzer 4's to add to my Germans. The top splodges will eventually be bases for trees, when I manage to find some trees that I'm happy with. There were some nice trees there but they didn't look like they'd stand up to much hammer. The wall is perfect for 15mm and all the bits only came to £10. Bargain! Within the walls are 12 very nice flame and smoke markers for all the tanks I lose in FOW... Again all these were under £10. Another bargain!

I did go with the intention of buying Dead Mans Hand, as JP showed me how the game works a few nights ago. Really enjoyed the game and I will be buying it but it would have taken all the cash I had on me and I can easily buy it from home and it won't cost me any more.

All in all I'm very happy with my haul! After this we headed to mine to play a boardgame I have called Level 7. We have played this through in its entirety, but it turns out the rulebook is so badly laid out that we'd only being playing a light version of the rules... However, Matt and Wes have researched this in depth and came up with some sanity sheets with more comprehensive rules. Its much harder playing it with all the rules but also a much better game! Goes to show a shitty rulebook can spoil a game completely!

After this as part of our attempt to integrate Wes into the world of wargames we showed him an example game of Saga. Using just 4 points and not getting too complicated it showed perfectly how the game works and also how much Matt sucks at it!

For now, that is all!

If you like a lot of chocolate on your biscuit....

Well, still not painted anything since my last entry! But I have not been lazy, oh no!

Thats not entirely true, but I now completed my second 3' x 4' gaming table. I wasn't necessarily going to do it this soon but it now enables me to have a 6' x 4' gaming table at home which has now become almost a necessity as the wargames club I attended on a sunday night has now ended. I'm not going to say much about this as I'm still quite angry about it all...

Needless to say, I will continue to game with people I want to game with, and doing it at home gives us a bit more flexibilty to gaming nights. It also helps with work as it means I don't have to request every sunday off, and with the NHS's beloved e-rostering coming into force, this helps me no end!

The demise of the club happened so fast it was hard to believe it. Luckily I had already started with my home gaming plans so hopefully won't be restricted on the games I play. As Matt and I had arranged a game for sunday night we just moved it to my gaff, and invited Kieron along for some Saga related fun!

The above is Kieron continuing his award winning wargaming losing streak with his dirty Jomsvikings against Matts dirty Normans. In the previous game my glorious Vikings had almost snatched defeat from the jaws of certain victory but managed to heroically pull off a win agaist the dirty Normans...

As you can see minimal terrain is ok for Saga, but I do have another of the small Viking buildings you can see to paint as well as one of the larger Sarissa Viking longhouses to paint. As soon as I finish the single stand of FOW Russian infantry thats been sat on my painting table for the last few months I will crack on with these!

To enable us to play games of FOW at home I ordered some pre-painted road sections off ebay. 15 pieces for £25 ain't bad! They arrived this morning and I am very happy with them:

Above is a 3'x4' table, and this doesn't include 2 of the long straight pieces. I am going to order a few more shorter pieces of road and this should hopefully do for a 6'x4' table. Bravo! The roads are wide enough that they will also be suitable for 28mm wargaming aswell. Double bravo! The ebay shop I purchased them from also do river sections, and as I have weirdly never wargamed on a table with a river, I feel the need to aquire some of these when some more funds have flooded in (geddit!?). I have also ordered 3 ploughed fields which were only £5 including postage but these haven't arrived at the time of writing. Next I want some decent hills but will wait until we visit Triples in the middle of may.

So, next up at the club that is not a club is FOW with Kieron. Going to try out the campaign type rules for tank aces. I'm not normally one for using tanks but I'll give it a go....