Last US Infantry (PBI)

This should be the last of my US Infantry for PBI. I still have a couple more bits and bobs to do, but this should finish the actual infantry for the Yanks. Germans are another matter, I also have a 105mm Howitzer and crew to add. But generally speaking that is it for the US, at least for now.

WE have one last Bazooka team and a final command team and 4 Garand rifle stands. None of this is the most exciting painting project, but it does mean that they are "Finished" I never accept any wargames project as completely finished as there is always something you can add or optional troop choice or whatever. That said having already had two battles with these troops I do know that I have enough to play the game and enough to have a few choices with troop selection. Which means I can perhaps start a new project, or more likely progress another which has stalled or stopped.

Do I have any new projects to start? Obviously yes, the show game for a start as well as several other ideas. More of those another time. On an unrelated note on Friday night I was officially told that my job is no longer "at risk". I will admit to being worried about it I can now relax a little. It has taken the pressure off. I was told unofficially about 1 month ago, but with the NHS it is always worth waiting for the Official word. That's today's post. More on Tuesday. Until then take care and have fun.

Jim Barrowight!

 A single 28mm figure finished yesterday. This is "Jim Barrowight" from Crooked Dice. Obviously based on a Dr. Who character but I shall use it for a wide variety of games, most notably as a zombie survivor. Although I am also considering a "Sweeny" type game so he could be either a police detective or a  sinister vilian. so quite a versatile figure. I am also reminded of Terminator for some reason, probably the coat!The figure is armed with a pistol in a holster (on his hip) but otherwise carries no visable weapons. That said given the trench coat he could have anything under there, well anything smaller than a kitchen sink, not that a kitchen sink would be typically useful  in a zombie or cop game. I wanted a small break from 15mm WW2 so I took this figure on from the stack of lead which I have yet to finish. I am sure we are all the same and crave variety at times and I personally like changing painting scales, subjects and genres mostly because I find it hard to settle on one thing for long. It's probably a character flaw! Having said that I will be back to the 15mm figures today having already started my next batch.
Elsewhere in my wargames life I have been doing some background reading for the game I want to put on at BROADSIDE 2013. As a club we have settled on a WW1 game. And Tim (from Frontline/IT miniatures) will be bringing a couple of samples to the next club so I can have a practice painting them. I am very lucky that the guys will leave it to me to sort out exactly what we shall be doing and having started reading several ideas floating round my head. All have some merit, it's just deciding what I want it to look like and what I think will grab others imaginations! We do afterall want people to look at the game and then rush to buy some figures from Tim! Whether they will or not is another matter, as we all go to shows with a list in our heads. So I don't think it will happen on the day but with luck in the later months. Obviously one force will be German, but I am undecided on the opponents at the moment, could be Belgium, British or Portugese!

That's todays post, thanks for reading. All the Best Clint. Next update Sunday!

PBI Germans.

A couple of additions to the PBI German force I am creating. To the right is a Sdkfz 251/1D Hanomag Halftrack. You can just see on the machine gunners helmet cover that it has been painted in Oak Leaf (autumn) pattern. All my Germans are painted in a variety of camouflage patterns as well as Field grey. I wanted them to have a rag-tag "campaign" feel and not to be uniform. Maybe they are from different units and gave just been put together for this one mission, or maybe they are just using whatever uniforms they happen to have come across. The Vehicle is a King and Kerr resin one piece casting I picked up a couple of years ago and have only just gotten round to finishing. (As fast as usual!) Sometimes it just takes a while for things to get finished, other times I can manage it quite quickly, this was definitely one of those times mostly because I did not have a use for it. As the vehicle came attached to a resin base I have had to create a bigger base to avoid an obvious step. This will mean that I should add bases to all the German vehicles as well. If I do that, maybe I will to the American s as well, just to get a uniform look to the two forces.

Two LMG stands, both in a mixture of uniforms as mentioned above.These figures are Battlefront and are very nicely sculpted and cast, much better than the US troops. Given the difference in the sculpting I do wonder about the quality of their range as a whole, I can only imagine time will tell. The trees are simple twigs painted in a couple of different greys and with a grey-green side to one side. I am very happy with the effect they add to each stand. In a way it was necessary as the LMGs would have nothing to rest on otherwise!

Well I am not going to labour the point. That's today's post, thanks for reading. Next post is on Friday and don't forget we now have less than 9 weeks til Xmas! Take care Clint.

 

Two Axes, a Horse and a Helmet (but no camera)

Yes I admit it, I forgot my camera at the club yesterday. No one to blame but myself, so no pictures as such today. No excuses, all my fault. Saga players will guess from the title that I played my first game AGAINST the Anglo Danish army.I myself have Vikings, not because I had any affinity to the Vikings, but because I had a box set of the Gripping Beast Plastics, and no other reason. Frugality drove my army choice! Not that I am unhappy with the Norse, but if money was not a consideration I  most likely would have chosen Normans. However all this rambling does not tell anyone about the club on Sunday.

 

Not a terrible turnout at the club, most of the regulars, but only Tim and myself had bought our SAGA figures along. So we set up a very simple encounter 4 points each of my Vikings against Tims Anglo Danes. just between ourselves and just to learn the rules. Being a lazy git I did not have masses of choices and fielded two hearthguard, 1 Bereserker and one warrior unit for my points. Tim was far more courageous and selected a bigger variety of troops to better learn the rules. Well we did learn the rules slowly. I had read the rules through once several months ago so it took some time.

 

Highlights and low lights of the battle in order were. My berserkers chopped down a heathguard unit of Tims with lucky dice rolls and gained some fatigue. Thinking they were thus invincible I sent the 3 who survived to attack Tims warleader. Despite throwing loads and loads of dice they failed to inflict any wounds (well they did inflict 1, but warlords can ignore the first unsaved hit so they did nothing). Tim on the other hand single handedly wipes them all out! You could blame the dice, or a lack of armour, or me for attacking his warboss while fatigued. No matter what you blame the result was the same. This was compounded when one of my Hearthguard units charged into Tims Geburs (levy quality) and inflicted only 2 dead. Tims aggressive peasants killed two of mine, and I was forced to back of a couple of inches and stand exposed on my left wing.

Anticipating that Tim would reinforce his Geburs with his leader to fight alongside. I Chickened it and moved my leader as far away as I could, Erhm... I mean my commander decided to support my right flank. This subsequently worked in my favour giving me a fresh warlord and two fresh units against two of Tims units. I'm playing Vikings so I charged. By this stage I had started to use and "understand" the Battleboard. So as it was my turn I managed to drive back both opposing units inflicting heavy losses, but taking minimal losses myself and using the battleboard to reduce my fatigue. By the time Tim could get his warleader and supper levies across the battlefield his two units were devastated. One round of fighting his super levies, not a prospect I was cherishing with my warlord and a hearthguard unit. Did the trick and Tim conceded.

 

That game did take a while as we checked the rules and got to grip with the mechanics. So we had a second game. I reffed and Kevin and Relfie took joint command of my Vikings and Tim retained control of his Anglo Danes. As Kev and Relf had not played before I did a little coaching, suggesting options for the dice on the battle board. (Mostly they ignored me!) Both armies formed up and Tim put a unit of Dane-axes as a vanguard. The Vikings took one look at them and just charged! Subtle we aint! Let me just say hot knife and butter with fatigue to all Tims close units for the loss of a unit in close proximity. We then got to warlord versus warlord. No result as they continued to ignore the first unsaved hit from each melee. Then Kev and Relfie added a unit of warriors to the mix and despite Tim Killing more Vikings, Relfie and Kev managed to inflict 3 hits on the Anglo-Dane leader who could only save 1.

 

Post game analysis: The objective was to learn the rules. Which I think we did. I shall read them again before next time just so we know where I was getting things wrong! (I am not silly enough to think we got through it without making mistakes). But we now have 4 club members who have some passing familiarity with the rules, battle boards and concepts of the game. So I would say we have achieved the objective. All 4 of us have decided to set up a Saga day at next club. Kev and Relf have promised to get their figures painted, Kev doing Normans has only a couple of horsemen to finish off. I think Relfie is doing Anglo Danes, but am not sure, it could be Vikings. Stuart, not present yesterday will do either Vikings or Joms Vikings, Ian will do either Anglo- Saxons or Anglo- Danes. And Andy has bought Welsh at SELWG, but I am not sure how many he will ever get painted, The general consensus is that Stuart will paint them in the end!

 

So all in all despite the lack of camera it was a successful day. Thanks for Reading, next Blog post will be Wednesday. Until then take care, roll some dice and have some fun! All the Best Clint!

More PBI Yanks.

Just a very brief post today. Here are my latest lot of 15mm US Infantry for PBI. The figures are a Mixture of Battlefront and Peter Pig. Three Bar stands, one Bazooka Stand and a Garand Rifle stand. All painted and based in my usual way. I have been lucky these last few days and found some that I had put aside. You know what it's like you put them somewhere safe and forget where. Anyway I have found another 6 stands worth of infantry. Not as good as winning the lottery but it did put a smile on my face.

Club day tomorrow and at this stage I think we are trying SAGA for the first time. Anyway that's it for today. Very quick. I'll post again on Tuesday, all the best Clint.

PBI Yanks

I have struggled to get much painting done this week. I did manage to get these two MMG stands done for PBI. The miniatures are from QRF ( http://www.quickreactionforce.co.uk/ ) Nicely sculpted and cast (some of their vehicles are less well cast If I am honest, but not badly cast as I will keep buying more). The guns are 2 piece castings with a separate tripod and gun. Attaching the belts to the loaders was a little fiddly but worth the effort. They were easy no fuss to paint with deep enough folds in the clothes to be able to hold a wash. As the first US troops I have purchased from QRF I must say I am very happy with them. Most of my other US troops are Battlefront and a smattering of Peter Pig. Now though having used these I will look here in the future as I like the sculpts and the delivery speed is pretty good as well.

As you can see there is a mold line on the helmet, second picture, loader on the left. It only really shows on the picture and hardly at all in real life. It just shows what a flash will reveal. As mentioned above I have struggled to get much painting done, a lot of the reasons were that I was waiting to get some basing materials which I managed to secure at SELWG. I can no longer use that as an excuse. Since SELWG I have started to re-base the mechs, as I bought some proper bases for them. I have also started the next few stands of US PBI Infantry (only 6 but still it needed to be done.)

That's today's post. Thanks for reading take care and I shall do my next blog post on Saturday. All the best Clint.



SELWG Zombies!

As I mentioned a zombie game at SELWG yesterday I thought I should cover it in more detail. The game was in the main hall and run by the SEEMS club (South East Essex Military Society, Web site: http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/SEEMS/) Only met them in passing, but they were very approachable on the day. And as it was a Zombie game I thought it deserved a special mention. Firstly the two I did talk to were not aware that there was a Zombie Bloggers Association (ZBA), but at least they do now.

The game was a participation game set in an alternative WW2 where Britain had been invaded by the Germans and somehow zombies had come into being. They did not have any hand outs or I would have nabbed one, but they had a very brief historical recap of how the Zombie Virus and Germans had managed to arrive in England. Not that I was so keen on the details I just wanted BRAINS! If you have very good eyesight you should be able to pick up some details from the history to the right. If like me your eyesight is not so good or if you don't want to read it that's OK I did not on the day either.

I am not sure of the rules they were using but it was a "you-go-I-go" Mechanic and being participation was bound to be quite simple. The game, like so many participation games, suffered from the Wargames creche syndrome, by that I mean younger players were playing perhaps dumped there by parents who wanted to spend their cash without being pestered to buy "Chaos spiky ninja space troopers" or some such. I mean no offence to of GW games, oh who am I kidding yes I do!.

A nice board, obviously using things from other club games, which I applaud. The buildings for example are from PCM (PMC I forget which) that you can get straight from eBay at a reasonable price and do a very good job. You can see by the bases of the trees that they are from another game as well. Let's be blunt we all use what we have and what we are familiar with so I think it's really good that they did not go overboard and instead represented a more achievable looking game.

Most of the action, (when I was stood at the game) seemed to be centred around the ruined buildings with the forces of Good (the British of course) both exploring and defending the area.

A couple more close up pics just to show a little more detail and to prevent eyestrain.

Lastly for today, I would like to thank Fran the angry (hedge hugger) Lurker for giving me one of the "Posties Reject" d6. I am told that I have been entered in the draw, for both his a Rays, competition despite the fact that I asked not to be. They both said tough and that I was in it. Which is really nice of them and I do appreciate it. So thanks guys. I am sure you have already come across their blogs, but just on the off chance that you haven't. Fran at
http://theangrylurker.blogspot.co.uk/  and  Ray at http://onelover-ray.blogspot.co.uk/


That's it for today I shall do a very brief post tomorrow, just to get back into the rhythm I had established. This was a special post for the ZBA.
So that's it for today take care roll dice, laugh and avoid hedges.

Post Script: Postie has asked me to mention Hedge Hugging and Fran a few times on different Blogs. And a promise is a promise so I consider it done now, at least until Fran posts next!

All the best Clint

Selwg 2012

 

As many of you will now on Sunday I went to SELWG. AS my eyesight is "borderline" I don't drive for fear of accidents. I was therefore very grateful that Ray, (http://onelover-ray.blogspot.co.uk/) Fran (http://theangrylurker.blogspot.co.uk/) and Postie. I must say sharing a car with them was actually a pleasant experience (Perhaps I should get out more). They all have a wealth of knowledge and put me at ease quickly and it turns out Fran can navigate as well. Cutting a long story short we arrived Early and were joined in the Que by Lee (http://www.blmablog.com/2012/10/selwg-2012-part-1.html) who has already published a comprehensive show report in four parts and I would recommend checking it out. Moments later David Crook (http://awargamingodyssey.blogspot.co.uk/) Joined the crowd outside and the time passed very quickly until the doors opened.


The Above Picture was taken at 12:30ish and is a good judge of the crowd and show attendance. It did seem that numbers were a little down, but until I speak to a few traders and see their view on the crowds spending habits it is hard to judge. Some traders I know did very well, and it is inevitable that some did not meet their expected targets, such is always the way at shows. As already demonstrated I was very reserved in my spending this year, As I have a number of projects in the planning stages which have not reached the wallet opening level just yet.

Here are the pics of the games at the show, not all the games of course, check Big lees blog ,above, for a MUCH larger selection. These are just the ones that for some reason caught my eye. No captions or descriptions, just random pics of pretty games. There was a Zombie game as well and I shall post about that at another time. Just for the Zombie Bloggers Association. Most of the games have had outings before as show games are the showcase of the clubs that put them on so if you have been to a show in the south of England the chances are you will already have seen them, so this is just a visual reminder.
I should have payed more attention to the table I was getting a pic of so I could label them and put them in some sort of order. My day consisted of talking to traders and fellow wargamers, I was even introduced to Tamsin, (http://wargaminggirl.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/more-selwg-some-gossip.html) and can confirm the GZG gossip she put forward in her blog today, Jon having said the same to me as well. Then having wandered away from the table chatting failing to return until later. This is just how unorganised I am. Maybe it will be different if I ever grow up.... don't hold your breathe!
Clubs can't afford either the time, money or effort to host a new game for each show, that would be ridiculous we would never get to play games. As such many games fall into the pre Salute and post Salute category. Overall the standard of the games was incredibly high, in fact I cannot think of a single game that I would not be proud to have worked on. It just goes to show how many talented people are drawn to the hobby. Anyway I hope you enjoy the photos and find something of interest. As mentioned before I will talk about the zombie game another time.

Anyway thanks for reading, or more likely just looking at the pics. I shall try to get things labelled and identified next time. Yeah right!

All the best Clint.

SELWG Loot 2012

Just a very quick post to show my SELWG loot. Very meagre haul this time. I was not really going shopping this year, and came hoe with more than half my money.  Here's what I actually bought and reasons why.

• Ground Zero Games, one 15mm infantry squad (Federal states Europa) and one hover APC, (Command Variant) I bought this to finish the platoon, so it can be a finished force all ready to play.
• A box of Green Toxic Dice. This was an impulse buy but it gives me some dedicated Zombie dice, which ia always good.
• 3 packs of hex stands, suitable for Mechs/Battletech. A bargain if you ask me.
• 2 Packs of Peter Pig 30mm square bases. I had run out and buying them this way is just so much easier.
• 2 Packs Peter Pig Figures, 1x US Artillery crew, 1x 105mm Field gun. This will flesh out my US PBI company.
• 2 foam Trays for figure storage.

As you can see quite a small haul, but for once everything has a purpose. My impulse buys were a real minimum only £3.60 in total. Which means the pile of lead which is my life is not growing too much larger this week. If I look back at the spends harshly I could have gotten all this Mail order, cheaper than the travel and entrance fee, but that would not have been as valid an experience. I could and very nearly did buy more, but while I did enjoy the show there was nothing that really grabbed me as a must have.

I shall post a show report on Tuesday, just to get back to normal. Thanks for reading and have a good couple of days.

Horde.

Given that some people had expressed an interest in seeing the Horde I thought I could be lazy and not finish painting anything just this once. These two pictures are the same figures in the same positions (I did say it was a lazy Blog day). The top one has been cropped while the bottom one shows all the horde. Many people have a larger zombie Horde, but as a relatively new zombie wrangler this one , for the moment, is big enough for my needs. I do have two more Wargames Factory Zombie Sprues so I do anticipate the horde growing, possibly with a box of Vixens just for variety. In addition I do have a couple, only a very limited number, of special zombies. At the start of the campaign special zombies will not be encountered, indeed it is possible at this stage that they will not come into being as it will depend on the actions (or inaction's) of players in the pre campaign. This is not the time to talk about that though.

Back to the horde. As you can see everything painted in grey tomes. I was inspired by the Left 4 Dead computer game in my colour choice. I could so easily have drenched them in blood but have decided against that approach for now at least. I could add some brown (dried blood) or red (fresh blood later if I choose, but I have grown to like the very simple colours. None of them are painted well, if I am honest it takes me as long to assemble and undercoat them as it does to actually paint them. This lack of painting time is mostly because when I needed to get them done I had only 12 days to knock out 45, which I did. Since then I have actually grown to appreciate the hap hazard paint jobs, they have an atmosphere all of their own.

The background was the result of a quick goggle Image search using the words "Empty Street" and then scrolling down until I found one I felt suitable. I Did not want it so terribly dark, nor did I want many (if any) lights on. I am not suggesting people will worry about turning the lights of in a zombie apocalypse, I for one will have better things t do. But maybe power generation will be restricted!

 

The SELWG show is in two days time and I shall be going with the Posties Rejects thanks to Rays very kind offer. As I would normally post on this blog on that Sunday I shall most likely miss a post and post again on Tuesday. There are a number of items I want at the show, but no new projects and the haul of swag is most likely to be very uninspiring.

 

With that note I shall finish for today, thank you for reading (or looking at the pictures) wish you a very good weekend and post again on Tuesday. All the best Clint.

Zombies

Here are a few more for the horde. I don't spend any time painting zombies, as they are not really the stars of the game. You will also no doubt remember that I  paint them in Black and White (monochrome). I only use four shades of grey, straight from the pot. I don't feel they need any more they are after all a horde. I will be adding to the horde of zombies in the next few weeks (unless I get sidetracked), but with such a limited colour palette they can be churned out in next to no time.

These last two are Mantic Ghouls. I just got the two from eBay and again went with the usual colour palette. But with these I added some bright green eye dots (GW Scorpion Green). I am though relying on the poses to show they are "Rage Zombies". As with all the zombies I have added a tuft to every other one, this allows me to have two different activations for zombies, those with tufts and those without. The reason for this is that in some games once the zombies had moved certain players were exploiting this to make sure they could not be attacked in the following turn. This is diminished using this method, but does not totally eliminate the problem. But it does help to make the games less predictable, which does help to make the game less predictable and therefore more tense.

 

As mentioned previously I want to start a zombie campaign, it's still in the planning but has at least started to be jotted down. I have roughed out the map, It will get detailed and populated later possibly with the help of other bloggers and the ZBA (Zombie Bloggers Association). When the campaign starts it will be "In Media Res" by which I mean I shall skip the first days of the out break and later run them as "Flash back" scenarios. This is because none of us are actors and table-top play is very very different from real life. It will allow a realistic detachment and stop the players having to do things like shoot family members which in real life would be for most of us very difficult but all to easy on the tabletop.

 

If I can manage it I will run the "Outbreak" of the zombie campaign as an on line discussion with different bloggers and followers taking different roles like Police Chief, Mayor, Hospital CEO, etc, but this is a way off yet. I see the benefit of running it this way as being that it will generate the "History" for the players taking some of the control from both them and me. It will also (I hope) create certain areas of the city and surroundings reputations. Time will tell if I can pull this off but it is in the planning as I type this.

 

Thanks for Reading, all the best Clint.

 

PBI US Attack.

I played another PBI game at the club yesterday. To the right is a picture of my initial deployment. My force was 2 platoons of U.S. Infantry (only one arrived in time to actually fight), a support platoon (3 light mortars and 2 HMGs) and 4 M10 tank Destroyers. As it turned out my opponent had no armour, but did have 2 pak 40's so all the points on the Tank destroyers was pretty much wasted All I could use was the speed and machine guns they had. Still at least they got an outing and it did scare my opponent. I was attacking the dug in Germans and the terrain generated was so tight that there were very few clear fields of fire. The fields of fire were easy for me to identify though as they had an anti tank gun in heavy cover at the end of them. The game started well for me and I reached one objective in my first turn. My light mortars did a brilliant job and managed to drop rounds on the German Company head quarters and actually killed the company commander. What a brilliant start I thought. (It was not to last.)

Given that I seriously out numbered the Germans in the first turn it was hard for them to shoot back but when they did they made it count. I must admit I was concerned about the German Flame thrower in the HQ section but it never got to fire in the whole game. It was my number one bullet magnet. To the right is the centre objective surrounded by dense terrain. I grabbed it in the first turn, as mentioned above, but my primary objective was on my left flank as far as I was concerned this was a bonus, but not what I was actually after. My infantry platoon which were my only real attacking asset, the tanks were struggling with the terrain and support platoon is just that a support platoon, were taking quite a beating but still pressing forward.

The tank destroyers had no choice but to try to take the Pak out head on. The main guns just could not hit it but after 5 bursts from the tank MGs I did put it down which opened up the objective. This is where I made the big mistake! The major mistake in the game was that I took a turn to prepare instead of biting the bullet and pushing on. I took my foot of the Gas. Not all my force the German sniper had pinned my closet troops to the objective. But still I should have been more decisive. The result of the delay was that the German reinforcements started to arrive with more Light Machine Guns than anything else. Facing a hail of lead my infantry platoon was reduced to half strength and was in danger of withdrawing. At this stage it was pretty much game over for the attack. I could have used the support platoon to try to take the position but with only heavy weapons they were never going to melee well. So All in all I conceded the game, being unable to force the objectives. Oh well next time....

 

Other news: No one has objected to any of the three proposed show games. So I have the go ahead to get them started. Mentioning no names, but you know who you are, one club members face lit up when I suggested a Zombies Attacking Gypsy's show game. The role play guys from Friday night also want to play this game, as long as they can be Zombies for a change. But We shall now do a WW1 game, I shall start on it soon (after SELWG) and it will be blogged so you will get to see all the work involved.

 

That's it for today, thanks for reading and take care. Next post Wednesday. Cheers Clint

 

 

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