Friday 21 June 2013

The Joy of SIX (2013)

In one months time (21st July 2013) which happens to be a Sunday there is a wargames event in Sheffield. Granted it is a small show (pun intended) dedicated to 6mm wargaming. 1/300th scale, or 6mm gets some coverage at shows but is overshadowed (again with the puns) by the more dominant scales of 15mm 20mm and 28mm so it is nice to see an event for this specialist field of wargaming. While I shall not be able to attend I would be very interested in seeing a report online by a blogger who happens to live a lot closer.

I like 6mm as a scale as it allows for huge games (given the right rules) and that appeals to the megalomaniac dwelling inside me. It is a scale that can emphasise the terrain more than the figures and it can be easy to store and easy to paint. There will be a painting workshop at the event which would be of huge interest to me as I am sure it would be to many others.

Who will be there:
Baccus
Rapier Miniatures
Total Battle Miniatures
and
.Wargames Emporium

I am told there will be both demonstration and participation games as well as the painting demonstrations, so it might be worth popping along to if you live in that part of the world.

SUNDAY 21st July 2013
The Workstation
15 Paternoster Row,
Sheffield,
South Yorkshire.
S1 2BX

I would love to know what it's like so if you go please let me know.

My 2 weeks of overtime has now finished so I should get something painted soon. Hang on folks it's coming bear with me but at the moment I have nothing ready to show and will be undercoating some figures later today.

So until Sunday take care and hope to see you on the blogosphere in the mean time. All the best Clint.

Wednesday 19 June 2013

Ghost Town (1) THE Dead.

Well I have struggled to get anything painted. Here are 9 dead markers though. Obviously for wild west shoot out games. They were originally made by Tim Wade from Frontline, but I don't think they ever got into production so you will have to find another source or start sculpting your own should you want any dead markers in cowboy clothes! Someone must make some though so a search will no doubt turn up something. These are 28mm in size and cast in resin. They were, I think , the first things that Tim sculpted. And while not perfect they do have their place on the games table and I am very happy to own them.

I will be the first to admit that these are pretty roughly painted, but they are good enough to mark where your cowpokes have fallen. There are a variety of poses and I really wish that I had a few more. I'll have to ask around club members and see if there were any given out. I know what you are thinking! and these dead markers do bring my wild west zombie game idea one step closer. Add to that that I bought some packs of Foundry Zombie Gunfighters at BROADSIDE which I hope to start the paint on next week and It' will not belong before "Ghost town!" Zombie west hits the club tables. (I am aiming for August).

That's todays very brief post. Thanks for taking the time to pop by and see what I'm working on. Hope to see you good people again real soon!

Cheers Clint

Monday 17 June 2013

Canvas Eagles (Also klnown on the day as "Patrick Stacked it!")


 At the club yesterday Graham put a game of "Canvas Eagles" on. For those many of you who have not tried it the rules are free to download in the WW1 section of http://www.freewargamesrules.co.uk/. Although not exactly the same you can also try the online game which is very similar called "Blue Max" at http://www.youplay.it/.

As mentioned when we played X Wing at the club part of my dyslexia is telling left and right (for me RoboRalley is a nightmare...fun but only in an I have no idea where I will really end up). So struggling with left and right I have a history with these rules of lasting considerably less than 20minutes of flying time. So for a change I was given a bomber and a mission and the other three were to act as escorts in Grahams case or Interceptors in Tim and Patricks cases.


So for those of you interested in the technical details and who flew what.

Germans on a bombing mission to hit a rail depot behind the lines.

Graham: DVA Albatross (yellow fuselage)
Clint: AEG GIV (The biggest plane on the board by quite a long way!) AEG stands for "Allegmeine Elektrizitats Gesellschaft"

British had to stop the bomber getting through and dropping it's load.

Tim: SE5a
Pat: De Haviland DH4

 That covers the technical side of who had what and what we were trying to do. Graham and my self had the whole length of the board to fly and given that my plane had a speed of 2 hexes a turn MAXIMUM and an upper altitude of 5. It was also less manoeuvrable than a block of lead on a surface with a high coefficient of friction, in other words any fancy flying was out of the question!

The first few turns the fighters jockeyed for position and I trundled slowly across the board. Patrick did get one shot on me with a lewis gun a couple of points damage to my wing..... seriously not even an annoyance as my wings could happily suffer 10 times the damage and still keep flying so I was not worried.

Tim and Graham out foxed each other and ended up flying at the same altitude in the same hex.  The rules cover this eventuality. Both players roll 2d6 for a result 2-12 should both players roll the same a collision might occur. Tim rolled low (we can almost always trust him to do so) and the dice turned up 1 and 3. As luck would have it Graham rolled 2 and 2, also equalling 4. So there was a collision. It could just be a wing bump. Each player rolled 1d6 and took that number of red damage chits. This time Tim rolled a 6 and not to be out done so did Graham. Cutting a long story short, Tim's pilot was killed on the first chit and Graham had culmunitive damage which destroyed all his fuselage. Hardly any gun play and two birds crashed and burned.


 Those two started two new planes. Patrick was still a threat to me so I dropped altitude which fooled Pat for a turn and left him facing the wrong way too high above me to get a shot. So I dropped my bombs and started heading home. But Pat was not done yet, he closed in and let rip. My 2 gunners fired back and managed to hurt him, but two lucky red chits were placed on me. The first was a crew hit, randomnly determined to be the pilot (GULP) and the second was a spin check. I failed to control the plane and spun out of control.

I was very fortunate to recover from the spin next turn and ended up facing the right way so I limped towards the home trench lines. The De Haviland being quite slow only managed to get me in his sights when I was going back over the British trenches. Being very low I did take some ground fire (minor engine damage) and some fuselage hits which I could take.

Meanwhile the collision twins were trading blows and although Tim did not know it Grahams
pilot was seriously wounded. So he was limping home as well and desperately trying to stay out of combat.

As I flew over the trenches Patrick also at low level took one last desperate shot at my crate. He did hit me, but the manoeuvre was such that he had to lose altitude next turn. At level 1 that meant he had to try a forced landing. Not going into too many details he rolled badly and stacked it. His pilot was seriously injured and his gunner was killed. Like I said he stacked it!

Well we both made it. German success. I bombed the rail yard and got my plane of the board. Not desperately heroic, but efficient and for once I was not shot down which I usually am.

That was yesterday at the club, other games were played of course but Canvas eagles is an old favourite among the players and always leads to a good game.

More again on Wednesday. Thanks for reading and take care until then.  Best wishes Clint!