Saturday 19 November 2016

4 More Burpa Cavalry.

It has been a slow week. Partly from lack of motivation and partly due to the weather and partly as I have been inundated with relatives. Do not get me wrong I do like my relatives but I also like my own space and not a totally ridged time table.

Still whine over.

I have just finished another 4 figures for Matt. yes 4 more Burpa cavalry mostly in bright and colourful clothes. yes there is one in grey as well but generally in bright colours. There are another 6 cavalry started so more to come next week no doubt.  Only 4today though. And yes I will do a pick of them all at the end.

They have a suitably ragtag collection of weapons from knives to black powder firearms. The Guy in the yellow has a knife and a shield for melee and a firearm for range work. The one in the green has a Firearm as well as a knife and 2 swords, why he would need 2 swords and a knife I have no idea yet he does. The leader (in the orange) is sword and shield armed and the guy in grey carries a spear and shield as well as a sword in a scabbard. So all in all quite a well armed bunch no doubt looking to cause mayhem to the British troops in the area.

I believe all the figures to be foundry and 28mm in size and they should all fit together with Matts other cavalry which is all good fun as I know Matt does not like cavalry in wargames. By which I mean he does like to shoot at them BUT does not like to control them.


Frozen Planet Update.

No this idea has not gone away, in fact it is doing from strength to strength. below is a pack of Brigade Hippo South African confederation vehicles. they are all trucks 2 have office bodies, 2 have tanker bodies and the rest are "Flatbeds" As you can see in the very last picture.

 Other than thinking and sorting these figures out I have not as yet done much with this idea. I have determined that one force will be the South African Confederation JUST because I like the vehicles and for no other reason. The other force I am open to ideas on though but I am leaning towards the Chinese Democratic Socialist Union. But at this stage it is just too early to tell. I have let my sister know so there is a small (minuscule) chance she will buy some for my xmass gift. To be honest with you though I am not holding my breathe at all!

Thanks for reading today and enjoy the rest of the weekend. All the best Clint

Thursday 17 November 2016

QKD-4G Quckdraw and a thought or two.

You are right I am not painting much this week. But here at least is another Battletech mech the 60 ton Heavy, Quick draw.  As heavy mechs go this is a fast mech with jump capability. But in order to get the speed and the jumps it does sacrifice armour and to some extent heavy weapons. I must admit I have never played against or piloted one of these beasts however here are my thoughts on it. Yes it is fast and that is in my opinion its best feature as it should allow it to always get shots on target and to some extent stay out of trouble.  But the jumps and the speed do come at a cost. And this time the cost is in armour. For a heavy mech it is quite lightly armoured and the medium lasers also mean it is lacking a knockout punch. While it does have a long range missile system (LRM 10) with only 12 shots in it's holster for this it will want to close quickly. Within 9 hexes it has a short range missile system, thet you want to fire at every opportunity because you have 25 shots close in. But the main weapons are 4 medium lasers. Medium lasers are an OK weapon but they only do 5 points of damage with each hit and as each hit will probably hit different areas of an opponent they will most likely get soaked up by armour. At least in the early part of any game. Additionally fast moves and jumping and medium lasers can lead to this mech overheating. Which is the consequence of having a heavy mech that can jump. We all like to pull off "Death From Above" jump attacks on enemy mechs and this does have the speed and jump ability able to do that but that tactic is fraught with danger. So unless you have a player who is a good pilot and knows how to carry out attacks like that I really would not recommend this mech.

A change of direction perhaps (but only a little change)

So that is my giant robot fix for today. But I am not yet finished with sci fi! I have been a little down in the dumps of late and lacking motivation. But I did speak to a neighbour yesterday and they did cheer me up. And that got me thinking.  I do like 1/300th scale, and I do like Science fiction games. yet in all my life I have never collected a 6mm sci fi army! What is more I also Know Tony in Brigade Models (LINK) and see no reason that should not be a place to start and look for a game.
I was going to have a quick poll on the blog (I do enjoy them) asking what kind of world I should set the game in. However I have already decided that a snow/ice world would suit me best. Why a snow planet? Well firstly there are no trees, secondly hills and cliffs and other snow terrain is easy to build. Oh yes it is! Additionally I rarely see games set on snow planets so I am seriously now looking at this as an idea. I see it as being a game I can transport easily (1 or 2 A4 box files.) be fairly cheap and a good stand by game at the club. Rules wise (someone always asks) I am looking at "Future War Commander" as I already have those rules and they should give the kind of game I am thinking of. And just to put the icing on the cake the local games shop actually stocks (some but not all) Brigade Models so I can if I choose pick up a pack every now and again.

Thanks for reading the waffle I will have some historical figures on the blog soon. I hope to finish some Burpas by Sunday at the VERY latest.

All the very best Clint.



Monday 14 November 2016

Bad weekend, but no disasters.

Well the title sums it all up reasonably well.  I Have struggled with any form of motivation at all recently. I have not as yet finished the Klintanistan turns yet. (They will be done soon I hope, about 1/2 way through them). And yesterday at the club we played "EnGarde" again with two players who did not know the rules or have forces or well you get the idea. As in the club it is now customary to drop out of a game and reff if another player does not know the rules or have a force I did just that. So I cannot give an AAR as I just did not take many photos as I thought I was going to play right up till about 2pm and by then the game was about half way through and as I thought I was going to play had not taken any pictures.

So I settled for a brief description of the forces involved.

My troops
All old Games Workshop
Empire.
That I was using as Border Reivers
on this occasion
Had of course I been playing
So Used instead by Colin.
The force was
2 rank 1 croossbowmen,
2 rank 2 Halberders
2 rank 2 Sword and buckler men
And one rank 5 Chieftain.
total was 99 points.
Matt using ECW troops
Lots of Militia with Pike and matchlock or musket.
 
Tim using the Pirates list
And yes he did have a "Swivel Gun"
With both a captain and a petty officer
Graham using Tims Figures
Using a Cardinals guard list.
Some  Guards, some Ruffians and one Captain
We all as it happened settled for different army lists in a "Hollywood" type game.
With Matt and Colin against Tim and Graham.

I cannot give a better report as I was busy refing the game and not playing and it was at times like herding cats. The rules are very simple and Graham picked them up fast but Colin was stil unsure even by the end.

The Result would have been a Matt victory if we went on longer as Colin (his ally was all dead) Tim was all dead, and Graham was mostly dead. And Matt was about have dead troops. But Graham was not in a position to take the objective and Matt was. So a MARGINAL Victory to Mat. Well done Matt.