Rogue Stars !

Me start a new project Nah that never happens why would I want even more shinny toys? And truth to admit it has not actually happened this time either.

Okay it might happen. This time last week I banked the money I have received from Painting and was pleasantly surprised. So I decided to treat myself. Not a major splash out only about £8 and that includes postage. SO on a whim I purchased the "Rogue Stars" rules by Osprey. I did do a little research and saw they could be used for any sort of science fiction and was originally thinking VSF (Victorian Science Fiction) and yes they would work very well for that.

Then the rules arrived and I first checked  You Tube and found a good walk through of the rules. I will include that at the bottom. Watch it and make your own mind up that is far easier than me trying and failing to write a review.

So I looked through the book and looked through my unpainted heap of mouldering lead. One thing I did not have enough of was "Cultists".  As Cultists are also one of the crew/gang types and as in addition I was thinking they will be easy to paint and be about as far from 10mm Zulus as I Can get. As I had 2 packs of "Battle Brothers" From EMP Games ( LINK ) and the difference would be a change of colours and the figures would go from Sci Fi Monks to Sci Fi Cultists.

So I have started painting the Monks a suitable Cult colour. I was going to do Red Cultists but the first one came out looking like Santa. So I swapped very quickly to Cream and Purple. And when Painted they should (I hope) look like Cultists.

Sorry it is a work in progress day today. But The Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge means I can only show painted once a week and last week the person in charge of publishing my work failed to do so. So this is a filler post until I get something on there blog posted. Hence a delay on this blog

Anyway take care have fun and paint if you are able.

All the best Clint

WW1 AAR (The men who would be kings!)

Early in January the club had a game of early WW1. We used the rules "The Men who would be kings!" while they are a colonial set of rules we thought they would work for early WW1 before the trench warfare took hold. All the figures and terrain belongs to Matt.

The Mission.
Very simply the Germans had to force a river crossing. The British had to hold them and the French had to arrive swiftly and set up promptly and help the British out.

The German Players were. Peter, Dick, Tim, Bob played the British and I played the French.

As there were two crossing points Bob too the British to cover just one, a ford! A risky strategy but if I could arrive and set up in time it just may work!

Tim was in control of the German jaegers and he was to keep Bob busy while Peter and Dick moved up as swiftly as they were able to take the second crossing a bridge! As a
All units except the British had to roll for arrival, Bothe French and German It would be an awkward start for all sides.

The Vile Hiun
Peter Dick and Tim!
The Bridge is on the road (Der!) in front on Dick.
The ford is in front of Tim

The British deployed in as much cover as possible
sometimes this also meant they were not in the best positions to shoot!

The French cavalry start to arrive
And I get troops on the table from turn 2 onwards.
The Germans start to arrive on turn 1.

My elite foot arrive and move up the road but once they
get into position their officer panics and flees the table.
This mean they can only activate rarely and are left in woo
ds but in a position to
be shot at each and
every turn by Peters troops.
But nothing I can do about that.
 

German Cavalry controlled by Dick
 swarm over the baracade on the bridge
Ready to charge my only artillery piece.
 

Mid battle Bob has lost 1/2 the British and Tim has
crossed the river. I had lost my elite unit.
My artillery was set up in the wrong place.
Which actually turned out to be the best place in the end as It covered the bridge.

The French Infantry firing from a building
along with my artillery were able
toBring fire on the German Cavalry.

As a last ditch action my artillery were able to fire into the German cavalry
that was now charging them. Lucky dice rolls
killed the Germans and made the remainder
 flee back across the bridge and off of their own table edge.

As Bob was so short of troops I let him have a
 French cavalry unit and a French Infantry unit..
In retrospect when he tried to charege the German machinegun
on horseback. I thought better of it. but too late by then.
In 2 turns the cavalry unit was all dead and had achieved exactly nothing.
For those not in the know.
CAVALRY do not fare well against set up machineguns!
(I bet like me you already knew that!)

I fanally got to set up my own machinegun to cover the bridge.
Matt was trying to sow dissent between me and Bob .
But having seen what Bob had done to my Cavalry
 I was not going to let him have a machinegun to waste as well.

Conclusion:
Firstly a very good game and even more surprising I played well. (Even if I do say so myself). The French arrived in a timely fashion and I was able to hold the bridge. The Germans under Tim did well and had managed to cross the ford but were unsupported in any real strength. Peter had done well and was just a little bit slow to move up. Dick had also played well but the loss of his cavalry had sent a shock wave through his troops and made them unsteady.I am not saying Bob played badly. But he had lost almost all his own troops and about 1/4 of mine.

Blog posts may be a little sparse this week due to me submitting things to the Analogue Hobbies paining challenge BUT them not being entered as the person responsible was supposedly on a business trip to a sun drenched beach and sipping alcoholic beverages. I have completed 3 different lots of painting and I just hope they will go on next week as they were submitted on Sunday ready for publication on MONDAY.

Anyway thanks for reading and catch you soon. It may be Work in progress photos though!

Zulu's (finished for now)

Well as promised on the AHPC here is all the Zulus painted all in one go. By that I mean all in one photo. NOT all painted in one sitting! That would take more endurance than I have.

All the figures are 10mm or 1/200th scale. And while the majority are New Line Design (I bought a £30 army pack!) there are also Penrdraken miniatures scattered among them.

 From left to right. 3 figures on a base or 6 on a double base except rifle bases and then just 2 figures on a base.

Black shields and headdress 24 bases

Black and white shields and headdress 24 bases.

These 2 units will be married veterans so they will be in essence the elite of the army. Feel free to disagree as I have no real strong ideas.

 White shield. 24 bases. These will be the unmarried un bloodied warriors.

I bay need to add a further 8 bases to each of the above units to fit in with the rules, but I will probably just ignore the first 8 hits BEFORE removing bases.

The larges single unit is of course the unmarried but blooded warriors with brown and white shields and there are 61 bases of those. So a further 3 bases would totally finish them

Again I may need to add 7 more bases to fit in with the rules.

And Lastly all down the front 12 bases of rifle armed Zulus. Strictly speaking in the rules I should add a further 4 bases, but I am not sure I will. These have brown shields with white markings.

If I was being totally accurate I would mix and match shields as they did tend to mean different things in different tribes of the Zulus but realistically for game purposes It is easier to keep this simple method for identification purposes.

 In an ideal world where time money space and nagging did not matter I would finish these off with the extra figures as detailed above. But in real life I suspect I will draw a close on this army about here. I still have about 30 figures left unpainted so I have the choice either a small unit of tribal warriors allied to the British (with red headbands) or to bring one other unit up to full strength. So maybe it makes sense to do a further 9 figures (3 bases) of Brown and white shields)

I am not sure which is the best option but I do know I want a break from painting Zulus!


Hope to see you all again on Tuesday, so until then take care have fun and paint if the mood takes you.