Taliban1

Here are the first 20mm Taliban to roll of the painting table. Mostly heavy weapons with one rifleman. Two pics a front and back shot as I have yet to identify the weapon the standing guy on the left is aiming. It looks pretty meaty but not out of scale and you know he'll be target of choice for any coalition forces that are anywhere close to him. As mentioned previously these are 20mm MJ FIGURES (available here. http://mjfigures.co.uk/ ) I have a few liberation miniatures and a few Britannia Taliban figures as well but they seem a bit cartoonie by comparison I'll have to paint some just to make sure they fit in before I am too harsh a critic.

So if anyone can identify the weapon the left most figure is carrying I would be grateful. I have emailed MJ figures to ask what it is, but as yet no reply. But as it was painted a dull (catachan) green is because that's how it is portrayed on the MJ web site.
All these figures will be mounted on small coins with ready mixed wall filler spread on them to disguise the step of the figures integral base. Then coated in sand and painted. Swamp tufts were then split up and glued to the bases. I did try Highland Tufts first but they looked too harsh so I have had to order more swamp tufts this morning.  It's not until you start to paint Taliban that you ever think about what colour clothes they wear. Most of the news real footage show them in white, but as I don't like painting white I decided that creams and greys would make a good alternative, with some wearing blues reds brows etc to break up the monotony of the grey/cream. In Retrospect I have over painted these and could get the same result by missing one of the highlight stages out. Oh well live and learn, die and forget it all.

I start the next batch this afternoon along with the first of the British troops. Don't get excited I have yet to purchase the bulk of the Brits so this is a special one off figure. You'll see on Sunday no doubt.
I have also started to assemble the Taliban Pickup with HMG which will be one of the very very few Taliban vehicles I will do. With luck I can undercoat it today and start it on the weekend, but I should get some more foot troops done first.

Lastly for today I got the final coat of "muck" on the latest moon board yesterday. so that project is moving along too.

I'll post again Sunday. Thanks for reading, Cheers Clint

Sorry no pics today

The non wargaming news is that following an 18 hour shift on Monday the powers that be have relented and got an agency worker in for the rest of this week as I was beginning to look and feel like the living dead. As such not had any time for painting at all. But now I am back to 11 hour days for the rest of the week so I should be able to turn it round.

Now my wargaming news.  (don't expect much) Even though I have not been painting I have been buying. God bless this magickal Internet shopping malarkey. Any time, any place, anywhere.... I had a Martini moment and bought the Saga rules. So here are my first impression of the game that seems to be sweeping through clubs at the moment.

Firstly the rules are quite thin. They are about the same size and quality of Spartan Games Uncharted seas with similar paper and cover stock. At first I was a little disappointed wanting more "bulk" for my buck. I was wrong. Thin they may be, but they are not padded out with unnecessary fluff. No maps. Painting guides, No how to make terrain. No unessercay pictures. No bumph no non-sense and no padding. The rules are simple and straightforward with plenty of examples. They do not treat you like a five year old but niether do they leave you to make wild assumptions. Everything is explained and laid out clearly. Overall I am impressed with the style and quality.

As I said the rules are simple. The rules of football are simple too. The simplicity of the rules is not the attraction of the game. In Saga the first thing you do in a game is to roll some dice. As wargamers we all like rolling dice so that's good. You then allocate these dice to your "battle board". Each Faction has their own "Battle board" and it's mostly in the way you assign the dice you roll on the battle board which dictates which units will move, shoot, rest or be ignored for a turn. The symbols on the dice correspond to where you can put them on the "battle board". Therefore levy units for example which have rare symbols and are thus rolled less frequently should following the laws of average move, shoot and fight less. One activation would be to shoot if they have ranged weapons, another to move and another to rest. Not only are the dice used to determine which types and how many units you will activate they can also be used to sway the odds of a favourable out come for attack or defence, but you have to assign them before you activate units so it from first reading appears that a plan of action needs to be formulated before you touch any figures each turn.

Melee happens automatically if movement brings contact, and both contacted sides fight. The loser, (the one who lost the most figures) is pushed back. Attacker is considered the looser unless he kills more than the defender. As the attacker gets to decide who fights who when they move the figures the attacker will most likely selected to double up attackers on lone defenders so this is not as much of a disadvantage as it sounds. Before attack and defence dice are rolled both players, starting with the attacker may use dice that they have assigned on the battle board to sway the odds in their favour. The actual combat mechanism is a number of d6 based on troop quality and number of figures is rolled for both attacker and defending units. The "hits" are then rolled to try to get past the armour. If sucessful it results in a casualty. At first glance this may seem too simple and players might be looking for more depth. I can see that point of view, but when you factor in things like fatigue, troop quality and the all important dice spent on the battle boards I can see the simplicity being a bonus and a more complicated method being a distraction.

 It is important to say that a unit may be activated more than once if you have the right dice to spend for this to happen. More than one activation leads to fatigue. Which can be overcome by "resting" the unit as their first action of the turn. And the unit can only "rest" once per turn, after all they only get one first activation. Now fatigue seems very important as the opponent gets to decide what form the fatigue on the unit will take when it's activated. You might choose to burn off one of their fatigue points by reducing their movement. Or you might use their fatigue points to lower the chances of them hitting in combat/shooting. Or you could make their armour less effective as they are to tired to defend themselves properly. But as it is your opponents choice chances are it will not be the one you'd have picked.

Each faction, Anglo-Dannish (I'll call them Saxon no doubt), Viking, Norman and Welsh each has both a different "battle board" and a few special rules which are intended to give a flavour of the force involved. I know they plan to produce more forces, Bretons, Scots etc as time goes on and I await those with much interest. I can see advantages in all the factions, but will need to actually play the game before I can say much more.

In conclusion: While I have not played it yet it does look like a very well composed set of rules. In many ways with the saga dice and battle boards both a combination of traditional wargame and abstracted boardgame.

Thanks for reading talk soon Clint.

Post script: Postman has quite literally dropped off another parcel of goodies for me for the BROADSIDE 2012 game. So with luck I should be able to get some painting done and have something to show on Friday.
All the best Cheers Clint

The first vehicle.

This is the first vehicle I have managed to get done for the Force on Force game I plan to run at Broadside 2012. I hasten to add that it's not finished yet (as you'll notice if you look at the wheels. Yes There's some (lots) of tidying up to do. I also need to continue to "weather" it down for that really lived in feel. Still as a work in progress not too bad. This is a 20mm Britannia model. I could have put a 40mm grenade launcher on the vehicle, but decided the .50cal machine gun had a better look. I might send off for another of these brutes and put the alternate weapon on just for completion. The BAR armour was a right pain to paint and I'm still not happy with it, but I have some time so I might continue to fiddle with the paint. All in all It will suffice at least for now. I thought I might have some Taliban finished by today, but I got sidetracked onto this monster.I have 10 started so with luck I might get them done in the next couple of days, or I might tart this up. With vehicles I am never sure if I should base them. I can see points both for and against. For: the base will look like an integral part of the setting and make the model more than just a playing piece, It will allow the figures (who are also on bases) to reach the correct height while stood close to the vehicles and it can make them easier to transport. The down side is that it is more work and the base can interfere with the battle board terrain. Not that this machine will fit down any narrow gaps. For now I'll leave the vehicles off bases and tackle the issue much later. I am aware we now have less than 3 months till the show and I still have loads to do. Jane at Work has sprained her ankle (ah bless) so I have 6 hours of overtime each day this week. So with 14 hour days this blog might go dark a few times this week and next. Please bear with me I'll try to post as I normally do, but I can see myself just having to leave it once or twice.

All the best Clint.

32 traders, 12 clubs and 23 games so far

The title of today's post is where we are with Broadside 2012 (so far). Yes we have 32 confirmed traders from the mighty warlord games down to several one man bands. While we have 12 clubs confirmed to put games on as demonstration and participation, several of the traders have also decide they want game space as well. This helps everyone, the traders get a platform to showcase their games, the organisers get another attraction which we don't have to organise and the public get a really good looking game to watch. I say really good game, as they (the traders) do tend to put good games on, usually very spectacular well made scenery and well painted figures. As mentioned above this is where we are at the moment and it puts us ahead of where we were this time last year. The magazine adverts have been paid for so they should start appearing soon as well, I remember saying last year, once the adverts start to appear more traders will take notice, and I was right. Last year we continued to attract traders up to the deadline, with the last one coming on board 2 days before the show date. That's leaving it a little late as poor Mark (don't show him too much sympathy he's a Millwall fan after all) was re-jigging the floor plan all the way up to the last minute. I expect nothing less this year, if anything I expect it to be worse with the Flea market idea meaning people turning up on the day and wanting tables.... Needless to say we shall do our best, but miracles take longer.

The two photos show another painted market stall for the three musketeer game. So players will be able to through fruit and veg at each other, take bites out of apples and maybe even stick tomatoes on their swords before they try to run each other through. The rules actively encourage inter-action with the scenery so in a few weeks when we play maybe I'll do a bat rep... but maybe I won't last time I trialed these "homebrew" rules we had multiple characters "swinging" from same chandelier at the same time. This encounter, being in a market should be equally chaotic.

The building is by PMC games, an eBay seller. It comes in two parts ready painted and at a reasonable price. Personally I think it's great and intend to get some more when money allows. It is not without problems though. Historically, architecturally and structurally it's all wrong, but only if you are being pedantic. For example the overhangs should be smaller, no more than 1/4 the floor beams length, which you can clearly see in the top picture (left hand side) is out of proportion. You will also notice (in both pictures) that the timber framing (which should be the structural skeleton of the building) is interrupted by the windows. In real life you would never weaken a building in this way it would make it unstable and likely to collapse. Still enough of that it still looks good and I can't see any of the Rainham players worrying about it, well now that they have read this they will, but normally they wouldn't.

I will not be going to Skirmish on Sunday two shows two weeks apart is too close for me as I need to work through the purchases I made at cavalier first. Talking of which I have some 20mm Taliban on the paint table and with luck should be able to share them with you on Monday. That's it for now, have a good weekend and take care, I'm off to watch the rugby on telly!. Cheers Clint

PIB

Here are the next four bases for my PBI (Poor Bloody Infantry) force which has a proposed game in 2 and a bit weeks. The overtime is killing the amount of painting I can get done, but at least by doing a little  every day It is progressing. As you can see these are 3 mortar stands and one sniper stand. Not the most exciting picture nor the most exciting subject but even at 15mm scale they look alright and once they all get together and on the table the forces will look presentable.

I started cleaning up the first batch of Taliban for the Force on Force game this afternoon. And they should get into paint in the next 24 hours. Picking two packs at random I pulled out some heavy weapons and leaders. I don't know my modern weapons to well and one of the heavy weapons chaps has something really quite large and I'm not sure what it is. Still if I paint it a dull green colour I can work it out later. Being 20mm (1/72 scale) you should be able to see more detail than these tiddly 15mm chaps. I have also got a little parcel from an online auction house yesterday of some Liberation Miniatures Taliban, only a handful and mostly armed with sniper rifles. I did not realise that until they arrived, but I'm sure I can find a use for them.

I'm a bit rushed at the present so it's a short one today, I'll post again on Saturday, all the best Clint

"I see dead people!"

Here are the first of many "dead people" sometimes you just want a few corpses to lie still while you play the game, not get up and wander about the place biting  people and generally creating a nuisance of themselves. I needed some for the car park game and had to use dead cowboys which looked a bit NAFF, but at least you got the idea. Anyway Tim (AKA Frontline Tim http://www.frontlinewargaming.co.uk/) set about making some. Now Tim is the second to say he's not a great sculptor, (second only because his wife would get the words out faster) and while these are a little raw they are perfectly good enough to represent unmoving lying still type dead people. He makes six all different in a pack cast in resin. I have only painted 4, as you can see, (stop counting on your figures it is 4 honest) as they were the first few I pulled out of the bag he gave me. All in all I am happy they are great for zombie feast markers, or to just litter your streets with as atmospheric scenery. Far as I am concerned job done.

This second pic is of one of the market stalls for the planned 3 musketeers game. Yesterday had an email that three of the key players aren't gonna make it Sunday so I'll postpone the game for a while and play it when more people can get involved. Which is a real shame because Tim has posted me some more of these, his own, as the rules need LOTS of terrain. The rules are home brew and assuming we get a good game out of them I'll post them in a later blog. Again this is another FRONTLINE resin casting. 4 of these and a fountain in a pack so quite good for musketeer type games.

OK that's the painting covered. But that's not all I have been doing. I have finished taping the latest moonscape and given it a single coat of muck, now it will need 3-4 days to dry out before the next coat. This should give me a chance to batten out the last to Afghanistan boards later this week.

I have also approached a supplier for club shirts and having originally said he can do them has not got his act together sufficiently for me to proceed. Am I down hearted? No not at all, the closer it gets to Summer the more variety of tee shirts will become available and the price will drop. At least that's what I keep telling myself. I have nearly finished the design, One of the dice has both a 1 and a 6 visible which as gamers of all quality know you should not be able to see (at least on a d6). So a little tweak and the designs done too.

And that's it for today. Hope you found something interesting here. Should post again Thursday. Cheers Clint.

Another Fembot

I am a little late posting today as I've had relatives round.  Don't get me wrong it's always nice to see them, but it has put me a bit behind on where I think I should be.
Anyway here is the second Fembot. Not quite finished in this photo so only need to put the few gold touches on and I'm sure you'll be able to imagine them as exactly the same as the first one. Clearly the lilac colour was acceptable to me and was fun to paint as it makes a change from most uniforms. It's probably a colour I shall use again although not on any more Fembots. Having said that painting fembots is fun and I'll think about getting some more at a later date.

Other painting update:

1.  Finished one peice of scenery for the 3 musketeers game I plan for a weeks time. I had hoped to have gotten more done but could not this morning. It is painted pretty roughly but it painted fast and at this stage I need fast. It stilll looks okay, but needs some tarting up at a later date. 1 done 3-4 four to go. I have yet to re-write the rules for the game, they're all in note form but having played it through before it should work okay again now it has been tweeked.  
2. Started to paint some of the zombie feast figures. The corpses to litter the streets of the zombie games. I have 4 on the table in various states of compleation, but again nothing to show today.
3. 8 PBI US infantry stands. (2 batches of 4 stands). I should get the first ones finished tomorrow and get a pic of them by Tuesday. Well that's the plan anyway. The second batch by the end of the week if all goes well.

Re Terrain update:

1. 3 Musketeers as mentioned above. 4 peices to have finished by Sunday morning. only furniture peices not full buildings. A set of Market stalls laden with goods.
2. Moonscapes. Started the fith board this morning, Then relatives arrived so had to abandon work half way through the first real stage. Andy from Ainsty castings wants a large crater board. The crater is about 14" across so I think that should be big enough. I am on the taping it all down stage. hopefully I can finish that  stage before I bnext blog.
3. Force on Force Afghanistan boards. Managed to get two boards cut to size and battened out ready to be worked on. I wanted all 4 done by this stage but at least I have made a start. Need to get the other two done in the next couple of days.

Other wargames projects: I have orderd some stuff from a couple of manufacturers for the BROADSIDE game. It is therefore very likly that I'll be paining 20mm modern wargames stuff for the game very shortly.

I have also been working on club shirts for the Rainham club. tempted to change the colours now to suit the new direction. I'll speak to a supplier on Monday or Tuesday and see where that takes us.

Well that's todays updates. I start 2 weeks of overtime tomorrow so will look and feel like one of the living dead for a while but it's only 2 weeks and the money will be ploughed back into my hobby so really nothing to complain about.

Cheers Clint.

Gifts

Here are the two figures from Crooked Dice that I have painted for Relfie and Kev I mentioned 2 days ago. I have really struggled to get a decent picture of them, and this was the best I could do. It's not that bad, but you can hardly make out the skin colour changes on the fembot. I decided on a "Black" fembot just for variety and because the blue really pops next to the brown. Not getting into colour theory but as they are opposites on the colour wheel I always new it would.  You can just make out the lipstick and the white stripe on the boots which I think gives it a very 60's gogo dancer feel. I had to shoot it against the yellow background as the scientists coat bled into a white background. I gave the scientist grey shoes, and brown trousers as it reminded my of the Open University programmes you used to get on in the telly in the middle of the night. The shirt and tie was obviously something he saw a younger college wearing and thought "Wow that's style".  Still as figures they don't look to bad, and I am sure the two guys will appreciate them. I have a secret (no longer) fembot that I am working on for myself, same pose. I'll try to get a shot of them both together before I pass this one on to Kev. Not sure what colour to paint her clothing, but will try lilac and see where that takes me.

BROADSIDE NEWS: My work at Cavalier has already paid off as another club sent their form back yesterday. Southend wargamers will be putting on a SAGA game for us. The Rejects also handed their form in at the show as well, straight to Alan the main organiser so no idea what they'll be doing but I know they are booked in now. A couple of extra traders also got back to us with forms as well.

Additionally the DBA tournament  will be taking place there (I have nothing to do with that this year) but am lead to believe it's filling up with players and all going smoothly.

Lastly for BROADSIDE 2012, We have the first booking for the flea market. Being a small club there is just not enough of us to man a bring and buy. Also I am aware that there was a number of thefts from the bring and buy at Cavalier this year, not on the scale of the London Riots of course. I am told quite a lot of osprey books were purloined among other things. Theft of any type is of course disgraceful but I am pleased to say seems to be minimal among our hobby, and this appears to be the exception and not the rule.

Anyway back to the flea market. At BROADSIDE we plan to have a flea market where the seller who mans the stall will sell their own items and thus be responsible for any loss or damage. As a new show we don't know how well this will work, if at all. To me this is best suited to clubs as opposed to individuals if only because they should have more "stock".

Back to the paint table: My plan is to finish a few things off  today and Saturday ready for painting the MJ figures (Taliban) I purchased at Cavalier. As these will be for my Club game at BROADSIDE I really need to get a wriggle on as we are 3 months away. using Force on Force and being 20mm scale I don't think I'll need masses to cover everything I want to do. 20mm don't take too long to paint so the main focus need to be the scenery. To-wit I have settled on 2 foot square boards, 4 in number. I plan to make them modular so club games can get a variety of uses out of them, although there will be one setup for the show. We don't want to be changing things half way through the day. I plan for the boards to be a mixture of village and fields in some isolated area. The obvious advantage of taking an isolated village is that the architecture should not have greatly changes for hundreds of years so the boards could be used for other settings, still time will tell and talking is not doing so I shall leave that there for now. I have checked in the shed and have enough raw materials for this so nail hits Wood tomorrow.

Bit longer post than I thought it would be. I'll post again Sunday. Cheers Guys!

Post Script: Thank Goodness for spell checker!

Zombie Tank

Only managed to "Finish" 1 figure off since Cavalier. However I am not totally unhappy with it. I have placed it next to a couple of wargames factory zombies to show the difference in size. I included the biker girl so you'd not forget that I paint all my zombies in monotone. The figure is from Ironclad miniatures www.ironcladminiatures.co.uk Victorian science fiction range, "Mr Hyde" and currently retails for £3. The Molding and casting was quite clean and I would be interested in getting some more from the range. They don't seem to make anything else I could use as a "Tank Zombie" but the armed British police and Thugs could work for a few games. Although I can't see I will need too many "Tanks" for Zombie games I wish they did another version of Mr Hyde as well, just for variety. The fact that he is sculpted in torn clothing was is an obvious advantage. Overall I think he'll fit very nicely and help to round out the "Left 4 Dead" special character types. Thinking back mongoose do a Fattie with a belly wheel in their Judge Dredd ranges whom might become a "Bloater" in later months.

Other painting : I have nearly finished the Crooked dice Fembot for Kev. I have got to say I really like it it was a joy to paint and I only have the base to finish so I can show that next time. I have started the scientist for Relfie, but only in very base colour at the moment. I know these two figures will at some point be used against me and I imagine some reluctance in targeting them on the table top but I'm not too soft to care about it enough to pick a less appropriate target.

I have 4 more stands of 15mm US WW2 Infantry for the PBI game on the way as well. So these figures will be the next out of the paint cue.

Game Projects: I have had a setback with the Cutlass scenery to the extent where I can't see it being finished to the standard I want in the time I want. It is therefore going on the back burner for the time being. I have bought no figures for it yet so the outlay has not been too big and I think it's best to quit at this stage and move on to other game ideas for the Broadside show game for Rainham club.

I did contact Ambush Alley Games about getting one of their "Pointmen" to put on a game for the show. Got a great reply from Ambush Alley Games, but nothing from their contacts this side of the water. Therefore, and knowing some of the club have gotten rules already and to some extent have read and played them, I see this as being the new way forward for the show game. I know I may sound fickle, but I can't see the point of fighting against the scenery problems for a Cutlass game, it was just becoming hard work. Force on Force in 15mm can be played on a  foot square area. Therefore a well made and painted 4 foot square area should be the way to go for a 20mm scale game. I'll start to work on this BEFORE the weekend. At the moment trying to decide if I should make it on 4 boards or just 2.

Anyway talk soon, cheers Clint

Cavalier 2012

I did manage to get to the Tonnbridge show Cavalier yesterday (Sunday 26th Febuary). Sorry no pics of the actual show as I had a camera issue on the day. The issue being I left it at home opps! Since Broadside last year I have a very different attitude to shows. They used to be supermarket sweep type affairs and I would look round all wide eyed and mouth open taking in every detail like a junkie searching for a fix. However now it's somewhat different in my mind at least. I have a purpose and not just to get as much lead in as short a possible time as I was capable of. For this show my task was to talk to the various clubs there and encourage them to come to Broadside either as members of the paying public OR to host a game either demonstration or participation. Firstly let me say I did manage to speak to all the clubs putting on games with the exception of two. By talk to I don't just mean an aimless chat with a random member, although there's nothing wrong with that, but a serious and focused chat aboutr the game possibilities with either thier chairman or their club secretary or whom-so-ever I need to twist the arms of. (Pleasently for all no arm twisting resulted from the day). Genuinly got some positive feedback and suspect we should have another four clubs putting on games for us.

Clubs putting on games serves 2 functions at a show, firstly they supply eye candy and such but they also being wargamers themselves inevitably end up being at the show all day end up putting thier hand in thier pocket with one or more traders. This may sound a little mercanry but it is a symbiotic relationship, as the chances are they or some of thier club would be comming to the show anyway and this way they at least get in free and get a day doing what they want.

Other than the entrance fee I was about £45 down before I actually bought anything as one of my friends failed to turn up with enough cash. SO Bank of Clint lent him some and I got a cheque in return, which he promptly spent at the Crooked dice stall. Although I had not bought anything at this stage Tim from Frontline did give me a bag of goodies. (Top centre of the pic) He has made some quite nice resin modern dead figures, the laying down on the ground type and not the walking about type.) I'll start to paint a few later this week so you should get a better idea then. I am not sure if they are on his web site yet or even his FB page.  (http://www.frontlinewargaming.co.uk/)
I also bought from him some market stalls for the planned 3 musketeer game. Again I shall sling paint at those as well in the next week or two. So that ticks the scenery bought box.

The book the revenge of the 47 Ronin is indeed an osprey publication and although I knew I wanted a book it was an impulse buy. Another tick from Saturdays list. Also another tick is the single pack of peter pig BAR US infantry. Unfortunatly he does not carry Wild west range to shows unless asked to in advance. However the nice bloke serving has taken my contact details and has promised to send a couple of samples which I thought was fantastic and I am really looking forward to them now. I did get a KR figure case (not shown) and speaking to the guy he has a good source for printed carrier bags which may work for our June show, time will tell where we are with costs and practicality closer to the time. So that's another tick. I did get a CROSS from Wargames Emporium, when I wanted to see some Hydra miniatures though as they had sold pretty much everything the shop had the day before the show. They did have the rules which I had a quick flick through but am not sure about yet. I would need to sit down and read them before I commited myself. The guy were really nice to talk to and have prommised to bring Hydra figures to our show when they come and offered me a discout as show host should I pre-order them, again which is all good as far as I am concerned.

I also got some CROOKED DICE stuff, the summer special and a couple of figures. So that counts as the rules purchase. So I did very well fulfilling the majority of the wish list. Which has made me very happy. Now on to the IMPULSE buys.

I always have impulse buys at shows, but this time I mostly got useful stuff. I picked up two packs of Ironclad miniatures. I Bought the MR HYDE figure for the sole purpose of painting up as a Zombie character, being larger than your average zombie and quite muscly I hope he'll make a decent repersentation of a TANK. I also on a whim bought two figures who reminded me of sand people from star wars. These are the only 2 things I can't see myself using in the near future.

The real isnpirational purchase for me was the packs of Taliban (20mm) from MJ figures. They are well animated well proportioned and well cast I shall enjoy painting them. I nearly bought som of his other ranges as well, but was determined not to have the lead mountain grow too much more.

Overall it was a good day out, I did feel that numbers were down on last year as it did not seem too crowded. The games were nice the traders varied and I would look forward to going next year.

I'll post again Wednesday, talk soon cheers Clint.

Well I did say I should have something to show today. Got up early and bashed some figures out. This is my machine gun platoon for PBI. It consists of 4 .30 cal MG bases and an SMG command base. There's still some tinnie tiny finishing off to do, but should get them varnished this afternoon, especially if England are doing Badly at the Rugger. I have tried to put some foliage in front of the crews as I can't really see them wanting to be out in the open. They know that a little bush is not bullet proof, but with luck might give them some concealment until they open up. I should get another standard platoon done next so that I have enough regular bases to actually play the game, but as this was only 5 stands of 2 figures I rightly thought I should be able to finish them quite quickly and as I have a month to go before the planned game it seemed like a worthwhile thing to achieve in a limited time. The brown tracks are not meant to join up despite looking like they might, they are only their to give a bit of visual variety. Obviously in 20th century wargames there's usually no need to link bases so they will be spaced out more on the table top, it's just a style I use on my bases which I happen to think looks quite good.

Tomorrow I am of to Cavalier in Tonnbridge Kent. First show of the year for me and I am looking forward to it. Usually there's a list of things I want to get, but this year I am pretty much open to impulse buys. For me Impulse buys at wargames shows can be dangerous, as It can easily mean getting side-tracked onto new projects, or resurrecting old , sometimes very old projects that have stalled. I think if there is one thing I should buy its storage solutions. But the chances are I'll get more lead.

Off the top of my head here are a quick list of what I am currently thinking, so we can all see how much it will change when I post again on Monday.

•  1 pack peter pig BAR US WW2 Infantry.
• Some figure case or other.
• Crooked dice Fembots.
• Look at Hydra miniatures (stocked by Wargames emporium)
• 15mm Pony wars figures for that colonial idea.
• A book (probably Osprey)
• Possibly more rules or a supplement. (But which ones no idea)
• Some terrain bits and bobs. Could be any scale or period.
• Anything else that inspired me on the day.

. The main reason for going these days is to talk to some traders and clubs and make sure we can get them for Broadside in June. We picked up a few traders and clubs last year by doing this so I know it can work. Whether it will this year of course I'll just have to wait and see.

All the best and speak Monday. Good weekend all. Cheers Clint

•  

Old Friends

Working extra shifts at the moment so very little time for much hobby stuff should have something by Saturday though. Bear with me. I have just had a phone call from "Young Gary" asking If I could paint some flags for him for his Great Northern War armies in 15mm. I would be happy to give it a go, but I think his best bet is to reduce them on a colour photo copy as he has found a 28mm supplier. I think it would be the quickest easiest thing to do.

I'll probably get a chat with Gary over the weekend at cavalier. Gary was a Member of the Rainham club, vice president I think who has since left and I had not spoken too for at least 6 months, or more likely a year. Not that we fell out or anything just drifted apart. He did say he'd pop back to the club soon, and was talking about a big Napoleonic battle in Russia he'll put on with Tim. Personally I am not into Napoleonic or ECW which along with ancients are Gary's thing. I may be doing him a disservice, but he's not a Zombie kind of guy. Having said that he is a good bloke and a pleasure to play against or ally with on a table. But he's definitely a big battle player and wants things in battalions and regiments. The more figures the better.

I mostly like skirmish games, but will play big battle games on occasion. And that's another good thing about the diversity of a club. Everyone is different and brings different skills, likes and armies to the table.

I'll try to get something finished for next post. Cheers Clint