The Arrival of Sgt Arthur Johnson and the Church of the Immaculate Goblet

As my previous post identified I'm in a little bit of limbo as far as my hobby time goes - the change of address has resulted in a very messed up routine with many things scattered around the new house. However I did find time to finish off and finally photograph the last member of my Scotland Yard for In Her Majestys Name.

This means I can now focus on another adventuring company for IHMN, Professor M and the Black Moon Brotherhood, a most immoral group of gentlemen with some rather unique skills. Stay tuned and I'll post up the details after the festive break.

And in the interests of any of you readers who are religiously inclined I also finished off my Warbases Church, however this may return to the painting table as I'm not 100% happy with it. It will suffice for the moment.

I hope you'll all enjoy the festive season and manage to get into 2014 without any alcohol related disasters!

Moving House Sucks

I hate moving house, it really impacts your free time and enthusiasm to actually do anything. Over the last two weeks my wife and I have been thoroughly absorbed with packing boxes and moving between two houses whilst desperately trying to amuse two young children. Now that we’ve finally done the shift, got all our possessions to the new house and almost got everything squared away we can restart our hobbies etc.

Now there’s the darn problem. I have lots of things on my to do list (IHMN buildings and board, my new adventuring company (Professor M and the Brotherhood of the Black Moon), Flames of War US Para company, Bolt Action DAK and many other things sitting on the sidelines. Unfortunately I can’t find the sidelines or identify a suitable place to set anything up. So all my mini’s are stashed in no particular order all over the house and I’ll probably spend most of the Xmas period trying to find them again.

So how am I going to amuse myself whilst sorting through the chaos….hmmmmm. I know, play a silly board game.

 

“Bleurghhhhhhhh” groaned the zombie as it shambled aimlessly through the open door of the prison complex followed by twenty six others.

“No problem” I thought nervously fingering my meat cleaver as I heard James running back from the control room to aid me.

“GWARRRRRRRRRRRRR” screamed the abomination as it battered its way  through the decaying corpses, eager to tear me limb from limb

“I need new trousers” was my next thought.

“Molotov you moron” shouted James as he finally cleared the corner and saw the nightmare waiting to engulf us.

“Ooooh, fire good!”

Yes we had a rather excellent five player game of Zombicide: Prison Break last night and I have to say I’ve never had so much fun whilst sober. Last night the club was at capacity with upwards of 40 gamers frantically rolling dice and looking serious whilst in one corner of the room a crack commando unit was sent to prison by a military court for a crime they didn't commit. These men promptly escaped from a maximum security stockade………….. oops, sorry. It all went a bit A-team there.

Seriously though I can see this becoming a staple of our gaming calendar as there are multiple levels to the game play, cooperative being the most rational however the temptation to attack other survivors when they find something good, or even deliberately tempt Zombies into a room and then close the door is a too much to resist.

I may lose friends!!!!

Normandy 1944 - A Bolt Action Campaign Day Report

On the 1st December 2013 a group of intrepid individuals, gamers one and all descended on the Belgrave Social Club in Halifax, West Yorkshire to rewind the clock 36,551,520 minutes and attempt to invade German occupied France, breach the Atlantic Wall and free Paris, and in doing so open up the road to Berlin! 

Ok, now that I’ve done the dramatic bit I’d better describe the event, which should prove tricky as I only attended for 2 hours (family commitments!). However I have been able to pull together the views of both TO’s, Geraint and Chris to give you all a flavour of the event. Unfortunately it turns out that you’re supposed to charge your camera before taking pictures so I apologise for the very poor camera phone images.

Anyway, on to the action.

The forces were gathered together and asked to assign a CiC for the day, whose responsibility it would be to allocate the available forces to each game.

Round 1: The Allies assaulted 3 beaches (doubles games) in an attempt to create a beachhead and link up with the air dropped troops who were furiously trying to capture Pegasus Bridge and a section of trenches just behind the lines. The Germans held one beach, fighting the assaulting allies to a bloody standstill. However in a reversal of history it would seem the CiC of the Axis forces rightly understood the value of Pegasus Bridge, assigning an elite unit to protect from any airborne assault and thus the British Para’s were unable to dislodge them. 

The beachhead

The Stuka Zu Fuss burns after demolishing the
assaulting allies!

The Commando's objective, the trenchline beyond the beach

And off they go to capture the bunker - tense stuff

Pegasus Bridge. That river looks choppy!

Result - The beachhead is made and an inland territory captured.

Round 2: With the allies unable to capture Pegasus bridge and only capturing two of the three beaches the options for the Allied CiC were limited. However they were able to take the initiative and thus the next games were played in countryside heavy with Bocage. However the Axis forces conducted an excellent defence and the Allies were unable to capitalise on their gains in the first round. 

Beyond the beaches - the Normandy countryside
turns out to be a tough nut to crack!

The Commando's attempt to capture a Norman hotel!

But what's this, the Germans sneak round the corner!

The 4Ground Hotel Complex is rather nice isn't it

And while the Commando's dally at the Hotel, an urgent
 rescue mission is launched to stop the Germans capturing
 a senior office stranded after a botched glider landing
 (it doesn't look that botched though does it!)

I wouldn't want to march across that field without cover.
But where else would a glider land!

And the fight in the bocage continues

Result - The Allies failed to expand the beachhead however they held their ground.

Round 3: With the Allies unable to push through the Axis forces in round 2 the Germans were able to make a counter-push. We swiftly discovered that Germans on the attack are not as strong as Germans on the defence as they attempted to bar the way to Paris and came a cropper. The Allies won a series of victories and as a result the Germans lost a whole handful of territories, opening the route to Paris for the Allies if they could win the initiative for the final round.

Under cover of darkness the Brits conduct a stealthy assault

And the Germans use those magical things called ears
 to hear them approach (how stealthy is a Jeep
full of troops?)

Armoured car controls one of the roads to Paris.

"ere Sarge, do ya reckon I can hit that squirrel"?
"t'aint a squirrel lad, thats Lieutenant Hughes"

GI's advance through burned out villages

Round 4: Things were now balanced on a knife edge. If the Allied General Rob could win the roll-off for initiative he would be able to assault Paris and potentially win the day. Axis General Tim, however, had been able to roll sixes for fun all day, so couldn’t possibly lose this one. Tim’s lucky pink dice was removed, the collective breaths of the room were held, and Rob won the roll-off, allowing the Allies to direct all their forces to attack Paris. 

The outskirts of Paris. Who wants to peer round the corner first?

And finally the Panzers arrive. This was the only vaguely heavy tank of the day.

Results from the last game, though, were exactly even. Both sides won four victories, meaning that again Rob and Chris would have to roll off to decide which of the two sides would lose their nerve and withdraw from the city. Again Tim’s lucky pink dice was removed and again Rob won the roll-off, granting the Allies victory. Cue victory parades, pretty French girls kissing the winners, and Tim returning to Berlin to face Hitler’s wrath.

All-in-all it was a really fun day. The games were played in a great spirit, the tables - thanks to the people who brought scenery - looked fantastic, and the armies were painted to a really high standard. Things didn't work quite as set out in the event pack - Geraint had to adapt on the fly to keep things moving (sort of a GM role) and learnt quite a lot from doing so.

Honourable mention goes to Warlord games for the collection of prizes, Rich for the donation of a lovely scratch built landing craft as a prize and finally Geraint’s family for the pie and peas, the staple of any wargamers diet!

Note: investigations are ongoing as to the make up of Tim’s dice which rolled a disproportionate number of 6’s, mainly whenever his Stuka Zu Fuss opened fire!

Sarissa Precision Gaslamp Alley

And finally they’re here. Not content with trying to build, accessorise and paint the Warbases Factory and Church I’ve finally received my Sarissa Gaslamp Alley buildings. Essentially the street that they had built and painted to promote the range! After a bit of an email chat with Steve at Sarissa I got a bundle deal for 10% off which I’m quite happy with and they arrived promptly and well packaged in two sturdy cardboard boxes.

Unfortunately they shall be sitting on the shelf whilst I finish the aforementioned Warbases buildings which are currently built and accessorised but without their base footprint. 

Flames of War - US Para’s

I’ve been tinkering around with Flames of War for some time, I even have a German armoured company (all PSC models) but never really taken the time to focus on Battlefront models and collect a force that I actually wanted to. In previous posts I highlighted my intention of collecting 101st Airborne and have been slowly acquiring models, well I’ve finally got down to finishing off a whole Platoon (wow).

Its not really an earth staggering quantity of painting to be honest however for me its pretty good for me, I’m not the worlds fastest painter and often don’t find the time to really focus on something. Anyway with these I have to say that I thoroughly enjoyed painting them, I approached it in an assembly line way of basing the whole platoon, spray undercoat and base coat, pick out all the detail and then wash and highlight. The one mistake I did make is to finish painting the models and then paint the base which is far too risky on 15mm mini’s as I had to do some unneeded touching up.

Colours used were:

Cheapo Auto Black spray undercoat

PSC US vehicle spray base coat

Vallejo Model Colour Khaki - Webbing

Vallejo Model Colour Flat Earth - Boots and rifles

Vallejo Model Colour Brown Violet - helmets and water bottle.

Vallejo Model Colour Black - Weapon barrels basecoat

Graphite Art Pencil B - Weapon barrels

Vallejo Sepia Ink - all over wash.

Vallejo Game Colour Leather Brown - Gloves

I’m please with the results, even the abstract Screaming Eagle “blobs” on the uniform sleeves looks ok. I decided not to paint the US Flag on the Para’s as I can’t find consistent imagery of the presence of the flag. I’ve painted it on the Glider Recon Jeeps and the Glider 57mm gun crew as a) it looks cool and b) I painted them first and I wanted to see how hard it would be.

Anyone think I should put it on the Para uniforms?
So now in my painting queue I only have:
Para platoon (No. 2)
Para HQ
Airborne Engineer Platoon
Machine Gun Platoon
Mortar Platoon
Recon section for my M10's
Four M10's
Two MG jeeps for my Glider R&I platoon

And in case your wondering this army was built around the "oooh that looks nice" ethos rather than an actual list!

Oh and incidentally these models haven't rolled a dice in anger yet, I really should roll them out on to the table top!

And finally the images are crap because I took them with my phone under bad light (bad light, bad light screamed the cricketer!). Sorry

In the Fields of Joy

All you music aficionados out there willl have linked the title of this post to the rather nifty song by Lenny Kravitz however this post is (unfortunately) not about music but rather about terrain. Now for some time I have been meaning to set up a gaming board at home, and in a previous post you will have seen my efforts to that effect. Well no board is worth playing on without the addition of representative terrain (unless you play 8th WFB!) and therefore I have been beavering away with bits of tat picked up over the years and stashed in a box.

So without further ado I give you - Fields!

 These are the most ridiculously simple things to make, in fact I’ve kind of overdone mine a little. All you need is a cheap ribbed door mat or coir door mat (no I don’t own shares in Wilko’s before you ask!)

Then just go wild with a sharp craft knife and hey presto instant fields. I took it a step further to give some durability and based them on hardboard, textured the edges and added flock. I also gave the ploughed field a dry brush of various browns.

I’m quite happy with the results. As I’ll be playing on a tiled board I needed to provide a textured edge to each field as the roads are created by blocking out the tiling and on occasion my fields may not have hedges or fences surrounding them (therefore they all have a dirt verge!).

I’ll pop up some pics of the board with fields once I’ve finished dulling it down a little (see previous post on tiles!)

And finally - A popcorn Frog Dog!

IHMN - Inspector Johnsons Casebook - A Pharoah, Gas Grenades And Those Darned Rifles!

My Lords of the gaming world I present to you the latest instalment of the incorruptible Inspector Johnson's Casebook. I must warn you that this episode introduces a most despicable villain in the ongoing tales, the likes of which shall not be seen again (well until next weeks episode anyway).

The tale of heroism continues on page 40.
Toodle pip!

 simplebooklet.com

The Hobbit - The Desolation of Smaug - 13th December!!!!!

Well, like much of the rest of the world I am eagerly awaiting the next instalment of the trilogy (?), or should that be "The Hobbit/LoTR Appendixes trilogy as interpreted by Peter Jackson". There is much discussion on the interweb that passionately criticises or praises the aforementioned for his vision/interpretation however I have to say that I am firmly in the camp of those who think its a great piece of cinema. A rollicking adventure tale that pays homage to one of the greatest authors in history.

Roll on more Jackson interpretations I say.

IHMN - Inspector Johnsons Casebook - The Rogue Rifles

simplebooklet.com
Ladies and gentlemen of the wargaming world I present to you, for your literary edification, another exciting instalment of the indefatigable Inspector Johnsons Casebook.

The adventure recommences on page 31!

Terrain Update

This is a quick one as I beaver away at populating my nice new gaming board. There are many really good blogs that document the authors efforts at scratch building buildings and terrain (and here’s just two -  Scotts Wargaming and London By Midnight) however I really don’t have the time to devote to it at the moment (two young children, busy job etc etc).

So I have invested in the amazing innovation of MDF laser cut buildings. Now with a limited budget I have had to spread my funds around a little therefore I have decided that I can afford the time to paint and accessorise my terrain. I shall be doing a little scratch building however these are my first purchases from Martin at Warbases: 

The Church is a lovely little model, very reminiscent of the small village churches dotted around the English countryside and shall be styled on the local church in Ilkley close to where I grew up. It was easy(ish) to build using wood glue, almost all the slots fit well except for the tower floor which needed a little filing. 

However now we come to the problem, I also bought Warbases warehouse model with the view to use it a either a coach house or some kind of steam factory. After building it I then put it next to the church and did a little mental scream - its huge!

 Without a sense of scale the warehouse model makes the church look ridiculous and I shall have to dress the model to explain the scale of. Therefore I’ll be calling in to my local craft shop today for plenty of Evergreen and Plastruct bits and pieces so I can then explain the scale. I’m thinking along the lines of pipes and guttering, fire escapes and walkways (both internal and external). One of the key criteria for my buildings are that you can game the interior therefore I’m very happy that 4Ground have started releasing furniture. Hopefully that should help put the building in scale.

The plan for the Church is to set it in its own grounds, surrounded by a low stone wall. To give it some more height I’m going to mount it on a slight incline and I’m toying with the idea of seating it on some plasticard with etched brick work to give it more height. I also have a graveyard planned to sit separate from the church (using the Renedragravestones) as quite often in the UK graveyards are apart from the church.

Now, I have a deadline for this lovely terrain as I recently had an email chat with Steve at Sarissa and have some of their lovely Gaslamp Alley buildings on the way, they currently don’t list a bundle offer on their website however they’re happy to discuss your needs.

Next up is an update to Inspector Johnsons Casebook which describes a very brutal encounter with rogue elements of Her Britannic Majesty’s military!

Stay tuned and thanks for reading.

Ste

IHMN - The Tiles in Action

My project to create a suitable gaming surface for my Inspector Johnsons Casebook continues apace. You may recall that I purchased some of these lovely little items from a UK DIY store recently - http://www.wilko.com/wall-and-floor-tiles/wilko-floor-tiles-textured-vinyl-mosaic-beige-305mmx305mm-x-6/invt/0318811

Well I have finally thrown together my 3ft x 3ft board and thoroughly glued them in place (the self adhesive properties are exactly that - they stick to themselves (and me!)). Having finally badgered another member of my gaming circle into joining the weird and wonderful world of VSF (he plays Malifaux so it wasn’t difficult) we thrashed through a rather boisterous 3 player game with my regular opponent which I will not go into detail on (an update to the Casebook is pending). However it did give me chance to try out my table and assess whether the tiles look right in terms of scale and colouring. The buildings used are the clubs prepainted resin Conflix ones as my Warbases and Sarissa ones aren’t ready yet.

The comments I received from the other players are that the tiles are a little clean and look too Mediterranean. Too a degree I agree however they were never intended to reflect a gritty Victorian London street but rather a quiet leafy country town/village (Little Minching as detailed in the Casebook!). Luckily I have a few tiles left over so I can try out some weathering washes to see if I can muddy it up a bit.

So let me know what you think:

WW2 Terrain (Parte Deux!)

Not sure why I’ve gone French in the post title, must be one of those days. Anyway as a follow up on my previous post regarding terrain I’ve been a bit of a terrain junkie recently. Not content with painting up the bunkers for my clubs campaign day I decided to get my Quonset huts painted up as well.

Once these little beauties were complete I thought they looked a little lonely so raiding the bits box I pulled out some cocktail skewers and picture hanging wire and managed to bash together some ok looking razor wire. The only issue with it is it’s a gold colour so next time I may just have to give it a light spray with back to dull it down some.

Now looking at this pile of terrain I thought to myself “how would Quonset huts get delivered? By road of course” and so I settled down to try making some roads. One hour, some lengths of balsa, sandpaper and a little paint and base flock later I have some perfectly acceptable roads for my 28mm WW2 gaming.

Unfortunately I’m a victim of my own success and after taking my roads to the club I’ve been roped into making some more roads. This doesn’t sound too bad until you realise that one of the club members runs his own terrain company (click here to see some of his stuff http://wargamestournaments.com/index.html) and has access to a large quantity of spare mdf and a laser cutter. So I now have about 60ft of roads to make from the offcuts of various shapes that he gave me (thanks Ed!).

WW2 Terrain

Bolt Action has become quite a big thing at our club since its release last year with about 8 players and at least two games a week going on. The club in general has about 30 members and what with membership fees and income from tournaments (40k mainly) we have a healthy bank balance. Now as you can imagine with this quantity of gamers regularly playing each week you need a decent amount of terrain. Most of the club members began on Games Workshop games in the main although there are a few FoW, DBM, HoTT players as well and therefore most of the terrain is themed around both Fantasy and Sci-Fi gaming. Over the last couple of years there has been a move away from the big GW games to other systems and genre’s and therefore a need for terrain that fits in with the games.

In terms of 28mm WW2 gaming we have a some fences, hedges (bocage for FoW) and the nice medieval buildings made by Conflix but nothing that says “Normandy in 1944” or “The defence of Stalingrad”.

So we splashed out. We had a quick club meeting, distributed the funds so various members could order goods with me getting the Bunkers category. Now after doing a little scouting around it would seem that there are a few decent companies currently selling WW2 bunkers:

Baueda - Selling the Cama range of resin bunkers 

Steel Models - 1/72 scale resin 

However as we have a campaign day coming up (see previous post) we need to be able to cover at least 5 tables with scenery that at the very least looks a little like the Normandy landings I need to be a little bit conservative with the funds I’ve been allocated. Therefore I went with these guys - Amera Plastic Mouldings . They do a large range of vacuum formed terrain for both fantasy and future wargaming and recently made the Dreadball stadium for Mantic!

Sixty quid got me 5 observation bunkers, 5 concrete emplacements and two large trenchline bunkers. That’s not bad considering I’d probably only get three resin bunkers for that price. Admittedly the resin ones are really nice however I’m on a tight budget and would like to make all the tables for the campaign day look “good” rather than one look “amazing”!

So here's the pics with both before and after. I've included a few 28mm British Infantry to give an idea of scale (sorry about the quality of the images, I'm rubbish with a camera).

I think they've turned out alright for vac-formed plastic. I've based both of these on hardboard to give them some "heft" and hopefully allow them to keep their shape. As they are smooth plastic (see first pics) I've painted them with a little watered down polyfilla to give me some kind of texture to drybrush. Then its just cheap artists acrylic and my own mixed basing flock.

Now I've just got  four more bunkers and concrete barriers and two large bunkers to complete!