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!

IHMN - Inspector Johnson's Casebook - The Enemy Revealed

Or as Sergeant Johnson would put it "Rescue The Guv"

What follows is the exciting conclusion to the last instalment and should shed some light upon the indomitable Inspectors current adversaries.

Read on!
(Page 27)

The Tiles Have Arrived

And finally I got the phone call telling me that my floor tiles were available for collection. It's weird being exited over some floor tiles however it's been over ten years since I've had a gaming board at home so I've been really looking forward to building this one.

Anyhow, on to the matter at hand. The board is primarily going to be for skirmish gaming so I decided on a 3ft x 3ft, so once I'd dropped the tiles at home I dragged my lazy carcass over to my local diy store for some battens and hardboard. I wanted to make it out of mdf however it's a) too expensive, 2) not cut in 3ft widths and iii) errrr, I can't think of a third.

So I bashed together my 3 x 3 board and liberally smeared it in pva as I don't trust the adhesive component of the supposedly self adhesive tiles. Below is a rather bizarre pic of the board with tiles attached as it dries on our kitchen table (an alternative use for some of my weird reading material). I've also provided a comparison shot of the tiles with few of my IHMN Scotland Yard for all you folks with an interest in this.

I'll post some more once it's dry and touched up. The next step is buildings (you can't have a good Victorian wargame without some Victorian scenery) for which I will be copping Pitt and buying the rather excellent Gaslamp Alley range from Sarissa Precision with some extras from Warbases (collecting those from Fiasco in Leeds this weekend).

Stay tuned as it looks like the brave Inspector Johnson may be moving to a more scenic locale!

IHMN - Inspector Johnson's Casebook - The Missing Inspector

It has been some time since the last update to the illustrious Inspectors Casebook however finally we have a new instalment and unfortunately for said Inspector it doesn't actually feature him. 

Therefore I shall leave you in the reliable arms of the very brave Special Branch Sergeant Arthur Johnson (no relation). The story continues on page 21.

Pennine Raiders - Normandy 1944 – A Bolt Action Campaign Day

As the title says my club is running its first Bolt Action Campaign day on Sunday 1st December. Now luckily I didn’t write the rules pack, our resident historian did (and he’s qualified!) however I did advise on the content and have been busy beavering away at play testing.

Now you will note that its termed a campaign day. The main reason for this is there has been a bit of a split in the way that wargames tournaments are perceived here in the UK with many gamers wanting to move away from the competitive list building ethos that has been prevalent for a number of years. Now that’s not to say that tournaments aren’t fun its just that we (here at the Pennine Raiders) would prefer to stage an event that is a little more informal and geared toward historic re-enactment.

Below is a link to the aforementioned pack (click the pic!) and those lovely chaps at Warlord Games have provided a whole raft of goodies for prizes so were hoping it will be a fun day for all.

Although the rules are held in Google Drive they were first published on the Warlord Games Forum which is a good placeto head over to. Have a bit of a natter with like minded BA’ers and get an idea of where the game is going.

The Small Print: The Bolt Action Logo and Warlord Games logo have been used without permission and are the sole property of Warlord Games. Should there be an issue with their use please contact me immediately and they shall be removed. There was no intent to neither infringe any commercial rights nor infer that any connection exists between Warlord Games and Pennine Raiders.

Flames of War US M4A1’s

Well I’ve finally completed a FoW unit for my fledgling 101st Airborne and weirdly it’s a tank platoon. These are the M4A1’s that came with the version 2 Open Fire set.

I’ve had them sitting about for ages and finally sat down to paint them and I have to say I loved it. So much so that I’ve ordered a platoon box and got some M10’s and security section to increase the armoured support and give me an alternative to a solely infantry game.

I’m making slow progress on the para platoons however they are getting there and I should have the first platoon completed by the end of the week (9 stands, Command, Mortar and Bazooka team).

I’m Baaaaaacccckkkk!

Well its been a short while since my last post simply because I went on holidaty. And a lovely holiday it was, most relaxing (well as relaxing as it can be with 2 young children, sand and a swimming pool!). That’s why there has been a distinct lack of hobby material emanating from this glorious halls. However that shall now be rectified!

First up we have a little terrain for my ongoing foray into 28mm World War 2.

These little beauties are designed for the Dust Tactics game however they are perfectly scaled for 28mm wargaming and are a treat to put together. Each one is a three part model, no flash, takes paint really well and as an added bonus the doors open (woohoo). 

At between £15 and £20 for six this is an easy building purchase to decorate your WW2 games and provide an objective (and can double up for SciFi games as well).

I’ll post some images of the painted ones in action next week.

Next is a further update to my Flames of War exploration. I have all the models I need to complete Easy Company, 506th PIR other than the character pack that Battlefront do, however I’m not sure whether I want to get it. I think mainly because it feels like a sales gimmick, however one thing I am doing is sticking to Battlefront mini’s for my airborne as I think they are good sculpts that are reasonably priced. I have almost completed 1st platoon, two 57mm guns, three M4’s and half a Glider Recon & Intel platoon so I’m making pretty good progress. I don’t like to put up in progress pics of mini’s so you’ll have to wait till I’m done.

And finally I’m about to start my In Her Majesty’s Name board and have planned out what I need. We have found that the game works great on 3x3 so I’ve ordered two packs of these little beauties for the basing:

I’ll put nice of them down on a precut MDF board and edge it for durability so should look pretty good and also multi purpose (I may branch out into Malifaux and EoTD). Now as I’m building this board it would make sense to utilise the reverse so I have an alternate gaming area. So what could I prepare the other surface for, perhaps a new project, hmmm let me see……….

More next week kids.

Ciao