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

Wow, I’m a year older. Guess I’d better do a review!

As the title suggests I am a year older (and that means me and not the blog) so in the tried and tested tradition of most bloggers on an anniversary of some kind I thought I’d do a review of my efforts since my last birthday.

September 2012 - Septmeber 2013

Well it was quite a significant 12 months in terms of gaming and hobby related bumpf (Yorkshire slang for “stuff”). It was around this time last year that I finally made the decision to abandon GW products completely, my reasons being much the same as many other gamers, bloggers, housewives, employees etc:

• Price increases
• Rules changes
• Change from hobby to profit orientation

I could wax lyrical on the decision however suffice it to say that I have happily not looked back. I had already been playing WAB for a while and still do occasionally, that being the one rule set that still appeals. However I have since broadened my interests into more historical periods and much like most wargamers out there have been overwhelmed with the amount of good material being published, cast, moulded etc. That’s not to say that it wasn’t available previously however it would seem that to this humble bloggers view there has been a sea change in where the £/$/Y/E is being spent and thus a number of smaller companies (one man bands) are benefitting from this bounty.

So where did my hard earned get spent in the last twelve months? Well my list of hobby projects seems to have sky rocketed over this period, with slight deviation into the evil world of WHFB (argh!):

In Her Majestys Name - Ooh where to start. A nice cheap ruleset from Osprey, skirmish based so there’s minimal outlay and the rules writers are active on discussion forums. The epitomy of hobby based wargames in my view and spawned my desire to do a little fictional writing (see Inspector Johnsons Casebook here).

WAB/Clash of Empires - Still playing however not so much CoE as it feels a little like the poorer cousin to WAB. Unfortunately I have too many projects on the go at the moment (Saxons, Early Imperial Romans, Greeks).

Bolt Action - World War 2 skirmish games at their most “Hollywood”. I jumped in feet first on this one when the rules were released, managed to drag a big chunk of our gaming club along as well and will be assisting in a campaign day we’re running in December. The side benefit is it managed to revive my interest in WW2 gaming in general which resulted in :

Flames of War - My disillusionment with GW led me to trade in a big chunk of my rulebooks to Amazon (boo hiss I hear you cry). However I then spent my ill gotten gains on a US Airborne force with some online sellers and have been thoroughly enjoying this revival in a system that big chunks of the gaming populace seem to have abandoned (typical). In a similar vein this leads to:

Lord of the Rings - I know, I said I had abandoned GW. Well it would seem that not entirely although in my defence I would categorise this as New Line/Peter Jackson Lord of the Rings gaming as the imagery comes from the films hence my reason for collecting this. It was also done as a way to demonstrate that you can game fantasy settings on a budget, all my purchases have been from other gamers who need to clear their lead/plastic pile and I have made some mutually beneficial trades.

WFB - Warhammer Fantasy Battle (on a budget). I did this purely as a finger to the ridiculous pricing policy of GW and put together a 1500pts Daemon army for our club tournament. I did badly however won the best painted for my £11.09 army (for my see my article here)

Saga - Still trying to figure this one out however its fun, uses my existing figures and seems different enough for me not to get it confused with other systems.

English Civil War - I started this simply because I picked up a bunch of Warlord Games Parliamentary figures on the cheap. Luckily a fella at our club is a bit of a local ECW buff so ran a small campaign based on the local area using WAB ECW and Pike & Shotte. We’re still finishing this one off!

Naval WW2 - This is a bit of a solo effort by me and I still have no opponents. Not sure what rules I’ll use however I intend on setting up the Hunt for the Bismarck and picked up the Davco models from Skytrex at Triples earlier in the year.

So am I going to complete any of this? Well I am still plugging away at my LoTR models and have opponents at the club on a slow boil (metaphorically speaking). WW2 seems to be my focus at the moment with our upcoming Bolt Action campaign and Flames of War modelling (which I’m thoroughly enjoying). I should have a bit of a modelling update shortly and have been trying to sort out the terrain for a Normandy beach assault for the club so will share that once I figure out the beast way to layout 5 x 6’ boards on a limited budget.