My Other Blog

Yes that's right I have another blog, (stoveboxter.blogspot.co.nz) its not hobby related but rather just random musings on the state of the world. Its had a bit of a hiatus however I feel the need to revive it and record my rather disjointed thoughts for posterity.

So head on over if you've a mind and have a nosey:

50 things I want my kids to know

Where have I been

Ste

I finally found my paint table

Yup, after the nightmare that is moving house I've finally found my hobby supplies and set them up in a discrete spot. Unfortunately the space I had hoped to secretly designate as a game room is:

a) not big enough for a 6'x4' table; and

b) has to be used as a spare room for visiting dignitaries (or parents as some of you may call them).

However the double garage is easily big enough, however it does need some work doing on it. Once it's boarded, insulated and appropriately lit it will easily house a few tables and comfortably store my terrain and boards. We may have to sacrifice one of the cars to the horror that is the New Zealand weather however I'm sure it'll cope.

Oh and you may have noticed the odd 15mm tank on my painting table. It would seem that Panzerschreck has fanned the flames of my flames of war interest (see what I did there). Ash and I have a game tomorrow, late war Germans vs US (bulge based) and I plan on finishing my 101st Airborne soon so I can get a few games in with Panzerschreck team mate Paul. And I have plans for an early war force for next year.....

So hopefully the blog will have a bit more hobby content soon.

Gaming without my toys......At Panzerschreck!

Being and officer in the Russian army was never a glamorous experience however being one in a Shtraf Battalion even less so, mused Captain Pavel Waechter as he surveyed the ground he was supposed to advance through. Over the small river he could still make out the Italian and Finnish forces digging in and preparing defensive positions at the base of the small hill at the rear of the hamlet he and his men had been tasked with capturing.

As he considered his options Captain Steopa Haran climbed out of his command tank for a hurried tactical discussion.

“Any thoughts on how to tackle this Captain” Steopa asked in that annoyingly eager and inexperienced way of his. I’m sure the comrade Kommissar would approve Pavel thought.

“Yes, I do. It’s simple really, get your armour through the river on the left, hold the centre with the Su100’s and I will outflank and smash them with my company!” Pavel replied.

“Are you sure Captain?” Steopa asked, “My tanks will get wet”.

“Yes I’m sure, just do it and think how grateful mother Russia will be for the sacrifice of your soggy socks” Pavel replied as he stomped away to prepare his penal troops. Why did they have to send him someone so inexperienced!

A weekend away playing wargames with someone else’s miniatures? What more could any self-respecting wargames nerd ask for. Panzerschreck was here and I had very generously been given a weekend pass by my family to attend, although this was really badly timed as it coincided with moving into our new home and also the school holidays, so there was a whole host of things that needed doing. However I had already committed to partner up with Paul before we got our moving date so it was agreed – I would play games all weekend with my friends and owe my wife and kids BIG TIME!

So a nice early start on a cold Saturday morning saw me flying up the highway to Pauls’ house so we could car pool with Scott and his son Chris up to Palmerston North. I have to say I’m really glad Scott was driving as this was the middle of winter and the sun was dazzlingly bright and shining directly in our eyes as we drove north. Scott did an excellent job of not smashing us all into any oncoming traffic, roadside ditches or sheep (this being New Zealand after all) and we arrived on time at the venue, got registered and started mingling with the rest of the players. If I remember rightly there were ten tables, therefore 20 teams so in total 40 players. Not a bad turn out for a country with a population of about 200! (it certainly feels that way sometimes).

Now I was going to do some kind of AAR, Batrep write up thingy however I didn’t take any pictures, I didn’t make any particularly great decisions and I was pretty much there for the socialising aspect and to help Paul out. However Paul did take pictures and actually remembered some of the detail of the games, so to get an idea of what actually happened head on over to Paul’s blog and enjoy his take on things (and he actually makes me look OK rather than bloody awful). http://reddogofwar.blogspot.co.nz/2015/07/panzerschreck-aar-day-one.html

Anyway what were my highlights and what did I take away from this perfectly formed little event? 

Well let me see:

• Scott, Paul and Bryan are better at FoW than me…….but I learnt stuff so it was worth it.
• IS2’s are HUGEEEEEEEEE and very cool, I want some (in the same way I want more Panthers’)
• Don’t ever assault a Shtraf platoon, it’s very scary. Avoid them at all costs (unless they’re mine, but then I’d have to paint them and there’s flipping tons of the buggers!)
• Combined arms are the way to go. We had too many instances where our infantry were faced with Armour and couldn’t threaten them. Need more guns!
• Tournaments don’t have to be grumpy and confrontational. They can be fun.
• It’s easy to paint 15mm, its hard to paint it really well. However all the armies were painted well, and some were amazing. It should be a given that when you go to a tournament you bring something you are proud of.
• At Panzerschreck the Will Wheaton rule was evident. There were no Dicks!
• No-one has an encyclopaedic knowledge of the rules, not even the writers (there were plenty of Battlefront staff/writers playing).
• Battlefront staff were enjoying themselves, they actually like the game. Wow that makes a change, a hobby company run by hobbyists. Hmm that sounds familiar but I’m not sure where from?
• If you mimic a horse, clop your coconuts together and shout “for Sigmar!” you get a reroll (but you can’t use it in FoW!)
• I met Poppy, the official spokesperson(dog) of Pauls blog - reddogofwar.blogspot.co.nz

At the end of the two days I was tired but happy, I had played five games of Flames of War and enjoyed them all. I even came away from it wanting to paint more miniatures which is unheard of for me after a tournament. I’m usually all burn out and grumpy but I have to say that the way to tournie was run and the general camaraderie of everyone involved made it a worthwhile experience.

There were various prizes dished out (with generous prize support from Battlefront) however the surprising thing (for them at least) was that both Bryan and Scott, stalwarts of the Wellington/Kapiti gaming scene won 4^th place. 

Scott who many of you will know has done a write up of their adventures over the weekend on his blog so head on over to scottswargaming.blogspot.co.nz for tales of derring do and ambushing halftrack craziness!

And for more coverage of the weekend visit the Regiments blog - http://regimentnz.blogspot.co.nz/2015/07/its-not-winning-that-matters-its.html?showComment=1436849254625#c9008134192654802367

Next year Evan (the TO) has suggested early war so I’m now trying to decide what strangeness I can pull together before then. Maybe an SAS patrol, Mathilda company or some other equally useless brilliant idea. My plan being to drag Ashley along to partner up with so he can pick up the slack and carry me through……

My toys have gone to bed

Cathartic and yet depressing, my hobby table has been emptied of everything even vaguely resembling paint or miniatures. All my toys are in boxes and ready for their final move to the new house.

I miss them already.

Brief intermission while we move again!

Warning - minimal hobby content, reader discretion is advised!

Its not often I post solely about real world problems however this one does impact on my hobby. You see we sold our home in May 2012, then moved into a rental property (bit of a dump really), then another rental property (very pretty!), then a caravan (luckily it was a brilliant summer), then lived on a plane for 40 hours (arghhhhhhhh), then a holiday home (in the NZ bush), then another rental (our cliff top aerie) and finally after 3 years, 6 moves and half a world of travel we're finally moving in to somewhere we can once again call home  - as we've finally bought a house here in NZ and move in soon.

So we're frantically packing our things up for the 4th time, I'm sure there are some things I still haven't unpacked from 2012. Anyway most of my hobby stuff is in nice neat little boxes now (erm.... actually quite big boxes, now my better half can see how much stuff I actually have and not how much I profess to have! )

So the blog posts may be a little sparse over the next month or so although I should be able to manage a write up of Panzerschreck in July which I'll be attending. Luckily I'll be playing with Paul's minis so shouldn't have the usual night before tournament painting panic to deal with!

Aah it'll be nice to have our own home again!

Laters
Ste.

More junk - This time it's fences.

It's all Ash's fault (honest). He talks me into playing Saga again, really twisting my arm and using his best emotional negotiation tools and wham! I decide to make some more terrain.

This post is short and sweet, after all how lyrical can one wax on the subject of fences?

These fences are basically lolly sticks, lolly sticks and some more lolly sticks, based on lolly sticks and textured with sand I knicked from the kids playground. Took about an hour to make but as I used PVA to glue them I had to wait a full day before painting them. I've another 3 squirrelled away somewhere so I have enough to make your average dark age village a death trap for any mounted intruders wanting to pillage my household wares, say maybe, oh I don't know, Normans?

Hmmm now who could be starting a Norman warband, I wonder?

More junk from nothing!

You may recall that in a previous post I exhibited my lovely little 15mm desert village of Do Ahh Diddy made from scraps of junk! Well I decided to add to that a little creative extravaganza with the British 8th Army forward Observation base of Dum Diddy

I cracked these out one Saturday afternoon when the weather was being unruly (as it often is here in Wellington). The kids were quite baffled why daddy was cutting up a toilet roll, bottle tops and biscuit wrapping however once complete they were quite pleased with “daddy’s soldier houses”.

As I said I crafted these from a toilet roll cut in half, I then cut a couple of plastic milk bottle tops in half and glued them at either end to provide some strength. Whilst this was drying I grabbed the corrugated biscuit wrapping card that I had set aside ages ago in my random bits box (how blokey is that, “it’ll come in handy one day” I must have thought) and squished it as the corrugations were the wrong scale. Then it was cut to size and PVA liberally applied and stuck down (elastic bands came in handy at this point). The remaining toilet roll tube was then used to cut blanks for the wall ends of each hut (the bottle tops weren’t smooth enough) and doors and windows applied.


Liberal application of sand to a card base and some random junk from the bits box was applied, spray undercoat of Humbrol dark sand and then various washes, dry brushing and a bit of spit and polish (along with a little blood as I cut my thumb without realising it) and hey presto – a forward ops base for the British 8th army to abandon/reclaim/abandon in the weirdness that was the Benghazi handicap!

If you look closely at my previous post covering the action at our recent gaming day at Chez Bowman you may spot my little obs post. They doubled up as excellent field kitchens for my CO's brew ups!

And talking of that recent desert extravaganza here's the objective token I received as a memento of the event.

I believe it was Paul who suggested we all made objectives to exchange on the day and this was the one that Ash painted up. I didn't have any models suitable so kit bashed something from my random bits box - Ali Baba's second hand gun emporium. Unfortunately I completely forgot to take any pics however if you had on over to Paul's blog you may just find it as he was the lucky recipient!