New-to-me Swedish FoGR army

A few years back now, John bought a couple of renaissance armies off the net: a Polish and a Swedish army. They were based on 9cm long bases and for the life of me I can't work out what ruleset they were for. Maybe Impetus? But the fact was that John couldn't be bothered rebasing them and they just sat in his cabinet for ages. Then I decided that I wanted to buy some Renaissance armies, and was planning to sell my Arab-Israeli collection to fund it. So John and I just swapped. I can still play Arab-Israeli games at his place and work on developing and playtesting the army lists, and I got a couple of prepainted armies to rebase for Field of Glory Renaissance.

The full 800 point Early Swedish Thirty Years War Army

Having worked out the points for an early 30 Years War Swedish army I set about chopping figures of their old bases and rebasing them on the recommended basing for that ruleset.

Two units of cavalry, commanded shot and the dragoons.

The bases are not complete yet, they need painting and flocking, but they can be played with while I work through that.

More cavalry and commanded shot with the just freshly based generals at the back.

The painting is not to my usual standard, with a lot of unshaded 'coloured-in' areas. But in bulk they look fine, and I actually think it gives them more character. I'm going to 'dip' them and then varnish them eventually, but there will be no repainting - for once I am really glad to get  a pre-painted army that I don't have to put in the projects queue.

The Infantry. Yellow, Red, Blue and Scots.

having said that, the Poles will need a bit of touching up.

Finnish Hakkapeliita.

Amongst the figures are quite a few Mike's Models. These have a pretty terrible reputation, but I really like the little fellas. The Swedish cavalry regiment above is Mike's and I think that they have character. They are going to be my Finnish Hakkapeliita. The Polish army has a lot more of these chaps, but they work, and I am quite happy to have them in there.

Closer look at the cavalry.

Closer look at the Scots Brigade.

The Old Yellows. These guys have had dip brushed on, but they are still pretty monochrome. They look great from a distance though!

There we have it. A new period that requires bugger all work to get all set up. I'm looking forward to playing the Field of Glory rules as well.

Nate

World War One Wednesday

In memory of Ginger.

One of the most poignant sequences in the Charley's War series is when Charley loses his mate Ginger to a random shell. The war-weariness and numb shock in Charley's face are perfectly captured. Proof once again that Joe Colquhoun was the best comic book artist of his generation.

And I have started back into painting some more Blue Moon World War One figs tonight.

Nate

Paliax comic

Just a quick post to point people in the direction of a webcomic being published by a former student of mine.

Paliax is the tale of a Golem in search of himself. Check it out at:

http://paliaxcomic.com/

The first page of the comic. I'm sure Sean won't mind me putting it here if I link it back to his work!

I won!

It seems that Tim at Heropress liked my little comic strip outlining the origin of the Hand and decided to award it first place. Today my prize arrived in the mail - a copy of the Icons superpowered roleplaying game.

The cover of the book

I have never done any roleplaying, always being a tabletop miniatures gamer, but to be honest it doesn't look too different to something like Supersystem. I'm going to give it a good read, but first impressions on flicking through are that it is a colourful, well-laid out book. It may convert well into miniature gaming, or it may be the first time I actually cross over to the dark side and try some roleplaying. Either way, I'm very grateful to receive it and a big thanks to Tim for running the competition.

Nate

World War One Wednesday

Photos of the dioramas at the Australian War Memorial. Apologies for poor photography.

Gallipoli

More Gallipoli

Palestine

Palestine

Turkish gun and Turk

Light horse charge

Mont St Quentin

More Mont St Quentin

I thought that this was Hamel, but on reflection I think it is actually Dernancourt where the Aussies helped stop the Kaiserschlacht.

More Dernancourt, if that is correct.

This is either the Somme or Passchendaele or Bullecourt. I can't remember.

In the Gallipoli exhibition there is an Aussie and a Fernleaf (we only became Kiwis in France) side by side. 

Awesome museum. I was overwhelmed by the number of visitors as well. Especially those taking their kids along.Get there if you can.

Nate

I must have these!

'Ohh - shiny' does not even begin to describe it. Unlike Empire of the Dead which, despite its late Nineteenth Century setting, was just too horror for me to get my teeth into, this is right up my alley. The third set of rules to be released by Osprey in their wargames series is a steampunk skirmish game, In Her Majesty's Name, and it appears that North Star Figures in the UK have the official figures for them.

These are available for pre-order post free world wide and retail for £27 per faction, or $50 NZD. I love Lord Curr's company (above) and the Prussians (below). Although I have to ask why it is always the Prussians/Germans who experiment with Zombies? It is the same with Weird World War Two games. Why do the British and Americans never take the lead in necromancy or genetic manipulation? Sure Nazis are baddies so they do nasty things. But Nineteenth Century Germans? No worse than any other European power I would have thought. Harumph. Lazy typecasting if you ask me. But still very cool.

I do like the descriptions given for the various box sets on the North Star site. Not only are the figures fantastic, but the background sounds like the kind of world I could have dreamed up myself.

Although not as appealing to me as the British and Prussians, I love this Black Dragon Tong Gang almost as much. A Yeti!

And the last group are these cultists. Probably my least favourite of the three, but I bet I end up buying them anyway! All of the pictures are directly from the North Star site, and I hope they don't mind me using them. I guess it is free advertising.

All in all - very cool, and I am looking forward to them being released in April, and the rules in May.

Nate

Friday night was games night

Once again we scurried, hopped and crawled our way over to John's place for another Irregulars Games Night. Once again we broke out the Flames of War 3 game tourney, but this time using Late War lists. now I need to spend some time teaching terry about list writing for random tourneys, because you never know which army you are going to roll up. Jeremy rolled up a Jagdtiger company which consisted of 3 Jagdtigers, 2 SdKfz 7/1 AA trucks and a whole lot of whoop-ass. Not only did my paltry US tank force get wiped off the board in half an hour, but a Churchill force being run by Terry went the same way.
Oh well, by the end of the night I was getting the hang of using yanks and was able to wipe out John's Gepanzerte Panzergrenadier company to finish a respectable 4th out of 8 players.

It is hard to fight in a built up area when the roofs don't lift off

I think next Games night we'll try something a bit different like a Napoleonic Game...

John and Richard contest an objective. At this stage the halftracks are still alive...

Lots of burning Shermans, but where is the opposition? Oh, that's right - Jagdtigers.

Troops always perform better when their officer is facing the wrong way.

Oh, look - so many burning Churchills the lightly armoured AA trucks feel like they can charge the enemy.

Connor tries playing StuG hide and seek: 'Ve can see you!'

This was fun. My Shermans sat 22cm away from the Fallshirmjager and pummeled them. However, due to their dug-in nature, I didn't succeed in taking out a whole platoon. One hour of play - one uncontested objective held, 6 turns of whittling away the enemy at one base a turn.

Red Devils teach the enemy a lesson. Yet more burning StuGs in the background.

Still shooting Green Devils...

YES! We have the objective and can now come second. Not any better because we can't match the bloody Jagdtigers.

Again, another fun night, but I do have to admit to enjoying the early war games more. it all seems so much more balanced, even if John does run around with his super-dooper British Armoured regiment, inflicting chaos and pain.
One thing this night did provide was a bit more understanding of the assault rules in version 3. This is a good thing, as we haven't really had much chance to explore this aspect of the rules.

Nate

CanCon 2013

Not to be confused with Cancun, CanCon features significantly less bikinis (in fact if the frequenters of Cancon wore bikinis it would probably cause temporary blindness and permanent insanity in all who beheld such a spectacle). It is in fact an annual wargames event in Canberra, Australia. As many people in the mid-west of the USA know, New Zealand is part of Australia, (or Antarctica, or maybe Canada) but it was still a significant achievement for me to wrangle a trip in which I could attend the convention.

Demo game of Froshwiller 1870

I stayed with my mates Dan and Marcus who have been in Canberra for a couple of years now, and it was great to catch up with them. I didn't play in any tournaments, they are not really my thing. Originally I was going to try and get in on a demo game but found that there was too much else to do, so never got there.

Relief of Peking 1900 demo game

The demo games that I looked at with interest were Froshwiller 1870, Peking 1900 and Isandhlwana 1879. There were also Napoleonic naval, 6mm and American Civil War games, although these don't really float my boat so I didn't pay much attention to them.

What I really went to Cancon for was to buy stuff, and so I did. The updated rulebook and Hurricane Season scenario book for Dystopian Wars along with some scenery and a French fleet were acquired. Most of this stuff was less than half price, and so was a snap purchase, but one I'm glad that I made. It has fired up my enthusiasm to try Dystopian Wars again, so has led to a cryogenically suspended project being brought back to life. It also helps that I saw the board that Marcus and Dan had made for D Wars and decided I would like to have a go for myself.

My Dystopian Wars Britannians about to get dusted off.

I purchased the Peter Pig Square Bashing rules and army lists from Mick's Metal Miniatures, and really like my initial read through of them. I'm considering leaving my WWI figures individually based so that they can still be used for Through the Mud and Blood and using 8 figures for a battalion for Square Bashing. My original plan was to use them for my 10mm 1914 games, and these I will base in the recommended way.

A copy of Charge by Young and Lawford found its way into my possession for the princely sum of $5. It is not in mint condition, but what matters is that I have a copy to sit alongside my edition of Charles Grant's Napoleonic Wargaming. Also at the second hand stall was a bag of Napoleonic Spanish figures, mostly Minifigs but with AB artillery crew and lights. There was enough for 2 and a half battalions of infantry (light battalion will be half sized), 2 regiments of cavalry, a unit of militia and a gun. These will be painted as the army of Frankenberg. I'm really looking forward to that.

The Frankenberg coat of arms

On top of it all, Marcus and Dan gave me a company of Brit paras for Flames of War, as they don't really play it. I had sold all of my WWII Flames of War, with just my unpainted Fallshirmjager left, and had decided that I really did want a couple of armies sitting at home to play with if the fancy took me. So a new project. Finally Marcus gave me his old Tamiya airbrush, due to Dan buying a superior one. This is fantastic, because I can't get matt black undercoats like Chaos Black here any more. Now I just need the power lead.

The reason that I was in Australia in the first place was to visit Sydney's Australian Museum and the Alexander the Great exhibition they are holding. It was fantastic, and made me dead keen to get my Macedonians and Persians started. Then I visited the Australian War Memorial in Canberra, with its stunning WWI collection. I can't recommend visiting there enough, and I just wanted to get my WWI done. But one thing at a time, and at the moment that is the French Revolutionary War project. Then WWI and Dystopian Wars followed by the ancients.

The British camp in the Zulu demo game

British command

The Zulu horde

Prussians advance

Hopefully I can get back to some regular posting now, although work has started back up this week and is, as usual, hectic.

Nate