Adventures on the Wargames Table

My first full group of painted figures for my Anlgo-Portuguese army! Six Portuguese Partisans armed to the teeth and ready to hunt the French. They're all from Front Rank's superb partisan/guerrilla range. Movement tray by Charlie Foxtrot . They're all painted in a range of mainly Foundry colours; the complimentary triads make it far easier than messing about mixing shades. I've painted each of them with an item (usually a sash around the waist) in Foundry Royal Purple as this is the colour of their partisan band. The basing is a mix of small stones and grit/sand given a base of Americana Honey Brown then highlighted with VMC 847 Dark Sand then Foundry Boneyard light. Colonel Bill's Winter Grass along with a few arid looking tufts of longer grass and some small pieces of Woodland Scenics clump foliage finish it off nicely. Next will be their leader, the infamous Açougueiro - "The Butcher" and an irascible little holy man on a do...

It's been a while since I last took part in a WaC event (Aug '17 I think!) so I was anticipating an enjoyable day of battling it out in the ancient world with a few good chums. I was especially looking forward to my game with good chum George; the last game was far too long ago! For logistical reasons I could only attend on the Saturday, however this turned out to be the same for a number of other players due to the suddenly inclement weather, the so called mini “beast from the east”. Game One – Saxon Civil War! This game was against Steve, a newcomer to WaC and this was to literally be his first game. Thankfully Rob was on hand to help us with the rules as I was decidedly rusty in places :o) Steve has a lovely Saxon army so I’ve posted a couple of pics here. I dusted off my own Saxons but, as I hadn't used them for three years, I couldn’t quite find all of the figures so we were limited to 2,000pts a side. The forces deploy for battle! My Saxons prepare ...

I cannot quite express just how much fun this game of BA with Mike was. Absolutely thrilling from start to finish. Mike and I met up at Bristol Independent Gaming where James gave us a very warm welcome, plus he kindly provided most of the scenery. It's been a while since I went along to BIG but I shall certainly be back as soon as I can - highly recommended! Anyway, we played the Top Secret mission, so again my trusty wrecked 251 model was the objective. Mike was using his lovely US Paras and I had my Panzergrenadiers. Turn 1 saw a steady advance of troops with emphasis on the centre, funnily enough. Here I've deployed a squad on the road plus squads in the fields to either side. Mike has deployed his Paras in a broadly similar manner. The superb light blue building is the Charlie Foxtrot Models Boulangerie . Lovely! ;o) Turn 2 and the first German squad reaches the 251. Predictably the US MMG in the ruins showered them with lead, killing several and inflicting a pin...

Funny thing is I wasn't going to post this as our collections are very much a "work in progress" in the sense that some of the scenery isn't finished and only a few of the models are painted, etc.  But it was so much fun, plus I want to keep a record of our developing campaign.  So here goes... look away now if lots of unpainted lead offends you! Top chums Paul and Colin have got me in to Sharp Practice in a big way, so Paul and I started with a straightforward encounter between his French and my Anglo-Portuguese.  It was a jolly good fun game and an ideal re-introduction to the rules for me.  Interestingly, just one moment from this first small-ish game led to the scenario for the game I'm blogging about below... right at the close of that first game the young Light Company Lieutenant Archie Carruthers was knocked out during a French attack and his men forced to retreat.  We decided that he'd been captured. After some discussion (and possibly a few beers) P...