Adventures on the Wargames Table

Yes, dear blog reader I couldn’t resist all those packs lining the walls of the Foundry shop! After seeing some of the lovely figures at the recent W&C National Tournament I just had to make a 'proper' start on another Dark Ages army. To be fair I have (a) got a decent sized Saxon force done, (b) already made a tentative step towards a Norman force when I purchased some plastics to do Saga force, so it's not entirely a new army. Really. If you think about it. ;o) Plus I already have a few packs of Normans from Crusader Miniatures in the lead mountain. Then there's the old GW Bretonnians that have a few re-usable figures. So, actually, it made perfect sense to get some Normans from Foundry! It's not a project that I'll start immediately - I really have to get my CoC Late War Germans done first (otherwise Phil is going to get really cross!). After that I'd be keen to paint a few Normans!

To celebrate the recent birthday of Wargames Table chum Phil, I painted a few figures for him to add to his WW2 collection. Firstly, here's a Parachute Officer with a mug of tea from Artizan. Phil bases his leaders on octagonal bases with a few red flowers. Painting recipe: Trousers - Foundry Bay, Vallejo English Uniform. Jacket - Foundry Moss Light, Foundry Bay Shade/Mid, Foundry Dragoon Green Shade/Light. Webbing - Foundry Storm Green Mid/Light. Secondly, in order to ensure no bias to one side or the other, I also painted up this 5cm mortar team from Crusader miniatures. Painting recipe: Uniform - Foundry Slate Grey Shade, Vallejo Grey Green. Bag - Foundry Buff Shade/Mid/Light. Mortar & Gas mask container - Vallejo German Fieldgrey (highlight with base + Bleached Bone light)

At last! My first complete Panzergrenadier squad for my German Chain of Command army. Here's the Squad Leader (MP40) with one of the MG42 teams. To make the Squad Leader slightly easier to spot in the thick of the action I've put him on an octagonal base, courtesy of the ever efficient Warbases . Here's the other MG42 team. The whole squad. The whole squad again. I used basically the same painting recipe on the rest of the squad as I did on the first three figures I showed in the previous post. I've just completed two Senior Leaders (a second SL is a support list option) and almost completed a Panzershreck team. Then it will be on to squad number two. More soon ... hopefully!

My first attempt at World War 2 figures and the start of my Panzergrenadier force for Chain of Command! A chap with an MG42, an NCO with an MP40 and a rifleman. It's also my first attempt at any sort of real camouflage scheme - "Splinter Pattern". All the figures are from Artizan Designs. I found the following links very useful in getting to grips with what turned out to be a relatively straightforward (if a little time consuming) camouflage scheme. The WWS guide on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8l3q1uK2tM (My thanks to Phil for the tip!) Fellow blogger moiterei_1984 (again, thank you!) has a very useful tutorial here http://www.lead-adventure.de/index.php?topic=64023.0 Artizan's own Camo guide http://www.artizandesigns.com/guides/germanpatterns.pdf Here's a couple of slightly closer shots. I used the following painting "recipe"... Grey - either Foundry Slate shade followed by Vallejo Grey Green, or just Grey Green h...

Telegraph poles are one of those items that really seem to make a wargames table look like a 20th century battlefield, so I really had to get some. I considered making them from wooden dowelling, etc but then I saw these from 4Ground. They're advertised as ready painted but I decided that they needed to look more "concrete-y" so I painted the main 'post' black then layered on the Foundry 'Slate Grey' triad. They also make good places to put signs advertising shows - as this keen eyed subaltern has noted. Here's a closer shot of the different styles of 'tops'. The kit includes enough parts to make 7 posts with up to 2 of them being like the post on the left. Oh - and one more thing - pay close attention to the construction diagrams when building them! They're fairly easy to build, as long as you read the notes first.

A quick post to show you some counters I made today to represent minefields in CoC. Here are the Allied counters. German counters. They're simply 50x50mm GW bases covered in sand and flocked etc to match my other terrain items. The posts are just chunky matchsticks and the signs were created in Microsoft Word and printed on a decent quality laser, then backed with thin card. I chose 50x50mm bases as, being effectively 2 inches by 2 inches, it should be straightforward to imagine a further 2 inch 'zone' extending around them. I had initially planned to make some 6 inch by 6 inch bases in MDF but realised that, given the often very scenic nature of CoC tables, they might be quite tricky to place amongst hedgerows, etc. As you can probably tell we're getting quite 'into' CoC here at the "table". Plenty more figures and scenery to follow. :o)

Saturday evening... With two defeats already under my belt I was keen to do much better in this game. It's 1918 and the German Spring Offensives are in full swing. Two patrols encounter each other somewhere in the French countryside east of Amiens... Here's the table. And again from a different angle. Phil had kindly brought along some of his ruined buildings and other scenic bits & pieces. Here we see that the Germans have quickly occupied the ruined church and brought forward an MG08 to support the advance. My wife Jenny started leading the British in this game but as time was getting on she went to bed and Phil (who up until that point had been busily polishing his dice) took over. In the background you can see some BEF behind the wall - probably eyeing up that house as a good point to launch a flank attack against the Germans. More BEF in the centre of the field. They have brought up a Vickers to try to keep the German's heads down! Note the little shock...