Adventures on the Wargames Table

It’s that time of year when we as gamers tend to look back at what we’ve achieved and then waffle on about future plans for new armies, grand scenery projects and glorious conquests!!! Well, I’m no exception ;o) so here we go... What have I achieved this year? Attended my first Bolt Action tournament and had a blast! Competitive? Yes it was, but in a very open and friendly way. Played Kings of War – some superb games especially in Steve’s man-shed and with the Cornish crowd :-D Participated in a superb Bolt Action campaign with Orange Dave (ok, the finale is still to play but the five games we’ve had so far have been awesome!) Completed a number of very enjoyable scenery projects, e.g. the Charlie Foxtrot Brasserie, the CFM Signal Box and a scratch built railway, etc. Took part in several gaming weekends with friends – always great fun! Kept my painting ticking along by completing a WW2 British Para force plus added a few more units to both the Panzergrenad...

My Charlie Foxtrot Models Brasserie kit is complete! As I mentioned before, my intention was to make a 'tile' with outbuildings, etc. Here it is. The back garden even has a little fruit & veg patch. I've added some signs to both the café and the outbuilding. I've also placed some of the bits and bobs I posted recently. The basic idea is that the tile can be placed on a corner or junction. The tiled area is just good quality printed card with a nice matte finish. Here are a few shots of some of the extra components. First the large shed or outbuilding . Pics of my brasserie can be found here . A couple of signs/adverts give a nice French theme. Add a bit of mould and lichen on the roof! Every café needs a suitable convenience... an outside w/c . Here's the tile without the buildings or clutter. The brick piers and gate are from Charlie Foxtrot but pretty much everything else was scratch built. The walls are foam-core with individ...

Sunday 27th November saw the LBWS stage the Reveille wargames show in Bristol. Colin of Charlie Foxtrot Models kindly asked me to help out on the stall for the day... So here we are... The "CFM Twins" :-D Handsome... Dashing... What more can you say? ;o) The venue and thus the show is a relatively small affair but everything was well organised with plenty of friendly people to help out. The traders included a few bigger names (always good to see!) such as Warlord Games , Magister Militum and Colonel Bill . Scarab Miniatures were there too (good to catch up with you Rob!) with a demo game of the excellent Zero Hour rules run by Alan and Nigel. Here the Germans have a lightly defended trench with plenty of Stormtroopers waiting off table ready to counter-attack. The British (with some French help) begin to take the trenches! More British move up to consolidate the gains made by the first wave The game concluded with a solid win for the British as the Sto...

The new second edition of Bolt Action sees the addition of templates for things like HE, so Colin has produced a superb set of templates and tokens (available here ) to aid smooth game play. Here's my (slightly customised) set :o) Here are the 'turret jammed' and 'vehicle immobilised' tokens. These are the 'snap to action', 'air strike' and 'hidden' tokens. The snap to action token allows you to clearly note which units are being commanded by putting the newly drawn order dice in the token. No danger of muddling them up with units that have already been given a dice. Here is the blast marker template. Note the double 1" token in the centre, just like it's shown in the diagrams for HE in the book. The set also includes dice holders for continuing fire weapons such as mortars - helps to avoid the dice being picked up during play. All that for the very reasonable sum of just £7.50, so why not grab yourself a set?

I like to be able to decorate my tables with a few extra little scenic items to help give the impression that the buildings are 'lived in'. Here are a few I completed very recently. Boxes and a crate of tomatoes. They're a mix of resin (Ainsty and Grand Manner), plastic (Tamiya 1:48) and metal (Foundry) figures. Lettuces and apples... fancy a fruit salad, Sir? The paint scheme was simple block colours, a bit of wash then some highlights. The oil drums were just VMC Russian Green. I may base these as a little vignette. Think I might get some more too! They'd make a great little objective marker. Oil drums and fuel cans... perhaps not ideal cover? A couple of my buildings have proper gardens so I thought a wheelbarrow for the gardener might be a good idea. Clearly the owner of this one enjoys a glass or two whilst trimming the hedges!! I've based it to match the paths on the buildings with gardens. Nice little figure I thought. That Tommy has his ey...

At last I've finally got my grubby paws on a copy of the new rulebook!! So I thought I'd publish a few of my thoughts on the latest incarnation of what has become pretty much my favourite game. There's a superb video from Chris Harris on YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GjTgxG-RgDk (well worth subscribing too!!) There's also a demo game from Beasts of War here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4aJGzJDiKMg not the most exciting viewing ;o) but quite instructive. Warlord have some articles too:- http://www.warlordgames.com/bolt-action-2nd-edition-the-tweaks/ http://www.warlordgames.com/bolt-action-2nd-edition-the-tweaks-part-2-he/ http://www.warlordgames.com/bolt-action-2nd-edition-the-tweaks-part-3-officers/ The production quality of this hardback book is exactly what you'd expect from Warlord & Osprey. Sumptuous colour photos, superb artwork and top-notch graphic design; it's a pleasure simply to browse through it. In no ...

Wargames Table chums Rob Broom and Orange Dave put on a rather splendid Somme inspired WW1 demo game for Dave's superb Zero Hour rules at the Worlds show, Donnington (01/10/16). Now, I couldn't make it along but I did supply some scenery and troops so I was kind of there in spirit! ;o)  Here's a few pics... (slightly dodgy lighting made good pics quite tricky) British mass for the attack on the German trenches From the German side New technology makes it's debut ... a tank rumbles into the line! Not to be outdone... he comes the RFC Advance! The French also attack The tank proves useful at cutting through obstacles A shattered farm somewhere on the Somme Every battlefield needs a river The British reach the trench lines! Hurrah! Hopefully this demo game will gradually expand and feature at a few more shows!