Adventures on the Wargames Table

We tend to play games with relatively little armour (most of the time), however I couldn't resist this marvellous armoured car from Blitzkreig miniatures. The kit was easy to build, consisting of a chassis, four wheels, a turret, barrel and machine gun. That's it! Oddly the pic in the web store shows a few extra bits like smoke launchers (I think) but they're not supplied? My only real grumble was that Blitzkreig took quite a while to deliver and I had to chase them up. But I do appreciate that like many gaming outfits, it's possibly a "hobby business". I have yet to sort out the transfers/decals as they're not supplied with the kit, but the painting recipe is: Undercoat with grey primer Base coat of VMC Russian Green Another base coat of 50/50 mix of Foundry Forest Green shade and VMC Russian Green A good wash of GW Agrax Earthshade Highlight with the base colour mix, then VMC Russian Green. Weathering is Foundry Bay Brown mid, VMC Tan Yello...

Sunday night is club night for the Bristol Big’Uns so Steve and I recently met up for a game of Kings of War. He very kindly loaned me the use of his splendid Ogre army whilst he fielded his Samurai themed Kingdoms of Men. Now, I’ve played a few games of ‘Kings’ over the last couple of years (may be half a dozen in total) and generally had quite a lot of fun, so I was looking forward to this game plus it’s always good to catch up with Steve, Rob, Alan, Simon, Dave, Nigel, etc. We rolled for the scenario and got ‘control’ whereby at the end of the game we would divide the table in to 2 foot squares and work out who had the most troops and thus controlled the area. Deployment was by alternating unit and was quite funny for me because I had very little idea of what my troops stats and abilities were, so I just deployed them to ‘look good’ :o) Steve got the first go and began a fairly cautious advance; he had plenty of missile troops so a few turns of bows, arquebus and cannon fire...

I like my battlefields to look a little 'lived in' so adding a few items of scatter terrain is nice way to achieve this aim... and these items from Grand Manner are just the ticket! First is a kiln, so my Portuguese farmer is also quite handy as a potter. The kiln is actually from GM's Ancient Greek range but I reckon that the design of such things was probably fairly similar right around the Mediterranean and also didn't change that much between Greek times and the 1800s. Obviously I am now going to meet someone who has a PhD entitled " Kiln Construction & Pottery Manufacture in the Mediterranean from Antiquity to the Modern Day " :-D Painting - basically the same as the Church and Grain Store. Light brown spray to prime the resin, then a base of Americana Honey Brown, then highlights of Americana Fawn, VMC Dark Sand and then finally Foundry Boneyard Light. The base is Americana Honey brown followed by highlights of VMC Tan Yellow and VMC Dark S...

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...