Adventures on the Wargames Table

Here's my first 40K figure in well over 20 years and I've thoroughly enjoyed painting it! I'm leaning towards an Evil Sunz themed army and my paint scheme reflects this, i.e. quite a bit of red, but much of it is equally applicable to all Ork clans. The recipe, starting from a black undercoat (GW Chaos Black), is as follows: I began by drybrushing various metallic items (weapons, armour, etc) in GW Leadbelcher, GW Warplock Brass and GW Gehenna's Gold (use this last paint sparingly).  Do this first as it can be a little messy, then tidy up with black.  Be sure to leave some of the plates and glyphs in black as these can be painted later in clan colours. Base Colours Ork flesh - Foundry Dragoon Green shade Trousers/Vest/Boots/Straps/Pouches - a variety of browns or leave some bits black. Good browns are GW Mournfang Brown, GW Scorched Brown, VMC Leather Brown, Foundry Spearshaft shade, VMC Flat Earth - just get a good mix of dark/mid/light browns. Tip -...

The Orks are coming! It's been almost 25 years since my last game of 40k. That was back in the 90s with second edition.  It all began back in the 80s with "Rogue Trader" - Tim had Space Marines and I had Eldar.  After that I collected a fairly sizeable Imperial Guard army to face his Orks.  Then we all played Gorkamorka which was an absolute blast!  Eventually these forces gathered dust and were sold on as I moved towards more historical games in the early 00s. So why 40K now?  Well, quite simply because I love the models and indeed the whole background of the game.  I've had a desire to play something non-historical for a while.  I had hoped that Warlords of Erehwon and my Middle Earth Orcs & Goblins would fill that role but I really didn't enjoy the game so I turned from fantasy to sci-fi... I'd heard good things about Star Wars Legion but whilst I love the films I didn't actually fancy gaming them. A friend and colleague, Rob, had re...

Here are some fine fellows from the entirely fictitious Royal Somerset Regiment. Six men led by their (Level 1) NCO, Sergeant Ebenezer Goode. As with the 95th Rifles in my earlier post, I've painted these relatively quickly by limiting the number of layers to one or two.  I've also been a bit less "tidy" but at tabletop viewing distance it really doesn't notice! Here's the recipe (from a Halfords grey primer undercoat): Flesh - Foundry Flesh shade/mid/light Jacket - Foundry Madder Red shade, Foundry Bright Red shade Trousers - Foundry Slate Grey mid Coat roll - Foundry Slate Grey mid/light Backpack, Boots, Cartridge box & Shako - GW Black, Foundry Charcoal Black mid Facings - Foundry Cornflower Blue shade/mid Canteen - Foundry Night Sky shade/mid (strap in Rich Butternut shade) Haversack - Foundry Boneyard shade/mid Plume - Foundry Dragoon Green shade/mid Musket - GW Scorched Brown, Foundry Conker Brown shade Belts & Straps - Fo...

Crikey! Real Life (tm) has been rather hectic recently...  When I haven't been working towards crazy deadlines I've been out having heaps of fun with my lovely girlfriend Sarah.  Anyway, I've managed to squeeze in a bit of brush time and fancied painting something a bit different. The figures are Front Rank miniatures - beautiful sculpts!  The resin fountain is by Grand Manner and the church is from Charlie Foxtrot Models . Painting Napoleonic figures has always been a slow process for me as I tend to get bogged down with lots of details.  So with these I've tried a slightly different approach. The flesh is painted in the usual Foundry triad but most of the rest of the figure is just block painted or given a very quick single highlight.  I decided that lots of highlights and details are just lost when you're actually playing and viewing the figures from several feet away.  A friend (thanks Paul) suggested I follow the old adage of "faces, bases...

Like many of us I was playing fantasy wargames ‘way back in the day’ using various incarnations of GW’s Warhammer Fantasy Battles.  So when Warlord announced these rules I was mildly interested, then I noted the author and my interest increased substantially.  Some good chums got the rules and said many good things, so I jumped in and bought the book. The Book. The pic I took for eBay (oops... Spoiler alert!) Initially I thought the production quality was very good, despite the book arriving with an errata card for some missing text.  But after an initial read through I see that Warlord still aren’t bothering with a thorough proof read.  This is a pity because otherwise the book is a thing of beauty. Reading rules and actually playing them can be quite different experiences.  I skimmed through to get the gist of things knowing that a friend was going run some games for me and another friend me.  There are plenty of detailed explanations of how the ...

Following the hard fought encounter at Capela do Campo das Estrelas, the wounded Lt Carruthers fled into the hills and found refuge amongst friendly Portuguese villagers at Vila Nova de Capelo. But with French patrols closing in, the villagers hid Archie (and any grog they couldn’t carry) as best they could and headed for the safety of the higher hills.   Both sides are searching for Carruthers! The main objective is to find him and move off your own table edge.   The secondary objective is, as ever, give the enemy a good thrashing! Dramatis Personae Paul – French (Boo!) Colin – British (Huzzah!) ( Who, as it turned out, was “indisposed” ) Matt – Portuguese (Huzzah! in a Portuguese accent ) Paul’s French Force Capitaine Pierre d'Escargot (III)   3 groups of Line Infantry Lieutenant Victor Feu (II)   2 groups of Line Infantry Lieutenant Rennie Lescun (II)   2 groups of Grenadiers Lieutenant Francois Rapido (II) Sergent Hector Soixante-...

Yes, the blog is back in action. It's been "off air" for a little while to allow me to do some behind the scenes tidying up, de-cluttering, etc.  It's been going since 2007 so a clear out was definitely required!  It shouldn't (in theory) appear any different. The break has also given me some time to mull over what I want from my blog and to think about what readers/visitors like.  I started way back with two blogs; one for battle reports and one for painting, but quickly combined them.  As time passed it became a more generalised hobby blog with show reports, product reviews and random waffle, etc creeping in. I know from the stats that battle reports are often very popular but I must admit that these are by far the most time consuming posts to write.  They also require me to faff about taking lots of pics during the game along with making a few notes, which can at times be a bit distracting from the enjoyment of play.  So... in future there will be fewe...