"Arthur" - Mk IV Male Tank

As mentioned in my previous post, I've been painting a Great War Miniatures Mk IV Male Tank for my BEF. All pictures are clickable.

It was surprisngly simple to paint and I'm quite pleased with the results. Here's my recipe.

Black undercoat (make sure you cover any little gaps!)
Base coat all the green/brown areas with GW Charadon Granite.
Highlight these areas by heavily drybrushing with Foundry Drab shade. The heavier effect is best achieved by several successive lighter applications of paint.
Apply a very light second highlight (with a large, soft brush) of Foundry Drab mid.
Tidy up the remaining black areas, i.e. the tracks and exhaust, etc
Tracks and HMGs are just given a very light drybrush of GW Boltgun Metal.
The exhaust was painted using Foundry Tan shade, followed Foundry Tan mid.
The tank number and name are just painted in white. I was pleased with the 'A17' on the flanks, but a little disappointed with the lettering for the tank name - but as this would have been added by the crew I think a little untidiness is ok.

I may yet do some weathering but for now it's done. Next up will be my Signal Staff followed by the last platoon required to complete my 1918 army.

Looking back on the year

Another year whooshes past! Where do they go and why do they seem to be passing faster? It's probably my age ;o)

At the start of the year I set out my grand plans and yet again I've managed to largely ignore them. So what are my thoughts for the last year or so in terms of gaming?

First the good bits...

Shows
I've managed two this year. Penarth way back in January and then my first ever Salute in April. Thoroughly enjoyed them both and got a real gaming boost from each show. I would definitely recommend trying to get to some shows each year. Try make a list of purchases, or pre-order, to save you impulse buying all sorts of stuff.

Events
In March, Scarab Miniatures ran a one day Great War event near Nottingham. We made it in to a family weekend away and a splendid time was had by all. The event itself was superb fun both in terms of the games, and being able to meet some fellow WW1 gaming enthusiasts. With Scarab now re-located rather closer to the South West I hope to attend more this year and perhaps even help organise something.

Rules
I was privileged to be invited to help out with the soon-to-be-published Scarab Ancients ruleset War & Conquest. Whilst I couldn't give it quite as much attention as I'd hoped, I've still been delighted to be able to playtest, suggest ideas, give comments, etc. I look forward to seeing the finished article very soon!

Scenery
Good wargames need good scenery, that's my view. To that end I've managed to get most of my Dark Ages village painted, plus I've made a good start on some items for making Great War tables more interesting. Both projects require quite a lot more work, but scenery for me is one of those ongoing projects. Plus, it makes a nice change from painting miniatures.

Blogs
Writing this blog and reading comments from you gives me both satisfaction and inspiration, and I'm pleased that I've managed to keep the blog rolling along even if I haven't completed quite as much stuff as I'd hoped. A big THANK YOU to all of you who keep visiting, following and commenting! I've also been delighted at reading the blogs of others, some of which I've linked on the RHS. These are another great source of inspiration and ideas.

Now the 'not-so-good' points...

Butterfly
When it comes to gaming projects it seems that I all too easily flit from one thing to another, often without really achieving very much on the previous project. I read plenty of books and fool myself that I'm doing "research". I really need to figure out how to fix this!?

Painting
Despite my grand plans I've made no real progress with my EIR, Celt or Napoleonic armies. To be honest this has been one of the least productive years for a long time in terms of painted miniatures. Which, considering I quite enjoy painting, is rather odd. I could come up with a list of excuses but what I really need to do is find a little more self-discipline, be a bit more organised/motivated and get stuff painted! Perhaps I should sign up for an event that requires me to finish an existing project?

Games
This year I've played a handful of W&C games, four or five games of TGW, plus a few other bits and pieces. Barely one game a month. By George, this isn't good enough!! Maybe more gaming will inspire more painting? Bristol Big'uns meet at Iron Acton (near Bristol) which is just more than an hour away. Whilst this means that the Sunday evening sessions finish a bit too late for me, they do seem to have fairly regular all day events.

Summary
Rather than make plans for painting 'this' or playing 'that', etc, the only plan I shall make is simply to try to do more of everything (time and money permitting). In fact, apart from a few bits and pieces (like shield transfers, bases, etc) I could probably finish some projects without really needing to buy very much! What you get out of a hobby in terms of fun and satisfaction is in direct proportion to the amount of effort you put in. I need to do more painting, playing and going to events/shows.

Saga Update - plus other stuff

As you can see from the photo below, all of the block painting has been completed for the rest of my Saxon warband, but I've still got to get them dipped and matt varnished (and based!). However, the weather has been so cold and wet recently that I've been unwilling to risk the dip/varnish going cloudy. So, they'll have to wait for some better weather.

In the meantime I shall be turning my attention to this.

 

I picked up this Mk IV up at the Great War gaming day earlier this year so it's high time it was built and painted. I think it will make a nice holiday season project. This year we're not planning the usual mad dash around the relatives. Instead we'll be spending most of the hols at home. I also hope to slop a bit more paint on these fellows.

I may also look at making some barrage blasts similar, perhaps, to those splendid models made by Orange Dave (see earlier post). His top tip was to use CD's as they're round, probably free and almost the correct size.

Best wishes for a splendid Yuletide season.

Saxons for Saga - Some Progress

OK, so nothing's actually finished yet, but I thought you might be interested to see how they're coming along. Here's the initial 4 point warband. The Warlord in the centre, flanked by his hearthguard with (ghostly) rabble behind.

A closer shot of the Warlord and the right wing.

And the left wing.

As you can see the Warlord and Hearthguard are ready for the dip, but as it's rather smelly I'll wait until I've done the Warriors then dip the whole lot in one go.

The figures are Gripping Beast plastics (Warlord and Hearthguard) and Musketeer (Warriors). In fact, the Warriors are actually from the Early Saxon range but I'll give them mostly larger shields so they'll be fine for 9th-11th century warriors.

More progress soon I hope.

Vikings for Saga

I'll start with a quick apology for the blog being so quiet for so long. This has been due to raft of recent real-life stuff, holidays and more recently being rather poorly.

Right then, on to the toy soldier stuff!


Having seen the splendid results achieved by a variety of other gamers using the dip (e.g. Phil Hendry, Saxon Dog, etc) I thought I'd give it a whirl for getting my Saga warbands ready for action. I had a few plastic Gripping Beast Vikings ready so I sprayed them white and set to. Here they are.

and

The armour was painted black then thoroughly drybrushed with GW Mithril Silver until it was really silver (as advised by Phil - thanks). The flesh was painted in GW Dwarf Flesh then very quickly highlighted with Found Base Sand Light. Everything else was mainly a Foundry 'light' shade with a few GW browns - no highlights.

Then I brushed on the dip, ensuring that it did not pool anywhere on the figure. Give the dip 24 hours to dry properly before spraying with a good quality matt varnish. It was at this point that I had a few problems with the cold, damp weather. The figures went cloudy!!!

Top tip - if figures go cloudy then re-spray with a gloss varnish.

I eventually got the spray to work ok (by doing it indoors!). In future, if the weather is anything but warm and dry then I'll use a brush on matt varnish instead. After that I did some very quick highlights (and I do mean quick) of some of the base colours, i.e. red, green, boneyard, etc. The great part is that the dip shows you exactly where the highlight is required, plus it really makes the figures look less dipped, and the highlights give the colours more depth. I'm quite pleased with the results. Hope you like them too.

More Painting ... Vickers HMG

Here's the latest addition to my BEF army for The Great War.

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This means that my support weapon tally is now two HMGs and a mortar.
Painted and based as described previously on the blog.

Club Game of The Great War

I've been thinking of going along to the Bristol Big'Uns club for a while now. They're based in Iron Acton (35 miles away) so it's not exactly local for me. Club night is Sunday evening which usually consists of a quiet evening in front of the telly - or pehaps a bit of painting. Hence the lack of attendance so far.

But with the Summer hols now a distant memory I met up with fellow Great War-gamer Dave (aka "Orange Dave" on the Scarab forum) for a game of TGW using the new Over The Top supplement rules.

Now Dave has a pretty impressive collection of WW1 British figures whereas mine is somewhat more modest, so we decided to play the Storm the Hill scenario from the main rulebook using the OTT 1917 lists plus the rules for supporting artillery barrages, etc. As we both had British forces the "battle" would be a training exercise. Which is fine as all the main protagonists of WW1 made good use of such training before many of the big attacks. Dave drew up an ANZAC list and I used the British list.

All pics are clickable.

The battle ... ahem - "training exercise" ... has begun. The British are dug in on the hill and in the nearby trenches whilst the ANZACs begin their advance across a blasted no man's land of craters, woods and barbed wire.

Dave's excellent barrage markers - note the dead horse! Each turn these move forward a set distance - though we both agreed that a slightly random advance would make things more exciting.

The ANZACs begin to close on the hill using the creeping barrage as cover (no shooting permitted through the blasts). During the "training exercise" I was able to get my Battalion Command, aided by the Signal Staff, to successfully call in a couple of barrages. These hit the ANZACs on my right quite hard and certainly held up their advance for some time.


In the final turn the ANZACs made it on to the hill and dealt with the last few defenders to claim a hard fought victory.

Barrages - for both sides these worked really well in that the rules added a bit of extra atmosphere without unbalancing or dominating the game in any way. Having custom made markers really helped too.

So, a great game against an excellent opponent with nice terrain and figures. Add in a good venue and a warm welcome from existing club members. This is what wargaming is about.

The Saga Continues...

Now that I've a chance to have an initial read through of most of the rules I thought it about time to say a few words... I'm not going to give away any particular details of how the rules work as I think that might spoil the enjoyment of others (not to mention being an issue of copyright, etc).

As I mentioned in an earlier post I was a little surprised at paying £50 for a softback rulebook, 4 game boards, 16 dice and a figure. However, I can assure readers that I think it will be money well spent.

The rulebook is gorgeously produced, full colour throughout, with plenty of pics of Dark Age types going at it hammer and tongs. The rules are described in a clear, easy to read manner with many good examples of play illustrating the mechanisms. After one read through I think most people will have a good idea how to play. I've heard others say that the rules are easy to pick up but will prove challenging to master and I would agree.

The dice are used to determine what your units can do each turn, either to move, shoot or fight, or to make use of special abilities. These abilities vary from one 'faction' to another. Faction is another way of saying warband or army. You almost certainly won't be able to everything you want each turn so you'll need to think carefully about how you activate units. Having some sort of plan or strategy will help enormously I imagine!?

Another word or two about the dice ... you can play the game using ordinary D6 as the rules include a conversion chart but I feel it would be a bit like playing the game with unpainted miniatures. It would work but you'd be missing out on some of the atmosphere. They're not cheap but I'd recommend getting them.

One nice feature of the rules is that distances are a series of fixed lengths (the book includes photocopiable measuring counters) that each have a name. This means that the old chestnut of imperial versus metric measuring is very neatly dealt with.

The game is very much scenario driven and rules include a number of ready to run scenarios. But I reckon most mature gamers would have little bother devising their own scenarios from historical sources, books, films, other games, etc.

To start playing you'll need two sides comprising of around 25 figures each. Even I can manage to paint that many figures. Standard table size is 4' x 3' (1.2m  x 0.9m) so you won't need too much scenery. If you can get your hands on a few thatched buildings that would be even better.

Furthermore, the rules could easily be extended by enterprising players to cover other eras such as the Arthurian age. In fact I believe I read somewhere that GB are thinking of doing exactly that. I certainly hope so.

So, in summary, they're a great looking set of rules that I think will provide many hours of splendid wargaming fun. Highly recommended indeed!

Adventures in the Dark Ages

Look what arrived in the post yesterday!



Along with two sets of Saga dice (Viking and Anglo-Danish) and the limited edition Sven Forkbeard figure.

However, my initial reaction was slightly "oh, is that it?". I paid £50 for a 75 page softback rule book, 4 cardboard army rosters, 2 sets of 8 dice and a metal Viking warlord figure. Hmmm. So I hope the game proves to be as good as all the hype.

I haven't had time to read it yet - only a quick flick through - but the production quality does look high with lots of full colour photos, graphics, etc.

Trees for The Great War

There are many pictures from the Great War that show once leafy woodlands reduced to blasted tree stumps surrounded by mud, so with that image in mind I set about making some for the gaming table. Rather than steam ahead and make lots I thought I'd make a test piece to see if the finished result looked good enough.

The stumps are made from bits of an old shrub I found in the garden. It was so tough I had to break the stems with pliers! I sawed some of the ends so as to give a good bond with the base. The base is simply a piece of 3mm MDF liberally covered in filler. Later it was covered in a mix of sand and grit.


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Here's the finished article.


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The base was painted in Vallejo Leather Brown and then liberally dry-brushed with Flat Earth. Then I added a couple of highlights with a light brown and a cream colour. After that came a light garnish of static grass and a few pieces of scenic foliage.

Here's a few of my BEF making their way across no man's land.


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Now I need to get on and make another two or three sections. Also, more painted figures soon.

Craters for the Great War

One of the defining features of Great War battlefields is a great number of craters. Making them for a model battlefield is simple - especially if you make use of the GW 40K plastic craters set. Here's how they were made.

Apply some PVA glue around the edges and add the odd splodge around the rim of the crater. Then build up the texture in layers starting with chunkier grit / gravel.

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Then add some sand.


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Painting is straightforward too; start with a good layer of Vallejo Flat Earth (983). It may need two coats to properly cover the grey plastic. Next, paint the crater itself with a darker brown, e.g. Vallejo Leather Brown (871), make sure you drybrush out towards the edges as this blends the two colours nicely. Then drybrush with the following colours, all Vallejo, Gold Brown (877), Tan Yellow (912) and Dark Sand (847). The crater should be drybrushed but more lightly. Finish off with a small amount of static grass around the edges.

Here's the finished article.

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A closer shot. I may add some 'water effects' mixed with a small amount of Leather Brown to give it a properly muddy appearance. The main Great War rulebook has another example with duckboards, barbed wire, etc.

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Oh, and we managed another smallish game. Here's a photo of the start of the game. Apologies if it looks a little odd, I tried to join two pictures with only limited success! ;o)

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It was another splendid game too. The scenario was Secure and Hold with four sets of boxes & crates being the objectives. After eight turns both sides had only a handful of shattered units left but the BEF had one battleworthy platoon that was holding the crates in front of the farmhouse and so managed to scrape a victory. I should also mention that the Highlanders - left foreground - managed to advance through a hail of fire from the Beutepanzer (captured tank) and then despatch it in spectacular style with a grenade attack.

Hold The Line!

Even with all the War & Conquest excitement I couldn't resist playing a game of WHW's "The Great War". When Rob last visited he kindly brought along another batch of Great War Miniatures Late War Germans, which gives me almost 500pts of the fellows. Of course they're not painted yet which is why you'll only see a few of them in the following pictures.

Hurriedly unpacking new figures, blu-tacking them to bases and getting on with a game really brought back memories of when I first got in to Warhammer Fantasy Battle many, many years ago. Anyway, before I go all misty eyed and start rambling even more, here's some notes and pics from our game.

The basic scenario for the game is that the German Spring Offensive of 1918 has run out of steam and the Allies are vigourously counter-attacking, in this case somewhere near Amiens. A small force of German Stellungsbataillon have been pushed from their original lines on one of the quieter sectors and have hastily dug in on the outskirts of a small village. There's about 750pts of BEF and 420pts of Germans.

My wife kindly took command of the BEF - as they're painted - and I led the shiny new Germans.

The forces were approx as follows

BEF
Battalion Command - Colonel and 4 soldiers
Red Company, Command Group + 2 platoons of 10 figures incl Lewis Guns
Yellow Company, Command Group + 2 platoons of 10 figures incl Lewis Guns
2 x Vickers HMG section
1 x Light Mortar section
1 x Platoon of Highlanders incl Lewis Gun

Germans
Battalion Command - Colonel and 3 soldiers
Grey Company, Command Group + 3 platoons of 10 figures incl MG08/15
1 x MG08 HMG section
1 x Light Mortar section
1 x Grenade Launcher
Flamethrower detachment (not strictly allowed for a Stellungsbataillon but shhh! ;o))

Here's a shot through the trees from above the German lines.

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The fine fellows of the BEF prepare to advance!

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And get off to rather slow start?

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Now they're after them ... and the German mortar is doing it's best to slow them down. Captain Carruthers and one platoon from Red Company are pinned by the blast.

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On the other flank the Flamethrower detachment got bogged down in the woods so the Highlanders fixed bayonets and rushed forward. Now, I must confess that I got the combat rules slightly wrong here and the Highlanders wiped out the German detachment in one turn, whereas some should have survived - but the I'd have needed to pass a morale test with a whopping -5 modifier, so the end result was about the same.


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Not to be outdone, the British mortar team land a shot amongst the German battalion command. Amazingly only the Colonel is killed and the others hold the their nerve.


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After another turn or two the superior British numbers really began to tell as the Germans were whittled down to just a handful of troops stoically clinging to their positions. By turn 6 it was clear that the British had driven the Germans back and could claim a clear victory. Had the German HMG not been taken out early in the game then it might have been a much closer run affair.

Considering that I've only played a handful of games of TGW, and this was my wife's first game, things went very smoothly indeed. Only a few rules had to looked up in the book. It was also a very enjoyable game with plenty of laughs.

Now I just need to finish off my BEF and then paint 40-50 Germans! Plus I could really do with a bit more Great War specific scenery.

+STOP PRESS+ Just received a copy of "Over The Top". Huzzah!

More War & Conquest

With a few days off what could be better than a day spent play-testing some more of the forthcoming War & Conquest from Scarab miniatures!

Rob brought perfect wargmaing with him again - it was chucking it down with rain. Re-painting the window frames will have to wait for another day :o)

Whilst the rules are still in development they are very much at the fine tuning stage. As such I won't go too much in to the mechanics during this post.

There's a bunch of clickable photos shown below, but first I'd like to say that I had a superb day of playing wargames, nattering about wargames, eating good food and marvelling at Rob's seemingly endless knowledge of Rock music. He used the phrase "anorak" - not me!

Both games were straightforward pitched battle affairs, though we did move the scenery around a little for the second game. The game plays very well with a good balance between detail and abstraction. It actually felt like I was in command of a large force of barbarians trying to overcome the might of Rome. The system the strategy points whereby you can influence command and/or morale tests really makes you think about what's most important on the battlefield - there just isn't enough points to do everything which nicely represents that even the most able command cannot be everywhere on the battlefield at any one time. It makes the game less predictable without bringing in lots of annoying randomness. It also makes you think ahead at least one turn.

I was also lucky enough to see a few pages of the proposed layout and "By George!" it's going to look VERY good indeed!!!

Anyway, enough preamble ... here's a few pics of what happened. (Captions follow each picture)


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The battlefield featured a small gallic farmstead and here's Mr Celtic-Farmer welcoming his new overlords and "offering" them a wagon load of supplies in return for not being chopped in half.

Game 1


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Deployment. Note the wide formations. We agreed that the farm area would simply all be considered as rough ground which would slow our troops and make their move less predictable but not hinder the game too much. I decided to hold of the warbands in reserve in case the Roman cavalry tried any crafty outflanking manoeuvres.


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The action starts to heat up with the warbands closing in on the Roman line. By this point there had been some satisfying fights between the opposing units of skirmishers, with the more numerous Celts getting the upper hand and moving closing to the Legionaries so as to pick a few off with stones and javelins. I directed the noble cavalry on the left ratehr badly leaving them close to the Roman auxiliary archers and war machines.

Blah


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The opposing lines clash and begin what would become a mighty struggle as each side tried to grind the other to dust. Like the noble cavalry, the reserve warband was not effectively used and could have played a vital role. But warbands are not particularly manoeuvrable in WAC - which seems right to me.




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The noble cavalry were very lucky at one point - the archers and the scorpion opened up on them requiring four armour saves. Just a few more casualties and they would no longer be an effective unit ... in an unusual display of dice rolling skill I managed to save all four!


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A little later and we see that one of the warbands has been shattered but the others continue the fight. Barbarian numbers fighting hard against Roman tenacity! At last the cavalry have got their act together and are ready to descend on the Roman rear.

Even with the intervention of the deplted noble cavalry the Celts could not get the breakthrough they needed. But the Romans too were tiring and their numbers were dwindling. The continued until each side had fought the other to a standstill with no clear winner. The battle lines had held for both sides and we agreed that it was clearly a draw.

This was a fantastic game that could have gone either way at several exciting points during the game. Perhaps if the noble cavalry had got in to the game earlier ... perhaps if the reserve warband had also got in to the fight.


Game 2

We swapped sides with Rob taking charge of hairy horde whilst I donned the purple and led forth the legions... This game proved to be a much more decisive affair!



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The Celts had massed their cavalry on the their right flank and their skirmishers on the left, which is exactly what the Romans had done too.


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The lines begin to close. Note that whilst I kept the legions in the wider formation of 9x2, I decided to use the Auxilia in a 6x3 formation, on the basis that the extra depth would make up for their slightly lower effectiveness in combat (in comparison to the legions that is). The wisdom of that decision would soon become apparent.


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On both flanks some amazing concentrated missile fire from the clouds of skirmishers saw off both the Romand Celt light cavalry. Note the Celt warband immediately to the right (as we look at the photo) of the noble cavalry ... these were the fellows who had made little impact in the first game. This time they meant business.


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A couple of turns later and what a difference. The warband mentioned earlier have chewed through one of the units of Auxilia and have pursued into the one behind. The Roman skirmishers have fled the farm as the noble cavalry approach. In the centre another warband are having the best of it against the regular legionaries. The verteran legion have routed a warband, whilst the other cohort of regular legion are squaring off against two further warbands.


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The second unit of Auxilia were quickly despatched as were the nearby legionaries. The routing warband rallied very well and would return to the fight almost immediately. The other regular legionaries fared poorly against the smaller warband but held their ground and hoped for the Auxillary archers to help out on the flank.

By now it was getting quite late, we played another turn and it was clear that the Celts were going to win a decisive victory so we called it a day.

One ruleset, two games and two very different results all depending upon how things are played out. Jolly good fun indeed!

Fields of Glory

Or possibly "Wargaming BBC Gardeners' World" ... there are a plethora of not-very-funny options! But first, for my non-UK based visitors I should explain the BBC Gardeners' World is a weekly gardening TV magazine programme from the BBC, from Spring to Autumn, about all things gardening. I must confess that I do occasionally watch this programme.

Anyway, here's the gaming stuff.

I've wanted to build some fields/garden for a while. The original plan had simply been to build a few ploughed fields but the modeller in me took over so now I have a couple of what are more like gardens, plus a small ploughed field. Here's some pics.


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I prefer scenery to be usable for a variety of historical periods, so here's some redcoats (L-R Perry's plastic and two Front Rank) defending a field of produce from Boney's horde.


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From the other side of the fence. (Wood courtesy of your favourite coffe shop)


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This definitely more of a garden, so perhaps the leaning towards the Great War is understandable. The Hun certainly aren't going to get at these potatoes and carrots without a fight!


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The same garden from a different angle.


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This meant to be a ploughed field but in this shot it's very difficult to see the plough lines.


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Hopefully this pic puts things in context. I had planned to do a step-by-step for these but simply forgot. However, they started as plain pieces of 3mm MDF with chamfered sides. The edges and ploughed ridges were built up using cheap filler and the whole lot was covered in PVA and fine sand. Painting is Vallejo Flat Earth followed by a number of very light browns and cream. The ruined wall is 3mm foamcore with plasticard tiles on top. The gate posts are simply 5x5mm balsa. Wooden fencing supplied by a well known coffee company. The hedges and other plants are mostly Woodland Scenics foliage. Then I've added some Mini-natur plants

Now ... where can I find a 28mm figure of Alan Titchmarsh wielding an AK47?

Enjoy.

Multi-based Celts

The bases have arrived (from Warbases - highly recommended) and I've started on the first warband. Ostensibly this is a 32 figure warband but by jumbling the rear ranks slightly and adding a GB hound figure I've only used 29 Celt figures. I've tried to make the front ranks from the better equipped "noble" warriors, whilst warriors of lesser status (or perhaps less enthusiasm?) comprise the rear ranks.


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Haven't added the sand and paint yet as I'm considering a slightly different basing colour using mainly Vallejo paints rather than GW as the Vallejo offering is cheaper and easier to get hold of.


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Here's a shot with the stands spread out slightly so you see more clearly how they're ranked up.

Right ... another 150 figures to go!