Scenic Scatter

Painted for a very good friend’s birthday.

All Hovels resin except the dog which is from Redoubt. The recipe is the same as for the Thatched Hut elsewhere on the blog.

Zero Hour at Legionary

As promised here are some photos from the Zero Hour participation game. I’ve added a few notes to some to help make sense of the action, but really I think the pictures speak for themselves! The basic premise of the game is that the French are attacking a section of the line with the aim of capturing the second line of trenches (including a command post) and the nearby ruined village. The French have superior numbers and armour, but the Germans have a Storm Trooper company held off table ready to mount a counter attack if the forward trench line is breached.

The French mass in and around the blasted wood on a low hill.

And the Germans are waiting in their trenches!

On the French left the Senegalese are supported by tanks and big guns.

Scarab’s WW1 Rommel figure keeps an eye on things from a ruined building (a Charlie Foxtrot kit).

The whistles blow and the attack begins!

German artillery begins to hammer the advancing French as they scramble through mud filled craters and along rickety duck boarding.

The French guns respond in a similar fashion forcing the Germans in to their dug outs.

Artillery from both sides pound the lines causing terrible casualties but the morale of both sides holds steady… just!

The French, now slightly depleted, close on the trench line… are they going to be enough or will the Germans have the numbers to hold? A lucky artillery strike has cleared a section of wire and the French pour through the gap.

Vicious hand to hand fighting erupts as the French seek to take the trenches.

The Germans have been well pounded by French artillery and despite the advantage of the trench, the fighting is finely balanced.

Further along the line the French break through the wire and take out a machine gun nest with grenades. Must be a “gong” awarded there somewhere?

The advance of the tanks was initially slowed by direct German artillery fire. However, they rumble through the wire and, as the French  artillery ceases, begin hosing the Germans with machine guns.

Breakthrough!

Large numbers of troops now race to exploit the gap! Further back though, the Germans begin to feed their exalted Storm Troopers through the rear trenches. Also, with the trench line broken, they can open up with artillery again.

The Germans also have some armour of their own to support the Storm Troopers.

However… a lucky shot, over open sights, from a French 75mm field gun scores a direct (and critical!) hit on the A7V.

Boom! … and the behemoth grinds to a halt in a cloud of smoke and flame.

Here are a few pics from eye level where hopefully you’ll agree that the table looks superb! Well done to Tobruk Models and Terrain!

A great day all round! Many thanks to our players for an excellent game.

Legionary Show

Legionary is almost my local show as Exeter is only 60 ish miles away so when Orange Dave floated the idea of us partnering with Rob at Scarab to put on a demo/participation game of Zero Hour my interest was understandably piqued.

 

The French advance through a shattered wood.

Germans man the trenches.

More about our Zero Hour game in a later post. Dave has put a huge amount of effort in to this project and I think it shows!

The show is hosted in the Matford Centre which is spacious, bright and airy. The people running things were readily available, efficient and very helpful. It’s easy to find too, so we arrived in plenty of time and headed for a McBreakfast (thanks Dave!) before unloading the car.

Here’s a few pics of some of the games:

 

Blood & Plunder from Firelock Games. This game drew quite a bit if attention - just look at the galleon ... Arrrr me hearties!

Devon Wargames put on this large game of TFLs "Kiss me, Hardy!". The boats are from Warlord (I think) and are very good.

This slightly different game of BA (put on by local gamer Matt and family) was interesting as it was based on Operation Dragoon in 1944, allied landings in the south of France.

A splendid looking submarine! Definitely a nautical theme to several of the games this year.

We were so busy running our game (well to be fair, Dave did most of that and proved to be a real Pro!) that I didn’t get to see all of the games on display. Plus there were a couple more nice looking games of BA, a colourful Medieval encounter and an interesting looking game of epic BP but alas my pics are too rubbish to use!

The Exeter crowd are a smashing bunch of gamers plus it was great to catch up with a load of people I haven’t seen in a while, Colin, Bill, Rob, Nigel, Steve P, Kev, Bob C, Stu & Scott of Colonel Bill’s plus many others. Especial thanks must go to the guys at The Pit gaming for lending us a tape measure… Dave and I had everything we needed … except a tape! 😂

WW1 Scarab French

A quick post to show some figures I've recently completed for good chum Orange Dave. Some Scarab WW1 French Chauchat teams.

The Horizon Blue uniform is actually the Foundy Night Sky triad. Rather enjoyed painting these characterful figures.

En avant mes braves!

Coastline Ideas

I trimmed these articles from Wargames Illustrated back in May (ish) 2000 and over the years I’ve often been tempted to put Gary Chalk’s brilliant tutorial in to practice. A tidy up of storage facilities here at the table now gives me the opportunity to begin what I expect will be quite a lengthy project!

The first step will be make some generic coastline tiles, to which end I’ve sketched some ideas for Colin at Charlie Foxtrot Models to work his magic upon. My technical drawing skills are limited so I hope he can make some sense of my scrawl 😂

A mixture of some resin pieces plus scratch building in balsa and coffee stirrers should give plenty of terrain to represent a little quayside or harbour.

Having some sort of coastline, harbour, etc will add an interesting extra dimension to our games of Chain of Command, Sharp Practice, Bolt Action, etc. A bit of common sense should see us through any rule adaptations to bring ships in to our games. Indeed, I’m already drawing up some simple ideas for Sharp Practice to allow troops to dis/em-bark, sail, swim, launch boarding actions, etc. Big Rich did mention a “Jolly Jack Tars” supplement here (a warm up for the award winning “Lost in Musique” Crisis demo game) but alas that was some time ago.

Many years ago a friend and I expanded our games of Warhammer by developing a set of skirmish rules to enable us to play games set along the Empire’s River Reik, pitting the fearless Reikland River Patrol against gangs of River Pirates and smugglers. The old website is still here. It even won an award at GW Games Day 2001 and got an article in White Dwarf!

Blast!

No, not exploding broccoli ... it's one of Orange Dave's new blast markers! Having seen mine, Dave asked if I could make some for him. These will initially be featuring in games of Great War action.

Three smoke "blasts". A couple of sprays of grey primer, followed by a couple of pure white.

Three explosion "blasts". A couple of sprays of black primer, followed by a light spray of grey.

One poison gas "blast". Spray as smoke the hightlight with some green.

This pic might show the green-ish hue of the smoke a bit better. Simply a quick drybrush with Foundry Phlegm Green light.

These are the armatures on to which I stick the Woodland Scenics foam, using smelly all purpose glue from (UK) Bostik or Uhu. MDF bases with holes drilled for kebab or cocktail sticks.

A trick to help make them slight more durable is to prime the foam with very thin PVA before spraying. Make sure you allow plenty of drying time tho. Thanks for looking!

ACW Leader Bases

I hope to be running some intro games for potential new recruits to Sharp Practice soon and I thought these would help avoid any confusion as to which card represents which leader. Designed and manufactured by top chum Colin of Charlie Foxtrot Models.

 

All of my Leaders are based on 2p coins, so the 4mm magnet will hold them quite firmly. After my usual basing recipe (Americana Honey Brown, VMC Tan Yellow, VMC Dark Sand and Foundry Boneyard light) I picked out the numbers in thinned black just to help make them clearer.

Confederate Casualty Markers

To complement the set I made for my Union forces (and as a rest from all the Mediterranean goings on) here are some casualty/shock markers for the Confederates.

All metal Perry figures.