Boxing Day Game - Black Powder

Todays game was a trial run of the Black Powder rules.

6 Battalions of Saxon infantry, 1 cannon and 2 light cavalry squadrons versus 9 Battalions of Russian Infantry, 2 cannons, 2 Light cavalry squadrons and 2 Cuirassier squadrons.

The Saxons had to hold the line and prevent the Russians from breaking through. We decided that he Saxons would move into position  whilst the Russians Marched up the table.

Saxons fail their Command rolls with only the gun getting into position.

 

Russians advance



Saxon Cavalry attempt to buy time.

 

Russian Infantry close for the kill.

 

View from Russian lines.

 

 Saxon Cavalry are bounced. The Russian Cuirassier's then fail there command rolls for 6 turns!!?

 The first Russians assault and are only just held off.

 

 In the middle things were about to take a turn for the worse for the Saxons.

 

 General view of the Battlefield.

 

 The Saxons looking a bit thin.

 

The End is near.

Just a Shaken Squadron left of the Saxons, Game Over.

General views of the rules are that they are very vague and poorly written. It is a bugger to find the rules you need and it is very hard to read through them. They need a little bit of rationalisation and a lot more reading. Especially multiple combats and the Morale rules.

Next Year Game Plans

Happy Christmas to those that read this.

Gaming plans for the new-year with each Game system given a Two month Gaming slot which should equate to around 8 games of each minimum:

• Cold War Commander 1/300th scale
• AK-47 15mm Scale
• Black Powder 15mm Scale
• Dystopian Wars
• Warhammer 40k.
• Zulu
• HOTT

Quick Games to be played are as follows:

• Zombicide - just got the new version for Xmas.
• Dead Mans Hand - New Building to be purchased along with 2 new gangs
• Paragons Gladiator Combat - First printed in 1977!!!
• Star Wars - Need some new ships for the Dark side.

Armies to be updated/Painted:

• AK-47 African armies to be completed.
• Falklands Armies to be based to AK-47 or Cold War Commander, the later needing Pendraken figs. - URGENT Job
• Napoleonic's to be rebased and re-flocked.
• Cold War Armies to be rebased, repainted and reorganised with excess units disposed off.
• Warhammer 40k.
• Zulu Armies to be finished and rebased.

Armies to be sorted and disposed off:

• Excess 1/300th moderns
• A reduction of 15mm WW2 Flames OF War Armies, to core army units only.
• Thinning of Warhammer 40k Armies.
• WW1 Early War French Army in 28mm.

Many will notice that FOW has dropped off my list of games along with Battlegroup Kursk. These are under review this year and as noted above under reorganisation. This disillusionment has been festering for the last year. Partly down to the way  Battlefronts business plans have gone , Certain opponents at competitions that sapped the fun out of gaming and v3 late war madness.

These games may resurrect them selves but for this year I doubt I will Play WW2 15mm. No fault of Battlegroup that I won't be playing these rule.s just I am all FOW tuckered out.

Any one interested in anything, please ask.
Thanks
Jon

Christmas gifts

This is what I got for Christmas...Yay!!!!!!!!

From my Daddy..

Zombicide Prison Outbreak

Zombicide Dogs..Grr, Woof, Bite...

 

Thanks Daddy.

My Friend Richard sent me some Apache's in 28mm for my Dead Mans Hand game, just need the stats for them.
Thanks Richard

My Xmas present to my self was part of an AK47 Army of  E(Vil)bay.

Yay thanks me.

 

CWC Danish Battlegroup - updated

 Been Busy in da shed. Still got some work to finish them, but this is my CWC Danish Battlegroup c.1979. Don't know if they were in these colours back then but I wanted this colour scheme. It will eventually become a 1984 army.

Danish Battlegroup c.1979

Close up of M113's before drybrushing and base finished

Been busy again today, I have done the highlight's.



Command Units, I have since straightened the wonky aerial.
 

Artillery Support.

3x Infantry Companies.

2 Centurion Companies.

Leopard 1A3 Company and Anti Tank sections along with Recce M41's

 

Cold War Commander

Having now got my Hard Copy of the rules, A quick read through finds all the rules I struggled to find during our first game.

I have now undertaken a rebasing program and paint update on the units needed for the scenario we were playing.
And Friday Night saw us start the game, although we called a stop to it a few hours later, to be continued later this week.

The British are as follow:
CO
2x HQ
2 Tank Squadrons each: 4 Chieftain Mk.5, 1 FV438, 1 Recon Scorpion
9 Infantry units with CG upgrades
1 Recon Scout unit.
1 Milan unit (Scott)
1 Blowpipe unit
10 FV432
1 FAO in Gazelle
1 Attack Helicopter, Lynx ATGW
3 Abbots
Around 4000 points

Soviets are:
CO
3x HQ
9x T-64 I
18x T-72
18x Infantry units with RPG
18x BMP IFV
3x ZSU23-4
3x BRDM Spandrel 5
3 x Recon BRDM
2x FAO
9x S21 122 Artillery
2x Hind A Attack Helicopters.
8000 points

 

Below are some in-game pics but the blog's photo editor is not working for them for some reason.

The Soviets are getting a slight mauling as the middle tank company absorbs the British Fire. The Two flanking Companies suffer a command blunder one after another and fell back..Grrr..

The Bottom pic shows the Left hand British Platoon supporting a Milan team about to be terminated by the T-72 Company, Scott claims he is the Milan Unit in the middle of the wood.... Well it looks grim for him me thinks.

 

More to come...



Cold War Commander and Modern Gaming past and present.

Downloaded a copy of Cold War Commander whilst my Hard backed (or Soft backed as it will turn out to be) arrives. Basically I purchased the PDF version before I found I could get a printed version for a little bit more ... DOH!

My Modern gaming - The Past

I had first started moderns around 1990 when Challenger 2 ruled the tables. I had entered several competitions at the Derby Worlds back when Moderns was cool, Then Bruce died :(

The then owner of Table Top games who sponsored the competitions and owned the publishing rights to the Challenger series decided to make some money out all of us Modern players as he was not selling enough as it was.

HE took all of Bruce's hand written notes on a new version of challenger and with out proof reading it or play testing correctly, he released it too the world.
So one year at Derby we were told the following year would be played with the new Challenger 2000 rules. Well we all flocked to the Table top trade stand and we all purchased as set. We were told the army lists would stay the same, but the following year the new competition packs arrived and all the lists were for more modern armies and not the 1980's ones we had used and the engineering assets had been increased. Now we all had to buy either new armies or a large quantity of engineering assets.

Table top games made ££'s out all of us. The playoff's went quite well, then the main event arrived, well it was argument city for every one, the umpire was rushed of his feet, we even approached the owner of Table top games and asked what did he mean by a rule?? his reply I still remember to day, was "I don not know, I only wrote them!" ??????.

I believe almost every one at that competition went home and burned their copy of Challenger 2000.
The Following year, Moderns was dropped from the Derby Worlds.

Well the then Table Top games owner defiantly saw the ££'s disappear as in one foul swoop, and one badly written set of rules destroyed the 1/300 modern scene for many.

It was too late to go back to your old rules and for me Moderns died. My armies sat mothballed for years. We tried to use WRG, Command Decision, spearhead and Battlegroup Modern Rules (BGMR). The latter set of rules even made a small come back as a competition game for Derby but has now sadly been discontinued as a competition event.

Army list come and Army lists go, but my armies still sat there idle. None had the feel of Challenger or Challenger 2, and try as I may, I just can no longer absorb these rules, My mind rejects them at every turn.

My Modern Gaming - The Present

Cold War Commander has been mentioned by a lot of players as being very good and enjoyable, and I even saw a set of rules a few years back at my friends house. So I searched the internet and read a few reviews and purchased a PDF version. I have tried reading them on my computer screen but my mind won't let me read too much. So now I await my hard copy.

In the mean time we tried to have a game, just using the basic rules. I struggled to read the rules off the screen and without the hard copy I just couldn't find the rules I needed fast enough. Although we had an enjoyable evening playing them. We will hold off until the rule book arrives so I can better read the rules.

So over the next few months we will give CWC a good go and hope to rekindle our interest in moderns...

If not I suppose ebay will await for them.

MJ Figures - 15mm Falklands Range

A Very nice box full of MJ figures arrived quite promptly on my Door step, well they would have if I was in, So off down the Main sorting office I went and collected my goody box of figures.

My initial thoughts were "WOW! what nice figures" and my thoughts are still "WOW! what nice figures".


Initial Order. The Helicopter is from Corgi.

I ordered almost every thing; Even the penguins. The only packs I did not order was the Gurkha's and the Panhard armoured car. Within my box contained a free pack of Gurkha's, so that was a very nice surprise, and I suspect it was a cunning plan to get me to purchase more...Well...Damn and Blast it will work and I plan to buy more of the figures next month.

So my Initial order contained the following:

2x FALK01 British Parachute.
2x FALK02 British Parachute.
2x FALK03 British Parachute.
3x FALK04 British Marines.
1x FALK05 British Gurkha. (freebie..Yay)
1x FALK07 Foxholes.
1x FALK08 Argentine Infantry for Foxholes.
1x FALK10 Rapier.
2x FALK11 105mm Gun. (Argentine)
2x FALK12 Scorpion, Scimitar Tank.
6x FALK14 Argentine Infantry.
1x FALK15 Penguins.
2x FALK16 British Casualties.

Some of the packs, with quite nice header cards.

I first saw these figures in the late 1990's and was interested in them back then, but they dropped off my radar for quite a while. I do like these figures a lot, although they do seem to be chunkier them most 15mm.

As I say I do like these figures (I seem to repeat my self here a lot) but some of the figures are in strange poses. Several appear to have a back pack on with no detail that I am yet able to to identify and several are in funny poses.
FALK04 British Marines has been dropped from the product lists at the time of writing this, So I will have to wait to see if they re-appear before I can expand the Marines further. I do hope that they are just out of stock.
The figures in the main are very good casts with little if any flash. The down side is that a lot of the barrel ends are missing.

The Argentine figures are all very good, except for the guy who has a weird machine gun and I am not too sure why there is a second bazooka being carried in an nonchalant way which does not look like a Bazooka, This figure is going to be modified by mug-gins here.

I do like the range of figures but I do feel that the range needs revamping and expanding. Each pack comes with a variety of poses and with some different weapon choices.

The infantry packs are not consistent enough and you will have to buy extra to make up sections and platoons, leaving odd figures left over.


FALK01

FALK02

FALK03 and FALK04

Each pack contains a mix of infantry and command figures.  I feel that a revamp of the contents is needed. Putting the Radio operators, Officers and Snipers into one pack as a command pack would work nicely, along with making sure that the Infantry packs each have a machine gunner (I went back and relooked at the packs and in the main every pack does have a GPMG gunner). That way you know exactly what to order.
The Argentines have two Bazookas and what looks like a top magazine fed Machine gun ????. This needs rectifying and again maybe a FN Mag figure would be better suited or the heavy barrel Fal.
The Gurkha's are nice and I may order some more, but they do have an oddly posed figure with something strange in his hands.

This range seriously needs to be expanded with LMG (aka Bren gun), sustained fire modes of the GPMG and FN Mag, .50 cals for both sides, 2" mortar teams, Carl Gustav Teams, Blow pipe teams for both sides, recoilless guns Milan's and 81mm and 105 mm Mortars along with a BV202. and some of the light AA guns for the Argentines. I have had an email form MJ and he has plans to do a BV202 at some point, which I will be buying a few off for sentimental reasons...

Authors own BV 202 MK2E on the day it went to a museum.

All this said it will not prevent me purchasing more of the range, I love these figures despite some shortcomings.

And finally back to that dodgy posed figure... If you can tell me what he has in his hands, It really help.


And the WTF pose is that award goes to.

Oh, the other downside was that my CVR(T)'s only had the scimitar barrel and the Scorpion 90 barrel, to which I will be unable to make up scorpions, but it is no real biggie, and I suspect an email will sort that out.
Hopefully I will have these painted up in a few weeks time, so look out for some Battle reports in the future.

Jon

Retro gaming night - Space Hulk

More retro gaming this time with Space Hulk.

A couple of games later and my friend decided it was not for him :( as it was too tactical.
First game I was the Genestealers. Second game I was the Marines.

Mission was to flame the room Top Right of picture.

 Scott takes the first go as the Marines and slowly advances keeping most of his Marines on over watch. He manages to keep pulling the high command point counters.

Marines Looking good.

 The back marker is on over watch to protect from a few Genestealers lurking behind the Marines. The Marine Sergeant is on lone over watch down the  second corridor and had already fought off several Genestealers in hand to hand fighting. The flamer armed Marine is escorted by two Marines who were on over watch. The board was looking good with only 1 blip and 3 Genestealers in the vicinity; easy pickings for the Marines...

Ermmm.... Where did every one go?

 Well that was a shock for Scott, After the Sergeant again fought off another Genestealer, it looked like it would be a case of just mopping up, but the Genestealers luck was about to turn and 3 Marines fell in quick succession....

"20 metres, 10 metres, 5 metres...They are coming out of the walls"

 The Sergeant was about to become Genestealer fodder as Six Genestealers appeared next to him. The Lone Flamer armed Marine hears the bursts of Storm Bolter fire abruptly stop, and all he could hear in his ears was the crackling of a silent coms relay...  What was that scratching noise coming from down the corridor.... Mission Failed....

Next it was my turn and I played a blinder. Although I lost most of my Marines in quick succession, I had managed to get my Flamer near the target room, but had not enough command points to finish the job. With my last marine facing down 3 Genestealers to the front of him and two behind he need to make this count. With 4 action points and 1 command points he needed to kill the Genestealer in the lead...
1st Shot... Missed
2nd Shot... Missed
3rd Shot... Hit
4th Shot...Miss
5th Shot... Hit
With the last shot he knew he was doomed but the mission would be completed as none of the Genestealers would be able to reach, let alone stop the last Marine from flaming the room.

Hurry up and flame that room dude. I am in deep doo da!!!

Game on...

OH Dear!

What have I just done, I just went on MJ figures web site and raided their 15mm Falklands range....OH DEAR!

Dead Man's hand and the Old Wild West

Some time back I posted same pictures of some Wild West figures that a friend gave me.  Now he told me that I could do what ever I wanted with them, but me being slightly sentimental decided to keep them...
I have this image of him evilly sniggering at this point. After downloading several free rules and trying them out, I found them irritatingly bad. So a few weeks ago, a little retail therapy was needed after a crud day at work. Whilst browsing E(vil)bay I came across Dead Man's hand, after quickly reading through a few rule reviews, my mind was made up and I purchased a set. And that was turn 1 of the proverbial screw in the coffin.
The game arrived and I had a quick test play and a few days later a friend came round, and a nights gaming took place.
Well the following day I ended back on the internet in the hunt for buildings, and came across pre cut MDf  ones. Whilst looking into it a bit further, I came across a range of pre painted ones and thought hey presto, and now look what my friend ultimately did to me...

Dead man's Hand is very simple set of rules. It uses a D20 and a D10 system to simulate the shooting and each character gets three actions; and it is completely random as to who gets to do what first.

The Rule book is flimsy and a set will set you back around £20, but you get a little set of gaming cards with it, which is allocated to each side. 3 or 4 players will need more cards which you can only get with the rules. The cards come in a nice little clear plastic case which I thought was a nice touch.

Along with the rules I also purchased a set of MDF laser cut/printed markers, which I must say for the cost are very reasonable.

Rule book with cards (top left) and laser cut tokens (Left)

 Having used CD cases as buildings for the test game, I took the decision to look for some buildings. Whilst Battle Flag produce some real nice real-estate at nice prices to match, they do not contain interior walls and are unpainted. I came across a range from  4-Ground which was ready painted and contained additional interior walls. Although a few pounds more than Battle Flag; it would be worth the time saved by not having to paint them.

I have purchased about 60% of the range and have since purchased some more of the range (Fences, wagons and out buildings). 

Below are the contents of one of the packs.

So now I will be having some fun building them, so watch this space...

In the pipeline.

Coming Soon:

Dead Man's hand.
Falklands 1982
AK-47

Tonight's game Was....... We got eaten Again!

No guessing what the table is set up for....

Zombicide.

Multi-player mayhem tonight for all...Grrrrrr...Arrrr...Brains....
Guess which side I'm rooting for..Yay!!!!!!!!!

AAR: We all died!, Yup we all died...AGAIN!