Saturday 12 December 2015

We're back...well sort off... and Oh, there was also Phalanx

We're back...well sort off...  and Oh, there was also Phalanx


Hi All
It has been a while but I am almost back up and running. I have spent several months sorting and selling Stevens' stuff and slowly selling it off, but I still have a very untidy shed 1/3rd full of his stuff. So more sorting to do.

In the mean time I have steadily been acquiring new things which I will show off below and there is also a show report below.


Firstly to some new purchases, besides the numerous Star Trek Attack Wing ships which are steadily increasing in numbers (A later report to follow) I have been acquiring rules to play with some of the minis Stephen left me. So after a hunt round I purchased several of the USE ME rules. This small but neat rules are on the surface very very simple. They come in a A6 size booklet which is quite handy to throw into your army boxes or a pocket. Although if you are like me slightly older or have eye sight trouble you may want to purchase the PDF version and print it out in A4 so it will be easier to read.
If you search the internet you will find plenty of in-depth reviews of these rules so I will not at this moment go into them to deeply. Basically they are a Elan Rating system or Initiative rating, the highest rated unit goes first followed then by the next highest and carries on until all units have moved. Each Unit or Character have Two actions per activation and can perform various  tasks from Move to Hunkering down. The Rules are D6 based and it becomes apparent that they are very limited in what the rules can do, although how complicated do you want a set of fast play rules?  Even though these rules are simple and fast to play in some respects they are TOO simple. In that they do not cover all situations, and sometimes the rules fall down, but you can simply make some house rules amendments to fix that.

5 of the different USE ME rules I purchased.
The USE ME rules cover virtually every genre of Gaming: Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Star ships, WW2, Modern, Zombie, Post Nuclear and even Wild West, but I may have missed the odd one.
Each set of USE ME rules in the main are the same and only slightly differ from book to book depending on the genre.  These differences are mainly the Army lists which are basic, no fancy stuff here, and the special actions/skills that can be allocated to a character or unit. Vehicles are also covered and can be killed by almost anything on the table. You can have from simple transports to super heavy armoured beasts, all have their weaknesses.
Personally I think the rules should be one Book covering all the different genres with a comprehensive list of special skills and army lists. Especially in PDF format this would be great.
I know this would increase the cost of these rules but they are individually quite inexpensive to purchase.  They are well worth checking out. More at a later date.

The Next new purchase I have made is the Battlegroup Blitzkrieg supplement which I love. I do like these publications and will in the near future start playing some games. The only issue I have is the infantry units and the sort of games I seem to play may more suit TFL Chain of Command rules as the army lists are very very similar. Again more on this at a later date.

Battlegroup Blitzkrieg and some Polish yet to painted and converted for use with the rules.

 Now on to PHALANX 2015 which was held at the Leeds Armouries, in, well, Leeds of all places. The real upside to this event was the bonus of being able to look around Leeds Armouries, although the venue is now not in the museum but in the exhibition hall opposite.  Although the museum is free to enter and the show was cheap enough the Parking is, well a bit steep.

I found as usual that the event was lacking the atmosphere of old. There was no general hum to the place that you usually got at the shows in the 1990's, no sweaty person to push past, no nothing like the old days.
What we did notice was that you could easily browse a stall without someone crowding you or even shoving you aside. Most of the stall holders were even happy to be engaged in conversation and were very happy to talk at length about products, maybe this was an actual sigh to how busy the show was.

I have also notice the decline of manufacturers attending shows and a lot of same products stocked by multiple stalls. This lack of traders may well be down to shows being more one day events and that the internet has provided a revenue of income missing from the 1990's. And they say that it is getting too costly to attend shows for the amount of money that they make. These excuses to me makes very little sense as the idea of a show is, well yes to make money whilst there but also to showcase your products. I like to see what I am buying not guess from a website without pictures. I also like to see stuff that inspires me and sometimes that impulse purchase paves the way to further purchases.
Any how I digress, on with the show.

My show purchases were well down on what used to be and to be honest nothing grabbed my attention.  Pendraken seems to draw me towards there stand at every show yet I have not had any need to buy something, may be another time?  I ended up spending very little and I had only purchased 2 booklets which contained colour plates on the Saxony army from the Napoleonic war.
We then had a food break, and was stitched up on the cost of the grub that was only eaten because we were hungry. And I then ventured back in to the hall for a one last quick look round and ended up buying the re-released Stephen Jackson game, Car Wars.  Now I need some one to play this with.

Phalanx purchases.
The display games were interesting and there were some unique games on display, again the participants of these games were happy to talk to you. Now for the Pictures.

Battle of Kursk

This game looked impressive due to its great terrain, although it also mad the game look too busy and you could not easily make out what was going on.


 Infinity

Hmm, Infinity, I am still undecided about this game, it looks great but should I dive in and buy it or stay away, decisions, decisions...
 

 Napoleonic

 Some sort of 15mm Napoleonic going on but not quite sure what rules were in play or what sides, I quickly moved on.

Skirmish?

Not too sure what's going on this game. I have a suspicion it may be a TFL game. Maybe it was cattle rustlers.

Lord and Lands

Hmm. this one peeked my interest. It was a new game very similar to HOTT. The table looked stunning and I especially like the swamp dwellings.

Steam Punk
This looked weird, some sort of Steam Punk Paddle wars going on.

Judge Dread

Great looking game and a very over-friendly bunch of people.

 X-Wing Trench Run

A very nice Trench run game, soon to be played myself once I get the shed sorted. Another game in amongst the reserve game collections.
Some more games:












Monday 10 August 2015

Why so quiet?

You can check out why I have not been doing much gaming here:
https://www.facebook.com/steveswargames

Normal service will resume soon... I Hope.

J

Wednesday 1 July 2015

Update

Well my gaming is back on hold.  A friend died several weeks ago and his wife asked me could I sort out his gaming stuff.
So my shed is full off boxes at the moment, I am two weeks into sorting them out with several more to go. Once its all sorted I shall try and get some of my own stuff sorted out.
Thanks
Jon

Sunday 26 April 2015

Falklands Argentinian 105mm Guns

Falklands -  15mm Argentinian 105mm Guns


I decided to get to grips with some of the Argentine troops I had and decided to quickly do the 105mm guns I got form MJ Figures.

These guns depict the famed Italian OTO Melara Mod 56/14 Pack Howitzer, an air portable 105mm gun, used throughout several NATO countries during the 1980's.  In deed even the British used the same weapon until the 70's where the 105mm L118 was introduced.

I had two 105mm guns from MJ figures in my collection and decided to do one with the gun shield and one without.  The crew come depicted wearing woolly hats (?), why the sculptor choose that particular head wear I do not know.  They are very simple to assemble and are shown below awaiting their bases to be finished, Not too sure how I am going to finish the bases off yet, hopeful I will make my mind up soon.

Thanks for looking
J

Wednesday 22 April 2015

More Falklands Figures test painting

Tried some more figures with slightly different ochre base colour withe the goblin green and chocolate brown.  Not enough of the base colour showing so almost there although they are looking more like 85 pattern DPM, then 68 pattern.
Last nights tinkering.

Red and Green Line saving another poor sod.
 All from the Mj figures range, The Para's are largely incorrect as they have their Bergans on, but I need to use up the figures,  The stretcher party I decided to do as the Red and Green Line in honor of those that saved many a life, both British and Argentine. Now I have to work out what to do with the bases.
2 Para in action
What do people think, do they look ok? or could some one suggest other colour combinations?

Thanks
J

Sunday 19 April 2015

Falklands figures painted

Hi
Back to doing some Falklands figures.  First up are my Argentine test figures. MJ figures along with Peter Pig US WW2 support weapons. I am pretty happy with how these came out and will run with this colour scheme for the Argies.  I have decided to base them in tows with Officers on pennies as this will allow me to use virtually any set of rules. Rules in the running are Rapid Fire, Cold War Commander and Chain of Command.




Next up are my British.  I originally did a section with Milan support but was not entirely happy with the colour scheme although they do look good.  Below are my three test colour schemes. Left is my first one which although good does not really represent the DPM, the green is lost, and the second  colour scheme is too dark, the third colour scheme looks okay but maybe would be better on the ochre base as I used Goblin green as the base for this one.

1st colour scheme

2nd colour scheme

3rd colour scheme
I am torn between the first colour scheme and the third. The first one uses an Ochre base where as teh third one uses a Goblin green base.  I think I will try a test set of figures using the Ochre base with the Goblin green.  Below are more Brits and should be considered as a work in progress.

Marine Section/Company (MJ Figures)

Milan teams (Old Glory)

FO team and Sniper with night scope (MJ Figures)

What I have done so far.

Brit vehicles (MJ figures and QRF (?))
More to come soon I hope.
J

15mm Falklands QRF Purchases

Falklands War Project new additions

Here are my new purchases from QRF models for my 15mm Falklands project have just arrived. I have received from there new Postwar range 2 packs of SLR armed infantry, a pack of each of the GPMG armed, Carl Gustav, 2" Mortar and Blowpipe.
Packs PBI02.01,08,09,03 and 04, all out of order as usual.
Top to Bottom, Packs PBI01, 02, 03, 04, 08, 09
I purchased packs PBI01 x8 SLR armed rifleman, PBI02 x8 SLR armed riflemen, PBI03 x8 GPMG armed infantrymen, PBI04 x8 Carl Gustav's, PBI08 x4 2" mortar teams, and finally PBI09 x4 Blowpipe teams.

Top to Bottom: PBI01, 02 and 03
PBI01 and PBI02 contains 8  infantrymen wearing beret's in 3 poses all armed with the famous L1A1 SLR rifle.   PBI03 has 8 infantrymen wearing beret's in 2 different poses armed with the General Purpose Machine Gun.

The main reason for my purchases was the platoon support weapons. PPBI04 contains 8 infantry men wearing beret's armed withe the infamous Carl Gustav in 3 poses.  PBI08 contains again 8 beret wearing infantry men in 3 poses, 4 of the figures are armed with the 2" mortar whilst the other 4 are split between 2 poses as spotters giving 4 tams.  PBI09 makes up 4 Blowpipe teams, again all wearing beret's, 4 figures are armed with the Blowpipe and 4 figures split between two poses are the spotters.

Top to Bottom: PBI04, 08 and 09

These few purchases gives my British forces the much needed support weapons that Old Glory and MJ Figures have neglected to do. The overall quality of these figures are quite good and inlike the Old Glory figures, very little if any flash and if any, no mold lines.  I think these will fit in with my MJ figures quite well.  I do think MJ figures missed the boat a little by not producing these much needed weapons.

QRF also have within there new postwar infantry range L4 LMG armed infantry. The pack consists of 8 figures armed with the famed L4. Unlike the packs that I purchased the L4 gunners are all wearing the Mk5 turtle helmet, so some head swaps may be needed.

QRF and TSS have joined forces and have merged the websites. The site compared to the old QRF website is unfriendly, but here is a shortcut to the relevant infantry page:
QRF postwar infantry


Considering that the Falklands wars 30th anniversary war in 2012 several figure manufacturers dropped the ball on this, 15mm wise.
If I decided to do this project in 10mm, 20mm and even 28mm I can purchases virtually every thing I need  to fight the Falklands war.

MJ figures released in the 1990's, the Falkland figures, and it seem to have never had the ambition to expand the original range which is a shame; as I think he is now missing out. Old Glory which has always produced good quality figures (A lot of their 15mm WW2 range make up my collections) but really messed up this time with their range of Falklands figures to such a degree that after the conversation I had with their head guy, I am boycotting them. The casting quality is poor and the detail on some of the figures are vague at best, poor research has produced the wrong type of British mortar, Wrong type of .50cal facing the wrong way on its tripod and Milan gunners about to loose their legs to back blasts. Its up to you, but avoid this range, although one of the command packs have been superbly posed and make a good vignette.  QRF have always made cheaper alternatives to some other manufacturers, whilst their scale and detail may be dubious in some cases, they do make models no one else do. These new figures have filled a much needed gap and I look forward to see whats next. They also do an LVTP7 which is needed if you are doing the 2nd April Argentine invasion.

All we need now are some more Argentine support weapons, 105mm British guns, 155mm French Howitzers, AA guns and BV202's, the last is a must have.

J