How did your year end?
In 2018 I did not as much gaming as I would have liked, but finishing off old projects. I painted more minis in 2018 then in the last 5 years. So what did I do.
Not only did I manage to get a few armies finished off and rebased, some of which have been sat idling for over two decades, 15mm Zulu Wars, 15mm Napoleonic Saxon, Austrian, British, Russian, French, and Westphalian Armies. In 6mm 1/300 scale I managed to get my Modern British, Danish, Swedish, West German, Soviet, and East German Finished.
It has also come to pass that I have also managed to start some new projects started and near finish such as 15mm NAM Australian Cavalry Company, 1/300 scale Fate of a Nation forces; Israeli, Syrian and Egyptian Forces. Sword Point (sorepoint) has also featured heavily this year, although has not made it onto the blog as it is defently a love hate... hate... Hate... type of relationship.
Having also managed to get the Cruel Seas Bug and completing on New Years Eve my two fleets and even squeezing in a last minute visit to Warlord Games which I will do a separate page on shortly.
2019 resolution is to have more gaming sessions, not just with my regular Oppo the destroyer of Souls, who has been kicking my gaming ass since 1990 (... Starting to feel old now).
In my last post I showed some Cruel Seas Coastal Ships that Warlord games were giving away on the cover of Wargames Illustrated, Well for January they have done it again. This time a US PT boat sprue and I believe there is a Torpedo Sprue out there as well.
In the Mean Time My pre-ordered Box set arrived along with my German Fleet Box set. Which I started on straight away. Father Christmas bought me the British Fleet. There is no point me doing a full review of the game as there is several good reviews already out there.
In the Starter you get two small fleets, a British (6 Vospers) and a German (4 S-Boats), a full rule book, a Plume/miss Sprue, torpedoes and lots of card token and some card terrain, everything you need to get started and can play several games straight from the box. Although an Errata has been released already for the rules as the Proof reading was a little shoddy to say the least, less said the better. The game has potential as one of those easy to pick up, quick and easy, fast play games which as I get older I seem to love more and more, just look at What a Tanker, X-Wing, Dead Mans hand, and a few more out there. The scale the game is played in, 1/300 6mm scale is ringing some alarm bells, especially the fact that there are the stats for the larger ships such as monitors and Destroyers.
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| Both my German and British Fleets. |
But the minis are so Shinny!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The scale yes could have been smaller say 1/600 or even 1/1250 but that would play right into other established miniature manufacturers hands. The scale of 1/300 was they said chosen so that you could have crew figures, and From what I have seen so far allows for great detail on the models. I would be remiss if I did not point out that some cheaper options for the boats are available from Scotia Micro models ship to shore range and also from Heroic and Ros, at a considerable savings compared to the Warlord game options.
Now on to my Fleets. I have used mainly a Grey bumper primer form Halfords, a Games Workshop Grey (I think Codex Grey) and Vallejo paints and again GW inks.
The Royal Navy
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My Royal Navy fleet consists of models from both the Starter set and the Royal Navy box set, plus the two models I got with Decembers Wargames illustrated. Those two last models was a god send as it rounded out my Vosper fleet so even numbers. In the Royal Navy box set you get another Six Vosper's, Two Fairmile D MGB's and an Armed Trawler (and a plane not shown). I decided to paint the Vosper's in group of three. giving me three Early version, three Early/Mid Versions and Six Late versions.
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| Early Vospers |
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| Early/Mid War Vosper's armed with a 20mm |
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| Mid/Late War Vosper's |
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| Mid/Late War Vosper's |
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| Armed Trawler |
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| Fairmile D's |
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| Vosper top down shot. |
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| Size comparison between the Trawler, Fairmile, and Vosper. |
Kriegsmarine
The Kriegsmarine force again consists of the four S-Boats from the starter, an additional 4 S-boats from the Kriegsmarine set, a Mine Layer, a Flack Ship, and two more S-Boats from Wargames Illustrated.
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| Top down shots of the S-38 fleet |
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| Top down shot of the armoured S-100 |
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| Mine layer |
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| Flak Ship |
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| Size comparison between the German ships. |
Well that's all for today, I shall in time get some better shots of the ships in the near future. I hope this gives you a taste for Cruel Seas.
Hope you all have a Fantastic Gaming year.
Jon
