Society meetings- August 27th and September 10th

We’ve been remiss and not posted a photo round up of several of our meetings held over the last three months. Here’s the first of these covering the first two of the missing meetings.

August 27th

Three games ran at the meeting, first up a 6mm Ancients game using Field of Glory rules.

Alan ran an Eastern Front WWI game in 15mm using “Battles with Brusilov” rules.

 

And finally for this meeting, Stephen ran a very wet Stargrave game, Waterworld. We should have a more detailed write up of this game soon, but you can find an article about the boat building endeavours of our members here.

Andy’s crew approach a tower block
Tony’s crew encounter a Kraken
The view from orbit

September 10th

We had another three games at this meeting, firstly a 2mm Strength & Honour game.

Stephen and Jeremey ran another game in their refight of the War of the Roses, using Sword & Spear rules. There’s a full account of this battle (written by the victor, of course) here.

Lancastrian defensive position
Yorkist right flank
Yorkists advance

And finally, Eric ran a series of Gaslands races.

We’ll round off the other two missing meetings, September 24th & October 8th in the not-too-distant future.

Hail To The Chief (and other photos from the 26th February meeting)

A short roundup of games at our last meeting…

Stephen organised a SAGA Age of Vikings Battle day, several games through the day across a couple of tables. In Stephen’s words:

Hail! Hail!
Bleddyn ap Owain, Lord of Bangor, rides victorious!
Hail! Hail!
Lord Bleddyn has met the Normans and Scots in battle and comes home victor.
Glory to his name! Honour to his household!
From this day forth let him be known as Bleddyn The Dragon!
Hail! Hail!

The header photo shows Bleddyn and his warriors off raiding. Here are a few more from the various SAGA battles.

Norman cavalry about to have a bad day
Welsh mounted

Scots advance
More Scots
Anglo-Danes
Norman Archers

Marcus ran another rules development game for his Spy Fi underwater combat rules, based on Galactic Heroes. Bond and friends vs Largo. It didn’t end well for either of them!

Layout for game 1, blue markers are points of interest, die rolls would determine what is found.
Largo’s henchmen gang up on Felix Leiter
Largo’s shark drone attacks a Royal Navy diver.
Largo’s henchmen advance

Dave ran a Gaslands race day

Gaslands race track
Rear ended
Oil slicks make life harder

And, finally, Paul ran a 3mm Ancients game using his own rules.

3mm Ancient armies clash
Battle in the woods

 

MWS Meeting 25th September

A pictorial round up of our latest meeting. Five games systems in progress:

6mm FoG Ancient / Medieval: Late Hungarian vs Condotta Italian

Light Cavalry
The lines approach.
Contact!
Artillery getting nervous.

15mm War of Spanish Succession: France vs Allies. Field of Battle, 3rd Edition (Piquet)

Alliance infantry advance

6mm Peninsular War Napoleonic Peninsular, French vs Spanish & British/Portuguese

John La – Gaslands

Start Line for the Death Race
Andy’s first dice roll, not a good start!
John rams Chris’s Taxi
First two through gate 2, weapons hot!
Eric shows Andy how the dice should be rolled
Andy still hasn’t learned how to roll.
Chris’s Mini gets revenge on John (7 hits!)
Second Game (Arena of Death). Chris’ Land Rover demonstrates its superior off road performance.

28mm Dragon Rampant: Dwarves vs The Undead

Dwarf Crossbows, and baggage.
Dwarf Axes
Dwarf Main force
The Dwarves’ Bear allies are pushed back by the undead (where’s Goldilocks when you need her?)
Dwarves test the waters at the ford as the Ghouls approach
The remainder of the Skeletons take on some Dwarf Crossbows

And sometimes we don’t play games

Having lost his Dragon Rampant game, Tony paints some Dwarf reinforcements.

Gaslands Geezers

Andy gets out of his car and walks.

Many, many, many years ago I bought some Platoon 20 armed civilians and SAS style figures. I can’t now remember what I bought them for, and they’ve been a small part of my metal mountain for a very long time. This range has changed hands a few times, but are now available from East Riding Miniatures. You can find the armed civilians here, and the SAS here.

Last year I got into Gaslands, and thought these might be useful as vehicle crew or aggressive bystanders.

I based them on 1p coins, built up the bases with 4Ground base render and undercoated them black. Paints are mostly Vallejo, with Army Painter washes. All bases were painted Grey Black and bare skin Medium Flesh.

First up are three ne’er-do-wells (top) in boiler suits and stocking masks (hence the ill-defined faces) a woman armed with a pistol, and two chaps one with a sawn-off shotgun and the other with an Uzi (or similar). The masks and hands were painted Brown Sand, the boiler suits Dark Prussian Blue or German Field Grey and boots black. Guns were, surprisingly, Gunmetal.

Next are a woman and a couple of men with handguns. These guy on the left has a German Cam. Med Brown jacket, grey T shirt and black trousers. The woman in the middle has a Grey Jacket and Dark Prussian Blue trousers. These guy on the right has a German Camouflage Black Brown jacket, white shirt and Army Painter Crystal Blue trousers washed with Blue Tone wash.

Another three figures, the guy on the left has a M3 “Grease Gun” SMG, and maybe a Flak Jacket. The trousers were Army Painter Crystal Blue with a Blue wash, shirt white and the flak jacket Brown Violet (which is green, go figure!). The guy in the centre just has a hand gun. His shirt is pale sand, trousers London Grey and jacket German Camouflage Black Brown.
The guy on the right is not from Platoon 20, I suspect he may be some sort of Sci-Fi figure of unknown manufacture, but I’ll treat him as (mostly) human and armed with a pump action shotgun. He has German Cam. Med Brown overalls with a dark tone wash.

Finally, the two SAS figures. I went with a camouflage pattern here, German field Grey base, with Flat Green, Mahogany Brown and Chocolate Brown patches. The Helmet and Flak Jackets were painted Brown Violet and the gas mask case German Camouflage Beige.

Death Race in the Land of Ice and Fire

John Lambert reports on a Christmas Gaslands race around the Icelandic tundra.

I’d watched a Top Gear Episode on Extreme Racing in Iceland and thought this would make a good Christmas Game for the club using the Gaslands Ruleset.

The ruleset is very flexible and I wanted to try a new direction where the vehicles were unarmed and the battle was between the drivers and the environment rather than the drivers shooting or battering each other into oblivion. This resulted in an interesting and enjoyable game.

The Vehicles
Each player was equipped with identical buggies with additional hull points to represent a strengthened chassis, Nitro packs to provide additional power to overcome some obstacles and driver skills taken from the Gaslands Refuelled list.

The Course
The course (seen above) consisted of a figure of eight plan on a 5’ square table. Drivers had to take on 5 challenges and could only move onto the next challenge when the previous one was completed successfully. These challenges were :-
1. The Wall
Drivers use nitro boost to shoot their buggies up the side of a lava cliff landing at the top.
2. Firewalk
Drivers carefully traverse a breaking earth crust over molten lava.
3. Boulder Slalom
Drivers pick their way through a Glacial Erratic boulder field
4. Pond Skater
Drivers aquaplane across an icy lake
5. Bog Snorkel
Drivers traverse a bog, hoping not to get bogged down before a quick sprint to the finish.

Victory Conditions
In the Gaslands rules there is a section on Audience votes. The idea is that the event is televised and the audience can vote for those straggling at the back of the game to keep their interest going until the end of the game. I decided to take this idea further so that the winner of the event was the player with the most audience votes, not necessarily the winner of the race.

Destiny Dice
As each challenge is attempted, the driver rolls a D6 dice and applies the result. This would determine success or failure and the number of audience votes received for both success and failure.

Skid Dice
Regular players will know that these are a feature of the game which allow you to shift gears whilst also having the potential to cause hazards. I used the Slide and Spin facings as necessary rolls to complete the Pond Skater challenge and to add additional audience votes to the Wall challenge.

The Event
Grid

Left to Right:- Stig Nonameson, Snorri Snorrosson, Saggi Knackersack, Snotti Stinkinson

There was a route choice around the solidified lava flow with Snorri (top) taking the Right hand option.

Snotti is first to take on the wall but loses control and collides with it first! Despite this set back, the wall is clear at the second attempt. This would prove to be the most difficult challenge and each driver pilfered a celebratory doughnut from Eric’s stash once they were over.

Stig was the last to make the top of the wall.

Eager to make up lost ground, the descent was overcooked and Stig crashed downwards!

The next challenge was the Firewalk with Saggi gingerly picking his way across.

Next up was the Geyser field. Fortunately all drivers avoided the hazard. With barely time to adjust, the boulder slalom was next with Snotti in the lead followed by Saggi. Snorri was closing on the leaders clearing the challenge with ease.

With two more challenges to go, the race was tightening up. Snotti was the first to the water feature but bottled it. Saggi failed to meet the far bank and had to be towed out by the rescue truck but Snorri skated across in style. For Saggi and Stig, their race would end at this point as both failed to clear the water in spectacular fashion.

With Snotti struggling to build up pace for a second crossing attempt, Snorri carefully picked his way through the Bog Snorkel challenge and crossed the finish line. It had been another Hare and Tortoise Death Race.

GASCAR ’19 Tri-Series Event 2

John Lambert updates us on an exciting second round on the Gaslands series.

Gascar 19 returned to the track for Event 2 in the Tri Series Cup following the sensational Death Race in Event 1. Event 2 would be bigger and better featuring two arenas and the addition of an extra team. Both arenas would be covered by Warner Duovision ensuring pay per view customers would not miss any of the action. The action would kick off with not one but two simultaneous Death Races! As tension ratcheted up, a protest was received from S. Vettel concerning Event 1. Following a VAR review, the protest was upheld and the second and third places were reversed. Arenas were allocated to drivers and it was time to rev up those engines!

Death Race A
Teams sponsored by Warden, Idris and Rutherford would take part in this race with a clean start being made by Idris and Warden. Suspected substance abuse by the drivers of the Rutherford team saw them fall away at the back of the pack.

The Warden car of Lefty o’Tool had a good line to gate 1 but was beaten to it by the Idris car driven by Black Stalin which passed through the gate using a classic slide turn, helped by a great dice roll.

Lefty O’Tool followed shortly afterwards and the race was well and truly joined! As these two cars drove neck and neck along the back straight, the second Idris car Chalkdust was catching them.

Lefty O’Tool was able to score hits on Black Stalin as they passed through Gate 3. These hits accumulated and in a final deadly blast, Black Stalin was destroyed. For the second race in succession, a Trini Scorpion car had been eliminated in touching distance of the winning line. It looked as though Lefty O’Tool would win but coming from behind a carefully judged power surge by Chalkdust saw this car shoot over the line first. The Rutherford team had won event 1 and had been the bookies favourite but today the bookies cleaned up! It had been a stitch up, there could be no other explanation.

Death Race B
This saw a tight packed field of 8 cars struggle to get away from the start line with only the Idris sponsored Ghost of the South able to make a clean break away from the pack, multiple collisions causing CARNAGE in it’s wake.

One of the Miyazaki buggies set off in pursuit of Ghost of the South and Razor from the Idris team was making good progress until a wipeout just before Gate 1. As Ghost of the South approached Gate 2, the Miyazaki buggy passed through gate 1 and Razor from the Idris team had almost reversed through gate 1. At that point with TV audiences plummeting, the Race Controller was instructed to stop the race and award points based on track position.

Arena of Death
This saw 8 cars pitted against each other and 10 turreted machine guns where the last car standing wins. On one side of the arena cars from Idris (Trini Scorpions) and Slime were making short work of turrets in their zone but tellingly, the Idris cars in particular were taking punishment back. On the other side of the Arena the Miyazaki Buggies were using careful tactics to eliminate turrets in their area so that they could clear a path to attack the Idris sponsored Chain Reaction and Queen of the South.
SMASH!

Slime Car Evangaline rammed Chalkdust causing critical damage.
SMASH!

Chalkdust and the second Slime car Riley hit each other head on in a mutually destructive death charge. The Idris sponsored Black Stalin narrowly avoided a collision with a fuel tanker and managed to get a shot into Queen of the South.
SMASH!

With everything to lose and nothing to gain Queen of the South rammed Black Stalin head on. The resulting explosion took out Chain Reaction and now both Idris teams were out of the running. The Miyazaki buggies had played a shrewd hand and had a clear run with no machine gun turrets as they cornered the last Slime car Evangaline, the Coup de Grace being delivered by a flame thrower.

WHOOSH!

It was canny driving by the Miyazaki team who scored maximum points and it lived up to its name of Arena of Death!!

Saturday Night Live
Whilst the Arena of Death was taking place, close by a Saturday Night Live event was taking place. Due to the exclusive broadcasting rights, no photography was allowed at the event. The rules had proved to be confusing and many VAR challenges were registered. The Warden car Constance Sin made a good start in this event, giving the Rutherford car Rocketman the slip, whilst the second Warden car Lefty O’Tool was unable to amass any audience vote. The Rutherford cars were fighting back and at the end the result was a tie between the two teams. It had been a close run thing!

LEADER BOARD
After two events the Leadership standings are:-
Jack (Miyazaki) – 11
Bob (Warden) – 9
Dave (Rutherford) – 9
Andy (Idris) – 8
John (Idris) – 5
Chris (Idris) – 2
Eric (Slime) – 1

There’s one Event day left and everything to play for!

Gaslands Scenery

Andy makes some scenery for the Wastelands.

At Broadside back in June I bought some scenery pieces for Gaslands, as we have another of the Maidstone Wargames Society’s GASCAR’19 events coming up I thought I’d better get them ready. All paints are Vallejo matt acrylics unless stated otherwise.

First up is a set of four MDF gates from Blotz.

Each gate comprises eight pieces, the two halves of the gate, two connecting pieces, two bases and two number boards. These were assembled (apart from the number boards) using superglue.

Once assembled they were primed with Halfords grey primer, then sprayed with Rust-oleum metallic chrome. The bases were then painted with Black Grey, at this point I realised that spraying the bases with the Chrome paint wasn’t a good idea, as it was not a good surface to try painting with acrylics. After three or four coats the bases looked OK.

The number boards were given three thin coats of matt white; the numbers were painted Red one side and Green on the other, and the borders painted Black. Once all was dry, I added the number boards and gave them a coat of matt varnish.

Next up were some resin accessories from Debris of War; some Jersey Barriers, a Storage Tank and some Crates.

After cleaning up a little flash and filling a few holes I gave these a good wash in soapy water and once dry sprayed them with Halfords grey primer.

The Jersey Barriers were painted all over with Deck Tan, followed by a liberal wash of Army Painter Soft Tone wash.

The Storage Tank was sprayed Chrome, and, having learnt from the gates, I then undercoated the tank base and supports White. The base was painted Black Grey, the supports Deck Tan and the recesses of the ladder Black.

The crates were painted London Grey with Light Grey sections. I decided to paint the top panels in different colours, two each in Red, Intense Blue and Flat Green. The grey areas were then given a coat of Army Painter Dark Tone, and the coloured panels coat of the appropriate coloured tone.

I also did some scratch-built pieces. A while ago I found some sheets of corrugated cardboard in the recycling bin and thought “corrugated iron wall”. I also had some large lollipop sticks from a craft shop, 150mm x 18mm, bases I thought.

I cut the sheets into strips, scored the plain side of each strip along the centreline to make it easier to fold. I then coated one side of the carboard with PVA glue and folded the two sides together. When the glue had set, I trimmed the strips down to 20mm high, and cut them to length to fit the lollipop stick bases.

This left some short lengths which I ended up using to make some gate sections. I had enough sections to make eight wall and four gate sections. I then got the hot glue gun out, and assembled each base as follows: I laid a strip of glue down the centre of the lollipop stick and pushed a fence section into the glue and held it until it set.

The sections were undercoated Halfords grey and then the walls were painted Gunmetal Grey and the bases Black Grey. The walls were given a liberal coat of Army Painter Dark Tone wash. The excess hot glue was coated with PVA glue and some grass flock applied. Once all was dry they were sprayed with Matt Varnish.

GASCAR ’19 Tri-Series Event 1

John Lambert fills us in on the happenings at the first Gaslands race event

This season of televised Gaslands events started off with a bang – literally!!

All racers took part in one huge Death Race to open the season so with six teams of two cars each, CARNAGE! was assured. For this season, there were two teams sponsored by Miyazaki, two sponsored by Idris and single teams sponsored by Rutherford and Warden respectively.

With a packed grid, a good clean start was essential, two Idris sponsored cars made a good start whilst the second two were blocked in at the back of the grid it would take time for them to break free.

As cars tried to break free, multiple smashes had the crowds baying for more, TV screens are fitted with an audience votes app and the system froze out as the drivers scrambled for glory.

Amid the mayhem Ghost of the South cleared the pack and then pulled off a stunning manoeuvre at Gate 1

This lead wouldn’t last for long as one of the Warden cars caught him and He was destroyed in a hail of lead by one of the prison cars.

These Idris cars were to prove to be fast but vulnerable. Between gate 1 and 2, the action was about to get hotter as the Rocketman was hit by gunfire from one of Miyazaki cars. None of the rockets had been fired so an explosion destroyed Rocketman and a fireball engulfed an Idris car and a Miyazaki buggy. This is what the crowd had come to see.

Meanwhile three cars were battling it out for the lead. A skilfully executed powerslide allowed Black Stalin (12) to thread through the obstacles on the approach to the finishing line.

With ‘This is my moment’ blasting through the speakers, Black Stalin was cruelly shot up by Chain Reaction.

As Chain Reaction and Constance Sin traded blows, AC1 was able to take advantage and slip past them to win and take first place on the podium.

In this post – apocalyptic world, there’s no Champagne just an inland sea filled with Diet Coke.

Podium places 1st Dave, 2nd Bob, 3rd Andy.

After the success of this event Gascar19 Event 2 will feature not one but two venues!!

Open Day 2019

Open Day Coordinator Dave Sime gives the low-down on this year’s games…

Open Day, 22nd June 2019

The Open Day will be held on June 22nd from 11am to 4pm at our usual venue in Linton, just outside Maidstone.

Below is the list of games for the 2019 Open Day – over the next few weeks each game sponsor will be giving us more details on their respective games.

Just to whet your appetites, here are a selection of the games from last year’s event…

Gaslands Build – The Lost Prophet

John Lambert takes us on a bus ride…

One vehicle missing from my Gaslands inventory was a bus. I found a reasonably priced Airport Coach in our local ASDA and started to plan the build. I envisaged a political “Battlebus” that I would turn into a real battle bus. From the deep memory bank I remembered Clint Eastwood in “Gauntlet” where he drives a witness to court in a coach equipped with an improvised armoured driving position. He wins through but the coach is riddled with bullets so it had to feature that. I wanted a massive engine to power it and found the ideal unit in Hot Wheels “Te’ed off”. The coach came apart easily, I cut up the interior to fit the engine and armoured the seat, then drilled bullet holes in the windscreen and side windows. I then put it all together painted it red and scuffed up the paint with a pan scourer, then added the slogans on the sides. I built it for a friend to introduce him to the game. There’s plenty of scope to add more equipment. There’s two hatches, I could use to hide weapons, a minigun perhaps but the standard bus build is quite well armed, I could fit a turret on the roof or a ram to the front.