Alan K is running a 28mm Napoleonic game at the Open Day using Two Fat Lardies’ Sharp Practice rules.
Spain 1809
The French have seized the village of Valdelacastro and its bridge. They have an artillery battery emplaned on the nearby heights covering the bridge and its approaches. Can Lieutenant Blunte, his Rifles and the men of the North Essex neutralise the battery, seize and hold the bridge?
28mm Napoleonic derring-do in the Peninsular using Sharp Practice.
John Lambert previews his Open Day racing spectacular
Play the game that’s taking the Gaming world by storm!
Event 1 Death Race – Pick a team for a race to the finish. Crashes,explosions and low tactics guaranteed featuring Crowd favourite – Swampy with new gunner Tex.
Event 2 Arena of Death – Newly installed machine gun turrets kindly provided by the one and only MR Grant Rutherford. No one gets out of here alive, unless you are the last Driver standing of course!
Event 3 Try and Evade the Monster Truck – Squash, Crunch, Splat!
Free chrome spray available for all participants!
Featuring
BARRACUDA
This mean machine enters the arena to the strains of Motorhead’s “Ace of Spades”. Is that a Machine gun or a minigun, “Well ask yourself Punk. Do you feel lucky!”
ROACH
A 5 litre engine in a cut down Beetle with Nitro booster and hot start, what more could you want. See you in my mirror!
THE JUDGE
Well Judge, Jury and Executioner really! With Nitro Ram and Hot start the Judge is set to batter his way through the field
EL DIABLO!
A Monster truck from the Mexico City Penitentiary. Only very rich convicted Drug Barons get to drive this Monster for the Monster truck smash.
RAID ROVER
Grant Rutherford has surplus stock of this model and what better way to showcase its capabilities than a live race day!
Open Day update from Stephen
With barely a week to go until the Open Day I thought I would introduce my Lion Rampant game and some of the levies who will be fighting it out.
The game is set in 1370AD. The background to the game is real but the actual encounter is fictional. Flanders had remained neutral during the early part of the Hundred Years War, with a preference to the English. But in 1369 the Count of Flanders, who had no male heir, married his daughter, Margaret, off to the Duke of Burgundy which meant that Flanders fell under French control.
So the game is a hypothetical raid by the English on the Flemish town of Sluys, where a great naval battle had been fought in 1340AD at the outbreak of the war.
The game will have the English raiding the town on several missions with the French trying to stop them.
Here are some of the retinues that will taking part.
First up we have a band of brigands in the pay of the French. They are led by Sir Leopold Von Starkenberg, a disgraced ex-Teutonic knight, who now scours the Low Countries looking for a fight and someone to pay them. They call themselves ‘God’s Bloody Hooks’ and go into battle with the war cry ‘Gadzooks!’
Next is a contingent of Irish from Cork in the pay of the English. They are from the O’Driscoll clan and we can see that Niall O’Driscoll himself is leading his kerns on this raid.
No English army would be complete without longbowmen! These are two companies of archers from the East Riding Levy. These are experienced men – good yeoman from the shires and the backbone of the English forces.
The French garrison is made up of a lot of continental troops and this next lot are no different. They call themselves the Compagnia di Santa Maria and hail from Genoa. These are also grizzled veterans who have spent good time fighting in various battles.
This last retinue of English have a bit of a funny history. Sir Anthony D’Archer of Ambridge received his summons from King Edward but with harvest troubles on his estate he decided he had to stay and instead paid for his son, Thomas, to answer the King’s call. So Sir Thomas D’Archer is now in charge of the English forces.
To see how these retinues fair, plus many more beside, come along to the Open Day and join in the fun.
An Open Day update from Tony F
Following on from my progress in March painting Lord of the Rings figures for my Ramas Echor Open Day game, I had a fallow April (the demands of Salute took up all my time that month). However, I was back in the saddle (literally) in May, with over a dozen figures on the painting table.
I’ve had a box of Swan Knights of Dol Amroth which I’ve wanted to paint for a while, and this game was the ideal chance to get them on the table. There are six altogether, which I’ve assembled as a captain, standard bearer, musician and three knights. I kept the horses and riders separate during painting to make things easier. I started by spraying the riders a dull silver and airbrushing the horses in Vallejo French Blue (I also masked off and airbrushed the riders’ flags and pennants in the same colour). The horse coats were then washed and highlighted with Citadel paints and the horses themselves painted in various shades of brown. The Knights were washed with Citadel Nuln Oil (black) and drybrushed again in a brighter silver, and details picked out. The barrel on the base of the catapult is a very old Peter Pig casting.
I’ve also finally assembled my Avenger Catapult, a resin Finecast model – this will be very handy against the Trolls and other large creatures from Mordor. Gondor warriors are all fairly monochromatic – most of the figures are covered in silver armour, and the bits that aren’t silver are mostly black. I painted the armour the same way as the Knights (Army Painter Platemail spray basecoat, Nuln Oil wash, Citadel Necron Silver drybrush), then painted any exposed cloth black with dark grey highlights, along with the shield. Other than that, their faces (the tiny bit you can see) were painted flesh and washed with a dark flesh wash, and I picked out a few straps and spear shafts brown and added a few gold details.
I also painted up three more plastic warriors of Minas Tirith and a metal standard bearer – these were already assembled and undercoated so it made sense to finish them at the same time as the catapult crew.
With just over three weeks to go, I have ten more figures to finish, which shouldn’t be a problem – however, there’s still the minor matter of the Ramas Echor itself. The first photo below shows the rough layout of the piece of wall I’m building – the centre section will have a gateway, and behind it is a small wall fort with a couple of buildings as accomodation for the garrison. The other two wall sections will have a bastion for archers or the Avenger Catapult.
This is a nearly-finished section of wall with the battlements in place. These are based on the Minas Tirith city wall design, which I’ve cast up in sections in resin before gluing them in place (the resin just happens to be exactly the same colour as the insulation foam that the body of the wall is made from).
Finally, I finished two half-painted figures which aren’t needed for the Open Day game. On the left is the Mouth of Sauron, who is a man (probably a Black Numenorean) in the service of Sauron. He’s been 3/4 finished for ages, so I didn’t need to do much other than finish a few details and paint his base. On the right is a Captain of Rohan, the mounted equivalent to the figure I finished a couple of months ago.
The club is holding its annual Open Day on Saturday June 23rd (11am to 4pm). This when we put on many games and open our doors for all to come and visit and get a much wider idea of what we do and the games we play. We try to put on a good variety of games across all the popular periods and scales, all of which are open to visitors to join in. We offer a special discounted membership rate for anyone who joins the club on the day. There’s also a prize draw sponsored by local manufacturer Brigade Models for all visitors.
This year there are seven games, including one put on by Milton Hundred Wargames Club, our nearby friends and neighbours. The six club games are as follows:
The Fall of the Ramas Echor – a 28mm Lord of the Rings game set just before the Battle of Pelennor Fields, TA3019.
The Second Battle Of Sluys AD1370 – 28mm Medieval action using Lion Rampant rules.
Fields of Glory – a 15mm ancients game using the FoG ruleset.
Sharp Practice – 28mm Napoleonic skirmish action in the Spanish Peninsula.
WW2 Naval – early war action between the French and Italian navies in the Mediterranean.
Gaslands – post-apocalyptic car racing.
Directions to the club’s venue in Linton, near Maidstone, can be found on our website.
From Stephen:
My Open Day game will be a game of Lion Rampant set during the Hundred Years War, with the English raiding a French (or it might Dutch) coastal town.
The table will be a medieval port, with a harbour at one end and at the other will be the keep.
The keep was scratch built using a variety of bits and pieces.
Time to share a random selection of pictures from the last couple of club meetings – April 28th by Andy, May 12th by Tony F and Stephen. Highlights include Pete’s ‘Charlie Don’t Surf’ Vietnam game, two naval games (Napoleonic and 50’s modern), Celtos Fantasy and a Star Wars fleet battle.
April 28th
May 12th
Another Open Day update from Stephen:
In 1346, at Crecy, historians have suggested that cannons were first used on a battlefield. Gunpowder had long since existed, and man-portable ‘guns’ had been in use since the 13th century, but Crecy marked the first use of field artillery pieces in a battle. Maybe (there are other nominees).
Since my game at this year’s Open Day will be set during the early part of the Hundred Years War I thought I would make a model of an early cannon.
These early cannon were little more than metal pots. What they actually fired is unclear. Some illustrations have them firing arrows, but whether they did fire actual arrows or that was just artistic convention is also unclear. Examination of surviving examples show heavy scoring to the inside of the barrel, suggesting they fired what we might consider grapeshot. Of course, they may have fired any combination of these.
My example was scratchbuilt from a variety of materials. The actual pot barrel was made from milliput. The carriage was made from balsa, and then plasticard fixings and fittings were added.
Now all I need to add is a crew to fire it.
If you want to have a go at manning the cannon and see how effective it is then, join us on June 23 for the club Open Day.
At the last meeting we had a game of Sword & Spear – Romans against Sarmatians.
We decided to do one of the scenario games listed in the rules: Attack A Prepared Position.
The Romans (Andy and Dave S) were defending which meant the Sarmatians (Tony G and Stephen) had to break them or they lose by default. After the sixth turn a dice is rolled each turn and depending on the roll that could be the end of the game.
So there was no time to lose.
The battle field was set up with a hill and wood on one flank, and on the other was another hill, an area of rocky ground, and a villa/farm. The Romans also had a fortified camp which they put in the middle of their table edge.
Since the Romans were defending they had to deploy first. They used their legionaries to form a strong line linking the farm and camp. They kept their cavalry in the rear as a mobile reserve, and put their auxiliaries in the farm with the wall to protect them. Their skirmishers – some light cavalry, slingers, and a few archers – they had out front in the open.
The Sarmatians deployed with their cavalry in the middle. On their left they put the light cavalry archers, and on the right they had a few skirmishers with bows and some Gepid mercenaries.
The game started with the Romans remaining stationary. There was no need for them to advance after all.
Tony’s Sarmatians on the left made good speed, advancing to threaten the Roman skirmishers and light cavalry. The right flank was somewhat tardy in its advance – the rocky ground and poor activation dice making progress difficult.
First blood went to the Sarmatians, who made short work of the Roman skirmishers. It was never looking good for them out there in the open against all that cavalry. There was a desultory exchange of bowfire between the Roman auxiliaries in the farm and the advancing Sarmatian skirmishers.
With the Roman light troops routed the Sarmatian left flank advanced on the Roman line. The Romans feared a mighty cavalry charge and moved their own cavalry into position where they might plug any gap should the inevitable happen. The Roman legionaries around the villa wobbled back and forth, unsure whether to make a charge or to hold their line (they chose to hold the line) and the Gepids finally managed to move up.
The turns ticked by. The Sarmatians were ahead on points but this game wasn’t about who killed most – the Sarmatians were against the clock and if they didn’t break the Roman line quickly that would be it. So in went the Gepids and in went the Sarmatian cavalry!
The Gepids delivered a whallop, but the Romans paid that back with interest. The cavalry charge wasn’t all it could have been and the Roman line held and pushed them back.
It hadn’t been enough.
Dusk fell, and time was up. Game end!
The Sarmatians had destroyed more Roman units but had failed to break them before the last turn.
Though bloodied, the Romans held the field and were declared victors.
Member Phil recently unearthed a load of very old photos relating to show games in the 85-88 period. You’ll find them linked below (be prepared to be amazed at what some of us used to look like when we had hair…):
Unnamed 15mm Ancients Game – Tunbridge Wells ’85
The Vire Incident (WW2 54mm game) – SELWG ’86 and Tunbridge Wells ’87
Berlin or Bust (20mm WW2 Participation game) – Salute ’88 and SELWG ’88
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