I needed another eight figures for a Dux Bellorum game at the club recently, so dug into my boxes of Gripping Beast plastics for suitable figures. I decided to split them half and half, four armed with spears and the rest with sword or axe. These figures are made up of four parts: the body including left arm, right arm with a number of weapon options, head and shield.
They were assembled and painted these up in about a week; black undercoat, followed by shades of grey and brown for the tunics and trousers. A variety of hair colours were used. The paints are mostly Vallejo acrylics, with the odd bottle of Army Painter used. Once dry the figures were treated with appropriate shading paints from Army Painter.
The shields were painted white, and Little Big Man Studios transfers applied. All then given a coat of matt varnish
John Lambert brings us up to date on his Scots SAGA warband
I’d bought a Gripping Beast 4 point Warband over a year ago. With the advent of Saga Version 2, I had the incentive to get them table top ready. I added one unit of Levy archers and a third unit of warriors to bulk it out to 6 points and out of 45 figures I only had 3 duplicates – well done Gripping Beast!. I replaced the Warlord with the Welsh Warlord on foot and used wire spears in place of the white metal ones supplied to ward off curious fingers.
I used Artist’s acrylic throughout ensuring that any intense pigments were dulled down to colour matches I had for Dark Age dyes and employed a three shade system that these figures suit. The figures themselves had plenty of flat surfaces on cloaks that would need the plaid treatment so once the basic figures were done, I sprayed with matt polyurethane to apply the plaid using a lining brush.
Levy Archers.
I decided that these would be the Warlord’s Estate workers so would have a shared colour palette – Brown, Yellow, Grey, Green, Blue.
Warriors
These would have a more varied palette and I decided to try wet blending on the shields to get a colour gradient which worked well. For shield designs, I chose simple crosses or Pictish designs.
Hearthguard
These would have more plaid cloth and more red on the clothing. I decided that they would have black shields with a white motif to match the Warlord.
Warlord
I seem to remember a doughty character in Macbeth called Lennox, well this would be my Warlord. Another trip to the Memory Bank reminded me of Bobby Lennox so he had to be kitted out in Green and White. For the cuirass, I used gunmetal/Silver and a thin coat of silver white to highlight. I added a dark purple cloak with yellow plaid. A black shield with Stags head motif completed the figure.
Basing
I added filler and stones to the base before undercoating the figures. When the figure was complete, I started the bases with black all over. I then drybrushed mid grey and then a light grey to pick out stones and boulders. I wanted a dark peaty soil with granite showing through and then the boulders. I then dry brushed the areas I was going to apply static grass in mid then light brown. I then applied Static grass in two shades.
Heather and grass tufts
To make the heather clumps, I used a piece of black pan scourer from B & Q, which I ripped open to make clumps which I attached to greaseproof paper with PVA. I drybrushed the surface with PVA and then sprinkled Heather flock lightly on the surface. Once dry and fixed with sealant spray, I could peel these off and attach to the bases. I bought some 6mm forest green static grass for the tufts. I dropped blobs of PVA onto Greaseproof and then dropped the Static grass on top. I pushed this into a clump as the PVA dried then fixed with sealant before peeling off and fixing to the base.
John Lambert gives us some background on his new fleet of spaceships…
Having enjoyed Gaslands, I was intrigued to learn that the Author, Mike Hutchinson’s next venture was going to be a journey into space, entitled A Billion Suns. I signed up to be a playtester and purchased some excellent American Republic spaceships from Brigade Models. Here’s the result:
What about the game?
I’d never been wowed by Space games that resembled a Naval game and this has many interesting ideas that I really like. Players act as CEOs whose game objective is to fulfil a contract. These are either Commercial or Military in nature and it looks like there will be 12 of each. Each player has an Admiral’s Helm which the player uses to boost his ships capabilities for the turn (seize initiative, speed, firepower, defence shields) and a profit and loss tracker. There are no fleet lists, players have to judge what to buy to fulfil the contract but will only win if they are in profit at the end of the game. Deployment is by jump point. These are placed by the player and ships enter and leave the table via these jump points. It allows for playing between two tables, which sounds great for multi player games as fleets can jump onto a different table! Gravitational effects are governed by Ship size and Planetoid size. We hope to get another game in at the second meeting in April.
Here are a few shots from games we ran at Salute on Saturday. We were kept busy running games back to back for most of the day, each game taking 20-30 minutes, as our participants flew their Corsairs to stem the tide of the Salvadorean invasion..
My first figures finished this year (where has the time gone?). Eight French Hussars and four Mexican cavalry from the Maximillian Adventure (1860’s French in Mexico). Figures from Wargames Foundry.
Undercoated with Humbrol grey primer, then block painted with Vallejo or Army Painter acrylics and washed with Army Painter shades.
My Maximillian Adventure collection started over 10 years ago with the 2007/2008 MWS show Game, Non Son Hombres Son Demonios!, the Battle of Camerone:
It has grown over the last 10 years, adding villagers, more troops, cavalry and artillery to both sides.
These will be used with various rule sets, originally we used some simple participation rules (available at the above website), we played some gamers at the Society using Stargrunt (with adaptions), recently we’ve been playing The Men Who Would Be Kings, but I think we’ll be trying Rebels and Patriots soon.
I finally managed to get my first Wars of the Roses units done. Here we have the Men at Arms getting ready to go up against fellow club member Stephen. For my units in this army I wanted a real mixed up, unevenly distributed look. I’ve never liked the standard number of figures evenly spaced DBA style units. Despite 35 years in this hobby this is my first historical army and I’m clearly not a purist! But I’ve done some research, read several books and listened to a podcast on the history of England during this period, so I’m definitely putting the effort in.To get a good mix for the units I used miniatures from Peter Pig, Lancashire Games and Essex Miniatures (plus some others I’ve forgotten). I even chose some miniatures from the early 15th century to represent a few of the less wealthy lords and knights, still using their grandfathers armour. Another thing I decided to do was not to chose a side in the conflict. It was clearly a messy affair with allegiances changing as the conflict went on (or even during a battle!). Add that to the fact the armies had identical troop types I went for removable flags for the units and commanders. In the first picture the units are representing Sir Thomas Neville but after a quick swap they are now in the service of Lord Dudley.I think this system will work quite well and I intend on making a collection of flags, so regardless of who my opponent turns up supporting, I’ll be able to pick an opposing lord!
Our new show game for 2019 had it’s first outing at Cavalier 2019.
The Salvadorean Invasion!
This is set in the war that briefly erupted between Honduras and El Salvador in 1969. This was the last occasion in which piston-engined fighters engaged in air-to-air combat.
Honduran Corsairs approach
This is a participation game with the players taking on the role of Corsair pilots in the Honduran Air Force.
Salvadorean Mustangs on Combat Air Patrol
The players have to launch ground attacks on the invading Salvadorean Army column to halt their advance, whilst warding off the attention of patrolling Mustangs of the Salvadorean Air Force.
Honduran Corsairs approach the target
Congratulations to club member Dave Sime who put together the game, which scooped the Best Participation Game prize at the show.
Honduran Corsairs come in low to strafe over the Salvadorean invasion columnCorsairs and Mustangs go head to head above the Salvadorean column
The Bomber Command Force. Lancaster MkI/IIIs of A and B Flights, 460 Squadron RAAF and 4 De Havilland Mosquito Mk IV bombers of 692 Squadron
In our first session the five German players each commanded their own JagdDivision of Night Fighters, aiming to intercept the incoming bomber Command raids that night.
The NachtJagd force. From left to right – Bottom: five Messerschmitt Bf-109 G6s of JagdGeschwader 300, 301 and 302 and one 262 B-1a/U1 of NachtJagdGeschwader 11. Middle Messerschmitt Bf110s – four G4 and one F4. Top: five Junkers Ju88 C6s of NachtJagdGeschwader 1-5
The Germans were lulled into a bit of a false sense of security as they did not spot any incoming raids until turn 3. The air picture then clarified and the main force raid was identified using a northern route, with a mosquito raid to the south and two other diversionary raids emerging from the main force attack.
Junkers Ju88 C6 radar equipped night fighters of the NachtJagdGeschwader
The first unit to strike were the Ju-88 C-6 of Mike’s II Gruppe, NJG3, which had been placed on overwatch under control of the defensive radar chain in Northern Germany. They attacked as the Main Force Raid Lancasters passed over the radar line. However, this unit had been dispersed by the poor weather on take off, reducing its impact.
Lancaster MkI/IIIs of A Flight, 460 Squadron RAAF. The Lancaster had become the main type of heavy bomber in Bomber Command by 1944. “D Dog” was crewed as a Mid-Upper Air Gunner by the Society Treasurer’s father, then RAF Sergeant Ray Harris in 1945
Fighters were given only a very general indication of where the bombers were by their heavily jammed ground radar and mainly relied on their own airborne radar to find targets. However, only 2 of the players had the new sets that were free from British jamming.
In the action that followed, it was Chris that got in the first attack, badly damaging Lancaster C for Charlie in a hasty attack. However, he’d picked the wrong plane to mess with and his Ju88 was shot down by return fire from the defending gunners.
The first air to air attack. Lancaster ‘C for Charlie’ is winged, but shoots down the attacking Ju88 C6 of Chris
Next up was Bob, who homed in on Lancaster E for Easy. However, this plane’s gunners were really on alert and they opened fire first and shot the Ju88 down before it had a chance to land any hits.
The second air to air attack. Lancaster ‘E for Easy’ plays a blinder and shoots down the attacking Ju88 C6 of ‘Experten’ rated Bob
However, at last the NachtJagd managed to get off the scoreboard as John locked on to Lancaster H for How, damaging the target on his first pass. A second pass shot the Lancaster down. The gunners never saw what hit them.
The first score for the NachtJagd as ‘H for How’ is shot down by the attacking Ju88 C6 of John
With the first attack completed the players returned to the raid map. Here diversionary Mosquito raids were beginning to hit their targets in Duisburg, Witten and Hamburg. The Duisburg raiders got clean away without being intercepted. However, the only unit equipped with high-speed specialised He-219 A-2 Night Fighters, Chairman John’s I Gruppe NJG1, was now placed on overwatch in the radar line astride their return route and were vectored in to attack the Mosquitos that had raided Witten. The Ju-88s and Me-110s in the air in the area were too slow to catch the Mosquitos.
De Havilland Mosquito Mk IV bombers of 692 Squadron, part of the Light Night Striking Force. These delivered small high level raids as diversions from Main Force raids. They were unarmed and relied on their speed to escape interception.
In this second action the unarmed Mosquito Mk IVs played a cat and mouse game as the Heinkels tried to home in on their targets, relying on their speed for protection. Mike managed to get into position to make a power dive to pounce on one of the raiders, but his approach was spotted and the Mosquito attempted to shake him off with a corkscrew turn. Mike second guessed this and followed the Mosquito through the turn, then shot it down with a well-aimed burst, as it began a second corkscrew evasion.
The raid will continue at the next session in April.
At the end of session 1 the league table points scored are as follows (it is worth noting that the Germans were stupendously unlucky in their dice rolls to lose 2 Night Fighters in air to air combat):
Mike (2JD) 3 +2 for Mosquito shot down, +1 for GCI attack
Chairman John (3JD) 2 +1 for Lancaster shot down, +1 for GCI attack
Dave (1JD) 0 no gains, no losses
Chris (7JD) -1.5 +.5 for Lancaster damaged, -2 for Ju88 shot down
This year’s Field of Glory tournament started with a 3-a-side game on the first meeting of the year. From the scores it would seem to have been a very close game, with the triumvirate of Paul, Pete and Brett just edging out Colin, Jack and Chairman John 11-9. The FoG league page has now been moved to the blog from the club website – the page can be found here.
The end of year Society wild west shoot out for 2018 has gone down in the Annals of the West. The town photographer captured the action!
This saw Sheriff “Frontier Steve” Walters defending the good citizens of Tombstone against raiding gangs led by Black “Texas Bob” Jang and Frank “Bexley Dutch Mike” Schmidt. The Sheriff was later reinforced by a mercenary crew led by No-Eyes “Chairman John” Luke. A motley range of citizens were controlled by the host and umpire, “Treasurer Mark” showing varying levels of commitment to help defend their town.
The gang led by Dutch Mike made a beeline for the bank, whilst the gang led by Texas Bob made a bee-line for the Drink n Drop Saloon. Patrolling deputy Ted ‘The Lawman’ spotted Dutch, raised the alarm and opened fire with his trusty Colt, while Sheriff Steve Walters moved round the general store to outflank Dutch’s gang, only to die in a hail of bullets from Quick-Draw Mc-Graw. Several citizens waded in to help – the general store owner shot down Dutch from the window of his store before rashly coming out and in turn being gunned down by Quick-Draw. Ted the Lawman fell to the shotgun of outlaw Heath Robinson. The hapless citizen Bashful Baz placed himself squarely in the line of fire and then spent the rest of the game rooted to the spot and twice trying to unjam his Colt in a hail of bullets, emerging unscathed with only a few bullet grazes. The only Deputy left standing, Camp Freddie, despatched outlaw Doc Savage through a window, having fled for cover in the bank.
Black “Texas Bob” Jang goes head to head with No-Eyes “Chairman John” Luke
At the other end of town Texas Bob went head to head with the newly arrived John ‘No-eyes’ and gunned him down in a hail of lead, then laying out his gang-side kick Jimmy Six-Shot with a ‘real-bad’ hit in the legs. His rampage was finally stopped with a hail of bullets from ‘No-Eyes’ number 2, Yankee Seb. Texas Bob’s side-kick, Stick-up Joe moved in to rob and recruit in the Drink n Drop. Joe won over his secret admirer, saloon girl Rosie Williams and saloon ‘resident’ Whiskey Will. All hell broke lose as the jilted and alcohol-fuelled Hallelujah Jones attacked Rosie. Stick-up laid him out cold and Rosie completed her journey to the dark side by finishing him with her trusty Deringer. However, as Stick-up Joe emerged from the Drink n Drop, he was gunned down by hired guns Yankee Seb and Ugly Trev.
Stick-up Joe and Rosie Williams emerge from the Drink n’ Drop to their doom
Meanwhile outlaw Sam Sharpshot went after town resident ‘The Butcher’ who had been gunned down after emerging from his livery stable and wildly shooting his shotgun at Texas Bob’s gang. ‘The Butcher’ was heroically rescued by the town Doc, Sweeney Todd, but both were then pursued and ‘The Butcher’ was killed by the hard-bitten Sam assisted by Whiskey Will – Sweeney Todd was badly injured trying to save him. Meanwhile last member of Bob’s gang, the outlaw Maximillian met a sticky end at the hands of Yankee Seb, Deputy Camp Freddie and hotel owner ‘Hurricane’ Higgins, who suddenly found the ‘courage’ to shoot him in the back as he faced Yankee Seb.
Crazed with grief Rosie dashed across the street aiming to gun down lawman Camp Freddie, who calmly turned and shot her down.
With this, the surviving outlaws headed for the hills.
Black “Texas Bob” Jang – during his gun toting rampage
The winner on the day was the gang of Black “Texas Bob” Jang, who scored 7 points after robbing the Drink n Drop and the Livery Stable (1 point each), recruiting two citizens to the gang (2 points), killing Legend ‘No-Eyes’ (2 points) and two citizens (half a point each). The only survivors were Shootist Sam Sharpshot and the now infamous ex-citizen Whiskey Will.
No-Eyes “Chairman John” Luke moves up at the head of his hired hands
In second place was “Chairman John”, who scored 4.5 points after killing Legend Black Jang, Doc Savage, Maximillian and half a point for citizen turned outlaw, Rosie. All of the hired gang except leader ‘No-Eyes’ survived, but Jimmy Six-Shot was ‘hurt real bad’.
Frank “Bexley Dutch Mike” Schmidt – killed by the unseen owner of the general store
A close third was “Bexley Dutch Mike”, who scored 4 points, his gang gunning down Legend Sheriff Walters, Deputy Ted the Lawman and citizens ‘Doc’ Walters and Ol’ George. Only two gang members survived, Quick-Draw Mc-Graw and gang side-kick, Heath Robinson, who was ‘hurt real bad’, but caused mayhem with his shotgun. McGraw becomes a legend after taking out the Sheriff and his marksman deputy without so much as a scratch before avenging his fallen leader.
Sheriff “Frontier Steve” Walters – a dedicated lawman to the end
“Frontier Steve” had an unlucky day with 3 of the 4 lawmen shot down stopping Dutch’s gang with the Sheriff and Chief Deputy killed and Deputy Billy the Bloke badly shot up as he emerged from the jail to help. Their sacrifice will always be remembered.
Sheriff Walters gunned down in the performance of his duty. Bashful Baz is under fire from Heath Robinson and Quick-Draw McGraw on the other side of the store. Dutch Mike has fallen near the bank.Doc Walters proudly poses in front of his store on the day it opened. He is now remembered as a fallen hero of Tombstone
The citizens held a fine funeral for Doc Walters who fell defending his store and the town, killing outlaw legend ‘Dutch’ Schmidt. Bashful Baz can spin a fine tale showing his bullet grazes having survived a hail of bullets and shotgun shells (probably leaving out that his gun jammed twice and he never hit anything other than the side of the bank). The severely injured doctor, Sweeney Todd becomes a town hero after his selfless rescue of ‘The Butcher’ and attempt to save him from the brutal assault of Sam Sharpshot and the treacherous Whiskey Will.
Whiskey Will and Sam Sharpshot emerge from the Livery Stable after their savage pursuit and killing of the ‘The Butcher’
The tragic tale of the doomed love of Stick-up Joe and Rosie Williams enters western folk-lore.
Camp Freddie plans to stand for Sheriff.
The game used “The Rules With No Name” and 20mm figures and buildings from the collection of our late Chairman, Trevor.
The rules use a card driven activation sequence and make for an excellent, fast, fun game.
A random roll was used to drive the action of citizens, with the potential to defect to an outlaw gang under pressure, avoid action, or alternatively suddenly gain the courage to defend the town, with limited, or excessive enthusiasm, as events unfolded in their direction.
To get a good mix for the units I used miniatures from Peter Pig, Lancashire Games and Essex Miniatures (plus some others I’ve forgotten). I even chose some miniatures from the early 15th century to represent a few of the less wealthy lords and knights, still using their grandfathers armour.
Another thing I decided to do was not to chose a side in the conflict. It was clearly a messy affair with allegiances changing as the conflict went on (or even during a battle!). Add that to the fact the armies had identical troop types I went for removable flags for the units and commanders. In the first picture the units are representing Sir Thomas Neville but after a quick swap they are now in the service of Lord Dudley.
I think this system will work quite well and I intend on making a collection of flags, so regardless of who my opponent turns up supporting, I’ll be able to pick an opposing lord!
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