Category: <span>Rulesets</span>

Defenders of the Shire

Tony F updates us on his latest painting efforts

I had a bit of a Middle-Earth break after the efforts of the Open Day game, but I slowly eased myself back into things in September. On the shelf next to my desk is a small row of based and undercoated figures, and I find that if they stare at me long enough I end up getting having to paint them – at the front of the queue were two trios of rangers.

The first threesome are a set of Dúnedain, descendants of the men of Númenor. Known as the Rangers of the North, they patrol the borders of the Shire and keep that peaceful land (mostly) free of the perils of the rest of Middle Earth.

The other set are members of the Grey Company, a group of Dúnedain led by Halbarad who accompanied Aragorn through the Paths of the Dead and went on to capture the ships of the corsairs – their arrival at Pelargir turned the tide of the Battle of Pelennor Fields. They’re distinguished by their grey cloaks fixed by star-shaped brooches.

The official Games Workshop model of Halbarad is currently out of production, so my rangers are lacking a leader. Over the years I seem to have accumulated quite a few different Aragorn figures, so I picked a spare one of those and painted him up as his father, Arathorn (there is GW figure of Arathorn but, like Halbarad, he’s been out of production for some time and goes for silly money on eBay). The ‘conversion’ consisted of painting Aragorn’s dark locks grey, but he’ll do for me unless or until GW bring their official Arathorn figure back.

Chain of Command – and no Chain of Command

We had two games running at our last meeting.

The first was 15mm refight of the opening clash of the American Civil War, the First Battle of Bull Run. The second was a 25mm action using Chain of Command.

In the first game Andy and Jon led the Federal Army against Steve and Mark with the combined Confederate Armies of Beauregard and Johnston.

This used Steve’s 15mm figures and was a third playtest for his home grown, Brigade level rules. One of the features of this action was the fairly chaotic command arrangements of the newly raised, largely volunteer armies, which arrived over the course of the action. This means that units from the same command were set up to appear at different points on the battlefield, meaning that many brigades were hard to co-ordinate as they were out of their command radius.

We managed to reverse history with this one with the Federals seizing the high ground and seeing off all of the Confederate attempts to get it back. Steve’s rules make for an enjoyable and fast paced game and after a few tweaks to fine tune things are ready for another outing!

In our second game fast forward to 1944 and Dave and Pete led their American paratroopers (with some help from an attached Sherman tank)against a position defended by German paratroopers under Alan and John. Figures and terrain from Alan’s 25mm collection. Alas the Sherman support was to no avail – picked off in an ambush by a Panzer killer team armed with Panzerschreck and Panzerfaust anti-tank weapons. These rules can be the source of some nasty surprise if your opponents save up command points to deploy ambushes!

Wargames Illustrated Druid

Andy goes all mystical in his second painting report

This figure was free when taking out a WI subscription at shows this year and will likely appear in some Dragon Rampant games.

He’s a little taller than most of my dark Ages figures, but that makes him more imposing!

His overcoat is modelled as if made up of various patches sewn together, so I used Vallejo German Camouflage Dark Brown as the base, with a variety of other browns for the various patches. His under tunic and sleeves were painted a mid-grey and washed with a blue wash.

I used a mix of Medium Flesh Tone and Pale Sand for his skin, as I wanted a pale complexion.

His staff was painted Beige Brown and then washed with Army Painter Dark tone.

Mine all Mine

For some time now I’ve thought that a mining community would make a good place for a medieval skirmish game. Control of resources is a vital part of any warlord’s secure hold and a mine would make a particularly valuable resource.

Carts on tracks going into hillsides is a bit Hollywood. In reality, a lot of early mines (and mines even today) are really about digging holes straight down into the ground and then lowering yourself down them somehow, whether by rope and winch, or electric lifts. It all adds up to the same.

I decided that I’d make several mineheads with different contraptions to lower miners and raise the ore. They are, of course, variations on a theme.

The main winch was made from dowelling.

Thick linen thread was used for the ropes to lash it all together. Brass rod was used to make hooks and metal work (actually, the winch handle was made from a thin nail), and the bucket was a resin item out of the spares box.

I had to make a decision about the basing of the winch. In reality this would be pegged to the ground. But I wanted to give an impression of depth, that the shaft was going somewhere. So I decided to mount them on a raised area that I would then texture. This would give some suggestion of depth and I could argue the mound was a spoil heap. This was made from a half-inch donut of expanded polystyrene.

The winch was then glued on to this and once this had all dried the styrene was then shaped. And when that was done it was all covered with some filler.

I made up a special rubble scatter mix from sand and broken up pieces of dried filler. I then slapped PVA glue generously to the mound and poured the rubble scatter over it, pressing it down firmly before pouring off the excess.

Then on to painting. It was always going to be a drab model – brown on brown. But once painted I thought I’d put a bit of static grass on it, especially around the edges, so that the piece blends in with the table.

And finally something to set the scene.

These mineheads were very simple to make and took surprisingly little time.

This mining colony will make a good, and different, setting for a raid scenario. Although these pieces were made to a medieval style, they are pretty universal well into the early modern period. Only with the industrial revolution did things change. They were actually made for an upcoming game of Dragon Rampant, so if you fancy having a go at some ransacking and looting then come along to the club and have a go.

First Line of Defence

Tony F previews an Open Day Lord of the Rings battle

The Rammas Echor was an ancient defensive wall around the Pelennor Fields, where the great battle was fought before the city of Minas Tirith during the War of the Ring. It was intended to protect the area around the city, which was mostly farmlands. If you’re not familiar with the books and have only seen the films you wouldn’t know anything about it, as Peter Jackson chose to omit it from the Return of the King (understandably perhaps, as it’s only really mentioned in passing). It was repaired and strengthened by Denethor II as the threat from Mordor became apparent, but was never manned in sufficient numbers – it was after all around 35 miles long – and fell quickly.

We’ve adapted a scenario from one of the Games Workshop sourcebooks, involving Faramir and a small number of rangers returning from the battle in Osgiliath and attempting to reach the relative safety of the wall. The defenders then have to hold the wall as long as possible.

I’ve built a section of the wall from insulation foam, with battlements cast in resin. The style of the battlements and colour of the wall are based on the Minas Tirith city walls seen in the films, although the walls are substantially lower (the dimensions I based on the size of Hadrian’s Wall). Taking a further cue from Hadrian, I added a small wall fort, just an enclosed courtyard with a couple of small buildings for the Garrison. A dirt track will lead to the front gate, with a more substantial road from the rear gate which leads off to the city. The area in front of the wall has been cleared to allow the defenders a good field of fire, with nothing but a few trees and rocks for cover.

Holding the wall is a company of warriors from Minas Tirith armed with swords, spears and bows. They also have an Avenger Bolt Thrower and crew on one of the bastions. Reinforcements are desperately awaited from the city, and whatever stragglers make their way back from Osgiliath.

Gaslands Race Day – Linton Arena

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!

Middle-Earth May

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.

Open Day 2018

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.

Nabobs Wanted

From Seán:

India 1756-63

The sturdy British & their noble Indian allies contend with the wily French and their perfidious Indians in the Seven Years War (the First world war) for the prize of a sub-continent. We could do with 6-8 Nabobs on a roughly 9ft x 5ft table. I will umpire this 15mm game to keep it flowing. It will be my third colonial Principles of War battle after the Mahdists and the Zulus. The Moghuls are splendid troops and the favourite of all my armies. They offer you elephants, camel rocket batteries, massive ox-driven mobile artillery platforms, camel artillery magnificent hordes of colourful noble cavalry, flighty horse archers, loads of unwieldy guns, Afghan fanatics with sniping jezails and legions of cowardly matchlock men, archers and spearmen all looking to overwhelm one or other of the pushy imperial rivals – the British East India Company or the French Compagnie des Indes Orientales. An empire is at stake! Release your inner Eyre Coote!

Let me know if you would like a command : British or French, the British Indian allied commander Mir Jafir or the French Suraj ud Dauhla (of The Black Hole of Calcutta infamy) or one of their allied native rulers. They all have big forces but very unwieldy and varied in ability. Interestingly tricky commands.

Club Game Updates

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