Work in Progress Wednesday

It’s Wednesday again and we start with Mark J’s Mega Block. Painted a suitable 1970’s green. Below is the unpainted building in glorious MDF.

Staying with Mark J where they are lining up some more Judge Dredd miniatures.

Next up Felix has been busy painting up more VC.

Now we have Stephen changing direction slightly with some Romano-British or potential Arthurian army for Saga. Apparently cavarly will be added soon.

Moving on and this time Mark H has been painting up a 1943 Soviet Tank Brigade in 1/300th scale.

And finally for this week Andy has continued work on his 28mm scenery.

That’s it for this week, see you next time.

Work in Progress Wednesday

It’s Wednesday again, although I think for this week we should call it Work in Progress Andy week.

But we’ll start with Stephen having finished the tree of Odin and having added to it a Grain store and Dovecote.

But now we get onto Andy’s output for this week.

First up the strangely named experimental axeman, we’re not sure why it’s experimental.

Next up the finished haystacks and camp pieces.

Then on to a finished 10mm Napoleonic Polish battalion, and a mounted officer. The artillery and cavalry are next.

Now we have a selection of 28mm 20th century scenery pieces, no details of what this project will be.

And finally I realised I’d previously missed some shotgun toting land girls from WW2.

That’s it for this week, we might even have things from the rest of the membership next week!

Work in Progress Wednesday

Wednesday is here again and the membership is still very active, I’ve ground to a halt for the moment, but everyone else is going for it.

First up Mark J continues with their Vietnam project, above we have an M48 tank and below a patrol boat.

Also we have Felix having painted some VC for the project.

But back to Mark J for some more of a 6mm WWII panzer grenadier company.

Now we move on to something a little different, Stephen has converted an old bit of wood into what’s being called ‘Odin’s Tree’ – with Huginn and Muninn looking down on the skulls of the dead.

Tony F has continued with the Lord of the Rings theme, with a mix including Aragorn mounted, yet more elves and a couple of dwarves.

And lastly this week Andy has painted up more of the Vistula 2nd battalion.

And some medieval haystacks, an oven and a camp fire.

See you next Wednesday.

Work in Progress Wednesday

A bumper crop this week. We start with Andy and some WW1 Lewis gunners.
And then a jump to WW2 with some British infantry

Next up Dave B has made a start on some Napoleonic figures for games of Sharpes Practice.

Now we move onto Mark J with some more Pyrrhic archers and slingers.

Felix has continued painting units for their Pict army. This time some spearmen.

And finally Felix has also started on a Vietnam project with some civilians.

See you next Wednesday.

Wars of the Roses – Battle of Mortimers Cross – Battle Report

The fifth battle of our Wars of the Roses campaign took us to Mortimers Cross. This would be our first straight up fight when compared to previous battles from the campaign. The Yorkists were 2-1 up in the campaign with a draw making up the forth battle. For the battle I took command of the Yorkist Left under the Duke of York with Andy acting as Lord Ferrers my second in command. On the Lancastrian side Stephen took command as Owen Tudor with Tony F second as Sir John Throckmorton. Both sides had 800 points for the Battle and as throughout the campaign we used the rules Sword & Spear 2nd edition.

Battle of Mortimers Cross
Historians don’t really know the exact location of the battle so we went for an open field with steep hills to one side and a river to the other. There was of course one historical event recorded for this battle and that was the three suns in the sky phenomenon. History records the Duke of York declaring this a good omen, but for the battle we decided this could have gone either way. To represent this we rolled randomly at the start of the battle to see which side had the omen, the omen would allow one dice reroll in the game. Unlike history the roll saw the Lancastrians claim the good omen.

The two armies drew up in standard formation, I took the Yorkist left flank with Andy having the right, Andy also had a few units starting on the far right in a flanking position (apparently the Yorkists did this in the battle so we allowed it during deployment). I decided not to have too many cavalry units for this battle, I wanted to build in a good core strength to the army. For this I had some freshly painted militia billmen and archers. Stephen for the Lancastrians had twice as much cavalry and a more varied force with crossbows and some Irish Kerns.

As expected the battle started with an archery duel in the centre, because I had a camp I was able to add additional dice for greater range and took a chance at some long ranged fire. it didn’t have the desired result but as the Lancastrian archers commanded by Tony got closer my archers started to score more hits. Rather surprisingly it was at this point Tony and Stephen decided to use their reroll ability. Admittedly this was to save a unit that would otherwise have routed but I thought it was early in the battle to use the ability.

The Yorkists didn’t have it all their own way and a unit sized gap soon appeared in the front line. Over on the Yorkist right flank Andy was also advancing archers but they would be facing cavalry rather than infantry units. Stephen swiftly advanced the cavalry to within charge distance in a bold move not unlike what was witnessed in the last battle.

The charge proved devastating wiping out two of Andy’s archer units and suffering no loses themselves. Even though it was very early on in the battle this had the potential of destroying the Yorkist right flank and separating the far Yorkist units from the main force.

Andy quickly countered the threat by advancing up some billmen and men at arms. Following suit over the cavalry charge I tried the same on the other side of the field. Tony had advanced some Irish Kerns on the Lancastrian right flank, so I charged them with my mounted men at arms.

I was expecting a walkover but the dice were not on my side and all the cavalry managed was one hit against the Irish but suffered two hits in return. I therefore decided to withdraw the cavalry rather than risk leaving them in locked in the melee.

Having failed to sweep aside the Lancastrian right flank I turned my attention back to the centre. The archery battle was going the Yorkists way so I spent time bringing up the rest of my infantry. Tony matched this by bringing up some men at arms.

My spearmen were the ones facing the men at arms but I didn’t hold back and charged in. At the same time Stephen charged again on the Lancastrian left flank, this time against Andy’s billmen.

The Lancastrian charge hit a solid wall with the Yorkist billmen holding their ground, locking the cavalry into a prolonged melee. Feeling emboldened I charged again with my cavalry against the Irish, this time making sure I had some bonus dice to add a little extra to the combat. It proved decisive and the Irish were routed from the table.

Back to the centre and the Yorkist spearmen were slowing being defeated by the Lancastrian men at arms. With the introduction of a second unit of men at arms the spearmen were routed.

With the Lancastrian cavalry still fighting the Yorkist billmen, Stephen brought up the mounted men at arms and destroyed the remaining archers under Andy’s command. But Andy now had fresh men at arms ready to join the fray.

With the Lancastrian loses mounting up I felt able to take more risks. The Yorkists had won the archery duel in the centre and the Lancastrian cavalry were facing a tougher challenge against the Yorkist infantry. So I continued the advance of my cavalry against Tony’s billmen.

Things started to go badly for the Lancastrian cavalry. The Yorkist infantry started to score hits and soon a unit of Currours and mounted men at arms were destroyed for no loses on the Yorkist side.

The battle in the centre started to draw in more units. With the destruction of my spearmen, I managed to get a unit of men at arms and billmen into the melee. Ultimately I’d lose the men at arms to this fight and a unit of mounted men at arms over on the left of the Yorkist line. Which pushed the casualty right up alarmingly.

Feeling they had nothing to lose the Lancastrians threw caution to the wind and charged in. Starting with their mounted men at arms against Andy’s billmen. But with the presence of the Yorkist camp Andy was able to add additional dice to give the billmen the best chance. This proved a wise move and ended with the cavalry locked in combat.

In the centre Tony threw the remaining Lancastrian billmen against the Yorkist archers, but I’d had time to bring up some billmen of my own in support.

At this point the Lancastrians were rapidly reaching their break point and just didn’t have enough units in combat to make enough difference. The last gasp came with the outflanking of the last unit of Lancastrian mounted men at arms by Andy’s dismounted men at arms. This was too much for the Lancastrian cavalry and their loss pushed them to breaking point, handing victory to the Yorkists.

As mentioned this was the first straight up fight in the campaign so far. Neither side had the advantage and so the battle was down to each sides order of battle and how it was deployed. For the Yorkists I decided to include a larger number of militia units to effectively add some fodder to the ranks and hopefully keep the army in the field longer. I also reduced the amount of cavalry units, mainly because I also didn’t want to spend too many points on commanders. The Lancastrian order of battle was fairly similar but two factors were different, the Lancastrians were spread thinner and additional points reduced the overall break point of the army. At the point the Lancastrians broke the Yorkists were still half a dozen units away from breaking themselves.

This battle put the Yorkists in a commanding position in the campaign, it’s the second battle of St Albans next and the Lancastrians are going to have to up their game.

Yorkist Loses
5 Units of Longbows (15 points)
1 Unit of Militia Longbows (3 points)
1 Unit of Spearmen (4 points)
1 Unit of Dismounted Men at Arms (4 points)
1 Unit of Mounted Men at Arms (4 points)
Total loses 30 points (Army break point 48)

Lancastrian Loses
2 Units of Dismounted Men at Arms (8 points)
2 Units of Currours (8 points)
2 Units of Billmen (8 points)
4 Units of Longbows (12 points)
2 Units of Kerns (6 points)
Total loses 42 points (Army break point 39)

Yorkist Victory

Work in Progress Wednesday

Another Wednesday and some more progress from society members. Above we have Eric’s latest Chaos Marines.

Next up a couple of things from Tony F, first up a bounty hunter from DieHard miniatures.

and a kraken monster Tony is going to use as the watcher in the water for Lord of the Rings games.

And last for this week a bumper crop from Andy, starting with some light foot (shield transfers to follow).

Now some militant monks and pilgrims.

and finally a group of villagers.

See you next Wednesday

 

Five Parsecs From Home – The Pi Campaign

Marcus takes off into deep space with his crew of ne’er-do-wells in the start of a new solo campaign.

According to the strapline, Five Parsecs from Home is “A solo adventure wargame of galactic trailblazing!”. Originally published amongst a host of other products from Nordic Weasel Games, I bought the original some years ago but never got it to the table as I often don’t with electronic products (but you can get it from Drive Thru RPG here). When Modiphius produced a lovely, updated physical version in 2021 I had to give it a try.

The game relies heavily on tables to generate characters and events each turn. It is hardly surprising that rolling up my characters was an activity redolent with memories of half-forgotten episodes of ‘80’s role playing.

Having had a couple of games which went well in terms of understanding, but very much not so in if judged by any standard of success, I regretfully decided to roll up a new crew and record the results for general edification.

Firstly, the Captain: Veyon Ostrova (human). While Veyon grew up on a Research Outpost which gave her some technical background, her family were artists. She has as a result a bit of savy and a slice of luck. She is motivated by wealth.

Veyon and Pascal

Pascal Xavier (human “bio-up”). Pascal is an unusual character. From a wealthy background he is bio-adjusted with cybernetics, (including the ability to avoid a stun on a D6 roll of 5+). Pascal has a political motivation (which I suspect gives him some revolutionary leanings) and a mysterious patron, a private organization with some as yet unspecified objectives. Nevertheless, he is also quite savvy. He is not short of a bit of cash and generated a story point, which can adjust matters in the player’s favour; a lucky break or perhaps a dramatic twist in the story…

San Holo (humanoid alien). San is particularly notable for his blueish skin tone and has innate engineering skills. Brought up on a space station, he is not as tough as the others, but he is fast. He is a bit of a scoundrel but is motivated by romance. Is he looking for a lost love? San also generated a story point.

Holo and Tigg

Nira Tigg (human) grew up in with a ganger background. Whatever happened on that mining colony she grew up on, she is out for blood! She is motivated by revenge. As a result she is tough (+1), has two experience points and faster reactions (+1) than the norm, but also has a rival. Somebody is gunning for her too!

Kel Wyre. Not unlike Nira, Kel has an unhappy background. Escaping from some war-torn hell-hole of a planet with two experience points and (+1) quick reactions, he values his freedom above anything else. And what way to assure that than a ready supply of cash? Kel is a scavenger who has his ear to the ground (+1 rumour) and has managed to acquire a sniper rifle.

Finally, Wellington Duo (human) grew up in a wealthy merchant family and perhaps not surprisingly he is motivated by the acquisition of wealth himself. He has some experience in corporate espionage and a corporate patron who has provided the crew with their first job. He has a handy way with tech (he has a repair bot and knows how to use it with +1 to repairs)

Their ship is a lowly rust-bucket of a freighter. Its registration ends with the digits …31.4. San remarked on this and Veyon replied “Then it will be Pi in the Sky” and the name stuck.

Wyre and Duo

Next time we’ll get stuck into some action…

Work in Progress Wednesday

It’s Wednesday again and we have a varied selection this week. Above we have some 6mm Picts from Felix.

Continuing with 6mm Mark J has added the pikes to some pyrrhic pikemen.

There’s also some Generals and javelin armed light foot

Next up Andy has progressed a bit more on the WW2 Brits

and started on some medieval peasants and light foot.

And last but not least marcus has finished painting up his blue fleet

See you next wednesday

Work in Progress Wednesday

This week we start with some 6mm Pyrrhic war miniatures, above are some Elephants, and below some infantry and leaders.

Next up Stephen has painted up an Orc unit complete with leader.

We move onto some Naval units now, with some german destroyers

And the fleet

And lastly this week Andy has restored his painting mojo with some WW2 British infantry

That’s it for this week, see you next Wednesday

What a (Christmas) Tanker !

Marcus takes us through this year’s Christmas shenanigans, as we all turned into complete tankers…

I think I first suggested having a game of “What A Tanker” (WAT) as a club Christmas game in early 2020. We all know what happened next. This year we finally got a Christmas outing for this Lardy game at the club, with ten participants. Thanks to Phil and Tony, we were able to choose from a wide variety of tanks, from recently painted Pz 35’s and FCM-36’s to Phil’s scratch-built Maus. (“No Phil, there are no stats for a Maus!”) No-one even noticed that I didn’t complete my ESCI Jagd. Pz. IV, or finish re-conditioning my Jagd. Panther, as Phil had managed to recondition his with a generous helping of agrax earthshade, nuln oil or some such alchemy

Between Alan and Tony, we were provided with a couple of great tables (perhaps too great…) with plenty of cover representing western European towns with villages, woods and crossroads etc. Plenty of cover…

The idea was that we would have two tables; late war and early war. If you got knocked out you would simply join the other table, not necessarily on the same side. However, while you were on a table, you would be either German or Allied; no “own goals” to boost your scoring as it were.

We also generated a simple system of scoring. If you got a kill you divided the points value of the target as listed in the WAT rulebook by the firer (TV/FV * 10 = score). Tony produced a nice table to cross reference the values easily.

Late War Table

I started on the late war table driving a Stuart, with Steve and “Baggins” (my youngest) driving Shermans. Our initial nasty Nazi opponents were Andy and Alan, both with Pz.IV’s.
While Steve and Baggins drove up the flanks, I ventured through the outskirts of a village to find Alan’s Pz.IV on the road more or less blocking my advance. Both Steve and I struggled to manoeuvre with our dice, which can be a frustration with the rules. Many modifications were suggested, and I took notes with a view to my own Grav Tanker variant. As I tried to extricate myself from the built-up area and with Steve attempt to outflank him on our left, Baggins moved up on the right all guns blazing at Andy. These two ended up in a protracted fire fight with Baggins in position behind a wall and Andy, IIRC, initially behind some hedges and the traversing between the woods and hedges as a result of a series of non-damaging hits. Eventually Andy paid a heavy penalty and brewed up and Boaz picked up the “Impressive Bush” camouflage card. Meanwhile, first Steve and then I joined in pumping rounds into Alan, with Steve finishing him off and earning a “Hell Driver” card.

Jeremy joined us having suffered brutally on the early war table, and boosted the axis forces with Andy’s departure. Baggins traded shots with a returning Alan as Jeremy moved up. Baggins then got his come-uppance and while attempting to get up close and personal with Jeremy (talk of ramming was heard) suffered a kill at Jeremy’s hands and promptly left for the early war table. Steve and I again poured fire into the luckless Alan, whose dice rolls deserted him. Somewhere amongst the melee (as it was very much close quarters stuff) my Stuart went BOOM and it was Steve again who got the kill, then promptly had to leave the game early. Meanwhile Baggins had got a kill on the early war table where Andy had suffered more ill-fortune!

Between us, we took a grand total of two photos of the late war table – a bit of an oversight when it came to writing up the game here ! Here’s Andy’s view of the table(Ed)

Early War Table
Marcus didn’t make it onto the 1940 table, so Tony F outlines what happened over there

The early war table was slightly larger with less cover than the late war one, which probably made for a more open game. We also ruled early on that the flimsy wooden fences didn’t count as obstacles – we allowed tankers to see and drive through them without penalty. There were plenty of tanks to choose from – 9 French (FCM-36, R-35, H-35, H-39/40, FT-17, AMC-35, Char D2, Char B1 bis and SOMUA S-35), 5 British (Mk.IVc, A-9, A-10, A-13 and Matilda), 10 German (Pz.IIC, Pz.IIE, Pz.IIIF, Pz.IVA. Pz.IVD. Pz.35(t), Pz.38(t), PzJg.I, StuG IIIA and a Neubaufahrzeug!), and even some Belgians (T.13B3, T.15 and ACG-1). Not all of these are in the rulebook, but coming up with stats for them was pretty straightforward – I drew up a chart for easy reference.

All tankers started the game with a Level 1 tank, and we allowed upgrades to better vehicles as the game went on. The Germans, Brian, Jeremey and Pete, started out with a Pz.35(t), Pz.IVA and Pz.Jg I respectively. Dave and Chris both chose British Cruisers (A10 and A9), while I took a French Hotchkiss H-35. All we can say is that if the Allies had performed on the battlefield like they did on our table, WW2 would have been over in June 1940 ! Chris took up a firing position looking straight down the road and proceeded to ping away at anything that moved with his trusty 2pdr, while Dave and I ‘raced’ up the flanks (in our slow tanks). Details are hazy, but we wiped out the first wave of Germans without loss, including Jeremey’s brave Pz.IVA that advanced across the fields to challenge Chris at point blank. The duel at the abandoned farm between Pete’s PzJg.I and my H.35 was a contest between his powerful Czech-made 47mm gun and my thicker-than-average armour, offset by his tin plate defence and my short 37mm popgun. In the end, unlike in 1940, it went the way of the French. As we wore down the Germans various tank commanders switched tables – Andy turned up in a StuG.IIIA and Boaz a late model Pz.38(t), but they were seen off in equally short order, although there were some interesting cat-and-mouse chases around the village. Dave and Chris both eventually lost their original mounts (Dave swapped his for a shiny new Matilda.II) but my Hotchkiss led a charmed life and survived the day with just the permanent loss of one dice (and a lot of dents in the armour).

In the end we didn’t keep an accurate tally of the overall scoring, but Dave seems to have emerged as Top Tanker with four kills set against a single loss, followed by my plucky H-35 with four kills and no losses (Dave’s kills were of higher value targets which offset the loss of his A10). Kills seemed to be harder to come by on the late war table.