Ash Waste Vehicles

       So here I am, a complete post-apocalypse, Mad Max rip-off, sell out, but I'm really enjoying the models. . . 

      These are from Ramshackle Games, and although they look a lot like they are kits, and the website will sell you them as such, don't let all that fool you! What I love about this range is it is basically just a catalogue of vehicle bits, with a category that is just packs of parts, that with a bit of work, that look good together. Having said all that negative sounding stuff, I have to say I absolutely loved the whole process, there is a lot of filing and green stuff to part parts actually stay together and fill voids, but when the point of these vehicles is that they are bolted together from scavenged parts I really don't care. 

      The only parts of the models that aren't included in the packs are the guns, which are spare plastic GW ones that otherwise live in my bits box forever.

        As I always try to build something with an eventual use in mind, these were built to play an old GW expansion to the Necromunda rules, Ash Wastes. I suppose it was basically what the old Gorka Morka players got when they kept asking for a use for their old Vehicles. So these rules allow you to mount your gang on bikes, cars and bigger transports, put guns on them and see what happens.

Thanks for reading

Plan C. The dreaded third in the trilogy.

      This will be my last post on my attempts to become a competitive gamer, after this I can go back to being a bit more random in what I paint and what goes up on here; although there will be a lot more bolt action to come, so be warned.

      These are the units that make up the list I submitted last weekend for checking, before the tournament this Saturday;

       The shock change in this list from the last two that I used; I replaced out the Fallschirmjager with Panzergrenadiers. My army building style is far more about the fluff and getting the army looking right than it is about the optimum list (hence why my team nickname is the Unicorn) and the completely fallschirmjager theme worked to a tee in my head, but the problem with tournament comps are that somewhere along the line making a fair list has to come before letting the players take whatever they want, with this tournament using the pre-made 'theatre selectors' that Warlord Games have put in the back of each nation's army book. The reason this became a problem for me was that I wanted to move my flamethrower team into a squad instead of having them as a fragile team, and free up some points for something a bit harder hitting, but I can only do that if I swap theatres. So my fallschirmjager have been swapped, man for man, for panzergrenadiers, the stats are exactly the same, the options are exactly the same, the only difference are the models.
       I have only played the one game with this list and my luck was atrocious, but I am still pretty pleased with how it has come together. I have had enough practice with each of it's forebears to know what my weaknesses are, and what my strengths are, so hopefully it will be good enough that I can just go and enjoy myself on the day.

 My new pioneer squad, the cause of all my problems.

       This trailer has absolutely no effect on the game, and is completely unnecessary, but my fluff is all about this being a self-contained force whose job is to harass the allies as they advance into Germany, so I figured the unit needed somewhere to carry their spare ammo, supplies and anything else they might need along the way, and if all else fails, it will make a good objective marker. The model is a Corgi toy, a quick paint job later to bring it in line with the ret of my armour and I am really pleased with it.

Normal service will resume later in the week with something completely different.
Thanks for reading

Fallschirmjager platoon; Plan B

      Between tournament practise and my laptop now finally being truly dead, keeping up this little blog has taken a bit of a back seat, but it will endure as I have a lot of new stuff to share over the next few months, and I am really enjoying this little project.

      So, here is Plan B of my tournament list; a tweaked new plan with most of the basics still in place. This is still meant to be more fluffy than it is hardcore, but my aim in the list is to have one where I can enjoy the day and not just be slapped about left right and centre.

      As you can see from the photo the list is basically the same. The differences are; dropping out a SDKFZ 251/1 in favour of the cheaper (but unarmoured and un-gunned) SDKFZ 7, and dropping the panzerschreck team in favour of a flamethrower team and a schwimmwagon. The points difference between the big transports helped bulk up my two bigger squads and give them some staying power, while I found the panzerschreck team were too expensive and too vulnerable in a list like this and just didn't have the hitting power they needed to keep up. The flamethrower team and their vehicle have also been a lot of fun to play with.

SDKFZ 7 

 Schwimmwagon and flamethrower team

       This last couple of photos are snap shots taken during practise games. The general rule amongst my normal opponents is that if the board isn't covered in burning wrecks its probably not me playing.

 This made me nervous for a while, until he missed and attacked his own infantry . . .

One more burning wreck away from being a normal turn two here.

     Without giving too much away, next post will be Plan C, the list I have actually submitted. I thought about doing that post today but I to understand how I got to it I think you need to see this intermediary one.

      Also this blog was 1 on Friday. Just a little annoyed I hadn't planned far enough ahead to do something for it, but thank you to everyone that still take time out of their day to read whatever it is I had in my head and decided to share with you.

Thanks for reading

Fallschirmjager recce platoon

      As promised, here are some more newly painted models for one of my various* Bolt Action projects. This is my planned army for a tournament I am going to mid-June, I have no idea if it works yet so lots of practise is being planned, but I liked the feel of the list. As the German Heer army I had been playing about with was all about putting troops on the table and trying out ideas, this is all about trying out another idea, while still being based and painted in a similar fashion so they can be used in mixed forces in the future.

       What I wanted was a highly mobile, armoured force, having found that most armies can deal with a single fast moving armoured unit fairly easily, as my poor armoured car keeps finding out the hard way. My theory goes, that 5 armoured vehicles, moving quickly straight at objectives, or round the side of the board to somewhere you thought was safe, might be enough of a psychological threat that I can make my opponent make mistakes. So the Fallschirmjager were born. 

* It happened again, a little accident on ebay and I am back to various . . .

       My Fallschirmjager force is based in Normandy, Summer 1944 and comprises of 3 mixed weapon squads all mounted in half tracks of various sizes, an officer, a panzerschreck team to deal with armour, my armoured car because it fits the theme and a panzer 4h simply because, why not?

My, as yet unnamed, second Lt.

First squad, one of only 2 with a panzerfaust.

My biggest squad at 7 men.

My smallest squad. Even though there is only 2 men difference in biggest to 

smallest, I'm not sure how well these will work.

My heer panzerschreck has rarely failed to do something in a game, 

so it was an auto buy for this army.

These two have been on the blog before, but both have had an heavy weathering 

since and look much better for it.

Thanks for reading, now I need to organise some practise!

A new obsession

      As I said I would do in my new years resolutions, I have got into Bolt Action properly. I knew there was a community of players at Wayland games, I just couldn't seem to find them, so I hatched a cunning plan, sign up for a Bolt Action tournament held at the same venue and use it to drive the other players out of the woodwork. This plan turned out to be an unrivalled success. This post is a random collection of photos taken at the tournament and in another game since, and is going to be a gentle introduction to what could take over this blog for a little while (although as I have the attention span of a gnat, I can confirm there are a couple completely unrelated projects sitting on my desk still).
       I entered the tournament with my basic late war German army as seen in various posts over the last year, the army was originally built to be both Bolt Action and Chain of Command compatible, so my infantry squads were built as the full 10 man squads, panzerfaust on the sgt and a lmg on a squad member. While the squads didn't turn out to be terrible, one actually did me really proud as you'll see later on, they couldn't stand up to a couple of the more specialised squads that roam the board.

My SDKFZ 222, has quickly turned out to be one of my favourite units to use, its on that strange line between being not quite dangerous enough to be a kill priority, but can make so much of a nuisance that it has to be dealt with. In this case I made a dash for the objective, figuring with a bit of luck I might be able to win the game on turn two, but a bazooka team to the rear soon solved that problem. On the other hand, when you know your opponent only has two units that can comfortably kill your panzer 4 and one gets deployed at the back of the board turn one, its actually quite comforting.

About ten minutes after deploying the bazooka team, and feeling a little to confident himself now, my opponent remembered why he had been hesitant to roll his buffalo as far forward as it could go. A panzerfaust to the side at point blank range didn't turn out to be something he enjoyed.

This engagement went on for 4 turns, both tanks were immobilised fairly quickly and were stuck facing each other. There was really only one way it could end but it was lead to some nervous turns for the both of us.

 

This is something we have now done a couple of times, extended the board and shoved a couple more players on per side, while keeping individual armies small. I have to say I prefer big multi-player games like these, it becomes a much more social game than a one on one, and it tones down the power gamer as there is only so much they can do.

Not my Stug but it was just a great photo, of a tank doing exactly what it should be doing.

These last two are just of two of the armies I played, I was just really impressed by how nice they both looked. In the group of players I have now joined, there are only a couple of unpainted armies, a fact that I am finding immensely refreshing, there is nothing quite like being able to take a photo of something that has just happened and not have to worry about that model in the back ground.

Normal service will resume next time with more newly painted stuff.

Thanks for reading

Dead Man's Hand

"You see, my mule don't like people laughing. He gets the crazy idea you're laughing at him. Now if you apologise, like I know you are going to, I might just convince him you didn't mean it"

      The one thing all gaming clubs, and mine is no exception, can be bad for, are weird bursts of enthusiasm for games or genres that vanish as fast as they appear and one of the ones that my club is prone to is wild west games. Once every 6 months it seems someone puts out the call that anyone with anything western should bring it to the club to help fill the board and give players something to use in a big, sprawling club shoot out. It was to one of these calls that I wandered down to the model shop near my work and bought myself a cheap 4ground western shop, I got home, I built it and I found I really enjoyed it. So I went online to look up what else they had. By this point I had missed the club game which I had bought the building for, but I had caught the bug good and proper, there were another two buildings in the post and a set of rules as I figured if you are jumping into something head first you might as well do it properly.
      This post is about the birth of the good town of Sonry, named after the town at the start of Django Unchained called Daughtery. Its a modest town, but I have no doubt that will change in the future. This is a project I have had on the go for about 2 months now and I have been holding back from this blog because I wanted to do it justice, now might be that time.

 The good town of Sonry.

Burleigh's gunshop - a must have in the west.

 New construction.

 The sheriff's office.

 Wanted posters, left to right;

Walter Whyte, Sirrus Black and John Marston.

From Breaking Bad, Harry Potter and Red Dead Redemption respectively.

 Dibbler's general store.

Dr. Lawn - the town doctor.

 The teddy emporium - this I want to explain . . .

 The gallows.

     The set of rules I decided to go for were Dead Man's Hand, they seemed to have the best rules online and had the benefit of being simple to learn. Again after looking at reviews I decided that as much as the figures produced for the game are gorgeous,the price point is just a tad too high compared to other offerings, so I duely popped onto North Star's site and filled my basket up with a mix of North Star and Artisan figures, including a few bits and pieces for other games, and found for the same price as 14 figures from Great Escape Games I now had just over 20. Here they are;

 The good sheriff and his deputies.

 The Outlaws - Boss in black, obviously. . .

 The good folk of Sonry - Dr. Lawn in the middle.

     As I mentioned at the beginning of the post, my club pulls out a western themed game every 6 months of so, and the last one was just after Salute last year where one of our members had picked up Dead Man's Hand and wanted to try it out (this only lasted two weeks), but in that time I decided to get a gang together, but I wanted something different. While searching online I found Eureka Miniature's the good, the bad and the cuddly range of cow-bears and I put a little order in to get the full 7 man gang plus one extra just because of how the packs worked. This is where the idea of the teddy bear emporium from earlier came from.

The good, the bad and the cuddly, plus friends.

    In due course I will try and name every model for this game as I kind of feel a 7 man gang should be made of individuals and not just figures. I might have a game planned for tomorrow so hopefully there will be a post in the near future going over a game, if not there will definitely be some Bolt Action stuff coming fairly soon. Building up a stock pile of cool photos I have taken in games.

Thanks for reading

The transfer window is open

       My first post since Salute, its been that sort of week. I am not going to do the whole Salute review and photos thing as so many other bloggers have done a great job already, and I am not even going to do a picture of my haul, as I forgot to do one before I started building stuff. Suffice to say my trusty backpack was full to the brim and I am going to add at least a couple more labels into my theme bar.
      The one thing I will say about Salute, though, was it was great to meet all the other bloggers, I didn't hang around anywhere near long enough, something I will rectify next year, but putting some faces to random screen names was really worth doing, especially finally meeting the Sir Michael Awdry. It would be nice if the next step for the blogging community was to organise games between bloggers or even a full meet up and game day?

      This post is about the first of my finished Salute purchases; a new Guildball Player for each of my two teams and another version of the Fishermen's guild player Kraken. The two new players were unlocked right at the end of the Kickstarter, because the teams you got as basic were big enough for the biggest size game I decided to hold off adding extra players as the costs were starting to spiral.

Jac - Fishermen's Guild

Tower - Mason's Guild

Kraken (again) - Fishermen's Guild

    There I was on twitter, seeing what was happening on the build up to Salute, and then Guildball tweets a picture of a limited edition model they will be putting on sale at Salute, and for some strange reason my wallet started crying uncontrollably. Here he is though, a stunning sculpt that I expect from this company now, and they haven't fallen into the trap that a lot of companies do with limited edition versions in games that use individual figure cards, they haven't beefed up the stat card at all, this is just a different sculpt, not an uber model. Wargamers are always going to buy limited edition models, we can't help ourselves, but I don't like rule sets where you have to buy them to stay relevant.
     On other news I think I am on the verge of organising a game or two for Guildball, so hopefully I will be posting a game up soon.

    I also need to find out what people prefer to read on blogs, as I have seen lots of different styles online. Do you prefer to have multiple posts in a row on the same project so you can watch it grow before moving onto another one, or do you like posts of what ever has come off the painting desk the most recently? I keep trying to do the first but keep drifting into the second.

Thanks for reading