Transport with a big gun

      It was a pretty quiet weekend of painting, so here is just a quick post on the one thing I did get time to do.
     This is the first real bit of armour for my vbcw Albertines. I've given it a really basic colour scheme because in bigger games it'll be running alongside a matching pair of private owned vans and I want this one to look much more like the established military workhorse of the fleet.

I just need to lay my hands on some suitable drivers and a gunner or two now.

Hordes of the Things

     The go to game for anything regiment based, be it fantasy or historical, at my club is the DBA adaption Hordes of the Things, HOTTS, and somehow I have managed to avoid playing a single game of it. Chatting to the club chairman, Neil, I mentioned in passing that the dark ages are my favourite period of history and I really wanted to do a big dark age army, which then set off a series of events that led to this:
   

     192 points on each side of dark age goodness. As I have only really been dabbling with historical gaming for the last year or so, neither of these were my armies, the figures were a mix of Neil and Chris' collections, but I took my part of the Saxon army and got ready for a bit of shield wall action. Starting from the left and going round clockwise; the Viking armies were controlled by Neil and Chris, the Saxon armies by John and then me.

      At the mid point in the game I was going to take another photo of the whole board, but because the whole of the two armies on the Saxon right flank were still lined up staring at each other, I instead focused on the Saxon left, where 3 turns of combat had already been fought. Between the second and third photos another 5 rounds of combat had been fought and in realistic shield wall style, the casualties hadn't been decisive, it was just grinding the opponent down by pure attrition. It was really interesting to see a game whose mechanics mean you need to try and keep the line of combat straight, the weird steps that appear as you win or lose combats ultimately weaken you, so even if you are winning the majority of the combats, sometimes the clever move is to retreat certain elements to strengthen your line again.

The game was set up slightly too late into the evening, hence no scenery and the fact we didn't get to finish, but it gave me a taste of what I was missing out on. So now armed with a copy of the hordes rulebook, a gripping beast catalogue and a list of base measurements, I am ready to start my own army.

Post box

       This post box is the latest addition to my vbcw scenery collection. It a mid-Victorian post box from Yeoman model's range of resin scenery bits. I always find that its small bits like these that really help place a game and this should do a sterling job.

 

Thanks for reading

Shambling in the rain

    Inspired by the storms we had at the end of last week and over the weekend, I dug out a zombie figure that has been sitting in my lead draw for a while. So here he is; Zombie Gene Kelly by Musketeer Miniatures:

      He can now be added to the world's slowest growing zombie horde.

'Went the day well' VBCW Albertine platoon

    With the news that I may have just found some local opponents to learn the Solway gaming club's very British civil war rules 'Went the day well?' with, it seems fortuitous that I have now finished my platoon to play that game with.
     Up first are the remaining men that now complete my VBCW Albertine platoon, the regular British army troops and the militia nco who is wearing the jacket and cap of a serving soldier.

       This is the full 35 men I need to make my platoon, and as my army grows some of these units will be moved around into other platoons and I might even muck about with the composition of the command group to reflect the platoon they will become part of. At the moment though, my platoon is made up of one unit of trained rifles and two units of untrained militia, plus their command.

        My command group is supposed to look like the best of units mixed into one unit to better unify my force. A regular army officer to command, two militia men, a local doctor as a medic and a cricket umpire to be in charge of signals.

       These guys are probably still my favourite unit so far. I just love the look of a unit of cricket players, armed to the teeth and ready to fight for their cause.

      My bog standard unit of militia. I given the nco part of a regular army uniform to give him an element of authority with the men. These sort of units will eventually make the bulk of my force, so expect a lot more of them to appear on my desk in the coming months.

     The regular soldiers are probably from the Romford barracks and have thrown their lot in with the Lord Protector Prince Albert, and they give my army an element of trained troops to balance against the green, untrained nature of the two militia units.

Thanks for reading.

VBCW militia

     Just a quick mid-week post. I've had this picture of my latest Very British Civil War unit sitting on my laptop since Saturday evening but it keeps being over taken to getting it's very own post by the next shiny thing that has come off my painting desk. So, here is it's time to shine.
     This unit of worker's militia is the second unit for my Albertine faction from the VBCW. I like the idea of the various worker's militia's comprising the majority of the actual fighting men involved in the civil war. Local communities, colleagues or even sports clubs, arming themselves and fighting for whatever cause they believe in, be it communist or fascist ideals, supporting either king, or even just defending their local interest in a country roaming with uncontrolled armies. So, even though the next unit that is on my painting desk is a regular army unit, I want the majority of my Essex Albertine force to just be different units of militia, with these guys being one of many.

     I should get a post up Sunday or Monday showing off my whole 'Went the day well?' platoon, so until then. I hope you enjoyed reading this.

Anglo-Saxon Saga Warband

    As I had a quite afternoon I thought I would spend some time with my camera and some scenery to take some proper photos of armies that were painted up before I started this blog. I am going to concentrate on armies that I have mentioned in this blog so far, especially ones that are still being painted, so that you can put pictures of models into your mind where before they have only been written about.

        I thought I would start with my Anglo-Saxon Saga warband;

My current 5 point Anglo-saxon saga warband

 I use the Gripping Beast Hereward the Wake model for my Anglo-Saxon warlord. I think this is one of the nicest sculpts out there at the moment and is the model that really got this whole project really kick started. I have purposely painted him up differently to the way he is painted on their website just to try not to mislead opponents into thinking he is being used as the infamous man himself.

Odda Whitehorn, Anglo-Saxon warlord, his huscarls and his personal priest (bard)

Warriors unit 1

Warriors unit 2

Warriors unit 3 

       My whole Anglo-Saxon warband is made from Gripping beast plastics, I think their plastic are really nice sculpts and a really good deal for the amount you get. Plus the idea of drilling and sticking white metal weapons into white metal hands on a scale bigger than a couple of 4 man units feels me with a serious sense of dread, so these plastics make the whole process a lot easier.
I have tried to keep to the historical evidence as much as possible, so my levy will be completely unarmoured, my warriors are a mix of mostly unarmoured but with helmets and a few that are armoured, while my huscarls are a completely armoured. I don't think chainmail would have been all that common, so I try to keep it to the professional warriors.


       Thanks for reading.