Progress with the Spanish.

A quick up-date on progress with the DBA Iberian Spanish army.

You can tell it's holidays - when else would I have time to do this. The bulk of the painitng has been completed, with straps, boots, weapons, and horse furniture to be done, before finishing the bases. I think they'll be ready for the Woolston DBA tournament on 10 January.








I was especially pleased with today's acquisition: this fine looking piece for use as the army's Camp. I am aware that the Spanish at this stage were certainly not some group of 'hairy barbarians', and I have been wondering exactly what I should use as my camp.

A visit to a local aquarium shop yielded up this little beauty: a ruin, admittedly, but suitably splendid all the same, I felt.

Middle East scenario .. the Es Salt raid.

It's been a while but I finally got around to posting another WW1 scenario to 'The Great Adventure'. The scenario (The End of the Es Salt raid) was sent to me by Eric Spicer, a WW1 'gaming colleague who has authored most of the Middle east scenarios on the web site. It includes Australian Light Horse and NZ Mounted, as well as an armoured car and a couple of Light Cars.., on the ANZAC side, and plenty of Turkish infantry opposing them. The battle was ample proof that despite the decline of Turkish arms and influence later in the war, Turkish soldiers were still capable of giving allied forces a good 'bloody nose' in 1918.



The scenario provides good excuse to buy and paint up some of the new HaT Australian Light Horse figures, if you are 'gaming in 20mm. I must get myself organised and get some more of these great figures painted and ready to fight.. Andy's Turkish infantry are waiting!!

Next new project..

Another new project, but this time one that shouldn't take too long to complete. At the October Conquest tournament, I won a 15mm DBA army, one of the pre-packed armies from Corvus Belli - the Iberian Spanish. I hasten to add that there was no talent involved there.. a random draw for those who didn't win a place, and the army was kindly sponsored by Corvus Belli, after approaches from tournament organiser Keith McNelly.

With the DBA tournament at Woolston on 10 January, I really need to get these guys painted, so I've made a start. The photos provide a little insight into the messy nature of my painting table...oooopss!!!





Normally these would be mounted individually on large 6" flat head nails (using blue tack) to provide an easy way to hold each figure, and then painted before basing. However, since the figures aren't based 4 to a base, I've decided to try to paint them pre-based. I reckon that with only 3 per base I can get to the figures reasonably easily with a paint brush. We''ll see.

So, they have been cleaned of any flash (not a lot), with washed with detergent and warm water, based, and sprayed with black undercoat prior to starting the painting.

I'll post pictures once they are finished.

Wargamers of certain age...

Wargamers of a certain age will doubtless have noted the recent sad passing of perhaps one of our more famous 'comrades in scale', Edward Woodward.

Woodward most probably came to your attention in his television role as David Callan, spy and hit man with a conscience. However if you are a wargamer of a certain age you are quite likely to have vivid recollections of Woodward engaging in his screen and personal hobby as a wargamer, watching him in episodes such as 'Act of kindness', or latterly in "Callan: the movie" engaging in a napoleonic campaign or, in the movie, playing ACW battles over terrain created by the late Peter Gilder.

At the time of his death I resisted the temptation to make comment, but I guess some could argue that no wargames blog would be complete without some acknowledgement of his passing.

'Gamer Bob Cordery has recently made an interesting and nostalgic post on Woodward, and a quick Youtube search will reveal some nice little snippets from Callan episodes.

Thanks for the inspiration Mr Woodward!!!

BAOR expansion...

It seems to be Spearhead season again, and I've been thinking a lot about Modern Spearhead, as well as playing a few games, and even catching up on some painting. I've had the vehicles and figures to complete another Mechanised Infantry battalion in the BAOR for well over a year, but other projects have taken precedence, until this week.

A game against Keith a couple of weeks ago, and another game yesterday (here's a link to Keith's write up 'Chieftains and Choppers - 1982' on his blog), prompted me to get these guys finished. This battalion is mounted in Saxon APCs, which identifies it as a Mechanised Infantry battalion in an infantry division.

Here's the full battalion of fighting stands (no support stands at this stage) as modeled in Modern Spearhead.

Angel Flyers take on the Elves...

Another saga in the round of HotT games, this time with two armies facing opponents for the first time: Lorraine's Angels, and Adrian's Elves. Lorraine was busy, so I had the homour of commanding the Angels.

The Angel army is all flyers with:

1 x Aerial Heroine general

2 x Airboats

6 x Flyers

The Elves boasted:

1 x Magician General

1 x Paladin

3 x Flyers

2 x Shooters

3 x Spears

The battle began innocently enough with the Elves defending and taking first turn. They were however left pretty well unmolested and able to deploy as they wished as I managed to throw a 1 for PIPs for the first three turns - those Angels were going nowhere. This first photo shows the Angels right flank with the Aerial Heroine supported by 4 flyers. The Angels had deployed the two airboats on the left, supported by the remaining flyers.

Adrian had deployed his Paladin on his right, a long way away from the Magician in order to avoid the "purer than pure" influence of the Paladin on his Magician. The Paladin and flyers went straight into action. attacking the Angels left. The first combat saw the Paladin eliminate an airboat.. high factors combined with a '6' made quite an impression!! Early Elven magic had also driven an angel flyer to flee from the battlefield.

One of the Elven flyers suffered a similar fate with a '1' vs a '6'.. whew!!

Finally getting some movement PIPs, the Angel Heroine attacked the exposed flank of the Elven left wing, supported by a flyer. Initially however the Heroine was repulsed buy this '1' vs '5'

The Elven Magician was exposed as a result of a successful round of combat.

Finally the Aerial Heroine confronted the Elven Magician General. Even a '1' vs '4' wasn't enough to save the Magician, and that was the game.

Here's a nice close-up of Adrian's Elven Paladin.. nice work. It was the first time we had used a Paladin in battle.. very powerful troops.. ouch ... Certainly saw my airboats off!!

Emperor Dragon Trophy

We've had three HotT tournaments now since we created the "Emperor Dragon Trophy" back in 2008. Here's the trophy, currently residing 'chez moi' after the recent HotT Carnage tournament. I won it by the skin of my teeth, on casualty count back from Nick G, a worthy opponent!! Thanks Nick.

The Dwarven Host grows

I've been doing some more work on the Dwarven host, preparing it for battle. It's been a slow job, with interruptions from work etc.. sigh...

The host now contains the following units:
2 x warriors (both strangely at 19 figures)
1 x Longbeards (20 figures)
1 x Thunderers (15 figures)
1 x Rangers (10 figures, with Great Weapons.. all I had, regardless of whether it's the best option or not)
2 x Miners (10 figures each)
1 x Slayers (10 figures)
1 x Cannon
1 x Organ Gun

along with a Lord, a BSB and a Dragon Slayer.

I have yet to strengthen the Miners and Slayer units to 15 figures, and also add a Gyrocopter, a Runelord and and another Lord figure. I've reduced the resolution of the photos, to reduce file size. Hopefully that doesn't impact too much on their quality. I'll have to take a short break form the Dwarfs; the BAOR Brits need reinforcement (there's a battalion of Mechanised Infantry that require completion) and a Spanish Iberian DBA army to complete before the Woolston DBA day in January.. it's all go!!). In the meantime I think I'm about ready to come "out of the closet" with the Dwarven army and try these guys on the table top against a few new opponents.




The new Ranger unit, armed with Great weapons,... I have plans for these guys, even though Quarrelers were possibly a better option for Rangers.

The Organ Gun, with crew.

The cannon, with crew.. I'm still one figure short..

The new unit of warriors.. with a number of older figures given to me by friend Andy.

More HotT Carnage photos

I've posted a pile of extra photos from this tournament to my Flikr account. I enjoy sharing these photos with anyone who is interested.


Good friend, and fellow player on the day, Nick G has also posted three battle reports of his own blog

A nice final touch to a great day's 'gaming.

Continuing growth in plastic figure releases

This graph has just appeared on Plastic Soldier Review




This growth in releases of new sets of 1/72 figures is astounding. PSR notes this also in the context of the current economic downturn. Check out the article:

http://www.plasticsoldierreview.com/ShowFeature.aspx?id=27

HotT Carnage.. what a day!!

Today saw four local HotT (Hordes of the Things) players playing for the Emperor Dragon Trophy at the annual Carnage tournament. The tournament is a Fantasy 'gaming tournament at which the predominant game is WH Fantasy. The four of us were to play three games each, once against each other player (obviously???..LOL). That was the morning. In the afternoon we then went on to swap armies, or to try different armies (there were a few spare armies available, although the official playing rounds had been completed. Below you'll find two photo after action reports of two of the games I played. The first was one of the official rounds played in the morning, the second with was one fog the mix 'em up games from the afternoon.

The players and and their army lists were:

Nick G:

Skeletons
	1 x Mag Gen
	1 x Hero
	2 x Knights
	2 x Riders
	8 x Hordes

Nick S:

Mountain Indian	1 Hero
	1 Magician
	1 Behemoth (General)
	3 Beasts
	3 Riders

Gordon P

Dwarf
	1xKnight General
	1xHero
	2xBehemoth
	1xFlyer
	2xShooters
	1xRider
	1xBeasts

Robin S

Spiders	1 x Hero General
	1 xBehemoth
	1 x God
	10 x Hordes
	2 x Lurkers

This first report is my game against Gordon's Dwarves seen here deployed against me. I advanced cautiously, trying not to get too far away from my baseline (those hordes like to come on close to friends).







Gordon threatened my left with his two behemoths... and pretty threatening they were too, I can tell you. You can see them here advancing against my behemoth and hero.







We began to mix it up.. while I am still hoping for my Spiderman God to appear... he didn't have a good record before this tournament.



Gordon managed to destroy my behemoth, but if you look at the bottom of the photo you can see his Hero, confronting two of my resurrected hordes. What you don't see if the third horde lurking behind (these are Spiders after all..)



The result was a very dead Hero.. mumble grumble .. that was the Dwarves mumbling and grumbling by the way ....



Finally my God appeared.. go Spiderman.. I trapped Gordon's first behemoth, and then managed to squish his general against the second of his behemoths.



This was the second game: I took my Lost Worlds army, against my Chaos army used by Nick G.








The God (King Kong I presume??) appeared relatively early on, as did Nick's TWO dragons.



The dragons took it to my flyer.. ouch...



And this brought the God over.. this looked interesting..

In the meantime the Lost Worlds war band made a breakthrough against the Chaos blades.




and the Ape God drove off one of the Chaos dragons.. what could possibly go wrong??

and then turned on the Chaos General, who was squished against his own dragon... MESSY!!!!




It all looked even better when the war band trapped the Chaos Hero like this:



But.. they don't call them Heroes for nothing!!! He valiantly drove of this attack, and then...

drove hoe the advantage by pressing forward against the lone unsupported war band.. it was enough.... game over for the Lost Worlds forces... but what a fantastic game. Actually what a fantastic series of games and a brilliant tournament.

Oh, in the excitement of the write up, I nearly forgot...

Nick G and I were level pegging at the end, but I won over Nick on a count back of army points lost... thanks to everyone for a great series of games with many memorable moments.

Bergen 1759

Friday night, and more Lace Wars action, as Adrian and I refought Bergen 1759. A Hessian and Hanoverian army (commanded by me) was trying to eject a French army (commanded by Adrian) from Bergen and its dominating heights. Here are just four photos from the action. The figures are once again 15mm from Adrian's collection.

It was a nail biting game, finely balanced throughout. I nearly did it, but my final attempts to shift Adrian's French from the commanding heights, using the last of my cavalry to dislodge his teetering forces, fell short. It was one heck of a game though.