The rise of Chaos

Rumours had been coming back from the Badlands for months. Terrible rumours. Rumours that took courage to repeat, rumours of things that made the blood freeze, things that should never be mentioned. The King had decided that action must be taken, he could not stand by and allow such things to continue on the borders of his realm. His knights had answered his call, and they had pushed on through the Badlands and into the wastes of Chaos.

It was on the sixth day that they first beheld the terrible sight of the citadel of skulls carved into the cliff face, blue lines of lightening coursing across the skull that sat leering at them from hundreds of feet above. As they advanced, lines of figures, foot and mounted, appeared before them, crackling with the discharge of energy that made them shimmer blue to the eye.

Dragons soared in the skies above as Sarmatian horns blew and neat ranks of knights moved forward, intent on crushing this foul foe.

Grantus gave the signal and his knights and retainers charged forward on his left flank. The crash of lance on shield, the cry of men and horses, shook the very earth.

Grantus himself lead more Sarmatian knights forward and attacked the Chaos Blades.

The initial charge was contained, but Grantus began to push his foe back, oblivious to the threat to his flank.

The tussle continued on the Sarmation left, the knights crashing again and again into the Chaos Hero who sat in their midst.

Sarmatian knights fell to the foul energies of Chaos.

Grantus fell as more Chaos footmen fell upon his flank, and his knights realised that the day was lost. Horns blew, horses whinnied, men died, and the knights began to withdraw.

Atrocities looked destined to continue in the Badlands.

Nick G and I met up for some wargames action. With my pinched nerve injury, standing and leaning over a table would be problematic so we were playing HotT seated at the dining room table. Nick fielded a Sarmatian army, while I ran my Chaos force. Both armies included a dragon, neither of which showed their faces in this first of three games. But there was more to come. Here is Nick's account of this first battle. The armies are 20mm plastics. Nick's Sarmatians are one of his more recently completed armies, with many conversions on the bases.

I know I didn't NEED them...

 ... but I WANTED them. The 20mm Spearhead Russian forces for mid war eastern front are pretty much complete. But... I've always liked the look of the Russian T26 (despite it's less than stellar performance on the battlefield) and when I saw the S-Model boxes (theoretically 'quick build') how could I resist.

I applied perhaps slightly too much black wash (they both got two coats) but the look is suitably 'dirty' and used rather than fresh from the kitset box'ish. Many of the parts are beautifully finely cast, but I felt that this was a disadvantage. The suspension units were easily broken if care wasn't taken removing them from the sprue (I manage to break only one), and the antennae are so fine that they too are difficult to remove from the sprue. One of the two actually had two breaks in it 'in the box'. I may still go back and remove the antennae from around the turret as they are not essential, and perhaps mis-represent the Russian tank forces early war at least, when radios were few and far between.

The kits also came with brass etched parts, most of which I didn't use. . there was no way that they would survive wargames handling.

However when all is said and done, they are a nice model, and they will create some nice visual variety on the table alongside the BT7s and T34s.

Big 'thumbs up' to S-Models, it's just that these are possibly not as robust for my gammy fingers and thumbs as I'd prefer.

Boom Bang

I bought a box of Emhar Infantry and 18 pounders quite a few years ago, primarily to provide me with some helmet-clad later war British infantry.

In the pack were two 18 pounder field guns which have sat unassembled for a number of years as I had six of those delightful Airfix Royal Horse Artillery guns. Again, the box had to go, so that meant assembling and painting the guns.

Here is a photo of those Airfix 18 pounders that Keith McNelley took of a game we played many years ago (the AAR 'Crisis in the Balkans' first appeared on his site 'The Wargames Room)

And now some 'rumbly' stuff

Still digging through the boxes of unmade/unpainted kits and figures in the games room, I have to assure Lorraine that I am actually making progress on the pack up and clear out prior to our demolition. Every one of these unmade kits, or unpainted boxes of figures, that I assemble or paint is one fewer box to be packed away somewhere else.. honest, darling.

I think I bought this Emhar Mk IV Male tank way back when they were first released.

It is a reasonably nice kit with a couple of flaws, not the least of which is the unditching rails that are apparently manufactured to sit on the vehicle the wrong way around (the angle iron on the wrong side).

And if you want to see how one of these could look under the hands of someone more competent than me, take a look here. This guy 'ditches' the ditching rails provided in the kit and makes his own.

The nice thing for me is that the tracks actually fitted reasonably well. I hate the old school track assembly stuff, they all too often didn't fit, and wouldn't stretch.  That has been one reason for my preference for the current generation of 'fast build' kits. These however were fine, and just required that little bit of patience to allow glue to dry as they were shaped around the hull.

I chose to hand paint all of the markings.. when you look at historical photos, it always looks to me as if the markings and names had been painted/slapped on by the crews with a 4" brush.

Here's a photo of my latest effort alongside that of good friend Andy Gorman. His is the one at the rear, a better job than mine, bit they look fine together.

Austrian and Russian command and support stands

Some of those stands you always put off when you embark on a project: command and support. The first are two FAO stands for the Austrians.

A divisional command stand for the Austro Hungarians as well. These figures all come from the HaT AH Support Weapons box.

The Russians needed a second divisional command stand, and a Corps command stand.

I decided to use the higher echelon uniform colours: green tunic, and blue trousers. Why? It might be appropriate, and I was getting bored painting khaki.

The Corps command stand

The second divisional command stand

I also needed to provide a little more support for later war games (although the availability of trench mortars for the Russians was severely limited despite the theoretical TOEs). All of the Russian figures here came from the HaT Russian support weapons box.

The common thread here is still 'finishing' existing projects. The figures for these stands have sat in boxes for quite some time. There's more on the painting table as I type.

Why the flurry of activity? Several reasons really. It's term break. I'm injured (having pinched a femoral nerve) and so unable to train for dancing. Both of these mean that I have more time right now. Finally, with the impending demolition of house and games room prior to rebuild, I'm sorting, and where there are boxes of figures or vehicles that I could paint in order to get rid of the boxes, that's what I'm trying to do.

It also means that I end up buying  more figures as I realise I just need a few more of these or one more of those, but.. well, you know how it is.

Balkan Wars matrix game

For those who don't follow Bob Cordery's 'gaming Blog Wargaming Miscellany, his latest post on a matrix game he designed some years ago is interesting, and something of a tease. The game was focusses on the 1912/13 Balkan Wars.

Just enough here to tease you. Of course the Great War Spearhead rules include a brief series of suggestions on changing a few simple mechanisms to allow for pl;y of battles from this war... now that really IS a tease!!

That's progress... 20mm Russians for 1914

Marking a small milestone here, with the last of the fighting stands completed for the Russian 1914 Division. There were 16 fighting stands missing, as I'd mistakenly read the OOB at 4 regiments of 3 battalions instead of 4 regiments of 4 battalions (it evolved into the former, but later in the war). So over this past week I set to and painted the remaining figures that I had in storage.

Mind you the Attack list I have devised for the Russians uses two understrength divisions as the basis for an understrength Corps. so there are enough fighting stands here for both understrength divisions. However I'm still well short of the support stands, MMGs in particular in this early stage of the war (this is Gumbinnen/Tannenberg stuff).

The 16 additional fighting stands completed

The division with artillery, and cavalry (the cavalry here represent more than just the few squadrons of divisional cavalry though)

Back now to the Austro-Hungarians to complete that division. The AH boys will no doubt fight alongside their German allies on the table top. I'm still using up figures bought some time ago, but will need to buy a few more infantry, and some guns, courtesy of Hat. I have also ordered some Irregular AH cavalry .. these should make a nice colourful addition on the table top.