French zouaves

The forces of war are gathering. I rediscovered quite a few unpainted 6mm WW1 6mm figures that I'd bought in 2007/2008 in preparation for our 'Guns of August' refight of the Battle of the Marne in Christchurch New Zealand. With only one French division painted it seemed that I should complete (well make a start on) the second division in order to 'fuel the passion' and have sufficient 6mm forces to fight a few smaller (but reasonably 'wargame-sized') actions. First off the blocks is a regiment of French zouaves (these are all 1914). The figures are from the Irregular range.

The regiment is short one MMG stand, but fortunately reinforcements arrived today from Irregular (an example of the fantastic mail order service that Ian Kay and the Irregular team deliver (consistently!!)

There's another regiment based and undercoated awaiting the application of a little paint, so .. off to get started.

A few 6mm GWSH snapshots

My second 6mm Great war Spearhead game of the 'season', although I set the game up rather than play - Stan wanted to re-acquaint himself with the rules, and brought along a potential new player, Dave,  who had played a couple of WW2 Spearhead games with him, and was interested in the WW1 variant.

The game was simple and unbalanced, really just a 'training run', pitching two French Regiments with plenty of on board artillery against a German division. As a training run it featured a swag of learning for the players, but didn't really offer the opportunity for a good write-up as an AAR, so I thought I'd just present some photos. The miniatures are Irregular 6mm 1914 French and German.

Germans advance from the right with  single French regiment deployed in the ope in defence

An interesting firefight developed between the German leading regiment and the defending French

The other major firefight between a second German regiment and the left flank of the same French regiment

French 75s firing in direct support, but one battery suppressed. The French divisional commander had set ip close to the guns.. interesting deployment.

'Lost and the Damned' Chaos allies 'Hellbrute'

Latest project off the painting table: a Games Workshop 'Hellbrute'. I wanted the tortured flesh look that links the model to the mutants in the Lost and the Damned army, with armour plate that tied the  model in with the Chaos Space Marines I'd previously painted. The whole army is then tied togther visually with the consistent basing style.

The rear view emphasises the 'tortured flesh' aspect of the model.

As we have decided to revert to 4th Edition 40K rules, this will simply count as a Chaos Dreadnought. It's a lovely model.

Making that 40K game easier to play ...

One of my biggest frustrations in playing Warhammer 40K is the spread of stats and data across numerous codices, and across multiple pages in each codex.

Here's something that Adrian has done for years, and I finally got sorted for the Lost and the Damned army .. a unified stats sheet.

This is a screen shot of a part of the spreadsheet that I prepared. It  means that I have everything I need in order to use the army without that frustrating 'now where did I see that?' rustle of pages in mid game. It is especially important when using an army like L&tD which draws units from multiple codices.

If you play the game every week then by and large this sort of play aid becomes redundant. We don't. It certainly sped up game play last night.

Necrons vs Traitors: Warhammer 40K 4th Edition

Adrian introduced me to Warhammer 40K 12 years ago. The 'interest' at the time was fuelled by the desire to be able to understand the game that the boys at my College were playing when I first began teaching there. 40K 3rd edition was the thing, but the game 'evolved' so that it is currently in its 6th edition amendment phase. I enjoy painting the GW miniatures, and they look great on the table, but frankly rules creep fatigue set in early. We don't play the game often enough to keep up with the endless rules and codex changes. Our wallets also tire of the endless outlay in ever more expensive rule books.

Generally our only game opponents are each other, and occasionally Andy. We don't play in the tournament scene, nor do we participate in the 'friendly' club 40K 'gaming scene. So we took a decision. We would go back to 4th Edition Warhammer 40K, and the codices that we own.

This week we went back to that 4th Edition and played our first game of 4th in a number of years. We have thoughts on some simple house rules that we think will make the game better and, since we don't play other opponents, who cares. This first reprise we simply played the rules as written as best we could remember them as we flitted through the rule book, and we'll now think about those house rules with a little more clarity.

Adrian brought along his Necrons, and I cobbled together a Lost and the Damned list using the 'Eye of Terror' codex. This was the concept that first attracted me to try my hand at the game in 2002 and with the acquisition of a lot of Imperial Guard material over the past few years I was finally able to field 1500 points. This would be the first game I'd played at that size.

The Lost and the Damned army had at its core 4 units of Traitors, and one of Mutants, each of these were troops choices. In the spirit of the army concept I took a heavy weapon with each squad (although I remain convinced that this is NOT a game winning strategy). I also took a heavy weapons squad with heavy bolters, two traitor sentinels, and a Leman Russ. A Vendetta Gunship rounded out the selection of despicable traitorous vermin who had turned their backs on the Empire.

To finish the list there were some Chaos allies: a Dreadnought, and some Chaos space marines, all lead by an aspiring champion.

The table at the start, L&tD on the left, Necrons on the right.

Necrons ....

Traitors, with my not quite finished Hellbrute, counting as a simple Chaos Dreadnought

Adrian had these beasties advancing on his right

My right was held by a traitor squad supported by the two sentinels, each with lascannon. These guys took out a Necron vehicle on the first turn.. nice shooting

Can't recall what these are, but they were ferocious and terrifying, and coming at my centre ...

Adrian's flyer arrived from reserve and he deployed it on his left.

They were getting closer

Meanwhile I advanced my mutants in the centre, wanting to get in to contact with the Necron warriors in the ruins

My left.. well I thought it was looking OK ....

Necrons ...

Mutants ...

Meanwhile on my right my Vendetta Gunship arrived from reserve and I deployed it to counter Adrian's flyer

I supported my centre with the traitor Leman Russ, and advanced the Dreadnought to counter those... terrifying .. things.. coming at me through the undergrowth

Adrian leap frogged his scarabs (??) through his warriors so that my Mutants had no choice in the charge ... darn!!

My right is solid ..

While battle is joined in the centre

The left?? Well.. honestly ....  it seemed fine .

An over view of my centre from behind my lines

OO .. ouch .. bang.. crash ...  it was all on. I had originally intended to support the Dreadnought with the Chaos Space Marines (bottom left of the photo) .. and then had a bright idea, advance them to attack the Necron warriors in the undergrowth.. honestly., it seemed like a good idea at the time

The traitor squad holding the centre, supported by the leman Russ, was shot away by the Necron Warriors

And the Dreadnought finally succumbed to those.... THINGS!!!

The Necron flyer flew into the rear of my lines 

and a Necron Monolith materialised behind the lines too .. we had to substitute because Adrian had forgotten to bring his Monolith model

In one turn the Dreadnought and the Leman Russ disappeared.. ouch and damn!!

And the mutants succumbed ... leaving the ruins to the Necrons.. the outlook from the ruins wasn't that great anyway

However the Vendetta and the sentinels disposed of the Monolith and the flyer..

But those  ... THINGS . now turned their attention to a traitor squad.. ooo this may hurt, there will be tears

And those swarming 'scarabs' now advanced to support the warriors being whittled down by the CSMs

The left was .. still holding ... wow!!

But the CSM were up against it ... well and truly outnumbered

Those ... you know.. THINGS .. chomped their way into the human traitors 

The Vendetta gunship swung round and disposed of another Necron vehicle (an ark??) but was then brought down by some lucky shots from a Necron Warrior squad... thank goodness it was the 6th turn.

The final outcome was a draw that favoured the Necrons, but there sure were a lot of models off the table, representing a lot of points on both sides. The game had lasted about 2 and a half hours, and had played quite well. Now this was NOT a high order simulation of combat. It was NOT Spearhead, with its multiplicity of layers that demand good planning in terms of table, space, time, objectives, and resources. It did not contain all of those challenges that make the Spearhead rules set my favourite 20th century rules simulation

It was simply a game, with gorgeous models and lots of dice, and it was fun. We'll play it a lot more, staying with 4th edition. It will be our own little time warp, and we'll be happy there, as the rest of the 40K world passes us by. 40K 4th edition.. 'back to the future '.

Oh, and ..  my left flank held out ...