Dwarven advanced guard victorious!!!

Gaming time is scarce at the moment, but I finally managed a game this week with Adrian. We opted for Kings of War, his Orcs and Goblins against my Dwarves. One of the really great aspects of KoW us that, despite not having played a game this year, it was very simply to pick up again. Having spent far too much time at the start of the evening chatting and catching up, we ended up playing a small 1000 point game.

A small advanced guard of Orcs has renewed attempts at invasion of the Dwarven lands.

A small Dwarven covering force has advanced to try to delay the Orc advance.

I was too slow with the camera, and missed the first couple of turns, so this first photo  was taken when action  had already been joined. The Dwarf organ gun on my right had blown away two Orc units leaving the large gap on the Orc left.

There was still the Goblin horde in the centre.

And the Ogres, although shooting managed to cause a 'waver' on their nerve test.

The Dwarf right was looking strong with a unit of Shield breakers supported by the organ gun.

Orc Gore Rider cavalry charged in on the Shieldbreakers.

And the Goblin Horde charged into a unit of Dwarf Ironclads.

It was very bloody. The Horde and the Gore Riders broke broke, leaving the Orc forces looking decidedly thin on the ground.

Adrian through his left wing Gore Riders in to a unit of Ironwatch. The Ironwatch stood!!

The Trolls had also charged in. The Ironclads stood.

These two fights shoved back and forth, hardly surprising considering they were the only two Orc units left.

In a desperate effort to swing the battle back in their favour, the Orc general (a Krudger on a slasher) charged in to the other unit of Dwarf Ironwatch.

After two rounds of combat the Ironwatch crumbled.

However the Krudger was now taking some serious fire from the organ gun, and decided that discretion was the better part of valour, even for Orcs, and fled the field.

The day belonged to the Dwarves.

The Angel of the Revolution: great Steampunk

My interest in the 'Steampunk' genre of fiction was 'encouraged' by my recent reading of H G Wells 'The War in the Air'. It lead me to download the free Kindle edition of The Angel of the Revolution: A Tale of the Coming Terror by George Griffith.

This is a wonderful book, billed as science fiction rather than steam punk when first published in 1893, and posits a nihilist 'revolution' coordinated by a crippled Jewish master and his daughter who have organised an underground movement called 'The Terrorists'. Their machinations are finally enabled when a British inventor 'masters the intricacies of controlled flight'. The resultant air machines enable the 'Terrorists' to establish dominance over Europe. To say more would be to give away far too much of the plot.

The book has intrigue, action, love and adventure in abundance, with air ships sweeping the skies as they battle against ballons or aeronefs. Despite being one hundred and twenty years old this is a ripping good yarn that rewards reading. Thoroughly recommended.

M10 Achilles provide AT support to the Cromwells

It has taken a wee while because work has been pretty frenetic, but these two British Achilles were another of the recent purchases from Stan, providing the British armoured regiment Cromwells with their AT support. The kits are simple to assemble, although I can't help thinking that the turrets are a little stark and in need of some accoutrements: cam nets, bed rolls etc.

Not to be outdone, here are a couple of the 6mm equivalents..

Cromwells again..

Yep, the Cromwell is one of my fav. WW2 Allied tanks. Having showcased the newest 20mm additions last week, here are the same in 6mm. These are not new additions but I thought I'd pop these photos up just to maintain some balance. My original Spearhead 'gaming was in 6mm. and it's still my preference, so these vehicles (and the rest of their armoured regiment) will get more action in the future).

I'm not getting a lot of 'gaming in at the moment, and will get even less later this year when our house is demolished and rebuilt. The good news is that the 'games room is to be demolished (good?? I hear you say??... well yes, because at this stage we expect it to be rebuilt).

So, back to the Cromwells. The darker green vehicles are Ros Heroics. Not sure about the middle one.. I bought it second hand a long time ago.

The first British armour:HaT Cromwells plus some ..

OK, so I bought more stuff from Stan a few weeks ago... there were these HaT Cromwells, and having based all of the Brit infantry for the 1944 British force for Spearhead, it seemed such a waste not to support them with the appropriate armour. Why Cromwells instead of M4s? Well, I LIKE Cromwells. It does of course limit me to armoured division organisations, but.. well.

In addition to the two boxes of Hat vehicles, I rediscovered these two almost completed conversions.

One turret was complete, but the other wasn't, so.. a spare Airfix Centurion barrel from the spares box gave me both a new barrel (after some scraping and filing) and a pivot for the turret,

Where did these come from? The hulls were conversions made for me back in the early 1990s by Gerard Davey, and I think the turrets were a resin cast created by Tony Ormondy from his own scratch built masters. These are yet again a testimony to that 'never throw anything out' strategy that I have. At the time we were playing Rapid Fire games, and I had a pile of British Paratroops which needed some armour. But I went off Rapid Fire and shifted to 6mm Spearhead games. The unfinished Cromwells have languished in a box ever since.

However the new-found 20mm Spearhead phase has given them a new lease of life.

All six Cromwells finished and based.

"I said send me 'CAVALRY' damn it all"

The cable from Major General Carruthers, as written by his ever tactful ADC, read:

"Appreciate despatch of mounted troops with which to pursue the and subdue the heathen alien hords. Request addition of Lancers to provide punch to pursuit."

What Carruthers actually said:

"Call these blasted mounted infantry cavalry? Give a man a horse doesn't make him a cavalry man. Give me some Lancers damn it all. Am I to be plagued forever with the incompetence of those damend scoundrels at Horse Guards?"

The second purchase from Stan last week was a box of HaT Zulu wars mounted infantry. These will be Riders for the expanded VSF army. Riders are a troop type that doesn't feature in any of my HotT armies at the moment. These will be the last of a frenetic period of figure output before the net school term starts tomorrow. I'm lining these boys \up for 'A HotT Winter's Day', our Hordes of the Things tournament scheduled for July.

This stand uses a spare standard bearer from the Italeri Zulu ars British Infantry box, and while still counting as a Rider base, will double as a General base for the expanded Big Battle HotT army.

Soviet Recon - Pegasus BA6's

I've had these on order for a while, a pair of Pegasus Soviet BA6 armoured cars to provide the recon elements for the 20mm Spearhead Soviet force. A quick visit to Stan's place on Tuesday and I left with these in hand (and some otjer stuff that I'll revel in good time). The addition of these two vehicles see all of the 'essential' components of the Soviet forces pretty much complete.

The Pegasus kits made a really nice contrast to the Sturmovik model I've just completed. They are rapid assembly wargamers' kits with a minimum of parts. The parts are well moulded and the kits go together well. They were, frankly, a pleasure to assemble.

The BA6 is not quite the right vehicle for the mid war forces, it should really be the BA32, but as they say 'beggars can't be choosers'. I don't mind if these even have to 'proxy' for the BA32, they still look the part.

The crew commander seated on the edge of the turret hatch is one of those testimonies to the 'never throw anything out' brigade (of which I am a fully paid up life time member). I acquired a few of these figures a lot of years ago, and this one was 'surplus to requirement' at the time. It has sat in a tray on my painting table for probably 15 years. Finally.. a use for it... in fact I would have been happy with two, but the other vehicle is now completed with the hatch closed.

Anything else that I add from now on is really a 'nice to have', but not essential to playing a reasonable Spearhead game on the eastern front 'mid war'

Having said that I can already line up some of the 'nice to have's.. some T26s to play 'early war' games when the T26 was pretty much a staple for the soviet armoured forces. In the meantime, I can check this one off the list and move on.