Austro-Hungarian cavalry 1914

Finally with the end of the academic year I have been able to finish these beauties: Austro-Hungarian cavalry for the 'Eastern Front 1914' project. They are based in my usual WW1 cavalry manner, a mounted and a foot figure on each base, based of course for Great War Spearhead.

The mounted figures are from the Irregular Miniatures WW1 20mm range. I was unable to find any dismounted cavalry figures so opted to use the HaT Austro-Hungarian infantry.

Austro-Hungarian Hussars

Austro-Hungarian Dragoons

The cavalry figures are painted up in the uniforms in which the AH cavalry went to war in August 1914: red trousers and blue tunics. Some of the Hussar regiments had a sky blue tunic, but I opted for the (apparently) more common darker blue.

Now back to the AH infantry again .. and again .. and again ....

Game of Thrones in HotT

I spotted this link to some beautiful armies representing the armies of the Fantasy series 'Game of Thrones' by George RR Martin.

The armies are created for the fantasy rules set HotT (Hordes of the Things).

http://www.cigarboxbattle.com/game-of-thrones-hott-in-25mm/

The HotT 'feature' army of the day ..

From today's HotT Carnage tournament.. just had to be Gordon's Starwars army, made from Lego characters that were originally keyrings I believe. I can't recall the army list, nor the troops types that he used.

But anyway, enjoy!!!

HotT Soviets come out to play

More from today's HotT Carnage tournament.

While I had organised today's tournament, I opted not to play as we had an even number of players and, as organizer, I always feel that it's not appropriate to play if this creates a bye for others. However one player left the field, so I stepped in to make sure that the other players were able to (possibly) gather their pints from the last two rounds without sitting out  a bye.

I opted to field my Soviets. The army list is:

1 x Cleric general (Commissar)
2 x Knights
1 x God (artillery)
4 x shooters (SMG armed infantry)
4 x Hordes Riflemen)

This was round 5 and I was playing Paul, a new player fielding a LotR army.

Three shooters eliminated his behemoth chariot, and a warband on the Orcs left wing

Once my God appeared I attacked on the left, first hitting his flyer with the God from the rear, and then attacking from the front with my T34 knight.. another two points down

The God and knight made short work of the warband, and then hit a second warband.

And the game was pretty much all over. Mind you in Round 4 I'd faced Breian and was lucky to grab a draw after an hour of intense play. Brian's a wily campaigner, and good fun to play!!

HotT Carnage 2013

This was the sixth year in which we have staged our HotT Carnage tournament, and this year eight players took to the field to contest the much sought after Emperor Dragon trophy. To begin with here are a few choice shots of some of the armies.

Caveman God attacks  a German Wehrmacht General element in the flank.. this hurt!!

One Of this year's new armies from Mark.. nice stuff

Old hand 'gamer, but newbie in the HotT domain .. a Prussian Seven Years' War army fielded by Ion.. a touch of class on the battlefield, commander very ably by Ion.. well done!!

Another old hand gamer but newbie HotT player Brian with this great army.. the snakes are a 'beast' element.

Brian's behemoth element

Gordon's magician

The 7YW Prussians against Brian's army

Classy lads, eh!!

Prussian Lurker .. 

One of the two magicians in mark's new barbarian army.

 Read more on Mark's HotT adventures here.

The wehrmacht forces

OOps. more Prussians..

The overall winner for the day was Kevin with his Caveman army.. well done Kevin.

A few rambling photos ...

Last week saw two evenings of 'gaming, a sure sign that the end of year work load is tapering.

The first was a Boer War engagement (well, we fought two actually) using a variation of Chadwick's VnB rules as devised by Adrian. The rules variations revolved around representation of the Boers as sharp shooting skirmish stands. These photos are of Adrian's 15mm Boer War figures.

Boers occupy a rocky outcrop

Boer Pom Pom gun

British infantry and cavalry advance.

The second game was a 6mm Napoleonic game set in 1815, fought as keith's place. The Prussians were Keith's, the French were Jon's.

Prussian infantry

French dragoons

French infantry division

No attempts at AARs, just a few photos... proof that I really do actually play these games?? Yeah nah!! Actually I hate that current speech affectation, but you get the idea!!

Ubique ...

Read that as the latin.. it was (and probably still is??) the motto of the RNZA, meaning 'everywhere'.

As 'tankies' we used to translate it as 'all over the ***** place' as a derogatory reference to our brothers in the artillery. It certainly describes my painting focus, with this latest offering.

I ordered some yet to be disclosed (keep watching for what I hope will be a nice addition!!) WW1 figures from Irregular Miniatures, and while doing so thought I'd beef up the stocks of Austro-Hungarian MMGs for the Austrian Division (that long time coming 'Eastern Front 1914' project).

They are not too bad, and certainly feature that distinctive flash eliminator on the barrel that you don't see on other models.

A bit more to go, but hopefully we'll start having some games over this coming summer? Incidentally, of ourselves in the armoured corp we used to say "The Armoured Corp brings class to what otherwise might be an unseemly brawl'.