Happy New Year

Happy New Year to friends out there. I wanted to post before the end of the year so I browsed my shelf to see what I had that was new and cool to show off. I am building on the momentum from my 28mm WW2 game and started making some terrain for that. I watched The Terrain Tutor on Youtube and blatantly stole his method for making rock walls. He is great to watch and full of good ideas.

8' of fences in 6" sections. I still need to add gates.

 Close up. I think the flock needs toning down...

I have started on wooden fences as well and hope to have those done over the next couple of days.

I have continued to work on D&D stuff. I purchased some new minis as a new wave of stuff came out from WizKids. Cheap and cool figures. I was also pleased to see them release some civilian types for me to use as NPC. Barmaids, dancing girls, bartender and trader are all added. Children and town guardsmen too.

I also did some terrain in the form of a bar. What campaign would be complete without a place to have a bar fight! Tables, chairs, the bar flooring, boxes, shelves and sacks all from scratch made mostly from styrofoam.

I have been looking to buy some more terrain and hanging out on the "Things From the Basement" website. I refused to order anything more from them until I completed my last batch from them. I assembled and primered the models an age ago and finally added paint. They are a little clean looking but good for now. Most importantly, I can order more goodies without guilt!

Last but not least I built a campfire for my campaigners to huddle around. The cool part of this model was successfully soaking the cotton ball smoke in floor wax and having it harden up and keep its shape. This worked well and now I will apply the same technique to my smoke grenades and covering fire markers for WW2.

Happy New Year and God Bless!

Italian Adventure

This is a review of our game on Sunday. I had hoped to have 2 more players but there were enough to have an enjoyable game. The American platoon supported by a Sherman M4 was assigned to secure a path through the enemy held territory. A German platoon was scrambled to stop the break out, supported by a sniper. The rules used were Chain of Command by TooFatLardies. I have found this to be a rule set that requires a longer learning curve than more straight forward sets like Bolt Action. Fortunately, the players participating were muddled through and found it an interesting challenge and agreed it was worth investing in learning.


An important lesson that differentiates these rules from others is that units in reserve can turn up and fire in one action. The Americans deployed 2 of their three squads and overwhelmed a single squad. They were brave and advanced out of cover when the enemy squad broke and ran. The next turn the Germans deployed another squad from reserve and caught the Americans in the open. The Americans were in turn, shot up and forced to withdraw.


Another lesson is that attacking is difficult. The attacker does not get overwhelming numbers to accomplish a task and will need to use all the tools available in the rules. These include using covering fire and smoke to allow your troops to advance.


The table came together well. I ordered up some terrain building tools in the form of rolling pins that imprint cobblestones and brickwork on Styrofoam. This should make building houses and buildings easier.


I am very tempted to order up another army or two for this game system. In particular, Black Tree Design is having a sale and have some nice looking British Airborne troops...


Sorry for the lack of pictures but I remain without a camera. Any viewer advice on an effective and inexpensive digital camera???

The Root of All Evil $$$

I have earned a play money by selling off my old 2^nd Edition 40k figures. I have been happily mulling over how to plow these funds back into the hobby. I reviewed an older post where I had a wish list put together for ideas. At the same time I saw that Black Tree Design was having a %50 off sale on many of their Feudal and Dark Age figures. I strongly considered this but in the end discarded it because the cavalry were still full price and it would make for too big a project, cutting into gaming time.

Now I am considering getting a fleet of 1/1200 ships for Age of Sail. After some research, I have chosen Langton Miniatures. The quality is high and the price is reasonable. I also found a US distributor that has free shipping for larger purchases. I have a friend with Sails of Glory. This is a fun game and uses 1/1000 scale ships and the models are nice and pre painted. It would make sense to collect this game but my gut tells me otherwise and it is unwise to ignore ones gut!

I want to be able to paint, base and rig the ships myself. I had a small collection of about 5 ships back in the day but gave them away. I still have an unbuilt 74 gunner in my lead pile that I will put together to see if I want to do 30+ more.

This is the completed La Supreme from the GHQ website

Here is mine dug out from the lead pile. I have done some research on how to do other rigging. I need to get some smaller drills and the right thread before tackling this project. The results can be spectacular. I hope to get the hang of it and produce a worthy fleet.

Here is my copy of WS&IM from Avalon Hill. Same guy that co authored Napoleon's Battles, another favorite rule set of mine, Craig S. Taylor. I will likely add to my rule collection as the fleet grows as this one is a little tedious.

I am preparing for a Napoleonics game next weekend. We are doing the Battle of Freidland scenario for Commit the Garde. To that end, I am building some terrain. The scale of this rule set is 1”= 125 yards and I am using 15mm figures. This is a big disparity between game scale and figure scale and as such will cause some compromises when building terrain. A single building represents a small town, a tree represents a stretch of forest and my inch wide river is an 100 yard wide impassable body of water. The scenario calls for two bridges and 3 pontoon bridges. I have bridges that are way too big for the scale and am scratch building replacements. The pontoon bridges are also scratch built for the job. I used my river to judge the length of the bridge and made it wide enough to accommodate my figures to cross in march column. I did some internet research to try and come up with design ideas and the bridges are coming along as shown.

Bridges constructed with framing card, balsa wood and DAS clay. I used a strip of river to make sure it would fit.

Pontoon bridges completed using tiny dowling, framing card and foam core.

Here are the bridges with figures added. the scale problems remain but they will do the job as long as troops are not on them.

I have dusted off my airbrush. I watched a Youtube video or two recently and have been inspired to use it more often. I build a lazy susan so I can paint and spin the model. I am on holidays this week and plan to make a mess with this over the next few days!

Banging the War Drums

I have had a busy couple of weeks since Huzzah. I have assembled a primered my 3 “Things From the Basement” buildings. I built myself a “Lazy Susan” to help with the job of spray painting the big buildings. I thought of cracking out my air brush for the job but went with my trusty can of white spray paint. I may use the airbrush to paint the building interiors.

I have been banging the war drum to summon players form my gaming group. I want to teach them Baroque. I have painted more units for the armies and only played one game so far of my commitment of 6 this year (6x6 project). I found a scenario for Edgehill 1642 on the Baroque rules Facebook page and will put that game on.

Troops mustered for battle

I was able to bulk up my hedge collection. My old hedges were a little too big for my liking so I did up another 13 feet of them and scaled them back a little. They will also work for WWII France. I used foamcore base and added green scrubbies to form the hedges. I bought some Spanish Moss from the fake flower shop and ground it up in my blender. I used this mixture to flock the hedges and regular flock for the bases.

Hedges with a Tommy for scale

Painting on my fantasy figures continues. I finished a Devilish looking fellow and a scantily clad lady to be a Djinn in my fantasy “Men of the East” army. Some of the figures look to be pre primered but I have learned are not. My Dark Elf queen and Beholder are not holding paint. They must be white resin of some sort. I will have to strip them and primer. I have a half a dozen figures left on my shelf but am not in a hurry to get to them.

Tonight, I will organize the troops and terrain for Edgehill and hope I get some players. Otherwise it will be a solo game…

Painting with Bob Ross

Does any one remember Bob Ross? He had a TV show back in the day in which he painted a landscape in 30 minutes. I was watching some of his shows with my kids recently, and was inspired to upgrade my back drop with his help. It has been on my "to do" list to add to my backdrop, as my old one was too small for my new, wider table. I found an episode with a landscape I liked and got my canvas and paints out. He paints with oils and I paint with acrylics, so I had to adapt on the fly. On the whole, I am pleased with the results and I think it is a big improvement on the previous painting. I have seen people use actual landscape photos for a backdrop but prefer the painted version as the realism contrasts with my attempts at terrain and toy soldiers.

Before...

...and after

Sails and Muskets

I was able to try out a game of Sails of Glory recently. It is based on the game mechanics found in Wings of War/Glory and X-Wing. You have to plan your maneuvers two in advance and cards are used to measure how far you move. The combat system was a little too devastating in my opinion. A 74 gun ship was knocked out from a bow rake and a broadside from another 74. It allowed the game to come to a conclusion in a hurry but in my opinion, a ship of the line should be able to survive a little longer than this. As you can see from the pictures, the game components are very nice. The ships are pre painted and mounted 1/1000 scale.

The first picture is of the ship's control panel. The top row shows ship strength and crew strength. These boxes are marked off as the ship takes damage and battle effectiveness is reduced accordingly. There is special damage like dismast, fire and leaks. Fires are particularly deadly and perhaps a little too common but can be minimized by ordering some of the crew to be a fire brigade.

Every turn captains pick a new maneuver card as well as assign crew to task such as firing, reloading, musketry, repair and fire brigade. You can load round, chain and grape shot.

Here is a shot of two British ships pounding a French with a bow rake and broadside. The French tried to cross the T but failed and burned to the waterline for it's mistake. The French ships later collided and were entangled for several turns. The surviving French 74 was lining up a stern was lining up a stern rake on the trapped Brits but they disentangled in time to maneuver to safety.

Very tempted to purchase this game

We scheduled future games at the Sails of Glory game including a game of Commit the Garde. I put together Russian and French armies to give the newly published Eylau scenario a try. I thought I would try to addd some snow and ice to my table to emulate this notoriously blizzardy battle. I found some snow flock at the local hobby shop and bought some light blue felt to make iced over rivers. I could not add as much snow as I would have liked because I had to be able to see the hexes underneath. I had to use a paintbrush to uncover the hex corners after flocking. Stay tuned for the after battle report...

Here is the scenario map I am trying to emulate. Each hex is 500 yards

 New Flock

Skirmish in Italy

I have always wanted to play some battles in the Italian campaign for WW2. Challenging terrain, cool scenario ideas, Canadian troop presence and not a big focus on tanks. I had fun putting together a couple of Italian style buildings. They were a fun to do and I stole the design from photos found on another blog. These building had a drywall mud layer added to the walls which I textured using a sponge before the plaster dried. The roof was made out of corrugated cardboard sheets found at my local craft store in the scrapbooking section. Both houses have a removable roof and the large house has a removable second floor.

Casa #1

Casa #2

I also bought some nice Birch trees from the same craft store for 50% off. I added a washer to the base for stability and voila.

A stand of Birch trees

I decided to put my game cloth over the hills and built some hills from soft foam with lots of altitude to accommodate the larger 28mm scale of my planned game.

Hills ready for battle

Now to set the table for battle. I have been preparing my troops and terrain for several weeks to give Bolt Action a try. In keeping with the Italian theme, I set the table to resemble a small village set in the Italian hills. Bolt Action is a game that lends itself well to a narrative style of play. This scenario had a defecting high ranking Italian officer trying to meet with Allied troops to give sensitive information over. The local German garrison got wind of the meeting and dispatched troops to capture the defector.

Table set up

The American contingent consisted of the following troops:

1st Lieutenant + NCO

5x10 man squads of regular infantry with 1 SMG and 1 BAR

The German contingent consisted of the following troops:

1st Lieutenant + NCO

2x 10 man squads of regular infantry with 2 SMGs, 1 LMG and loader, 2 Panzerfausts

2x10 man squads of veteran Fallschirmjager  with 2 SMGs, 1 LMG and loader, 2 Panzerfausts

1 sniper team

1 medium mortar team with spotter

1 MMG team

2 armored half tracks

I had help with photography for this battle from my opponent Martin.

The first turn saw both forces march onto the table. The American half track gunned down an infantry unit in the open with it's HMG  causing a casualty and a pin. The Americans tried to keep in cover of the hill while the Germans occupied the large building. The lone figure in front off the house is the defecting officer.

The Americans decided to let the Germans try to snatch the defector and then counter attack them while they were exposed. A unit of Fallschirmjager  dismounted from their half track and successfully grabbed the defector, shooting up an American infantry squad for good measure. The Americans behind the hill advanced and shot up the Fallschirmjager , reducing it to 4 models. A third American squad assaulted the remnants of the Fallschirmjager  unit but were wiped out in the attempt. 

German regulars occupy a house

Fallschirmjager  survive the counterattack and and head for home

German regulars in support + sniper team

2nd Fallschirmjager unit cover the retreat

Fallschirmjager survivors

 Half tracks exchange fire

American view down Main St

 Americans kill a half track in assault

The remaining Fallschirmjager  headed for friendly lines with their captive. The Americans tried to pursue but were repulsed by German units waiting in ambush covering the retreat. The American sniper had some success in forcing the German unit in the big casa to keep it's head down and away from open windows. The American mortar manage to drop a shell into this same building, killing the German commander and mortar spotter.  The German MMG managed to take out the American HMG.

Bolt Action played well although we spent a bit of time flipping through the rulebook as neither of us had played the rules, We both enjoyed the 28mm scale and thought it looked great. The random unit activation allowed for some strategy and decision making. The rules for shooting, movement are straight forward especially around infantry, Building combat, indirect fire and vehicle rules required the most time with my nose in the rulebook.

Thanks for a fun game Martin!

Next up will either be Napoleonics with the group and or a solo game of ACW.