TFL Painting Challenge: Another Big One!

/

I wasn't expecting to do another update before the weekend, but so many entries have come in that, if I don't, I run the risk of being overwhelmed!

So, in no particular order, we have:

  • Doug Fitch with lots of 15mm WW2 goodness
  • A first entry in 2016 from Paul Baldwin: terrain, infantry and cavalry
  • Mr Clarke sends in a huge entry of twelve house and two outhouses in 28mm
  • Thomas Nissvik also makes his first appearance this year, with ten rather nice 28mm Vietminh infantry
  • Mr "Hat" Bowler attempts to claim 600 sq ft of painted and primed basement floor...but has to settle for the 105 28mm Romans and a ballista that actually count towards his total
  • Carole attempts to complete her Corporate Ashigaru force with another platoon and their support weapons
  • Neil Hooge is another 'first time in 2016' entry: he sends in some (great sounding) 15mm British Victorian infantry mounted on terror birds and ostriches...but the piccy is so dark you can't see the detail :(
  • And finally Jon Yuengling pops in four 15mm WW2 vehicles for his early war Germans.

Today's pics are from Mr Fitch, some of his WW2 Germans; Mr Baldwin, his Napoleonic French infantry; and from Thomas, his Vietminh:

Mr Fitch's WW2 German armour: great camo scheme! 

Mr Baldwin's cracking French infantry

Thomas' Vietminh

6DW Egyptians: HMG Platoon

/

My research tells me that in the Six Day War, the UAR (Egyptians) had access to ex-Soviet Maxim machine guns to support their infantry. Now Battlefront don't provide an HMG platoon as part of their UAR 6DW range, so I needed to improvise.

A quick rummage in the bits box turned up one WW2 Soviet gunner and gun, and a shout out to the Lardies with an offer of swapsies led to Jason Ralls kindly supplying the other two needed.

In the meantime, I also bought two Battlefront UAR anti-tank sets, each of which comes with three anti-tank guns and two recoil-less rifles. As I already have some RCLs in my Company HQ, their crews in the AT sets have now been assigned to the HMGs, along with some from Peter Pig bought to bulk things out.

Here they are, and you can see the rest of the Company, and supports, by clicking here.

TFL Painting Challenge: Huge Tuesday Update

/

An absolutely enormous update today!

In no particular order, we have:

  • Mr Hodge is continuing to morph into a "baser" rather than a wargamer, with a massive amount of sabot bases
  • Carole sends in two entries: all 15mm sci-fi figures from GZG. We've got three platoons of infantry, support drones, command...the lot
  • Mr Douglas pops in a couple of 15mm units: some Sudan types and some more ancient Brits
  • Ralph Plowman also goes 15mm GZG, painted so inspirationally that I've had to go out and buy a platoon's worth myself. He should be on commission!
  • Andrew Helliwell stays with his Soviets: a platoon's worth and some lend-lease carriers
  • Sapper sends in three entries comprising a large total of 28mm figures: Samurai and Seven Years War
  • Steve Burt submits some rather lovely Parthians. It must have been baking hot in all that armour.
  • Our glorious leader, Mr Clarke, sends in three entries this week, all from the AWI, and adding up to a most impressive total
  • and finally I'm loving Mr Davenport's entry: Napoleonic Brits in numbers, and also some AWI infantry

So many entries to choose from for today's photos...but here's a selection. You can see the whole lot in the individual's galleries.

Jon's Napoleonic Brits

Mr Plowman's Xar

Carole's Power Armour Troopers

Sapper's Irish in French Service

Scorecard will be updated tonight..honest, it will!

Q13 Army Lists: Sisterhood, Brog and VOTT added

/

Whilst I've been adding the tabletop stats to the Q13 army lists, I've found the time to add a couple of new ones to the list: both based on ranges of figures that I'd love to start collecting...once, of course, the lead mountain is down to manageable proportions!

The Sisterhood

Onslaught Miniatures produce some of the best sci-fi lines out there. The trouble is that the vast majority of their output is in 6mm: very frustrating for the 15mm gamer when you can see all these beautifully developed ranges and not be able to use them!

They have produced a couple of packs of 15's, however: one for the Sisterhood (sort of space nuns with guns) and one for the Tzacol (more primitive lizardy types).

So, in homage to their single pack of 15's, I've created a list for the Sisterhood for Q13 based on their much more extensive 6mm range. Perhaps this will get the rest of the range up-sized as well!

Here's a couple of pics to show you how good these figures are: one pic of the Athena squad in 15mm, and one of the 6mm command group, showing other types of Sisterhood trooper.

The Brog and VOTT (and VIPERS)

Another manufacturer who carries several ranges that I might eventually just have to buy is Rebel Minis.

Unfortunately, they fall into the category of manufacturer who produce great basic infantry squads, but no more i.e. great for platoon-level games, but not a complete enough range to create a company-plus-supports force.

Two examples of this are the Brog and the VOTT: both available as a three-squad platoon plus command, but with no support weapons or vehicles.

The two races also look quite similar, and seem to use the same weapons...so I've decided to brigade them together into one list.

As they don't have any designated support weapons or vehicles, and Rebel Minis produce a lovely range of support walkers they call VIPERS, I've also decided that, much like Critical Mass' Protolenes, the support for the Brog or VOTT will come from the VIPERS, of which there are five types, so plenty of flexibility as regards weapon loads and therefore role.

Here's a few pics showing the ranges: the Brog infantry platoon, the VOTT command, and a the VIPER with Mk3 weapon package.

Both lists, and all the others, are available from the Q13 Army Lists page. More to come!

6DW Egyptians: Company HQ

/

A quick bit of painting finished: the company HQ for my Six Day War UAR/Egyptian army.

That's all of the core troops done, but I do need to add the HMG platoon and some towed AT assets...and to make things even more complete, I could add the tanks that accompanied the non-mechanised infantry: T-34s and IS-IIIs.

In the meantime, here's the company HQ: two Big Men and a couple of 82mm Recoil-less Rifles.

IABSM AAR: Fall of the Lion Gate #04: Jitra

/

I umpired a tremendous game of I Ain't Been Shot, Mum! on Saturday!

Using the fourth scenario from the Fall of the Lion Gate scenario pack for Malaya and Singapore, the game focussed on the British defence against the main Japanese advance down the Malayan pennisular on 11th December 1941.

Previously the Japanese of the Saeki Detachment have chewed through the British Indian troops at Ban Sadao and The Ledge (cf) but now come up against somewhat stiffer opposition in the shape of 2/1 Gurkha Rifles...

Click on the pic below to see all:

TFL Painting Challenge: Monday Update

/

Hello all, and hope everyone had a nice weekend.

Today's entries for the painting challenge are:

  • Mr Davenport with a dozen 28mm buildings (and an impressive wargames room, if I may say so!)
  • Ms Flint doesn't add any Space Orcs to her total!
  • Doug Fitch arrives on the scene with some 15mm WW2 figures
  • Mark Luther sends in an assortment of 20mm Far East types, and some of his little 'planes too
  • Treadhead turns in some terrain
  • Stumpy pops in some Zulus and lots of French Napoleonics. Re-based, but still counting half.
  • Andrew Helliwell sends in some more ACW 15s
  • Mr Yuengling gets ready for a fight around Caen with some 15mm WW2 vehicles
  • And finally Mr Ralls sends in some rather jolly 28mm figures and transport.

Today's pics? Well I think we'll have Mr Davenport's room; and the Jason Ralls boat pics (vessel and crew etc)

First stop on my world tour!

Rather large boat and crew by Jason Ralls

Scorecard will be updated tonight: promise!

6DW: Egyptian Infantry Platoon

/

Finally finished the final UAR/Egyptian infantry platoon for the Six Day War. 

See the rest of the troops by clicking here.

That's just about it for the Egyptians now:  only the company HQ to go now, and that's only eight figures, including Big Men. Be good to mechanise the little blighters but, as I've said before, I'll wait until the next sale before buying loads of trucks!

Must be time to start on the opposition now. Figures are bought: I just need to work out how best to represent the rather unique colour of Israeli tanks.

 

IABSM AAR: Arnhem VC

/

Superb write-up by Carojon from the Devon Wargames Group using the Arnhem VC scenario from the TooFatLardies Christmas Special 2007.

The game focuses on the action at Oosterbeck that won Lance-Sergeant Jack Baskeyfield the Victoria Cross as he tried to hold off German self-propelled guns from the flanks of the British Para's positions.

Click on the picture below to see all. Recommended!

TFL Painting Challenge: Thursday Update

/

Lots of entries in this week: the challenge is really hotting up already this year.

In no particular order, we have:

  • Stumpy with a fistful of re-basing
  • Matt Slade with a huge weed monster!
  • Andrew Helliwell with some more Soviets in 15mm
  • Andy Duffell pops in a Kiwi or eleven
  • It's all Andrews today, as Mr McCarthy sends in some nice looking late war British tanks and a handful of Germans
  • Derek Hodge submits some more for Dux and Sharp Practice 2.
  • Mr Clarke has gone painting mad this year: this week sees 64 newly painted and 48 re-based 28mm troops hitting his score
  • Mervyn adds some skeletons and an awful lot of stone wall
  • Mr Gatzemeyer builds a Saxon village
  • Chris Stoesen cuts and pastes some paper terrain buildings
  • And finally Kev, of course Kev, has painted some more X-Wing ships

Today's pics?

Well, let's have a pic of some of Stumpy's later Romans, a pic of Rich's von Schtabbin, Mr Gatzemeyer's village, and a Brucie-bonus pic of Mr Helliwell's Soviets:

Stumpy's Romans

Baron von Schtabbin's Regiment by Mr Clarke

Mr Gatzemeyer's rather nice Saxon village

Andy Helliwell's SU-57s in 15mm

Q13 Army Lists Updated

/
Aphid "Flycatcher" Tanks move into action

Aphid "Flycatcher" Tanks move into action

Over the last few weeks, I have been working on updating all the Q13 army lists. In addition to the usual tweaks, there are two major changes to format. These are the addition of a section for Tabletop Stats, and the addition of a section for Points.

Tabletop Stats

Tabletop Stats gives you all the info you need about the army when actually playing Q13. So each type of infantry squad has the usual figures/Actions table, but now also has how many dice and what modifiers you make when firing, its movement over different terrain types, its saves against hits, its anti-tank capacity etc. Vehicles have the same sort of info, but their firing is defined as what dice you roll vs infantry, and what dice you roll vs other vehicles, and so on and so forth.

This is in response to people saying that because Q13 covers ANYTHING that's possible in a sci-fi setting, it can sometimes be hard to remember the SPECIFICS that apply to the particular squad you're currently commanding...which is a fair point, well made!

Vornid Chitin Bio-Tank moves past a KO'd walker

Hopefully, once you've downloaded one of my lists, or built your own and filled in the Stats section, you should now be able to play without having to look anything up...perhaps even without the Quick Reference sheet provided in the rulebook.

Points

The Points section does exactly what it says on the tin: it just lists the points value for each type of infantry squad, for each vehicle etc.

Should make life easier for those people who like to use points when building their forces.

Other

On top of the above, there are all sorts of little tweaks to the existing lists. The Aphids get their wheeled APCs; the Chuhuac, their Vasseth Strike Tanks etc. As I've said many times before, the lists are designed to be updated on a regular basis as you add new units or decide that the way you've defined an existing unit needs changing.

Not all the lists are updated yet: most are, but not all. If you can click to get the pdf, then the list is updated. If you can't, then it isn't...but will be soon!  I have updated the Excel Blank.

Click here to go to the Q13 Army List page.

French Indochina AAR: Ambush in Tonkin

/

A bit of a change this time: an AAR from the Stipsicz Hussars with an encounter set in French Indochina in 1951.

The game uses IABSM rather than CDS, perhaps appropriate given the period, and features a huge 6m table. A French column begins the game at either end, and heads towards a Point d'Appui in the middle. Needless to say, neither column nor PA escapes the attention of the Vietminh.

Click on the pic below to see all.