TFL Painting Challenge: Huge Update

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Several very large entries this week, with the obligatory ooh, er, madam!

In no particular order, we have:

  • Sapper with two whole armies: one 15mm, one 28mm
  • Koen comes back with a bang: and a vast number of figures: British Paras in 20mm, Star Wars in 30mm, LOTR in 28mm...the list goes on!
  • Stumpy continues his re-basing: more colonials, some Saxons and some Romano-Britons
  • Keith Davies sends in a small viking warband
  • Mervyn continues his Hyborian jaunt
  • Treadhead also makes a reappearance, with some lovely Nappies for SP
  • Steve Burt goes Carthaginian
  • Mr Helliwell also joins in the "I'll just send in an army, shall I?" gang with some Tudor colonials (is that a thing?)
  • and last, but by no means least, Mr Plowman sends in four very familiar characters

So many possible pics today. Here's a selection:

Mr Plowman's very familiar figures (insert your own favourite quote)

Mr Helliwell's Tudor colonials

British Napoleonic officer from Treadhead, and a British Para Jeep from Koen

sappers achemenid persians (i used to be able to spell that!)

6DW AAR: Brawl at the Ruined Fort

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Another Saturday morning battle with the Benson boys...but what to play?

Well, my usual default here is to have a look at what hasn't been on the table recently (if ever!) so today's game must be Six Day War and must involve the Battlefront ruined fort. Add on some "tail" that's never been on the table, and Bob's your uncle: one quick scenario written!

A column of Israeli recovery vehicles has strayed too close to the front line. As they pass a ruined fort on top of a hill, they spot a force of Egyptian tanks heading towards them.

Click on the pic to see what happened...

In Flanders Fields

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John mccrae 1872-1918

In Flanders Fields

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

John McCrae

IABSM AAR: The Biggest Bloomin' Convoy by Mike Whitaker

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Another great battle report from Mike Whitaker: this time featuring, as the title suggests, the biggest bloomin' convoy ever!

I'm a huge fan of tail (no sniggering at the back there), so to see such a huge collection of transport on the table at the same time warms the cockles of my heart!

Click on the picture to see the whole thing and, as I said in my last post, you can visit Mike's Trouble at T'Mill blog by clicking here.

Keep those battle reports coming in, by the way: plenty of room on the site for more!

TFL Painting Challenge: Lions & Hyenas

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I see the end-of-year catch-ups are starting to come through...so we have a sizeable update today including a big contribution from Kev.

In no particular order, we have:

  • 28mm figures from Mr Douglas, who has gone all Conan on us (loving the hyenas)
  • Some sci-fi goodness from Ralph Plowman in 15mm
  • A small batch of tanks from Mr Luther
  • Some spaceships and space stations from Andy Duffell, who moves with ease from his usual 28mm to these teeny-tiny models
  • A huge update from Kev, including all his gladiator material in 28mm and some very stern ECW church militia in 15mm
  • The Mad Padre blesses us with two great pics of some of his 28mm collection
  • and last, but by no means least, Mr Helliwell continues to churn out his pike and shot armies in 15mm

No shortage of candidates for today's pics:

somewhere in Canada from the Mad Padre

just some of Kev's gladiators (and I love the lions)

VTOLs in 15mm from Mr Plowman

IABSM AAR: Bashnya or Bust #4C: Holm (The Llardiff Game)

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This report is from the game played on October 15th 2016 at the first ever TFL Llardiff Games Day that took place at Firestorm Games in Cardiff.

The idea of this games day was that gamers not necessarily familiar with TFL products could come and have a go at a variety of different games, getting a taste of Lard and then hopefully coming back for more.

I was tasked with showcasing I Ain't Been Shot, Mum!, and told that I should prepare for a series of different players dipping in and out throughout the day, with my efforts focused on setting up and umpiring one game in the morning and one game in the afternoon.

Hmmm, I thought, multiple players dipping in and out: my favourite - not! No matter: Lard calls and I answer...so I decided to bring to Cardiff one of the larger (if not the largest) games from my Bashnya or Bust! scenario pack: scenario #4C, Holm.

This is a late war game where a battalion of Soviet infantry (and remember IABSM is a company-sized game!) supported by just a few tanks tries to overrun a German force defending a small village on the Kaunas front. 

Click on the picture to see all the action.

Ferdinands from Zvezda

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Just about the last of the half-term painting, and the last of the mass of Zvezda vehicles I bought myself for my birthday in August: a couple of Ferdinand tank destroyers.

Reading up about these, I was surprised to learn that they are named after Ferdinand Porsche, the designer and how very KV of the Germans, and how early they went into service: summer 1943, making them mid- rather than late-war monsters. It's the modified version of the Ferdinand, the Elefant, that's more of a later war beast.

There were only 91 of them ever modified from the Tiger I hull, so it seems appropriate to only field two of them, and to only pay a few quid for each model...as I can't see them being used very often.

Nice models, easy to put together, easy to paint. Go Zvezda!

More Poles!

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More of the half-term painting to display.

This time it's a four-gun Polish MMG platoon for my force for the 1939 September War.

These are actually a mix of Forged in Battle and Battlefront figures. I happened to have acquired a pack of each, so chose the figures I liked best from both. For example, the FiB MMGs come separately as nice chunky individual weapons, which I like, whereas the Battlefront one come with the tripod and shooter as one piece and the gun barrel as another. The Battlefront faces, however, being more detailed, paint up better, and some of the FiB foot are in very strange poses. A mixture of the best of both is definitely the right solution.

Incidentally, I've painted four MMGs rather than three required for an infantry HMG platoon only so that they can, if necessary, proxy for a typical four-gun cavalry HMG platoon, despite the lack of cavalry Adrienne helmets. I might get around to painting a separate cavalry HMG platoon, but I've already got to find tchanka figures and, if you look closely, the leader in the top right corner of each base is actually wearing an Adrienne cavalry helmet. Hopefully no-one will notice!

TFL Painting Challenge: Early Morning Update

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And the clocks have gone back in Merrie England, so it's now only 9am instead of what was, until 2am this morning, 10am.

A rather quaint habit we have of moving away from GMT each spring onto British Summer Time: an hour ahead of GMT and giving the farmers more daylight or something. I'm not a fan: disrupts my body clock (set to get up at the same time each day) and always leads to someone being early or late for something by an hour. But then I'm not a farmer...

Anyhoo, moving swiftly on, time (plenty of time) for an update to the 2016 TooFatLardies Painting Challenge. So, in no particular order, we have:

  • Mr Douglas with three ruined buildings
  • Mr Slade with some more Arab bowmen
  • Dave Humm makes a welcome return after a long absence with an assortment of figures
  • Andrew Helliwell rescues some Romans from the attic
  • Steve Burt just paints some Romans
  • Stumpy paints and bases some 15mm and 28mm figures
  • and last, but by no means least, Carole leaves her garden (probably too dark to weed or something) and pops in a couple of 15mm buildings

Today's pics? Well, first up, we have some Ferdinands from Mr Luther.

Not on the list, above, as they've been claimed for previously, but a pic to fill in one of the gaps in his gallery. Nice!

Here's one of Stumpy's built, painted and based 28mm vehicles: a jalopy of some kind 

and finally, here's a 15mm Hovels church from Carole:

Keep them coming: only a few months left to go!

Battered Old T-34/85s

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More painting done!

Having promised myself I'd concentrate on the Poles, I immediately took a quick break from early WW2, and smashed out a platoon of T-34/85s for my Six Day War UAR/Egyptian army.

I got these via the Battlefront 40% off sale, which I think is still on for the next couple of days, otherwise I would have gone for plastics again...but these are nice models: suitably hefty.

I've painted them the way I painted the other ex-Soviet WW2 kit in my UAR army: just the same as a more modern tank, but then covered in one of the Games Workshop technical washes to give them a real "twenty years old and a tank the Soviets don't want any more" look.

One thing to note: one of the models (the one on the left, furthest from the camera) came with one side of the hull broken off. You can see the left hand track is very visible, and is visible all down the side of the tank.

Now I do love Battlefront vehicles (I have literally hundreds of them, possible even a thousand) but their quality control sucks! Yes, I could have e-mailed in and got almost an immediate replacement but, as I've said before, that's not the point: get it right first time!

I'm still waiting for the gun barrel that was missing from my Polish AT guns: that's been four days and they have missed their slot in the painting queue! That's four Battlefront purchases painted this week, with two needing a replacement part. Not very good, to say the least!

As it happens, this wasn't a problem for me: the tanks were supposed to be battered, and this one is just more battered than most...still not the point, though!

Quick German Armoured Cars

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In addition to trying to get my Poles up to strength, I'm also bulking out some of the forces needed to oppose them.

Here are a couple of quick German armoured cars (pun most definitely intended): two SdKfz 222s.

These are Zvezda models, so plastic and snap together. They go together very easily, paint up well, and are half the cost of a resin or metal model.

Now I've already got two lovely Battlefront 222s which have seen quite a bit of usage on the tabletop, so these two new models will let me field (should I ever need to: having eight armoured cars scooting around the tabletop might be a bit much...but then there's always a recce troop scenario to plan for!) the 222 element of an entire light armoured car platoon.

Anyway, nice models: well done Zvezda.

Some More Poles Painted

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With the half-term hols upon us, I've taken the chance to finish a few figures that have been sitting on the painting table for far too long.

First up are a few additions to my early war Polish army:  the HQ mortars and a selection of Big Men.

I'm trying to concentrate on the Poles at the moment, as I need to have enough of them done to start playtesting the scenarios in my forthcoming September War scenario pack. That's a collusion between Anatoli and I, and should, when finished, contain 55 separate Poland 1939 scenarios for I Ain't Been Shot, Mum. Scenarios 1-19 are written already, so just need to playtest them and get some photography done at the same time (which is why I can't use proxies).

Finally, I also got around to painting the Warbases 15mm Pegasus Bridge bunker. Nice little model: it's my paint job that's uninspiring! And the pic is a bit blurred too!

TFL Painting Challenge: Another Huge Update

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Now I know why the challenge was so quiet over the summer: you were all saving your entries up so that I had something to do during these long winter nights!

So, another update is needed only a few days after the last one: and both pretty big too.

In no particular order, we have:

  • Mr Slade (always Mr Slade!) with forty-eight of the finest Arabs you can order
  • Mr Helliwell (and usually always Mr Helliwell too!) submits 32 billmen and pike
  • Lloyd "the hat" Bowler has been saving his painting all through those long summer months. Today he sends in about a trillion 6mm figures; more 1/600 ships than the whole of the current British navy (not so hard these days, I know!); and finishes off with some ACW command stands. Almost 500 points in one entry!
  • Steve Burt has some more Romans for us to look at
  • Keith Davies enters four 28mm buildings, even if I do appear to have lost the photos!
  • WillieB makes a bit of a come back with some Frostgravery and some Comitatus
  • and last, but not least, Carole takes a rest from her gardening and sends in an assortment of 15mm figures

All good stuff! Now, today's photos...

Some of Matt's Arabs

Lots of 6mm from Lloyd

Just some of the Hat's navy

WillieB's Comitatus

Keep them coming, folks: the end of the year will be on us before you know it!

Battlefront Sale Now On

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Just a quick note for those who might not have seen it yet, but Battlefront have a 40% off sales on their Vietnam, Arab-Israeli and Great War ranges at the moment. Postage and Packing is also capped in what must be considered a great deal. Sales lasts until the end of October.

As those who visit this site regularly know, although I don't play FoW, I do like the Battlefront miniatures: I just find them a little pricey and, sometimes, a little lacking in the quality control department, although this last seems to have improved quite a bit over the last couple of years.

Click on the pic to go to the FoW site.

A 40% off sale, therefore, is an ideal time to stock up on stuff that you wouldn't normally buy because of the price. I don't happen to need any more Vietnam stuff, and don't currently collect any Great War kit, but have just taken advantage of the sale and dropped quite a bit of cash rounding out my Arab-Israeli Six Day War collection. 

Now all I need is for them to extend the sale to their WW2 Poles and I'm a happy man! 

TFL Painting Challenge: Truly Monstrous Update

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It seems as if you have all been punishing those brushes over the past few weeks, as we have a truly monstrous update to the painting challenge to consider.

In no particular order, we have:

  • Neil Hooge with no less than three separate updates: weird WW2 and 19th Century Mexicans in 15mm
  • Richard Naylor with a huge amount of 6mm Zulu wars re-basing. Looking good!
  • Andy Duffell with some 28mm WW2 Partisans and Germans
  • Jon Davenport with a gorgeous church in 28mm, a 15mm Recce Group, and almost 400 (yes, four hundred) modern 6mm vehicles
  • Mr Luther pops in some 15mm dismounted Light Dragoons
  • Owen sends in so many entries of various different scales that my computer almost melted: over 1,500 points worth
  • Mervyn has some more 28mm Old West figures
  • and last, but by no means least, the Great Gatzemeyer sends in a squad and a half of WW2 Germans in 28mm

A truly impressive haul!

As it's way past my bedtime, just a few of the many pics:

Garrett's squad and a half of Germans in 28mm

Richard Naylor's re-based Lord Chelmsford

Lawmen and/or Desperados from Mervyn

Some of Owen's housing development!

Back from Llardiff

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I'm now back from the TFL showcase at Firestorm Games in Llardiff: and an excellent day's gaming it was too.

First, a quick word about Firestorm itself. This is a huge gaming centre in the Penarth area of Cardiff. It consists of three areas.

The first is a very well stocked shop that is absolutely ideal for stocking up on all those bits and pieces that are a pain to order online:  tape measures, brushes, paints, spray cans etc. It also has a good selection of miniatures, board games and lots of card games and the like. Well worth a visit for this alone.

This gives you some idea of the size of the Battlefields area

Second is a small cafe, a medium sized bar and a large lounge-type area where important things like eating and drinking and chatting can take place. I had a very nice club sandwich from the cafe that totally made up for the fact that they were out of coffee!

Third, and perhaps most importantly, is the Battlefields area: a huge space that has to have at least 40 wargames tables in it. Apparently, on a non-function day, you can just book a table, pay a small amount (it's run like a social club, so you can pay for a day's membership - which IIRC is something like £3.50 - or do it quarterly for - again IIRC - about £17). They have loads of terrain that you can borrow to use for free, and the tables are nice and big and solid and very, very functional. 

In all, I heartily recommend Firestorm as a venue and, as such, it was ideal for our Llardiff TFL showcase.

We had various games on offer. I ran I Ain't Been Shot, Mum! in the morning (a huge battalion-sized game of which more in a later post) and there were all day games of Sharp Practice 2 and Chain of Command as well.

Mr Clarke's game of Sharp Practice 2

The main game of CoC was particularly impressive: an amazing battlefield that I wish I had a good photo of...but the one I took came out all blurred.

The day's gaming was followed by an evening's drinking with the obligatory curry (fictional in Richard's case) which was also great fun.

I shall be making a note in my diary to attend next year.