Finally had time to finish off the first batch of command stands for For King & Parliament. These are all 15mm Essex figures painted mostly with GW Contrast Paints.
I must admit that I’m quite pleased with the way these have turned out.
Here’s another 15mm sci-fi figure manufacturer: Strato Minis Studio.
They produce a nice range of battle-suited infantry with armour and walker supports. I particularly like the new 15mm “Stormbreaker Jump Infantry”, although I do note that the bases and supporting wire aren’t included.
Strato are a Polish company, who produce their figures in resin. All prices are in dollars. Here’s a picture of their Tengu Medium Tank:
I was browsing the Internet the other day when I came across George Anderson’s excellent blog Musings on Wargaming and Life. Some really good content on the site, including a battle report from his first time playing IABSM.
George has played other TFL games but, as I said, this was his first time playing IABSM. Hopefully he’ll give it another go, but this does go to show that here on VL you’ll find every IABSM battle report, even the ones that aren’t totally positive.
Click on the pic below to see all:
Some lovely entries to the Challenge this week.
Here’s a pictorial summary:
Don’t forget that there are plenty more to see in the individual galleries!
Alex Sotheran continues to explain the basic I Ain’t Been Shot, Mum rules in the second video in the series.
This episode covers Spotting, Movement and the use of Big Men.
Click on the link below to see all:
Tim Whitworth and chums continue to play the Blenneville or Bust! campaign. We seem to have missed out on an AAR for the second scenario, but here’s the report for their third game: Pierrecourt.
The Germans are defending, the Americans attacking. Who will prevail? Click on the picture, below, to see all.
Tim Whitworth and friends have started playing through the Blenneville or Bust! scenario pack: a pyramid campaign set in Normandy in 1944.
In the first encounter, #01 West of Pierrecourt, American reconnaissance troops probe forward looking for a bridge over the river that will take the weight of their armour, but the Germans lie in wait…
Click on the picture, below, to see what happened.
Here’s everyone busy playing IABSM left right and centre, and all I can find the time for is to paint and build a little bit of terrain!
As regular visitors will know, I’m currently putting together English Civil War forces to use with For King & Parliament. I’ve already finished enough standard troops to play one side of the sample scenario in the rulebook, the Battle of Montgomery, but hadn’t had the chance to complete any command figures. Until now, that is, so here is the first command stand: Colonel-level, so two figures.
These are 15mm Essex figures. I’m using Peter Pig for the troops, Essex for the command stands, and mostly GW Contrast paints to, er, paint them with.
Nice figures, although I couldn’t quite work out what the thing the Colonel himself was wearing on his chest. I’ve painted it as a sort of yellow/gold braid effect on top of a red waistcoat, but now I note that the painted version on the Essex site has it as a sort of chainmail vest. No matter: at three foot away, what’s the difference!
I also needed some buildings to represent a village in the second scenario I want to play, so found these rather spectacular “Timber-Framed Houses” from 4ground Publishing.
These come in the usual flat-pack format, but are relatively easy to build: I did all four in a single evening. They are also very tolerant of idiots: you can’t see it, but I completely mucked up one build and, as I idiotically use Superglue when putting things like this together, trying to fix any mistakes can be…testing, shall we say. Despite my cackhandedness, I think you have to agree how good they look, and that’s straight from the packet: I’m sure that better modellers than I can customize them to look even better.
Anyway, that’s four lovely houses done and dusted. Price for all four was £47 plus postage: which I think is a fair price considering I now have all the buildings I need for a 2-4 square FK&P town.
Here’s a close-up of one of the timber-framed cottages:
Here’s another of Mark Luther’s superb 6mm games of IABSM: West of Verba.
Set on the Eastern Front in June 1941 (i.e. as part of Barbarossa) it involves a German Panzer attack on a Soviet position in rolling countryside.
Click on the picture below to see all:
Desmondo and Iain played their superb Sword Beach terrain again last weekend. Rather than using pure IABSM, they used the I Ain’t Been CoC’d Mum variant that uses Chain of Command dice rather than cards for activation.
Click on the picture below to see a pictorial report of their rather lovely game:
Here’s an After Action Report from a game from this weekend that I was due to play in but eventually could not make because of scheduling issues!
Friends Bevan, Mark and Dave have started to play through the Bashnya or Bust! scenario pack for I Ain’t Been Shot Mum, and here’s the battle report from the first game: #01: Near Osen.
Click on the picture below to see all:
Tanks for the entry, David!
A big welcome back to David Scott, who sends in his first TFL Painting Challenge entry of the year. This is David’s fourth year, and he opens the batting with some rather nice 15mm Soviet armour.
This week, we also have more from Carole, Mr Luther, Joe McGinn, Chris Kay and, of course, Travis.
Scorecard is updated and more pics appear below. Can you match them to the painter? Have a go and then check out their gallery to find out if you are right.
Recently there have been quite a few requests across the TFL Forum and IABSM Facebook Group for “how to play” videos for I Ain’t Been Shot Mum.
Now that sort of thing is currently way beyond my capacity to provide either in terms of time or ability, but fellow Lardy Alex Sotheran, from the Storm of Steel blog, has risen to the challenge and posted the first of three such videos on YouTube, this initial offering covering an introduction to the rules, what you need to play, along with the activation cards and how Blinds work.
This is a cracking presentation and has been needed for some time, so well done Alex! Can’t way to see the follow ups.
Click below to see the first video:
Must…resist…
I’ve spent the last few weeks trying to resist all the new Team Yankee Cold War kit from Battlefront. As I’m already in the middle of building up armies for a new period (English Civil War for those of you not paying attention. Yes, I mean you, Clarke, at the back!) I just can’t handle anything else at the moment.
All this Cold War goodness, however, got me thinking about what rules to use. Regular browsers will know that I play Arab/Israeli games with an adapted form of Charlie Don’t Surf!, but the early 70’s is just about as far as they will go without more work.
More thinki, and I remembered I Ain’t Been Nuked Mum! : a proper Cold Wars adaptation of IABSM that I remembered seeing at the third Operation Market Garden games day in Evesham.
A little bit of Googling and I found the Maxim to Milan blog, featuring some excellent IABNM battle reports. Sadly, the blog hasn’t been updated since 2015 but (and I hope Nick doesn’t mind) here’s one of them recreated here on VL. Those of you who’d prefer to see the original on MtM can click here to do so.
Click on the picture below to see all:
Another six year veteran returns for his seventh outing on the Painting Challenge: Andy Duffell. His first submission of the year is goblins, ghosties and a couple of menacing looking statues. Featured here is the Goblin Ninja, if that is a thing!
Andy’s first entry of the year is accompanied by lots of second, third and even fourth submissions from other participants. Today we feature entries from Carole, Chris Cornwall, Joe McGinn, Mark Luther, Steve Burt, Bluemoose Ken, John Emmett, Lloyd “Aztec Hat” Bowler, and Mervyn Douglas.
Something from each is featured below, but I’d recommend visiting their galleries for the full portfolio.
Great little I Ain’t Been Shot Mum After Action Report from Rob Goodfellow covering a game played using the second scenario of the Blenneville or Bust! scenario pack.
After an American recon force drives off its German opposition, British armour tries a thrust through Avaux..but the Germans are waiting for them.
Click on the picture below to see all.
Doug Melville is back! Another long-term veteran with entries in every one of the six years since the Challenge began.
Doug has been building jungle, enormous amounts of jungle. To be exact (in inches) 20 x 12 x 6 (in 3 full & 1 ¾ full box so 3.75 boxes) = 5,400 cubic inches. In metres, about 8.43 cubic metres.
I have scored this as fifteen pieces of terrain, so lots of points: but worth every one as I know how much time and effort goes in to creating this stuff!
We also have new entries from Melvyn, Ralph, Travis, Mark and John, some examples of which appear below..but I’d encourage to visit the individual galleries to see everything that’s been done.
Scorecard will be updated at the weekend.
Ages since I’ve painted any 15mm sci-fi, but a good way to start the new year is with the latest release from Onslaught Miniatures in their Grudd, or space dwarf, range.
The new releases consist of a two-man “gun trike” and a one-man bike. I’ve painted them, as with the rest of the Grudd, in metallic paints, although the different coloured “armour” didn’t turn out as different as I wanted them to be i.e. the bikes are a dark shade of metallic blue/green (Nautilus car paint from Halfords) and the riders are standard metallic blue (Tamiya).
I do, however, like the contrast between the metallic bodywork/armour and the matt tyres.
Anyway, a couple of recon squads for the Grudd, and I see that Onslaught have announced more releases are on the way.
Sapper makes a welcome return to this year’s Painting Challenge. This is his sixth year of participation (he missed out on year one) but with an average score of 2,129 per year, I think we can forgive him for that.
Sapper’s first offering of 2020 includes a rather smashing unit of 28mm pikemen:
Also adding to their scores today are Carole, Travis and John. By now you should be able to recognise their painting styles, but I’ll caption the photos just in case!
Incidentally, this post means that I have posted something every day in January. That may not sound like much but, given that I’ve never been able to do a whole month complete before in the six years that this website has been going, that, to me, is quite an impressive achievement.
I’m fairly sure that I can’t keep it up, but do promise to bring you as much great new content as I can manage, so keep checking back on a regular basis. I’m also very happy to receive AAR from any company-sized Lardy games (IABSM, CDS, Q13) or anything else that fits in with our general theme. Submissions to the website address on the right.
PS Actually I’ve managed to post every day since December 20th!
Here’s another of |Mark Luther’s great 6mm IABSM battle reports.
Click on the picture to see all:
Vis Lardica is a website devoted to wargaming and military history, with a special emphasis on the company-sized rulesets produced by the TooFatLardies: I Ain't Been Shot Mum (WW2); Charlie Don't Surf (Vietnam); and Quadrant 13 (science fiction)
Welcome to Vis Lardica, a not-for-profit website mostly dedicated to the company-sized wargaming rules produced by the TooFatLardies, but encompassing my other gaming interests as well.
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