Happy New Year!

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Happy New Year everyone, and may 2022 bring you lots of life, love and good gaming!

To start your New Year off with a bang, here are some of the late entries into last year’s Painting Challenge:

Review of the Year 2021

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2021 was another year largely disrupted by the continuing COVID crisis. I even caught COVID myself, in early December, and was very under the weather for a few days. Despite that, it’s actually proven to be a bumper year for me wargaming-wise. Here are a few of this year’s highlights.

Gaming

Another great year as far as actual gaming is concerned, with 47 tabletop battles fought. This is actually the highest number of games I’ve ever played in one year, beating last year’s record of 42 games by 12%.

That works out at almost one per week on average, a figure I’m pretty happy with considering I don’t belong to a club and rely on a small circle of good gaming friends to provide opponents.

The main focus was Pike & Shot: 47% or 22 games, with the play-testing for The Siege of Norchester scenario book for For King & Parliament being responsible for fifteen battles.

The moment my Commanding General and a Brigade Commander died in the same combat right at the start of playtesting the Skirmett’s Orchards scenario from “Norchester”. Not my finest hour!

After that, Ancients, with 32% or 15 games, all but one using To The Strongest, with the other being Infamy!

Finally, there were a smattering of Napoleonic (4), 19th Century (3) and WW2 (3) battles.

Interestingly, just about half of them (twenty-three to be exact) were fought remotely using Zoom in the first half of the year when we were all still in lockdown. They were nearly all grid-based games (either TTS or FK&P) as they particularly lend themselves to gaming over the ‘Net.

The gaming table set up for an online session: Marian Romans versus Gauls IIRC.

Not sure that I have a favourite game, but very pleasing was the opportunity to get some of my 19th Century figures back onto the tabletop after over twenty years: see the section on Re-Basing, below, for more.

Painting - Overview

Not a particularly good score in this year’s Painting Challenge but I think this is mostly because I’ve produced very few terrain items compared to previous years. I’ve also been gaming more and, as always, it’s a matter of balancing what free time I have between the painting and the playing. This year felt about right.

Painting - New Armies

Three new armies were started in 2021, all in 15mm.

A long term project, I now have three battalions of 15mm early period French Napoleonic infantry completed. I’m not pushing these particularly: they are a side project for whenever I need a break from painting hordes of something else. The main problem, as ever, is that I am yet to find a set of rules that I like sufficiently enough to inspire me to move Boney’s boys onto the main production line: something else to be rectified in the new year.

AB Figures painted mostly with Contrast paints. Those cockades will be the death of me!

Zaporogian Cossack Commanding General

The other two armies are both for the unofficial Eastern European version of For King & Parliament from the Tales From A Wargaming Shed blog, and are connected in as much as I have built a Zaporogian Cossack army with Tatar allies. I would say that this army (or armies, dependent on how you look at it) are just about finished now, or as finished as any wargaming project can ever be!

Amusingly, when I started the army as an opponent for friend Bevan’s Poles (currently on his painting table) I imagined I would be painting hordes of light cavalry, but it turns out that these Cossacks were of the infantry variety not the mounted sort, hence the Tatar allies to provide decent horse. These are the Cossacks that fought on foot from behind war wagons.

I’m sure you’re supposed to do your research before you buy your figures but, in this case, it turned out to be quite fun to do it the other way round: I now know much more than I used to about the Zaps, including the fact that they mostly fought on foot!

Painting - Re-Basing

My 19th Century armies have spent a long time languishing in their boxes, so it was a real pleasure to find a set of rules (Neil Thomas’ Wargaming 19thC Europe 1815-1878) that inspired me enough to get some of them out and have a play.

A couple of games later and I realised that part of what had been preventing me from using them had been the weird basing system I had used when I built the armies some time ago: a consequence of using home-brewed rules based on a cross between Johnny Reb and Trevor Halsall’s 19th Century set.

The Re-Based Prussians

With more 19thC games on the horizon, there was nothing for it but to bite the bullet and re-base…so I did, starting with the Austrians, Prussians and French. Lots of wars between those three: Franco-Austrian (1859), Austro-Prussian (1866) and Franco-Prussian (1870).

In all I re-based over 800 infantry, almost 200 horse and about 20 guns/wagons: a horrible experience that I wouldn’t wish on anyone. The fear of breaking the models as you take them off their old bases (there were a few casualties) combined with the monotony of flocking making the whole thing very tedious and stressful.

But at least the figures look good now, and It has been a real pleasure to get them on the tabletop again after 25 years! Just goes to show that my adage about never selling any figures ever still holds true!

Back on the tabletop after more than twenty years!

Publishing

Norchester: A Second Scenario Pack for FK&P

With last year’s Marlowe to Maidenhythe scenario pack for For King & Parliament selling well, I managed to follow it up with another: The Siege of Norchester. This now gives FK&P players 24 different games to play, each of which can be played on both sides and with or without the set deployments given. If my maths is correct, that gives 96 possible combinations before you have to play exactly the same game more than once. As the Lone Ranger said “my work here is done” and I need to find a new project to work on.

Less pleasing was the fact that I made little progress on my next IABSM theatre supplement: the Allied forces in the Far East. I did spend a lot of time researching the basic British and Commonwealth lists, which are finished, and have worked my way through specific lists for most of Malaya, but the sheer volume of what I need to do has slightly overwhelmed me. I shall re-approach the subject in the new year and see if I can get any further.

Looking Forward to 2022

So what do I want to achieve in 2022, what are my new year resolutions?

First up I’d like to hit 52 games in a single year i.e. an average of one a week. Might be tough, especially if lockdown lasts a long time, but it’s a good target to go for.

Secondly, I’d like to finish the IABSM Blitzkrieg Allies in the Far East theatre book for IABSM, and produce some kind of scenario or campaign pack for To The Strongest.

Thirdly? Well thirdly I’d just like to keep on painting and adding to my collection. I’d like to get an opponent for the Cossacks done, add a Crusader army to my TTS roster, and keep on filling in the gaps in my other forces.

Have fun tonight (COVID allowing!) and I;ll see you all next year!

TFL Painting Challenge: The Final Countdown!

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Only today and tomorrow to get your last few entries in for the 2021 Challenge…although, as usual, I will accept a few post-new-year stragglers.

I shall also be running the Challenge next year (the ninth consecutive year, with all previous years’ galleries still available) so start planning your painting now.

Today’s entries are from six people who have been participating all year, and one from Mr Scott, who’s obviously been saving up all his work for just one December entry. Just goes to show that it’s never too late to take the Challenge!

Do visit the individual galleries (use the Navigation bar, in black, above) but here’s a selection of today’s entries to get you started:

Finally, make sure you visit the site tomorrow when I’ll be posting a review of my wargaming year…

More Tatars

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After my brief diversion to the Far East, it’s back to the slightly nearer East with just about the last of the Tatars that I need as allies for my Zaporogian Cossack army. All that’s left on the Tatar section of the painting table are three command figures to use as a General should I want to field them in two brigades rather than one.

These are very nice figures but I’m still not convinced by the plastic horse, metal rider combination: I think it would work better the other way around. I will, however, save my final opinion until after I’ve used them a couple of times: the proof being in the (presumably left-over Xmas) pudding.

Japanese Staff Cars and the Japanese Gallery Re-Vamped

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With everyone sleeping in until gone 11 o’clock this morning, there was time for me to finish off the two 15mm Japanese Type 95 Kurogane Staff Cars that I bought from Syborg 3D printing the other day:

These are absolutely lovely little models that, in the flesh, aren’t as layered as they might appear in the picture.above: the trouble with good cameras that pick up all the detail is that sometimes they pick up all the detail!

Syborg delivered these to me in just three days, and you get both versions in the same pack for the very palatable sum of just £4.

I can’t recommend these enough: just the thing to keep your Japanese staff officer from getting his boots muddy as he drives down the Grik Road!

Re-Vamped Japanese Galleries

In fact, these were so nice, and the house was so quiet, that I was inspired to re-photograph my Japanese collection against a jungle background as opposed to the rather stark, white background I was using before.

This actually took me an hour or so less than I thought it would (I had predicted 4-6 hours, but it took me three) and I’m very happy with the result. Check out the three galleries here:

Japanese 25th Army in Malaya/Singapore

Japanese 15th Army in Thailand/Burma

Japanese 14th Army in the Philippines

Here’s a selection of other shots:

Tatar Nobles

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I hope everyone had a good Christmas Day, and ate and drank as much as I did!

I also managed to put the finishing touches to a base of Tatar nobles to further support my Zaporogian Cossacks:

These are lovely figures from By Fire & Sword, in 15mm, and painted mostly with GW Contrast Paints.

I decided to mount them in a “V” formation rather than in a simple line in order to differentiate them from any other horse that might be on the tabletop at the same time.

This has worked very well, and I am looking forward to the moment a unit of these bad boys drives into a unit of more traditionally, linear-mounted Dutch or Swedish horse.

More Marlowe to Maidenhythe AARs

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As mentioned in previous posts, one of the things I like about publishing scenario packs (in addition to the extra money to buy more figures) is reading people’s AAR of the games therein.

I’ve featured a round of reports from the first scenario of the Marlowe to Maidenhythe pack, The Attack of Marlowe, and am pleased to say that the people playing through the campaign seemed to have enjoyed the first game well enough to play through the second: Widbrooke Common.

Here a link to the Blunders on the Danube blog where disaster is narrowly avoided during the game when one of the tables used collapses! Despite the unexpected earthquake (this is Berkshire after all!) this is a great looking game with some lovely figures deployed. Here a pic:

The Start of the Game

Then it’s on to the Troop Time! blog, where Widbrooke Common has also been played out, thankfully without any near-catastrophes.

The author of the blog, Zanoni, does mention that he’s disappointed that the M2M scenarios aren’t linked more closely, but as I’ve explained before, that’s the way they are designed.

As the first multi-game supplements for FK&P, I wanted M2M and SoN to be scenario books that primarily provided people with lots of easily run games i.e. without any barriers to playing any of the 24 scenarios provided in any order.

I did think about going the whole hog and writing a campaign based on a dependency tree and with characters/units who can progress or expire (much like I do for my IABSM scenario packs) but felt that, at this stage, what FK&P needed was just lots of individual games that people can play

That said, I also wanted to link them together in some way, so there's a strong campaign thread running through each pack, the games feature the same people and units throughout, and there a neat tracker provided so that players can keep a running score of how they are doing: hopefully a good compromise, "best of both worlds" product.

So hopefully Zanoni will keep playing through the pack: he certainly seems to be enjoying himself so far.

The two lines clash! Picture from the Troop Time! blog.

Now all we need is the Iron Mitten to catch up with his Widbrooke Common game!

Lard Magazine 2021 Now Available

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Click on the Pic to Buy!

It’s Christmas, so it must be time for the annual Lard annual, the Lard Magazine 2021.

A mere six of your finest English pounds buys you a cornucopia of all things Lard. Highly recommended.

In this year’s bumper magazine we have:

Welcome and Introduction

Big Rich reflects on the last year and his hopes for the future

Bazooka Town. Joe Bilton

Won’t you take me to… A complete Late War Pint Sized Campaign set in the Ruhr Pocket for Chain of Command

Let’s Get This Project Started. Colin Murray

I’m coming up, so Colin had better get this project started. The boy from Buckfast offers some great advice for getting a new project off to a flying start

Hell Hath No Fury Like a Woman Scorned. John Savage

Especially when she’s in a chariot! Get your wheelbarrow ready for this multi part campaign for Infamy, Infamy! set in rebellious Britain in AD60

We’re on a Highway to Hell. David C.R. Brown

Rocking his way to the Eastern Front for some ‘O’ Group action, it’s the Housewife’s Favourite himself. Nice!

Great War What a Tanker. Keith Jordan

A look at adapting What a Tanker for the very first tank on tank action, Keith Head to Villers Brettonneux. I hope he’s packed his wellies!

City & People. Sidney Roundwood

“Hullo clouds. Hullo Sky”. With the shackles of sanity abandoned, Sidney muses on creating terrain for the urban environment of 17th Century Paris. As you do

Red Star Rampant. Jim Jackaman

The 1939 Khalkin Incident see the Soviets Take on the Japanese in Bag the Hun. A full guide with seven spiffing scenarios to get you scrambling for your Yak

Desperate Measures in the Mediterranean. Charley Walker & Co.

The inseparable duo of Charley and Fred Worthingham present a Kiss Me Hardy scenario set in the Mediterranean of 1794

War Among the Ferns. Simon Walker

Simon presents a complete guide to the New Zealand Wars with Sharp Practice. A full breakdown or British, Colonial and Maori forces from 1843 to 1872. That’ll get tongues wagging!

An Incident at the Bay of Islands. Simon Walker

A scenario from the New Zealand Wars for use with War Among the Ferns

Building a German Church. Joe Bilton

With his architectural hat on and full health and safety clearance, Joe looks at building a German church suitable for his Bazooka Town campaign

Vox Normannorum. Olve Kroknes

A complete saga experience from the Viking era for Dux Britanniarum from the Pen of Norway’s Lardy Viking himself

Assault on Esperia. Tim Whitworth

An IABSM scenario from the soft underbelly of Italy in 1944 see the French confront German forces near the Liri River

Return to the Raevsky Redoubt. David C.R. Brown

Borodino, the epic clash between two Empires in 1812. Here, Godfather of Wargaming, Dave Brown, returns to the Grand Redoubt with General d’Armee

Rückzug. David Hiscocks

A Pint-Sized-Campaign set in France and Belgium in August 1944. Can the Germans stop the breakout from Normandy and the great swan? Call the RSPB!

Haitian Revolutionary Armies. Peter Davies

Sharp Practice Army lists for an unusual Napoleonic period confrontation in the Caribbean. Go on. You know you want to. Trent Miniatures. It’s calling…

Sour Grapes. Joe McGrath

Strewth! The Fallschirmjäger take on the Australians in the scenario for Chain of Command on Crete from Joe across the pond in the US with a scenario he ran at Historicon

The Roundwood Report Revisited. Sidney Roundwood

They said it would never happen, but Sidney is back and talking to Mark Backhouse about the forthcoming Strength & Honour rules from Reisswitz Press

Go Sharp Into the Desert. John Savage Pasha

John provides a full supplement for using Sharp Practice for actions in the Sudan between British, Egyptian and Mahdist forces. Break out the Factor 50 Quartermaster!

The Sands of Shah Wadi Wadi. Pasha John Savage

A short campaign of linked games for the Sudan. Can the Reverend and his daughter escape the evil Osman Dinna Munni? I suspect some girls will, some girls won’t. Which is a very old musical joke

Micro-CoC. Kev Pierce

An informative guide to playing Chain of Command with 6mm forces. I am honestly refraining from making a smutty comment. But you knew that.

The Australians at Pozieres. By Alex Sotheran

Rochdale’s finest son, aka Storm of Steel, leaves behind the glamour of the studio for the mud of the Western Front with this scenario for Mud & Blood

La Haye Sainte. By Joe McGinn

Joe Looks at gaming the assault on the world’s most famous farmhouse. Not the one in Bethlehem. The other one.

IABSM Figure Galleries

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No gaming face-to-face for a bit as everyone’s nervous about catching COVID just before Xmas.

I don’t blame them actually: having had it in early December, I can recommend avoiding it if possible: four days of the worst head cold you could possibly imagine followed by a couple of weeks of an annoyingly constant cough. I’m still largely deaf in one ear (problems with the eustachian tube!) and have no puff at all.

But enough of the complaining…

IABSM Figure Galleries

I’ve been schroffing up some of the galleries of my collection of WW2 figures: filling in the gaps that I’ve, er, filled since I first created them; making sure the links work; and adding in a couple of Japanese companies from the relatively new Blitzkrieg theatre pack.

You can visit the index page, here, where you can find links to the various galleriers.

A Gap Filled: German motorised light artillery battery

My next task is to re-photograph all the units that are currently shot against a white background, or just photographed anyhow for the painting challenge, against a more set up background like the German guns, above.

That’s a hellishly long task, though: find the figures, lay out each unit, photograph each unit, load the photographs onto the PC, edit each image, go back and re-take the photos where the original shot didn’t work, build the web page, load the images, caption the images, link the page and, finally, check it all through for errors.

I reckon each gallery takes 4-6 hours to complete, so don’t be surprised if I prioritise other things! The results are very satisfying, though, so well worth it I suppose.

It also gives me a chance to make sure all the figures are stored in the right place: there’s nothing more annoying than being unable to find a unit of tanks that you know you have but that aren’t where they should be!

They’re here somewhere!

TFL Painting Challenge: Another December Update

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I’ll be doing at least weekly updates for the Painting Challenge in December: means I can keep on top of the entries that always flood in at this time of year!

As always, I recommend you look at the individual galleries but, just before we get to the usual whistle-whetters, here’s a couple of pieces sent in by John Emmett: absolutely lovely. I don’t usually pick out individual pieces, but these two were just too good not to highlight.

And here’s a selection of the other entries received this last week:

IABSM AAR: South of Cherbourg

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Here’s a quick IABSM battle report from Sergeant Steiner’s excellent blog.

The Sergeant played through one of the free scenarios in the main rulebook: the South of Cherbourg game. This is an all infantry scenario with regular Wehrmacht defending against advancing US troops in Normandy in 1944.

Click on the picture below to see all:

More Cossacks/Tatars

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I’m still plugging away at my 15mm Cossacks-with-Tatar-allies: only two more units and then I have my 130 point army for FK&P, with another six or so units then clearing all the figures on my painting table.

After all, you’ve got to have enough figures to allow for a few changes and/or bigger battles!

First up today is my overall Cossack commander-in-chief. There’s the Hetman himself, his standard bearer with the usual very impressive flag, a mounted drummer and, finally, a little help from above in the shape of a dour looking orthodox priest.

Figures are, as usual, from the By Fire & Sword range, which I cannot recommend enough. Okay, so I still find the plastic horses a little fragile for my liking, but just the flags they provide with every unit make them a must-have. These are painted with GW Contrast paints.

Second up is another base of Tatar bowmen. I also like these a lot: the detail is very crisp and takes the Contrast paint very well. I’m trying to make them look different from the Cossacks by having most wearing light tan clothing - the Cossacks in general being more colourful - with the odd figure in Cossack blue (traded clothing presumably) or a reddy-brown, mixed-on-the-palette shade.

I should be able to finish the army off over Christmas (well, as much as any army is ever finished!) and then it’s on to their opponents: probably the Poles.

IABSM AAR: Blenneville or Bust! #4B Reversed

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Here’s an after action report that shows how flexible the IABSM scenario books are.

James Moulding and friends played scenario #4B from the Blenneville or Bust! scenario pack, but with the roles reversed i.e. in the original game, the British are attacking defending Germans but in this game it’s the British defending with the Germans attacking.

Click on the picture, below, to see all:

Note that this report is taken from the IABSM Facebook page. I hope James doesn’t mind me reproducing it here.

TFL Painting Challenge: Christmas is Coming!

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The first batch for December as people start that final push for points before the end of the month and the end of this year’s Challenge.

Plenty of time to get you last entries in: so get painting and photographing!

Please do visit the individual galleries, but here’s a taster to whet the whistle:

Cossack Command & Tatars

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Sorry for the lack of posts this week: been very busy in the real world!

Expect a flood of interesting content over the next couple of days but, to start, here’s a catch-up of some painting I’ve been doing.

First up are a couple of command bases for my 15mm Zaporogian Cossacks. Lovely figures from the By Fire & Sword range painted mostly with Contrast paints. I especially like the chap on the right with the pipe.

Alongside the two Colonels, I also painted a base’s worth of Tatar light horsemen. These are also from the By Fire & Sword range, and are also nice figures.

One thing: the riders are metal and the horses are plastic. There must be a good reason for this, and I didn’t notice that the figures felt top heavy, but the plastic is of the soft, bendy variety, so sometimes the horses are “set” at a funny angle and, unlike metal figures, can’t be straightened out. You have to slope the base when you mount it to get the horse as a whole to sit straight.

It also means that I am less confident of picking up the base by the two outside figures: I’m worried that the plastic won’t take the weight. I know I shouldn’t be picking up the base by the figures anyway, but sometimes in the heat of battle etc. I shall have to see how they manage on the tabletop.

IABSM AAR: Viking Panzers in Central Poland

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Another cracking I Ain’t Been Shot, Mum battle report from the pen and camera of Mark Luther.

It’s another 6mm battle fought at the Gigabyte’s cafe, and this time features a somewhat generic game based on actions to the east of Warsaw in August 1944 where the Soviets had sent masses of tanks through thin lines of the German defenders. The panzer units were then forced to scramble to cut those units off before they totally disrupted the front.

Click on the picture, below, to see all…

More Moloitsy and some Tatars

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Another base of Cossack Moloitsy rolls off the production line. That makes four I have now, which is enough for the 150 point army I have planned. I do have one more base’s worth of figures to paint, however, so will probably end up with five in all.

As before, these are By Fire & Sword miniatures painted up using mostly GW Contrast paints, and mounted on a Warbases large vehicle base.

My Cossacks, not being of the Ukrainian sort, don’t have very good cavalry, so I’m going to add some Tatar allies to the army. I have bought enough to field what I need but, whilst wandering around Warfare this weekend just gone, I saw these chaps on sale for quite a reasonable price i.e. painted well enough for me to like them, priced at under double the raw lead.

Whilst I’m not sure that they are actually Tatars, they will do as Tatar bowmen…and I shall probably use them to indicate veteran bowmen as their distinctive headgear makes them look like they are more of a chosen unit than a random collection of warriors.

IABSM AAR: Anzio #10: Highway 7

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Another great 6mm I Ain't Been Shot Mum game from Mark Luther played at Gigabites Cafe in November 2021.

The scenario is taken from the Anzio: Wildcat to Whale scenario pack and features US infantry and armour assaulting a collection of four farmhouses held by men from the Herman Goering Panzer Division.

Click on the picture below to see all: