Christmas Haul - British armour and support. German transport.

 I recieved a large lot of British armour and other support vehicles for Christmas this year. I also got some Chaffee tanks, some Opel Blitzes, Sdkfz 250s, an Sdkfz 222 and a few Kubelwagen. The idea was to get my already existing German infantry more mobile - they can now be Panzergrenadiers or just infantry in trucks. The trucks can also count as supply columns for my Tiger II. The 222 is specifically for recon for Battle of the Bulge. Chaffees are just because they look nice, but also for some more US light tank options. 

The idea behind the British vehicles was to go with the infantry I was hoping to get from my secret santa. Turns out they bought me some Lego instead. That will be fun to build, but now I need some British infantry. I will have to put an order in for some more I guess. 

You can see a couple of Sherman Firelies here, and then three each of Churchills and Comets. Plus a Challenger for funsies. I also got a Humber and a Staghound for recon. The Quad is to go with the 25Pdr that I haven't put together yet. The other vehicle, I can't remember what it is called is to tow things.

Here I have three Cromwells, a 95mm armed Centaur, a 17pdr and two 6pdrs. You can also see unbased Kubelwagens and Jeeps. I intend to base some of those with infantry in order to make some command stands. 

All of these are Heroics and Ros. I am largely impressed by the sculpts. The 17pdr looks absolutely beastly. 

GZG Not-Xenomorphs

 I bought a few of these back in 2016 with my first batches of 6mm sci fi figures. I based a few up and then never did anything with them because I didn't like how they looked. I ended up buying different Xenos. However, now I have finally gotten around to paint them up, in order to get them off my pile of unfinished projects, they look pretty good. 

They have an interesting look to them. I think the remind me more of the original from Alien, rather than the more quadropedal aliens from Aliens. I will see if I can base any on a smaller base, but these are fine for now. The main question is will I ever actually use them? I think I have done just the one bug hunt game in my entire 6mm sci fi side of the hobby (since 2016).

December Game Night

 Two days ago I managed to get to games night, I also went in November. It was nice to get out twice in a row and solidify some relationships. On Friday night I arrived just late enough to have to wait for another person to arrive - who ended up being the last guy to get there. It was a night of two player games - which means I couldn't play any of the games I brought. Classic.

I was handed Cartographers to entertain myself until someone arrived. Part way through reading the rules the other guy arrived and taught me how to play. This game was a blast. I have been curious about it for a while now, after spotting it in the raffle. It has gone straight on the to-buy list. It is fun, light, and creative. I love creating maps, and while this is less about creating a real map, and feels a bit like Tetris at times, I enjoyed it emensely. I think I can play this with the children.

Next up was Set - it was nice to get a game of that in with someone who could play as quickly I can, not just the children.

Then it was Cascadia. I have been curious about this game for a while also, since it came up on an Actualol video. Pictures are constantly being posted on the BGG Facebook page asking about scoring. I enjoy tile-placing games as it is, and apparently I love wildlife themed games (see Wingspan). There was just something satisfying about trying to place pairs of bears, and making sure my eagles/hawks were placed appropriately far apart from each other. This is on my to-buy list also. I think I will start putting some cash aside from now until UK Games Expo. I hope to pick them up in the Bring and Buy if possible.

I also ended up playing Citadels again. This was nice. It always feels good to get one of my own games played...even if I lose every time.

This really fired me up to play more games. With the Christmas break here I intend to get playing. 

AI Art

 I thought it would be fun to experiment with AI art. I signed up to Gencraft.com and get 10 free prompts each day. They are pretty cool. I thought it would be fun to create images to set the mood for battle reports. Well, words didn't really work to get WW2 specific art created. Have a look at these where I asked for WW2 Germans, Volksgrenadier, Battle of the Bulge, Panzers:

This looks like a T34 with a Chaffee turret all protected by Schürzen. Classic. 

US infantry with made up guns? Wonky guns! 

These look more Russian than German. Not accurate though. 

Then I went for a Cyberpunk style picture of a rag tag crew armed to the teeth. I like this one most. 

BattleGroup - 500 points US infantry division vs. Volksgrenadiers

 Last night I decided I would play a game. During the early evening I set up my mat and then got my terrain out. My four-year-old son loved helping me build a village, he especially liked placing the trees. In fact, he wanted to do it again today but we didn't get to it in the end. The lighting wasn't exactly great, and I have to admit, even though I had the table set up early, I didn't start playing until 20:30. 500 points was a push at that sort of time. I ended up calling the game after 2 hours as I was getting tired. 

The table looked great. It made me happy to see my terrain being used, and not looking as garbage as I often believe it looks. The dark green field is a new addition, made from an actual green towel, drybrished with cheap craft paints - white and dark yellow. I also stuck some clump foliage along one edge, which I think was a genius move. My burnt out cottage also made its first appearance on table, in fact I put a smoke marker over it which was fun.

The game was an Attack/Counterattack game. The US forces had some scout units while the Germans did not. It made for an interesting start, but eventually it all bogged down into a bit of a slog fest of me bringing troops on slowly from the rear into a meat grinder. I didn't particulary enjoy the game much. Maybe I am bored of solo games?

Here the 57mm ATG starts putting in work, knocking out a StuG III who decided to advance up the road. 

High point of the game was when that same 57mm crew needed to roll 12 to penetrate the Panther - and managed it on their second shot. 

There was heavy fighting over this barn - it is one of the objectives. The flags represent a unit inside the building.

In the end it worked out as a marginal US win who had pulled 17 BR vs. 20 BR for the Germans. 

The Grail I didn't even know I was looking for!

 Over the years I have printed out many, many PDFs for various wargames. I have tried having them in book form in different ways, none of which have been pleasing to me. Getting them ring-bound online is surprisingly expensive! More than the PDF is worth most of the time, especially if I want them to have a card back and plastic front. 

But then! An email! They found one at work and are offering it out or getting rid of it! I have never moved so fast in my life! Printed out and tested a bind! Here is my new, shiny copy of A Sergeant's War - a set of rules I haven't played in a long time, but love. Now I have them in a format that I can actually use like a book.

Some finished Knights appear!

 Last night I put the final, finishing touches on those three knights, and here they are:

After the all-over-Agrax Earthshade wash, I highlighted the steel parts with Runefang Steel - a light drybrush. I then used one of the bone colours for a general, all over the figure highlight. For me, table top distance is the more important factor - not award winning painting. I am really pleased with these guys.

Below I just used that same bone colour to highlight everything. I am a bit done with these guys. I haven't played X-Com in a while, so my interest in these figures has waned. I also have no aliens for them to fight, nor do I have terrain for them to fight in.

Here are all of my steel-armoured figures. I absolutely love them, although the one time they have seen combat, they lost. My favourite is still probably the one on the far right, ot the guy in the middle. 

Knights of Non-Lockdown

 Hi, all. It has been over a month. In that time I have written part of a Soviet army list for Battlegroup, planned numerous times to paint or play something, and have played a few little card games with my wife and children. I missed the boardgame night, and the first few weeks of term are generally incredibly busy. I just haven't wanted to do anything. We had no TV for a while as my one-year-old broke the sound cable when he knocked the sound bar onto the floor, and that was bliss. I read my library book - still unfinished. Anyway, while on Zoom last night I forced myself to get my gear out and made progress on these three figures. 

The two on the left and middle are Perry Miniatures Wars of the Roses men-at-arms. The figure on the right is a Reaper Bones miniature. I painted his shield purple, and used purple hints on the other two to make some kind of faction if needed. Last night I also put the steel and some blue on another couple of guys.

All that remains for these is some steel dry brushing, then some highlights on that black cloak especially.

Super Cheap Wargaming - my battlemat

 In an effort to save space and funds, I have been trying to figure out how to more efficiently store my wargaming surface. 

I have the grass mat pictured below, which looks lovely, but takes up a lot of space. It doesn't fit in my cupboard when rolled up. I don't have a 1m wide/tall space that is easily accesible so it just sits around in the way. Also, when playing with 1/72 Airfix Cromwells, the tracks get all caught up and hooked in the mat. 

When going to the Super Cheap Wargaming group many different things were suggested, one was spray painting patches onto my already existing desert felt.

So I gave it a go. I sprayed a section of my felt to see what it would look like. I was pleased. A few light areas, a few dark areas. I happened to have a green and brown spray. Lovely. I will try it with a game soon. 

July - Boardgame Night

 I made it out to the Boardgame Lounge the other night. I sat with a couple of people and got playing. The first thing we did was play L.L.A.M.A. which is a hilarious little game.

We also played Lucky Numbers which I really enjoyed. The point is to get rows and columns of ascending numbers. Simple, quick, but fun. Not fluff, no faff. A game after my own heart. 

Cubitos was an interesting game. It consists of rolling dice to create resources in order to buy further dice. The dice provide abilities that help your character move further in order to cross the finish line first/furthest. The entire thing was hilariously fun. It gave me flashbacks of Marvel Dice Masters, drawing, rolling, actions. There is a push your luck element, which screwed me at the very end, but there are also interesting catch up mechanisms. I liked it, it was fun, but losing on my final turn due to pushing my luck too far left a bad taste in my mouth.

Flamme Rouge is a cycling game. A race using cards with numbers on them for movement. But you need to judge correctly. If you speed out too fast, then you are penalised - the cyclists at the front have to draw a 2 movement penalty card that goes into their deck. It combines a bit of deck drawing and planning, which I like. Thoroughly enjoyed it to be honest. Coming second helped. 

I also played Zombie Dice - fun for a few minutes to fill the gap between games.

Activities Day 2023

 Hello all. It has been very quiet on the miniature painting and gaming front this month. I have been playing more board games, and preparing to host a couple of hours of intro wargaming at school. There is an existing Warhammer club on Fridays, but I can't stay on Friday, and feel weird about starting a second wargaming club at school, so I don't really know what to do here. Hosting a few kids wargaming was great. 

I had a few guys doing some WW2 gaming with my single sheet home brew rules. They enjoyed it and stayed for about an hour before wondering off to get chips and mess around outside. 

I forgot my roads...no idea where they are as they weren't in the tub with the bocage. However, that didn't stop them having a good time. It was nice to hear them talk about Panzer IVs and be able to play with essentially zero input from myself. 

I also spent hours preparing a few 100pt squads of Star Wars Miniatures - the Wizards of the Coast OOP game. I started by keeping them pure WOTC squads, as I don't own all of the V-Set cards, but then I realised that literally no-one cares about that, and I ended up screen clipping from Bloomilk onto a Word document. Thus they had their entire squad on a piece of A4 paper, which they could make notes on. I found it useful. Two guys, big Star Wars fans came and played a Captain Rex + clones vs. commando droids battle. They got a bit bored of it after a little while, but I feel I could have explained it better. Another student appeared and played a quick game with me. I had a bunch of jedi vs. General Grievous and some droids. I found it interesting that they all rathered play Clone Wars as opposed to Empire vs. Rebels. 

I home brewed some fantasy rules that were based loosely on Song of Blades and Heroes in terms of measuring sticks, but then dice rolls were different. They were more like Starport Scum. I took a hoard of skeletons who were fighting six adventurers. It was very basic, quick, but lots of annoying bad rolls. For a one-page set of rules pulled out of my bum for this though, I was happy. He had a laugh and may be more willing to come and try some more complex rules at some point.

I also brought: Zombies!!! but no-one was interested in that game. I will continue to bring it though as it is fun. Two other game that didn't see play: Star Wars Pocket Models, and Pirates of the Spanish Main. I just didn't set them up as I was more interested in playing Star Wars Miniatures to be honest. 

The Activities Day was a wild success and I will look to host this again next year. I might be able to start a club this time for reals? Not sure.

Take care all. It was great to be getting going.

UK Games Expo 2023

This year I decided to take my elder two children (8 and 6) with me. We were going to travel up Thursday night, Expo Friday, and see what happens Saturday. We ended up just doing the Friday but man, it was incredible. They were so excited to see their cousins, see the cosplayers, play some games, and buy their own dice. I got my dice out a couple of weeks ago and we just played with them building towers, which then led into playing a wargame. From that moment the girls wanted their own dice, and I can't attend a convention like this without buying a set (ask me when I last used a D4 though...).  

My eldest daughter signed up for a kids DnD session - loved it. We went to a stall where they gave out free D20s with a little snail body to rest them in. My girls are now hooked on dice. We spent quite a bit of time looking at various vendors and ended up deciding on one that was promoting a new RPG game that was crow themed. It was two sets for £10 so I bought one for me, one for each of them and one for my 3rd who immediately lost one when we gave it to him. The guy there also told the girls to pick up a free die from the basket of dice where you pick one for 50p if you want it. They were spoilt. This does mean I will have to now figure out a child-friendly RPG system to do little adventure with them.

These have little frogs inside them. What class. These are my son's dice. He loved them.

Cloud and Rainbow. Lovely.

These have unicorns inside. I cannot wait to use these with my RPGs when I get them started.

Rolled a 1, even with a giant D20 full of dice.

In the evenings I played Terraforming Mars - it lasted a long time but was amazing. We barely built any green areas in the first 6 or 7 generations. It went on to 10 generations. 

I was introduced to Framework and won. What a genuinely pleasureable logic/pattern spotting game. I enjoyed it from start to finish. No fluff, to bolted on theme. Just a puzzle to solve - how to get rid of your wooden bits before the others. 

I was introduced to Kites and Pairs. Both fun, quick games. I want more like these.

Song of Blades and Heroes - sort of

Yesterday morning I managed to get my children to play a battle. I went at them with an army of skeletons, and they each chose a figure from my stash. Middle child specifically asked for a warrior who is a girl. The Boy went for the coolest looking armoured dude. Oldest used the figure she painted herself. It was lovely. They trounced my skeletons...but it was always going to be that way.

 

A Poor Man's A Billion Suns - New Ships

 I have been plugging away at a few new ships for my clothes peg fleet. I find it oddly relaxing, just trying to work out the best shapes etc. I love it. I hope one day to actually use them! 

I have also been painting these guys up. My X-Com team. I love that game. I wish I could play it more.

Modular Magnetic Interior Terrain

 This was an idea that I took from the Facebook group "Super Cheap Wargaming." Someone had printed out these terrain tiles, stuck them to flexible magnetic sheet and then used a metal surface to keep the tiles from moving around. It looked amazing. I decided to try it, but have had a few issues with it which I will document here.

As you can see I had to shrink them down. I essentially screen-clipped the PDF images onto a Word document. I did my best to make sure I kept them all roughly the same scale and this was largely successful. If there is an easier way to shrink them all down 80% then I would like to know. I think they have scaled down quite well. If I were to do it again I would make them slightly larger so the bases fit exactly within each square. 

I am lazy. I wanted the most straightforward, least time consuming method of creating these terrain tiles. First I spent an evening chopping out the tiles. It was lovely, I put on a WW2 documentary and had a blast. Then I realised I would need to attach them to the white side of the magnetic sheet. I would either have to make exact cuts on the magnetic sheet or cover the white. I decided to cover the white with black paper - this happened. This will not do.

After some reflection I decided to reprint the tiles on card, cut them out, and stick them on squares of magnetic sheet. The magnetic sheet does not need to be the same size as the tiles as they are thick enough to hold miniatures. 

This is a seamless edit as I have at this point completed some tiles.

Well it turned out that the white side of the magnetic sheet was something you peel off to reveal a self-adhesive layer! Thus, I haven't needed glue or double sided tape. It has been a dream. See below.

Each tile has a strip of magnetic strip. Smaller than the size of the tile, cut roughly. They hold miniatures well enough. It will just be a bit time consuming cutting it all out and sticking strips of magnet on the back. I am excited about this though. 

I should also at some point buy a non-used baking tray to use exclusively for magnetic terrain.

April Board Game Night

 I made it to another board game night! It was great. I met some cool people and got to play a couple of games. Coatl - I had never heard of this before. Wingspan - I had wanted to play this for a while.

In Coatl you need to build three Aztecish snakes. It is pretty great to be honest. I will be trying to play it again. I had a great start but got caught out at the end and lost.

Wingspan is one of my sister's favourites. I played it and to be honest it was a lovely game. I loved it. The theme is just pleasant, threre is no combat as such. There is just something about it. I was relaxed the entire time playing it.