Muskets and Tomahawks Game

Another cracking game at the club this evening, in the shape of a French Indian Wars skirmish using the Muskets and Tomahawks rules. I missed the last game of this so was keen to take part and have a go with the rules, which turned out to be really good fun. I'm a big fan of card based turns and 'random' stuff, so the system gets a definite thumbs up. In the end it was a close run thing but went downhill fast for the British in the last two turns. The superb figures made it even more enjoyable and reminded me of the box of Woodland Indians that I have in the leadpile...yet another project for a rainy day?

Dead Man's Hand

I've just finished a shedload of work, which means that the immediate horizon is relatively clear again, as far as wargaming and painting are concerned. It's been a real uphill struggle over the last couple of weeks so to celebrate my new found freedom I've ordered a copy of the new Dead Man's Hand rules and a counter set to go with it.

I've been looking out for these rules since I first heard about them last year, so I'm keen to try them out, especially as I already have a couple of painted up posses and some terrain to stick straight onto the table. There was a good write up in Wargames Illustrated this month and the system looks pretty solid, so it'll be fun to dust off the lawmen and banditos for a try out.

AK47 Objective Markers...again

I got a bit carried away this evening and knocked together yet another AK47 objective marker, this time in the form of a knocked out Poundland diecast APC. This had it's chunky wheels removed and replaced with much smaller ones from a couple of cheapo toy cars, the idea being to represent the hubs of the wheels once the tyres had been burned away.

A plastic .50cal from a spare toy tank was glued into the hole in the roof instead of the missle launcher thing that came with the toy. I've kept the base very simple with three Woodlands Scenics trees to add a bit of a filler. I did think about adding some Peter Pig casualty bases to the scene but, as this will be a long destroyed vehicle covered in rust and weeds, I thought that would have been a bit over the top.

...very quick, very easy and very cheap.

AK47 Objective Marker...finished!

I had a couple of hours today to play around with the AK47 peacekeeper checkpoint, with the end result being a completed objective marker that I can deploy in the game the week after next. I'm pleased to have finished this little vignette which has been hanging around for ages and is now ready for use. A bit of a change from the usual at the very least.

So pleased in fact, that I've started on another one, this time a guerilla training camp complete with drill sergeant / political commissar and a bunch of terrified new recruits. I'm hoping to finish it off in time for the game, alongside some dodgy resin adobe houses that I'm converting into AK47 style dodgy resin adobe houses, with the addition of some air con, TV aerials and the odd bit of corrugated iron sheet.

AK47 Objective Marker...continued

I finally sat down to paint something this evening, after what seems like ages having to do other things. It's a busy time at work so little progress has been made, so to make up for it, here's the half finished AK47 objective marker that I scratchbuilt ages ago, now with a lick of paint and a bit of a wash. It's all a bit shiny and sticky at the moment but I'll finish it off for good tomorrow, once I've shifted some more work :O(

P.S. No idea why it's all gone sideways...again?

Last Year of the Luftwaffe

I popped into the Oxfam bookshop today after work and found this. I've had the Operation Bodenplatte project on hold for a few months so thought I'd do some more background reading in the meantime. There's plenty to keep me ticking over in this book, with a lot of potential scenario material tucked away in the text, all for less than a BLT sandwich.

More AK47 Helicopters!

Well, you can't have enough of them really...I suppose. This one is the latest edition to my pile of 1/100th scale chopper kits and diecast gunships. I had one of these years ago for my Colonial Settlers but it got crunched by accident. I'm glad I found this one on Ebay, as they're hard to track down and perfect for 1960's era Africa. I know that you can now get a 3D printed version of the Alouette III in 1/100th and an expensive 15mm metal kit, so I could have gone down that route, but I like building plastic kits so this one's fine for me. I don't have a use for it yet but when has that ever been a problem?

White Star, Blue Sky

 

I won this on Ebay over the weekend which means I now have nearly all of the supplements for the rules, except for the Battle of Britain module. This was my rule set of choice before the original Bag the Hun appeared and I may well still use it at some point. Now, however, it's a source of ideas and a 'off the shelf' scenario material. It's a good system and not disimilar to Bag the Hun in it's approach, so mixing and matching the scenarios is straightforward enough. It's really just a question of devising the cards for the turn sequence and fitting in the ratings for the pilots, so no big effort required.

Prehistoric Settlement Game

Another game at the club tonight, this time a very enjoyable stone age set up using the Steve Barber figures and rules. It was great fun and very quick to pick up. The umpire ran the game with his customary 'hands off' approach, which made it easy to learn the rules and to focus on the fun, rather than get bogged down in the details. It looked great too!

AK47 Objective Marker Refurbished

I've set up a game of AK47 for the second week in May, so thought I'd dig out the unfinished objective marker that I scratchbuilt last year, to add a bit of variety to the set up. It's an old Maisto diecast APC with some Peter Pig Vietnam US infantry stuck to an old CD base alongside a Woodlands Scenic plastic tree and some resin sandbags. Nothing spectacular but relatively simple to put together.

I've given the APC and the sandbagged sentry post a wash in Army Painter dip. I'm really not convinced by this stuff and may well resort to a traditional layered approach when it comes to the crunch, but it has added a bit of tone to the UN style white on black basecoat on the ersatz VAB. If I can, I'll try to finish the objective marker off this week, ready for the game next month.

In the meantime, I've decided to focus on the Yanks for Bolt Action rather than the WW2 coastal warfare stuff. This has been a tough choice but is the realistic option, especially as I'm more likely to get a game 'off the shelf' with the late war US figures. I'm leaning towards a 'proper' paint job for this rather than the Army Painter approach but we'll have to wait and see.

AK47 200th Post!

There's been a bit of an AK47 revival at the club this year. It's been kicked off by a few games that I've set up over the last couple of months which seem to have inspired a core group of AK47 enthusiasts, although they don't have any armies of their own yet. To move things on, I've decided to add another army to my extensive collection, this time in the form of a Religious Movement of some sort.

I already have two fully painted armies and a third that's all ready based for painting up but this time round, I'm going for the cheapest and quickest option. The force is made up of all my left over and spare figures, most of which I aquired via Ebay, at shows or in the QRF sales. It's a rag tag collection of stuff but that fits in really well with the army format and should give me lots of opportunity for ad hoc units.

So far, everything I've pulled together has been from stuff I had lying around in various boxes, but I have ordered some top up militia figures and heavy weapons from Peter Pig using a £25 voucher that I got for my birthday. So, no cost involved. I have, however, spent just under a tenner on some more katyusha rocket launchers from The Scene, as they are great for kitting out technicals including two diecast trucks that I found in the kids toy box.

When I get round to basing this lot up and painting them, I'm going to go for a basecoat of Dark Brown, using the Halfords Ultra Matt Camouflage spray that I've used on the 28mm US infantry. This will give me an instant skin shade for the militia, many of which are wearing very little indeed, so it'll speed the painting process up straight away. The vehicles will get a black undercoat and then a  simple three stage drybrush with lots of rust and dust weathering to finish them off.

I'm going to tackle this lot at some point in the next few weeks, although I'm in danger of mission creep given the other couple of projects that I have on the go. I'll just have to make a decision and pack one or other of them away for the moment, leaving me with time to concentrate on just one thing. In the meantime, as this is my two hundreth AK47 related post (blimey!), I have decided to commemorate the occasion by setting up another AK47 game for next month...more about that later.

Bolt Action Yanks [4]

I've been really tied up with work recently, hence the lack of posts over the last couple of days. This is likely to be the case for the foreseeable future but I'll do my best to keep things ticking over. In the interim, here's the first squad of the Bolt Action US infantry, along with the platoon HQ, basecoated in Halfords Ultra Matt Camouflage Brown spray paint. This is a really good base shade for the brown wool US issue greatcoats and will also make it easy to block in the other colours, prior to a wash in Army Painter dip.

The Armed Rovers

I'm still working on the scenario briefing for the Bag The Hun 2 convoy strike game, which has been set for the end of the month. The first task is to produce the turn cards along with the scenario instruction sheet. I also need to paint up a Ju88A4 for the convoy escort and scratchbuild some 2D templates for the three ships that will be the targets of the attack. To get me going, I'm now reading The Armed Rovers, which isn't directly relevant to the scenario but does include a lot of valuable detail on low level maritime stike missions in the Med, albeit by specialised anti-shipping aircraft.

Pike and Shotte Game

I took part in an excellent ECW game of Pike and Shot at the club this evening as one half of the Royalist command. The game was really good fun and looked great, thanks to the umpire who explained everything really well and kept things moving along at a good pace. I was really impressed by the 28mm figures that he painted up using the Army Painter approach. It made me think again about the 28mm Cornish Royalist army that I have long planned to put together, also using the 28mm Warlord Plastic figures, perhaps as a project for the Summer holidays in a few months time?