Samurai Blades Birthday Present

I don't usually post stuff about boardgames on the blog but today is my eldest son's twenty fourth birthday, so I'll make an exception. When he was little we used to play both Cry Havoc and Samurai Blades, which he absolutely loved, so when I spotted a mint, unpunched copy of the latter on eBay I put in a tentative bid. For some inexplicable reason, given that these go for about a hundred quid a pop, no one else put in a bid. As a result, I snapped up an immaculate, original set for a fraction of the usual asking price. It's great to pass on a game I loved as a teenager to my son and I'm looking forward to a few games in the not too distant future, even if he'll probably give me a thrashing!

More Tiddly Planes

A wet and windy afternoon better spent at the workbench rather than outdoors. Here we have three 1/600th scale Tumbling Dice Roland C.II two seaters, an Albatros C.III observation machine and Albert Ball's Nieuport 17, the latter a Tumbling Dice Nieuport 17 with the upper wing pinched from a Nieuport 11 model. I'm away tomorrow but hope to start painting these after the weekend. 

Algernon Pulls It Off! Scenario Sketch

I was looking for a potential scenario for Algy today featuring the Roland C.II, when I stumbled across this rather unusual action from September 1916, as illustrated in a painting by Michael Turner. Here are the notes accompanying the painting:

Rocket Man

In late afternoon on September 15th 1916, Captain Albert Ball took off alone on patrol to seek out enemy observation balloons, his Nieuport 17 armed with Le Prieur rockets mounted on its interplane struts.

Sighting a German patrol of three Roland C11s, he approached unnoticed from behind and below, and fired a salvo of all eight rockets into their formation. Completely taken by surprise, the enemy aircraft scattered in alarm, and Ball promptly shot one of them down.

I think this would make a great scenario, especially as it includes the very unorthodox use or Le Prieur rockets and a famous RFC ace to boot! It will take some further research and some rule tweaking to set up, but I reckon it would make a brilliant solo or two player game. I happen to have the 1/600th models I need for the scenario in the bits box, so I'll see what I can get sorted over the weekend.

Algernon Pulls It Off Club Game Logistics

 

I'm starting to get myself organised for the club Algy game in a couple of weeks, the Digger Dogfight scenario from the Jasta 18 Lard Mag scenarios, by editing and printing off the aircraft sheets and the card deck. I'll get these filled in, cut out and assembled at the weekend, which theoretically puts me in a position to paint up some 1/300th scale aircraft, if I don't get distracted by the other things in the next ten days or so? If not, this will be played out in glorious 1/600th scale, as I have all the models ready to go! 

War of the Pacific Base Bosh - Chileans

I finished repainting and relabelling the bases on my 1/2400th scale Chilean fleet for the War of the Pacific at the weekend, so that's another thing on the 'to do' list ticked off. I have a few slots left empty in the storage box which I'm planning to fill with transports and armed merchant ships but I'm having trouble locating suitable models, either to convert or to use as proxies. I can also add more torpedo boats for both sides and perhaps even a submarine, the Toro, but for the moment it's job done and dusted! 

June Project - Napoleonic Naval Box Fillers

The project for this month is to fill up the gaps in my French and British 1/2400th Napoleonic fleets, which is something I've been meaning to sort out for a while. As previously mentioned, this involves assembling and painting three additional ships of the line for the Royal Navy and three for La Royalle, along with a couple of frigate for the latter. Not too much to do but enough to keep me busy. If I get them finished, I can then have a go at painting the American ships that I have assembled to fill in one of  the compartments at the front of the storage box. 

Unfinished 2mm ECW Project Potential

The box of based units ready to go

The Cornish Royalist Army 1643

The three test bases 

I hage been sifting through the unfinished projects from the last couple of years in order to short list some things to finish off in June and July, rather than starting anything new. One thing I have been considering that is not a naval project is the 2mm English Civil War project for 1643 in the South West. I dropped this after buggering up the bases of the Cornish Royalist army but managed to salvage some of the units, as well as the three bases that I completed as a test run. I quite fancy finishing off the Royalists using the bases I didn't screw up and perhaps even go on to complete the Parliamentarian forces too. It's another option at the very least and a nice change from air and naval stuff. 

War of the Pacific Base Bosh - Peru

I'm now focused on some old projects that either need finishing off or just tweaking a bit to give them a refresh. First up are my Chilean and Peruvian fleets for the War of the Pacific, which I've always wanted to bring into line with my other naval projects by repainting the bases. The Peruvian fleet has now been refurbished and the slightly larger Chilean fleet with follow tomorrow, given a bit of free time to sort them out. 

Half Term Fleet in a Week - Mothballed

Almirante Latorre 

With the half term holiday over I've had to admit defeat in completing the interwar Chilean fleet, so I've decided to mothball the project and save it until another time. I have assembled, based and undercoated all of the ships required, however, so it's not a complete wash out. I now have just over a month or so in which to tinker about with before the summer holidays, so I'm not thinking of starting anything new, but will instead aim to finish off a few loose ends in existing projects when I can find the time. It's not been a very productive year so far, that's for sure! 

Plastic Fantastic Gladiators

The plastic figures 

Some of my metal gladiator figures

 I was in town this morning and spotted the latest edition of Wargames Illustrated with a free sprue of 28mm plastic gladiators. These looked rather good so I bought a copy, which comes with a spliced down set of hex based rules called Blood on the Sands. The rules look decent but I already have about half a dozen to pick from and prefer a non-hex based system, so will probably just be stashed away. The figures on the other hand look like they would be a good match for my existing gladiatorial collection, giving me an excuse to dust them off and run some games with the sprog. I also have a very nice Sarissa Precision arena that I haven't built yet, so that might even get glued together when I find the time. Happy Days!