Back of Beyond Campaign Four

I've decided to run another Back of Beyond campaign at the club, starting in June and running through to the end of the year. I spread the word and have managed to get about six players signed up for the campaign, some veterans of the previous outings and others new to the whole thing, which is a really good turn out. I'm hoping to rope in one or two more to make the numbers up to a round eight, which would make the whole thing easier to run and ensure that most people get a game each turn. I'll have to twist some arms but I'm sure they can be 'persuaded'.

The various factions include a French and a British dinosaur hunting expedition, the Japanese, the White Russians, the Mad Baron himself and my American oil prospectors, assuming I don't complete the Turks on time. There may also be a Bolshevik force that I will lend out to a player who doesn't have any army to use. It would be nice to have a Chinese Warlord as well but it looks like he'll be missing out this time round. As a result, I'm seriously thinking about postponing the Turkish army and quickly putting together a Chinese Warlord one instead, just to keep things interesting for the campaign. I still have a couple of months to get this sorted but it may be a bit of a rush!

Back of Beyond Turkish Army [5]

We arrived back home late yesterday, so I've been unpacking and sorting things out all day including the army that I began to base up over the holidays. I also did a bit of conversion work on a couple of figures, one a Scarab Miniatures French machine gunner and the other a Copplestone Darkest Africa German colonial officer. This was a simple job but as always took longer than I expected.

The machine gunner was turned into a AA gunner by gluing and pinning the torso and legs at an angle, then filling in the gap with green stuff, before adding a head swap from an spare infantryman. The officer was turned into an NCO by a simple head swap, so that I can now deploy four ten man units of infantry, alongside two eight man units of Circassian cavalry which I have located in the lead pile.

The Chicago Way

I had an email about these new Prohibition era gangster rules a couple of days ago and thought they looked really good. I have bought a number of new rules over the last few months, most of which are now gathering dust or waiting for a rainy day, but these may be the exception as they don't require a massive outlay or hordes of painted figures (although that's what I said about most of the other rules too).

I already have some Copplestone gangsters and police so no new figures are needed, assuming what I've got fits the bill. I also have plenty of diecast cars, vans and trucks to use, with only a little bit of weathering to make them ready. The only thing I'd need to sort out would be some terrain but I could always start off by using some of my old west buildings, depending on the scenarios involved. 

I'll probably go ahead and get the rules as a pre-order as they come with the card set and a free photographer figure. On the other hand, I'm quite tempted by the two player starter offer on the Great Escape Games website, which gives you two gangs, the rules and the cards for £60. There are a couple of multiplayer deals too, so if some of the other club players fancy doing a split it might work out cheaper.

http://www.greatescapegames.co.uk/chicago-way.html

Went the Day Well?

After reading and watching some reviews of these VBCW platoon level skirmish rules, which have been out for a few years now, I thought they looked just what I needed to re-boot my VBCW project. I have what I think is an ideal force for this already, although one half of it still needs to be completed, judging from the information that I've uncovered about platoon strength and composition, so I'm almost ready to give the rules a spin when they arrive in the post. If they play well and work out to be good fun, I may also see if they could be used for more historical skirmish level things. If not, I'll just revert to Plan A and use Bolt Action instead. It's  not like I have too many rules already?

Magasin de Presse

The holidays are coming to an end and I've trawled the newsagents for reference material as usual before we head back home. There's some good stuff here including a couple of magazines that I don't usually collect, GBM and Uniformes, the former covering the use of armour in Indochina between the wars and the latter including a comprehensive guide to the uniforms and equipment of the French army at Verdun. It also has a feature on the camouflage patterned 1947 combat fatigues used in the French-Indochina War, which would be very useful as a guide for painting figures. They really do have some cracking magazines and no shortage of interesting, inspirational reading material even if your French is pretty rusty like mine.

Altaya Char B1 bis

I found this in the newsagents yesterday and, although it's 1/43rd scale, I thought it would look not too out of scale with 28mm figures. If you look at photos of the real thing and compare it with the model it is actually far too big for 28mm but, if you don't put it next to anything too obviously 28mm or with any 1/56th scale vehicles, it actually looks fine. I like it anyway. I have some 28mm Crusader Miniatures early war French that I could use alongside this monster but it will be put in the 'get round to it one day' storage box for the foreseeable future.

Atlantic Wall Baie d'Audierne

We went to the Baie d'Audierne this afternoon and I took a few pictures of one of the half submerged bunkers that are located near to Tronoan. I've been to this location before but, as the weather was pretty good and the waves were doing their photogenic thing, I thought I'd take some photos to post on the blog. The tide was going out so I was hoping to get a bit closer but the camera battery died before the water was low enough to risk getting my feet wet. I'll just have to go back another day :O(

Back of Beyond Turkish Army [4]

I'm having a bit of a re-think about using my old 1/48th scale Aurora Albatros CIII kit as the aircraft element of my Turkish army, after a tip off from a fellow gamer about its value as an unmade kit. The numbers made my eyes water, especially as I paid a fraction of the price ticket on eBay a few years ago. I may well still bite the bullet and glue it together but, just in case, I've been working on a possible Plan B.

Anyway, the alternatives are to use a 1/48th scale Smer kit of an Albatros DIII, which I have in the 'it might be useful one day' model kit collection, or something more unusual. I haven't decided yet but I have splashed out on a second hand unmade 1/48th scale Eduard kit of a Roland CII, which ticks the 'unusual' box and wasn't very expensive. I made one of the Airfix Rolands in 1/72nd scale a few years ago and it's a sturdy two seater with no fiddly struts or snappy bits, so ideal for gaming even if the Turkish Air Service never actually flew them.

I've also ordered another pack of ten Copplestone Turkish infantry so that I can create three larger units of fourteen figures each or four units of ten figures each. To do the former, I'll need an extra officer figure which I will have to convert from a Copplestone German colonial officer in the Darkest Africa range, once again to be found in the leadpile. I'm also thinking of ordering out a Forgotten Front 28mm figure as an alternative, assuming it will match with the Copplestone range?

VBCW reboot?

I've been thinking about rebooting my old VBCW project recently, for no other reason than it's almost complete and wouldn't take much effort to finish off. I have a BUF platoon of two ten man squads, an HMG, command and vehicles plus some coppers, all of which are painted and ready for use.

I also have a larger platoon of communist militia which just need a lick of paint and some base texturing to be finished. I also fancy adding some more ad-hoc armoured vehicles to the reds, probably using some diecast conversions of Days Gone By lorries. It's about a weekends worth of work to do, if such a thing as a free weekend exists, so definitely do-able. 

I just need a set of rules to use, with Bolt Action as a possibility that wasn't around at the time I originally put the project together. I wonder what people use for VBCW skirmish games these days? I may take a look at Went the Day Well from Solway, which is designed for just this sort of thing.

Back of Beyond Turkish Army [3]

Here's the first half of the Turkish army cleaned up and based including the commander and his staff, two heavy machine guns and a mashed up field gun and crew. The artillery piece  is a German FK96 7.7cm field gun I got from somewhere but has been fiddled about a bit with the gunner's seats removed, the wheel brakes and sight left off and various other things sanded down, so that the crew could be squeezed in. The two gunners started life as a machine gun crew but have now been chopped to fit behind the trail and gun shield, which hides most of the obviously dodgy bits. Next up are three ten man or two fifteen man infantry units, depending on how I decide to go about it?