Victory at Sea

It's a Victory at Sea game at the club tomorrow night, which I'm looking forward to having missed the previous game last week due to work. I've had a copy of the rulebook in the bookshelves for ages but have yet to try them out, so it should be an interesting evening and may open up some new project possibilities. It's an Italian versus British set up somewhere in the Med, with two parallel games set up to allow everyone to have a go which should make for a pretty lively evening.

Narrow Seas [10]

 

I decided yesterday that there was little point trying to paint up forty vikings in five days, so have switched focus to something more manageable for the week. This is my 1/600th scale mid-war coastal forces British flotilla, the first element of which I completed last night. This consists of six Vosper 70' MTB's all from the Skytrex range. They're were more fiddly to paint than I thought but don't look too bad, especially now that I have based them up. This evening I'll get another lot done, this time 72'6'' Vosper MTB's or some Fairmile B and C motor gunboats.

SAGA Vikings [8]

As you can probably tell, the last couple of weeks have been a total washout as far as wargaming is concerned, largely due to an avalanche of marking and report writing at work. I just haven't had the time to paint anything, let alone do any gaming at the club. Things are easing off a bit now, however, so I'll be up at the club for a game on Tuesday.

This means that the SAGA Vikings are still in their basic undercoat bar a little drybrushing, although I have cleaned up and based the last unit of bondi spearmen to fill out the full six points. I have also ordered a pack of Artizan bondi archers to mix in with the Foundry archers that I already have, to form an add on unit of missile levy.

I'll try to get some painting done today but doubt I'll get anywhere near finishing anything by the end of the week, when we're heading off to France for half term.

Gone to Russia to Fight

I've had little time to spend on wargaming things lately so reading has been a real morale lifter. I really enjoyed reading Singapore Burning but thought I'd go in a completely different direction, so have started on Gone to Russia to Fight. The Russian Civil War and the Allied intervention are long standing interests, so this should be inspirational stuff, especially as a new version of Algy is somewhere over the horizon?

Extra Impetus 5

 

I was rummaging in the lead pile yesterday, as a bit of light relief from the pile of exam papers that I'm wading through this week, to uncover a dusty and long forgotten army pack of 15mm Essex medieval figures that I bought many, many years ago. It consists of about twenty pristine packs of various Thirteenth Century figures including mounted knights, crossbowmen, archers and foot soldiers, so a great basis for a 300-500 point Impetus Feudal Era army. As a result, I've ordered a copy of the latest supplement for Impetus which includes the relevant lists for the period, so that I can put together an army of some sort, probably Feudal English, French or German or even something for the Baron's Wars.

SAGA Vikings [7]

I finished basing and undercoating the 10mm Aliens figures yesterday and, as in the plan, have now stored them away for a rainy weekend when I'm looking for an off the shelf mini-project to fill in some time. I now have a couple of weeks before the holidays, when I'll be starting the Chain of Command Japanese project for the summer.

To get some lead shifted and get back into the 28mm painting habit, I've decided to try to finish my long festering SAGA Viking warband, which has been hanging around for a year or so. I need to add one final unit of warriors or levies but otherwise it's ready to go. I was planning to tackle the Koryu buntai for Ronin but I think I need some painting practice first!

Judge Dredd Dino Rampage

 

After the Judge Dredd game the other day, I remembered an article in the last Warlord Games newsletter which revolved around dinosaurs rampaging through the Cursed Earth. This looks like a lot of fun and will enable me, at no extra expense, to put together some prehistoric opposition for Mike's team of judges using my extensive collection of  plastic dinosaurs.

 

These have been gathering dust since the last Saurian Safari game a couple of years ago, so it's about time I put them to good use. I'm even tempted to add some nice scenic bases to a select few and possibly do a bit of a re-paint. Anyway, the article is available on the Warlord Games site, including all the stats and a basic scenario: 

 

http://www.warlordgames.com/rules-mega-city-dino-rampage/?utm_source=Warlord+Games+Newsletter&utm_campaign=0e6024db8e-Wednesday_Newsletter_19_March_20143_19_2014&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_b7e928b4ed-0e6024db8e-132676757&mc_cid=0e6024db8e&mc_eid=a2ba3c9969

 

 

Judge Dredd

 

We had a try out game of Judge Dredd at the club on Tuesday, which didn't last very long but was good fun nonetheless. I had half a gang of renegade robots while the opposition consisted of an equal force, in points terms at least, of Megacity One Judges. The skirmish was fought out over some splendid mdf terrain somewhere in the Cursed Earth, ending with the total destruction of the robots at miminal cost to the Justice Departments finest. Drokk!

10mm Aliens USCM TO&E

 

 

I've been thinking about how to organise the USCM platoon for the 10mm Aliens mini-project and, after a little googling around the subject, have got the basic organisation pretty much sorted. This is an extract from the Xenopedia Wiki which gives me a basic structure for the platoon, consisting of two M577 APC's and about twenty two figures:

 

The organization of the rifle platoons represents the USCM doctrine of small, autonomous infantry units capable of independent action on a non-linear battlefield.

 

The platoon commander, a lieutenant, is assisted by one or two synthetics as technical and scientific advisers, medics and drivers.

 

The platoon is divided into two sections, which are further divided into two squads of four Marines each. Each section is led by a sergeant and includes a driver for the M577 APC. In addition, during Drop operations each section is assigned a UD-4 Dropship from the aerospace company team.

 

Including the platoon commander and crews for the dropships and APCs, a full-strength rifle platoon would number twenty-five Marines, though in practice the platoon operates with fewer personnel.

 

The rifle squad consists of four Marines: a Corporal, a Lance Corporal, and two Privates/Privates First Class. The squad is broken up into two fireteams, the Rifle Team and the Gun Team. The Rifle Team consists of two riflemen armed with M41A Pulse Rifles while the Gun Team consists of a gunner armed with the M56 Smartgun and a rifleman armed with a M41.

 

I have more than enough figures on order for this and, with the two M577 APC models, I also have the armour support. No dropships as yet but I don't think I really need them for what I have in mind.

10mm Aliens Terrain

I've narrowed down the search for some cheap and cheerful terrain for the Aliens project. I was planning to scratch build some colony buildings but, in the meantime, I'll use these very inexpensive and straightforward 10mm card models, which I can print out and assemble without the need to re-scale down from 28mm. I also have some resin scatter terrain from The Scene which I can spread around as hard cover for the USCM to defend.