Hello all,
My big Gaslight project for 2012 is to refight the final battle from the film Avatar but done in Gaslight/VSF style!
The battle will instead be set on Venus and the Parrotmen will take the place of the Na'vee.
The "bad guys" will be played by a strange alliance of brits and Prussians.
The game will be a public participation game at the Melbourne Little Wars day in May.
So I have gone crazy on ebay and picked up a heap of Kroot, Knarloc and greater Knarlocs to make my Na'vee parrotmen.
I also picked up some GW High Elf dragon wings, tail bits etc off ebay so I can convert some knarloc into flying Knarloc for the flying creatures in the film.
I hope to post pictures soon.
Cheers
Neil
Thursday, February 16, 2012
Sunday, January 1, 2012
New Year's gaming resolutions 2012
Happy New Year!
Another year has passed and after the hang over's and ringing ears have passed it is time to look ahead to the coming wargamming year.
Looking back on 2011 I have largely stayed true to my initial plans. I have finally painted enough English Civil War stuff to start playing some games. I also continued painting my World War II 15mm crossfire armies.
The only slight digression from my plans was the pirates. I have so far painted up one team of pirates but I have a couple more crews planned and I need to scratch build a couple of ships.
The War of the Roses 15mm Field of Glory army never appeared. I have bought the figures, but I am really not interested in painting up a whole FOG army in 15mm. The more I think about War of the Roses I want to do it in 28mm (with the fantastic Perry plastics). In fact the trend towards "God's own scale" 28mm figures continues with only DBA and WWII Crossfire keeping me interested in the 15mm scale.
So what am I planning for the New Year.
English Civil War: I will continue to build up my forces and start painting some Government Scots. We have a mind to do a display of the storming of Bristol at our club open day in August of this year. For the display I will need to scratch build some terrain, forts, town walls etc. and more buildings
Colonial - Sudan: I had planned to do the Zulu war and still want to do it, especially given the release of the great Warlord games plastic zulus and brits and the stunning Rorkes Drift building set. However I seem to have fallen into the Sudan period. It started with a fellow club member making an Arab Gaslight army. I decided to make up North African buildings so we could include the Arabs in our games. I picked up a copy of Khartoum on DVD and before I knew it, I was painting up Egyptian soldiers for the Sudan. My fellow gamer and usual ECW opponent Tom, has decided to join me on this mad venture and has started painting up Mahdists. We will no doubt both end up doing Mahdists to get them done quicker.
Gaslight: I have offered to run a Gaslight game at this year's Little Wars convention in May and I have decided on the theme "Avatar 1884". The game will be loosely based on the climatic battle scene of the film Avatar but set on Venus and the Narvee will be blue skinned Venusian Parrotment aka GW Kroot. I will need to do some more terrain building for this one and paint up some Kroot but otherwise I have enough Brits painted up.
World War II Crossfire: I really enjoy this game and will spend this year building up my forces to play larger games.
Pirates: Arrrrggghhh!!! Not a very big project since I need only paint up about 30 figures and scratchbuild a couple of ships. That's the plan, however pirates are infectious and I could get carried away.
So that's the plan for the coming year. Consolidating my efforts of 2011 with only the Sudan being the new period. The only spanner in the works could be Russian Napoleonics since it is the 200th anniversary of the 1812 campaign. We will see
Happy gaming!
Another year has passed and after the hang over's and ringing ears have passed it is time to look ahead to the coming wargamming year.
Looking back on 2011 I have largely stayed true to my initial plans. I have finally painted enough English Civil War stuff to start playing some games. I also continued painting my World War II 15mm crossfire armies.
The only slight digression from my plans was the pirates. I have so far painted up one team of pirates but I have a couple more crews planned and I need to scratch build a couple of ships.
The War of the Roses 15mm Field of Glory army never appeared. I have bought the figures, but I am really not interested in painting up a whole FOG army in 15mm. The more I think about War of the Roses I want to do it in 28mm (with the fantastic Perry plastics). In fact the trend towards "God's own scale" 28mm figures continues with only DBA and WWII Crossfire keeping me interested in the 15mm scale.
So what am I planning for the New Year.
English Civil War: I will continue to build up my forces and start painting some Government Scots. We have a mind to do a display of the storming of Bristol at our club open day in August of this year. For the display I will need to scratch build some terrain, forts, town walls etc. and more buildings
Colonial - Sudan: I had planned to do the Zulu war and still want to do it, especially given the release of the great Warlord games plastic zulus and brits and the stunning Rorkes Drift building set. However I seem to have fallen into the Sudan period. It started with a fellow club member making an Arab Gaslight army. I decided to make up North African buildings so we could include the Arabs in our games. I picked up a copy of Khartoum on DVD and before I knew it, I was painting up Egyptian soldiers for the Sudan. My fellow gamer and usual ECW opponent Tom, has decided to join me on this mad venture and has started painting up Mahdists. We will no doubt both end up doing Mahdists to get them done quicker.
Gaslight: I have offered to run a Gaslight game at this year's Little Wars convention in May and I have decided on the theme "Avatar 1884". The game will be loosely based on the climatic battle scene of the film Avatar but set on Venus and the Narvee will be blue skinned Venusian Parrotment aka GW Kroot. I will need to do some more terrain building for this one and paint up some Kroot but otherwise I have enough Brits painted up.
World War II Crossfire: I really enjoy this game and will spend this year building up my forces to play larger games.
Pirates: Arrrrggghhh!!! Not a very big project since I need only paint up about 30 figures and scratchbuild a couple of ships. That's the plan, however pirates are infectious and I could get carried away.
So that's the plan for the coming year. Consolidating my efforts of 2011 with only the Sudan being the new period. The only spanner in the works could be Russian Napoleonics since it is the 200th anniversary of the 1812 campaign. We will see
Happy gaming!
A Dustup in the West Country!
Our last game for 2011 was an English Civil War game. We had 6 units per side divided into two small brigades with a couple of field guns each. We were using the Victory Without Quarter rules by Clarence Harrison which are a quick play set of rules but have a decent amount of historical feel and play well if a little brutal at times (as we will see later). Wargame figures are mainly Warlord games plastics with some renegade, foundry and old glory thrown in.
Here are some pictures which unfortunately came out a bit blurry.
The Parliament deployment on the left. Four units of foot with a troop of trotters on either flank.
Sir William Waller surveys the battle field atop a small hill where the two field guns are placed.
The Royalist right flank. A troop of trotters and one regiment of foot. The rest of the army consisted of a further two regiments of foot, a troop of gallopers and a troop of Dragoons.
The VWQ rules used a card based activation system. As the unit's card is drawn it can peform an action. If a brigade commander's card is drawn they can issue an order to a specific unit e.g hold to rally or a general order to the whole brigade. We allowed units to move twice,once with a brigade order and once when their unit card is drawn to speed up the game. A turn over card adds some unpredictability to the game sequence.
The battle began with a general parliament advance. The royalist foot's initial advance was hampered a bit by their deployment and some unlucky card draws. Some early artillery fire from both sides resulted in some shaken units which had to be issued hold orders to rally. The first real action happened on the Parliament left where the opposing horse fought a pistol duel.
The Parliament horse had the worse of the fight and when the Royalists charged in the were wiped out!
The Parliament horse has taken four casualty markers and are elminated!
The Parliament foot advance.
The Parliament foot advance into musket range and engaged the Royalist foot but the losses to both sides were even. Meanwhile the opposing horse on the Parliament right flank approached each other. The Royalist horse were supported by the Dragoons which dismounted and moved through the woods to pour flanking fire into the advancing Rebel horse.
The fire from the Dragoons routed the unsteady Parliament horse leaving the rebels with both flanks undefended.
From this point on the Parliament's fortunes took a hammering.
Sir Ralph Weldon's foot in red tried to charge the shaken Royalist foot but failed the morale test. They then had a second shaken morale test from artillery fire from the Royalist guns and they scarpered!
Colonel Samuel Jones regiment suffered heavy casualties in the musket duel and failed their morale checks and also routed. The routing center units caused another foot regiment to also turn tail and the battle was lost!
The routing Parliament left. The Royalist foot charged into the routing grey foot and mercilessly cut them down as they ran! The other Royalist horse repeated the same action on the other flank as Samuel Jones green coats were wiped out as well.
The only Parliament foot to hold its ground was the blue coats but with the whole army routing they had to fall back and live to fight another day.
The only good news for the Parliament on the day was the rout of the Royalist gallopers from musket and artillery fire, but it was all too late.
Yet again Waller's forces were defeated by Hopton's.
Even though I was soundly thrashed in the game, it was a lot of fun and we seem to be getting the hang of the rules now and things move along at a brisk rate. We will probably continue with these rules until the pike and shotte version of the Black Powder rules comes out. VWQ has quite a few mechanics which are similar to Black Powder.
We also seem to have "convinced" another player to join the growing group of ECW players at the club and luckily for me he has chosen the Scots so I gain an ally (For the first civil war anyway) to face the many Royalist sympathisers at the club.
Cheers
Neil
Here are some pictures which unfortunately came out a bit blurry.
The Parliament deployment on the left. Four units of foot with a troop of trotters on either flank.
Sir William Waller surveys the battle field atop a small hill where the two field guns are placed.
The Royalist right flank. A troop of trotters and one regiment of foot. The rest of the army consisted of a further two regiments of foot, a troop of gallopers and a troop of Dragoons.
The VWQ rules used a card based activation system. As the unit's card is drawn it can peform an action. If a brigade commander's card is drawn they can issue an order to a specific unit e.g hold to rally or a general order to the whole brigade. We allowed units to move twice,once with a brigade order and once when their unit card is drawn to speed up the game. A turn over card adds some unpredictability to the game sequence.
The battle began with a general parliament advance. The royalist foot's initial advance was hampered a bit by their deployment and some unlucky card draws. Some early artillery fire from both sides resulted in some shaken units which had to be issued hold orders to rally. The first real action happened on the Parliament left where the opposing horse fought a pistol duel.
The Parliament horse had the worse of the fight and when the Royalists charged in the were wiped out!
The Parliament horse has taken four casualty markers and are elminated!
The Parliament foot advance.
The Parliament foot advance into musket range and engaged the Royalist foot but the losses to both sides were even. Meanwhile the opposing horse on the Parliament right flank approached each other. The Royalist horse were supported by the Dragoons which dismounted and moved through the woods to pour flanking fire into the advancing Rebel horse.
The fire from the Dragoons routed the unsteady Parliament horse leaving the rebels with both flanks undefended.
From this point on the Parliament's fortunes took a hammering.
Sir Ralph Weldon's foot in red tried to charge the shaken Royalist foot but failed the morale test. They then had a second shaken morale test from artillery fire from the Royalist guns and they scarpered!
Colonel Samuel Jones regiment suffered heavy casualties in the musket duel and failed their morale checks and also routed. The routing center units caused another foot regiment to also turn tail and the battle was lost!
The routing Parliament left. The Royalist foot charged into the routing grey foot and mercilessly cut them down as they ran! The other Royalist horse repeated the same action on the other flank as Samuel Jones green coats were wiped out as well.
The only Parliament foot to hold its ground was the blue coats but with the whole army routing they had to fall back and live to fight another day.
The only good news for the Parliament on the day was the rout of the Royalist gallopers from musket and artillery fire, but it was all too late.
Yet again Waller's forces were defeated by Hopton's.
Even though I was soundly thrashed in the game, it was a lot of fun and we seem to be getting the hang of the rules now and things move along at a brisk rate. We will probably continue with these rules until the pike and shotte version of the Black Powder rules comes out. VWQ has quite a few mechanics which are similar to Black Powder.
We also seem to have "convinced" another player to join the growing group of ECW players at the club and luckily for me he has chosen the Scots so I gain an ally (For the first civil war anyway) to face the many Royalist sympathisers at the club.
Cheers
Neil
Friday, December 23, 2011
The Fall of Chartoon.... VSF Style!
The Fall of Chartoon on the Nile 1884.
The rampaging Dervish forces under the command of the Mad Madhi aided by the nefarious forces of Malcolm X and French have attacked the small town of Chartoon. The Town was defended by a small Anglo Egyptian force consisting of two Egyptian companies, a sikh company, an Impervious suit platoon and a naval detachment from Her Majesty's Landship Dauntless.
The Dervish-French force consisted of Ansar, Arab fanatics, French foreign legion and Zouaves,a range of evil mechanical marvels from Professor Von Faustliebe and two aeronefs
The Town's defenders bravely await their fate
The Dervish Force
The French forces
Steady Boys!
The Naval detachment disembarks to aid the defenders while the Dauntless gets her steam up to move to engage the enemy.
The Local inhabitants of Chartoon carried on with their daily business despite the impending attack.
Its the Mad Madhi Sale! Get it before the Madhi does!
The assault begins
The mechanical bees attack the Sikh defending the left flank. In brutal hand to hand combat the plucky Sikh destroy the mechanical bee
The Dauntless' massive main gun speaks and Dervish forces are scattered!
Unfortunately the dodgy land engines fail as the Dauntless climbs onto land. With its motor failed the big gun cannot fire!
Concentrated musket fire from the center Egyptian unit routs the front line Ansar
Strange sonic weapons blast at Chartoon's walls
Malcolm X observes the battle from his Aeronef
"No one is to stone anyone....until I blow this whistle... even if they do say Jehovah!"
The French Aeronef crosses the ramparts and its deadly swivel guns sweep away the brave Sikh
The Arab sound cannons fire again and the gate comes crashing down! The defenders situation is drastically altered with a breach in their main gate and the left flank wiped out it would only be a matter of time now
Dervishers swarm through the breach!
Evil Djinn are conjured and sweep into the town killing all before them
The town's commander Shaftsbury falls to a snipers bullet but did he survive?
As the town fell into the hands of the Madhi the Dauntless Naval detachment held off the attackers to enable the town's survivors to escap on the Dauntless.
With the strategic town of Chartoon fallen how long can Chinese Gordon keep the Mahdi's forces at bay.
__________________________________________
The above battle report was from our last club meeting for the year. We decided to send the year out with a bang with a jolly good VSF/Gaslight mash up! Lots of fun!
The figures are mostly a mix of Eureka, Perry Brothers, Games Workshop LOTR and Old Glory with scratch built landship and aeronefs
Merry Christmas!
The rampaging Dervish forces under the command of the Mad Madhi aided by the nefarious forces of Malcolm X and French have attacked the small town of Chartoon. The Town was defended by a small Anglo Egyptian force consisting of two Egyptian companies, a sikh company, an Impervious suit platoon and a naval detachment from Her Majesty's Landship Dauntless.
The Dervish-French force consisted of Ansar, Arab fanatics, French foreign legion and Zouaves,a range of evil mechanical marvels from Professor Von Faustliebe and two aeronefs
The Town's defenders bravely await their fate
The Dervish Force
The French forces
Evil mechanical marvels supported by Zouaves
Steady Boys!
The Naval detachment disembarks to aid the defenders while the Dauntless gets her steam up to move to engage the enemy.
The Local inhabitants of Chartoon carried on with their daily business despite the impending attack.
Its the Mad Madhi Sale! Get it before the Madhi does!
The assault begins
The mechanical bees attack the Sikh defending the left flank. In brutal hand to hand combat the plucky Sikh destroy the mechanical bee
The Dauntless' massive main gun speaks and Dervish forces are scattered!
Unfortunately the dodgy land engines fail as the Dauntless climbs onto land. With its motor failed the big gun cannot fire!
Concentrated musket fire from the center Egyptian unit routs the front line Ansar
Strange sonic weapons blast at Chartoon's walls
Malcolm X observes the battle from his Aeronef
"No one is to stone anyone....until I blow this whistle... even if they do say Jehovah!"
The French Aeronef crosses the ramparts and its deadly swivel guns sweep away the brave Sikh
The Arab sound cannons fire again and the gate comes crashing down! The defenders situation is drastically altered with a breach in their main gate and the left flank wiped out it would only be a matter of time now
Dervishers swarm through the breach!
Evil Djinn are conjured and sweep into the town killing all before them
The town's commander Shaftsbury falls to a snipers bullet but did he survive?
As the town fell into the hands of the Madhi the Dauntless Naval detachment held off the attackers to enable the town's survivors to escap on the Dauntless.
With the strategic town of Chartoon fallen how long can Chinese Gordon keep the Mahdi's forces at bay.
__________________________________________
The above battle report was from our last club meeting for the year. We decided to send the year out with a bang with a jolly good VSF/Gaslight mash up! Lots of fun!
The figures are mostly a mix of Eureka, Perry Brothers, Games Workshop LOTR and Old Glory with scratch built landship and aeronefs
Merry Christmas!
Monday, November 14, 2011
Tharrr be pirates! Arrrrrr!
Okay! Okay! I know I said that I would concentrate on only a few periods this year to maximise my painting efforts but my strong resolve that has held for 11 months of the year has finally been broken.
It all started with International talk like a pirate day. A bunch of guys at the club dusted off their pirates and started playing legends of the high seas and well its kind of taken off at the club with more than a dozen players putting together their pirate bands.
So like a lemming I have finally succumb and rushed off the cliff.
So here they are my band of sea faring ruffians....
I had my first couple of games on the weekend and being a novice predictably, they had their butts kicked in both games, but the crew are slowly acquiring more skills so hopefully they will give a better account for themselves next game.
In my last game my Captain was captured, so the next game will involve a prison break out.
Legends of the High Seas is a lot of fun and I am also looking forward to using these rules to play English Civil War skirmish games.
Arrrrrr!
Neil
It all started with International talk like a pirate day. A bunch of guys at the club dusted off their pirates and started playing legends of the high seas and well its kind of taken off at the club with more than a dozen players putting together their pirate bands.
So like a lemming I have finally succumb and rushed off the cliff.
So here they are my band of sea faring ruffians....
The figures for my crew are a mix of Eureka miniatures and Old Glory.
My Captain in the yellow jacket!
I had my first couple of games on the weekend and being a novice predictably, they had their butts kicked in both games, but the crew are slowly acquiring more skills so hopefully they will give a better account for themselves next game.
In my last game my Captain was captured, so the next game will involve a prison break out.
Legends of the High Seas is a lot of fun and I am also looking forward to using these rules to play English Civil War skirmish games.
Arrrrrr!
Neil
Sunday, October 23, 2011
My first World War II tanks.
Hello again,
Wow two posts in one month! :)
I have painted up my first tanks to use in our Crossfire games. I have three Stug IV and three Pz IV F2. Painted in Normandy '44 camo scheme.
I followed a tutorial on how to paint and weather the tanks from FOW on You tube and used my airbrush.
I am very happy with how they have come together and I am keen to paint up some Shermans for the Allies next.
The tanks are all Old Glory's 15mm Command Decision range.
Cheers
Neil
Wow two posts in one month! :)
I have painted up my first tanks to use in our Crossfire games. I have three Stug IV and three Pz IV F2. Painted in Normandy '44 camo scheme.
I followed a tutorial on how to paint and weather the tanks from FOW on You tube and used my airbrush.
I am very happy with how they have come together and I am keen to paint up some Shermans for the Allies next.
The tanks are all Old Glory's 15mm Command Decision range.
Cheers
Neil
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