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

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....


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









Friday, October 7, 2011

Raid on Beni Saf

The Foreign Office
Lord Harrington
Whitehall
London

January 14th, 1885

I wish to report a favourable engagement of her majesties forces in North Africa. Acting on intelligence that the evil mastermind Malcolm X and his ally the traitorous El Lawrence had established a base of operations in the slaver town of Beni Saf in Algeria and were working on some new invention that could be used as a weapon to possibly threaten Cairo, it was decided that a punitive raid should be attempted to disrupt their plans and if possible destroy this new device. I have included observation photographs taken during the battle

A raiding force under the command of Captain Henderson RN OC HMES Hermes was organised on short notice. HMES Hermes fresh from repairs after the recent zambesi incident spearheaded the force which included a detachment of the 17th Unicycle lancers, A naval landing party under command of Lt Samson, A platoon of the Queen's Own Skywalkers and a detachment of the 1st Royal Impervious Regiment.
Surgeon Major GS Robertson commanded the ground forces.  A last minute request from the adventurer Allan Quartermain and Ms Mina Harker to join the expedition was granted by Henderson.

The plan was to travel inland from Cairo and rendevous south of the town and attack from inland thereby achieving surprise. The objective was to secure or destroy the device and inflict heavy damage on enemy forces present before withdrawing.


An initial reconnoiter prior to the engagement revealed a startling revelation. A light Aeronef bearing the French ensign was in the town and indicated that Malcolm X may be supported by the French Government.
A revised battle plan had the Hermes engage the French vessel while gound forces made for the dock area.



Our attempt at a surprise attack was a failure, for as soon as the Hermes approached, the French vessel moved to engage while mobs of arab troops rushed out from the buildings to engage the ground forces and man artillery pieces stationed on the roofs. Such was the preparedness of the enemy that we suspect that an agent may be operating in our Cairo office.


The opening shots of the battle were made by the Aeronef. The Hermes achieved an early success damaging the French vessel's propulsion system. The French commander attempted to close with the Hermes and the french crew attempted to grapple as the two vessels passed each other.



The French failed to grapple the Hermes and the gunner manning the port Nordenfelt machine gun raked the French deck killing several crew members. Surprisingly the enemy vessel was crewed by a bevy of french beauties. Despite the heat of battle some of the Hermes crew were dissapointed they didn't get to "grapple" with the enemy. 


The ground attack began with a rapid strike from the skywalker platoon that leapt into the town landing on the roof of a building and pouring a volley of fire down into the enemy ranks.



The 17th lancers charged into the town and engaged an enemy unit. Despite some inital success 17th lancers were destroyed but the enemy unit was also destroyed as an effective fighting force.
The destruction of the lancers proved to be the start of a dangerous period in the battle for our forces.

The Skywalkers were then set upon by the fantastical djinn warriors which had caused such carnage in the Zambesi disaster. These warriors appeared from no where and would be killed only to reappear. These ghost like creatures however proved deadly as the skywalkers were killed to a man. Only Lt Pelham managed to escape by launching into the air to catch a ride on the Hermes as it passed overhead.




Major Robertson moved into the town spearheaded by the Impervious suits. The naval landing party moved up in support. The leading impervious suits were attacked by the light steam charger that had been captured by the enemy at the Zambesi and by the remaining djinn warriors.



With the rapid loss of the lancers, skywalkers and half the impervious force the battle hung in the balance.
Captain Henderson decided he needed to take the docks himself and moved to take the drastic step of landing the Hermes at the dock moving through fire from the defendind arab sonic cannons.




Further surprises awaited Henderson and the crew of the Hermes as they scrambled from the deck to attack the docks. The strange device was apparently being made ready for transportation. The process was being supervised by the evil mastermind Malcolm X and amazingly Professor Heronimous Pratt and the famed Charles Darwin! Both scientists seemed to be under the mind control of a Martian!
It was thought that all Martians had died after their failed invasion attempt but this alien seemed healthy and dangerously in alliance with X. Perhaps alien technology is at work in the device.

Henderson and Quartermain scared off Malcolm X and began work on destroying the device. Lt Pelham engaged in battle with El Lawrence. Ms Harker no shrinking violet also engaged El Lawerence.


Quartermain and Henderson were able to destroy the device but Lt Pelham fell to El Lawrence. Ms Harker bravely faced the traitor alone and severely wounded the traitor. With the mysterious djinn reappearing to attack the docks the Hermes crew beat a quick retreat and took to the air. Sadly we do not have any further knowledge on the whereabouts of Darwin or Professor Pratt.

With their mission accomplished the Hermes and the remnants of our ground forces withdrew. Despite some heavy casualties our forces have managed to affect a serious rebuff to the enemy.

However the prescence of the French and Martians raises yet more questions. With the added aggression from the rebels under the command of the Mad Madhi. I urgently request a reenforcement of our Cairo garrison to counter this threat.

I remain your obedient servant,

Sir Evelyn Baring
British embassy
Cairo