Little lead men of valour

New Year's gaming resolutions 2012

2012-01-01T15:42:00.001+11:00

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!

A Dustup in the West Country!

2012-01-01T15:06:00.001+11:00

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

The Fall of Chartoon.... VSF Style!

2011-12-23T22:55:00.000+11:00

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!

Tharrr be pirates! Arrrrrr!

2011-11-14T21:36:00.000+11:00

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

My first World War II tanks.

2011-10-23T15:24:00.001+11:00

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

Raid on Beni Saf

2011-10-07T20:04:00.000+11:00

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

English Civil War - Battle of Cheriton Nunawading Wargames Open Day 2011

2011-09-25T12:18:00.001+10:00

Hello all,

It has been several months since my last post but I have not been idle I can assure you. Work commitments have prevented any posts to this blog but on the plus side I travelled to Europe for work training in Germany and managed a short holiday in the UK on the way.

I caught up with family in Wales and Chester, walked the wall of old chester, and stood on the spot where Charles I saw the rout of his royalist forces at the battle of Rowton Heath. I visited Caernarfon castle (which was a royalist stronghold during the civil war) and visited the museum of the Royal Welsh Fusiliers (my cousin is a major in the regiment).

I then headed down to London and did the sightseeing tours of the Tower of London, Imperial War Museum and Apsley house (Duke of Wellington's London residence). In Berlin I visited Check Point Charlie, Reichstag, Brandenburg gate and other famous Berlin landmarks.

After a month of travelling it was good to finally come back to Melbourne and see my family again and get back to wargamming and my "projects".

First off the list was our club's annual public open day and myself and fellow NWA'er Tom were running a display game of the battle of Cheriton fought on the 29th of March,1644 between the Royalists commanded by Hopton and the Parliament forces under the commanded of Waller.

We have steadily built up our forces over the past year and we now have sizeable forces that really look stunning when set up on the battle field.

Here are the opening deployments:

This photo is from the parliament side. We see the parliament centre with four regiments of foot. The right flank has a troop of horse advancing while on the hill near Cheriton wood we have a unit of Dragoons and a small commanded shot unit. The left flank has a further two troops of horse. Waller surveys the battle from a small hill in the centre next to his artillery.

The Royalist deployment consisted of three regiments of foot in the centre. A Troop of curassiers and a firelock company occupy the hill next to Cheriton Wood. Royalist artillery deploy on the hill overlooking the battlefield. On the Royalist right flank two troops of horse and the dragoons advance towards Cheriton.

The miniatures used by both forces were mainly the Warlord Games plastics. Royalist horse were Renegade miniatures and there was a few foundry and Old glory minatures as well.

The rules used were Victory Without Quarter by Clarence Harrison. These rules use a card based turn sequence. These rules give a quick game with plenty of historical flavour. To speed up play a little we enabled leaders to issue movement orders to whole brigades.

The battle began with a general advance by both sides. Parliament had a early set back with the rout of a troop of horse on their left flank. The second parliament troop of horse had to turn quickly to close the gap on the flank.

The victorious royalists charged into the second parliament horse. But in the ensuing see saw fight the parliament horse got the better of their opponents and sent them fleeing to the rear.

The Royalist dragoons moved through the town of Cheriton to envelope the parliament flank.

By Cheriton wood the royalist curassiers moved down towards the royalist horse and charged but were halted by cool pistol fire from the Parliament Harquebusiers.

As the royalist horse fell back the opposing foot came into contact. Volley fire rolled along the two battlelines. Colonel Samuel Jones' rebel green coats routed their opposing royalists also clothed in green.

The parliament horse troop exhausted from its previous melee succumbed to the second royalist horse and the parliament left flank lay wide open. The royalist horse charged towards to parliament artillery but were held in bad ground on the hill giving the rebel gunners time to pour grapeshot into the densely packed horse.

A second round of fire and the royalists broke!

Fortune swung back in parliament's favour. With the left flank temporairily secured, they routed a second regiment of foot while losing Samuel Jones' greencoats who had had enough of the fight. On the hill by Cheriton wood the curaissiers continued to fail to get to grips with the rebel horse.

As the rebel grey coated regiment swung round to hit the remaining royalist foot the royalist artillery spoke with fire and broke the rebels and sent the fleeing.

The battle balanced on a knife edge. As the afternoon draw to a close both sides had been blooded and either side could win the day if they broke another enemy unit.

Finally the royalist broke the rebel blue coated regiment and the battle was theirs!

The game was throughly enjoyed by both sides. The battle had many a tense moment. The VWQ rules can be a bit brutal but provide a quick game which still retains a historical feel. In the end history did not repeat itself with Hopton's forces winning a minor victory.

We had a lot of positive comments about our game during the day and we secured a honourable mention (4th) in the competition for best display.

Bye for now
Neil

Martian Fighting Machine finally released!

2011-05-28T09:23:00.000+10:00

Hello all,

Well after an eternity, my tripod is finally commercially available through eureka miniatures.

http://eurekamin.com.au/news.php?newsid=EFpyFZAuyEDhiblfOw

There was also a post on TMP with some lovely comments :)

http://theminiaturespage.com/news/388300/

The Martians are also available

If these items prove popular I will expand the range to include the handling machine and crashed cylinder as well as a black smoke launcher.

Happy Gaming
Neil

The Night Owl makes an appearance

2011-03-26T20:51:00.000+11:00

Hello all,

This latest ECW update features my command stand for my Parliament Army. My army is based on William Waller's Army of the Southern Association and the stand features the "Night Owl" himself.
William Waller was nicknamed the Night Owl because of his propensity for night marches.

The Waller figure is from Wargames Foundry. He is mounted on a Warlord Games horse. The Standard Bearer and Herald are both Warlord Games.

The figures were painted in acrylics and then dipped with the army painter dip. They are mounted on a coaster with a textured and flocked base. I have added a few of the army painter tufts and I came across a great new scenic product. The flowers are terrific and really add something special to the basing.

The flowers are a product called Green Line from a company called Fredericus Rex.

http://www.fredericus-rex.de/shop2010/index.php

One of Waller's Captains despatches a Royalist Seargent. This is a special one off figure from Eureka Miniatures(that I had to have :) ). I am not sure if it is on the Eureka Website. Best to send an email to Nic at Eureka to confirm its for sale.

I still have one more foot regiment to paint and three troops of horse so I must get back to the painting table.

Happy Gaming!

Warre without an enemie!

2011-02-27T21:24:00.001+11:00

Well it has taken a couple of years (I do get distracted now and then :) ) , but I have finally been able to put some men on the table for the English Civil War. My fellow NWA'er has taken on the role of the Royalists while I am for Parliament. We had about 5 units ready on each side so we decided to give them a run.

We have several rulesets we are considering including WHECW, 1644, Without Quarter and Very Civille Actions by the Perfect Captain. We had heard good things about civille actions so we gave them ago ably assisted by fellow club member Greg who had actually played the rules once before.

The Parliament forces were 3 regiments of foot, a dragoon unit, cannon and a troop of horse. The Royalist were 2 regiments of foot, 2 troops of horse and a unit of dragoons.

Here are the initial deployments. The terrain has all been scratchbuilt by me.

The Parliament forces formed up with the two larger regiments taking the center and right wing with a further regiment of foot in the rear in reserve. The lone Saker cannon was deployed on the small hill that looked over the village. The Dragoons were over the bridge deployed behind hedges to protect the extreme left flank. The troop of Harquebusiers were on the left wing where the village would not restrict their movement.

The Royalist forces deployed in typical ECW fashion with both regiments of foot in the center with horse on both wings. The Royalist Dragoons took up position opposite the Parliament dragoons.

The battle began with the Royalist dragoons moving to occupy the small copse of trees on their right flank and opened up musket fire on the royalist dragoons behind hedges next to the bridge.

The Parliament cannon spoke loudly but had no effect on the approaching royalist forces. The two opposing lines advanced and the royalist oxford regiment opened up a musketry duel with Colonel Samuel Jones regiment. The green coats got the better of the fight and the Oxford boys clearly did not have the stomach for the fight and turned and ran leaving a gaping hole in the royalist center.

The Parliament commander Sir William Waller sought to exploit the sudden disappearance of the Oxford regiment and swing the green coats onto the other royalist regiment, however the royalist cavalry prevented this action so in a optimistic move the Parliament cavalry charged up hill to attack the Royalist horse.
In the ensuing fight the Parliament horse pushed back the royalist horse but neither side had won the fight.

The Royalist horse on the left flank tried a manuever around the village but were frustrated by Sir Ralph Weldon's red coats who kept them bay with musket fire and the ploughed field prevented the horse from charging home. The other royalist foot moved into the village to force out the red coats.

At this time the Royalists received reinforcements with another Oxford regiment (looking just like the last one *wink*) arriving to plug the gap in the center. Again the green coats fired on the Oxford boys but this time it was the green coats that turned tail and ran!

Sir Arthur Hesselriggs regiment of foot in blue moved forward to plug the Parliament line. The Parliament horse repulse a charge from the Royalist horse with the pistol fire but decided they were too exposed and pulled back to protect the left flank of the Parliament blue coats.

The foot started a musketry duel in the village but neither side gained an advantage.

At this point with the night drawing to a close the two commanders seemed satisfied with their efforts and both forces were withdrawn with the battle honours being shared.

The figures used in the game were Warlord games plastic for all the parliament forces. The Royalist foot were also Warlord Games but the Cavalry were from Renegade Miniatures.

The game was quite enjoyable and moved at a good pace considering we didn't know the rules. Both players were excited by the prospect of future games and will be busily painting to finish off the last of our starter armies.

We received a lot of good comments on the game and several other club members seemed keen to take up the cause for King or Parliament.

Cheers

Neil

New Year's Resolutions

2011-02-27T13:05:00.001+11:00

Hello all and welcome to the wargamming year of 2011!

As I suppose you all did, I sat down at the start of 2011 and thought about my gaming plans for 2011.
So many periods to play, so little time to paint is the continual dilemma of the wargamer. As with all things, it is a case of setting priorities for the year and with hand on heart and the best of intentions I set out my objectives for the coming year.

2010 was a period of good progress in several areas. I entered a whole new period for me i.e. WWII with Crossfire in 15mm, painting up a company of late war germans and Brit paras. I finally finished my tripod and martian designs to have the models released commercially through Eureka miniatures. I finished my British Gaslight VSF forces and did a lot of scratchbuilding 28mm terrain including european buildings for ECW, North African buildings for VSF/Sudan and other bits and pieces.

I also entered the gaming business with my own wargamming business Ozbattler selling Old Glory miniatures in Australia. Other bits and pieces included WWI and WWII planes for our dogfight games and the slow process of painting up English Civil War regiments and convincing other club members to take up the period in "God's own scale" 28mm.

So for 2011 my main focus will be:

English Civil War: Finally I have enough forces to take the field of battle! What's more I actually have an opponent as well! Expect the first battle report shortly :) I still have a another regiment of foot, a cannon and three troops of horse to paint but that will complete my starter Parliament army (William Waller's Southern Association).

Zulu War: I am planning a display game for our club's open day featuring the battle of Rourke's Drift during the Zulu War of 1879. I need to paint up 270 more zulus and about 80 Brits. I will be using a mix of Wargames factory and Empress minatures for the game and I need to scratchbuild all the terrain and buildings. It is a lot of work but I am looking forward to it. I am also going to try another rule set " Washing of the Spears" by David Bickley where all the players take on the Brits while the Zulus are controlled by a movement generator.

War of the Roses: I have finally given in to my fellow club members and succumb to the scourge that is Field of Glory! Our club has actually got organised where we are planning our armies with the view to play historical games (amazing!!). WOTR is a popular period for all, so it is the first period that we will focus on.
So over Christmas I coughed up the money and bought the first figures for my starter 600 point WOTR army based on Henry Tudor's army at Bosworth ( I am Welsh after all!) 15mm Musuem figures.

World War II: I will build on my progress from last year and start adding some armour and antitank guns etc to our games. I may also paint a Russian Company. I also need to make more 15mm terrain.

So that is my priorities for 2011. Of course I may get distracted with the odd WWI or WWII plane, maybe some bits and pieces for Gaslight but I am determined to stick to this plan for the year.

We will see how I go!

Happy Gaming!
Cheers
Neil

Black Aeronef Down!

2010-12-28T20:56:00.000+11:00

This reporter became caught in the thick of the action when en-route to covering Crown negotiations with tribal leaders near Mogadishu on board the pride of the Her Majesty’s Sky Navy, the HMES Hermes. Whist over the outer suburbs of Mogadishu, the Hermes began to vibrate unnervingly and a low bass noise could be heard. All of a sudden, the instruments on the Hermes failed and the craft plummeted from the air, crashing into a clearing inside the town itself.

We counted ourselves lucky that no one had been seriously hurt, but as the Hermes could not be refloated with the tools at hand, Captain Henderson sent a distress signal, hoping for aid. We saw little of the locals at first, the crash of the Hermes having frightened them into hiding. Soon, however, Lieutenant Samson noticed movement behind the buildings.

The first sign that something was wrong came when a group of armed men exited a nearby building and approached the Hermes; their leader was soon identified as Falafel, a known dissident.

Before Lieutenant Gonville Bromhead, commander of the 24th South Wales Borderers Regiment, our seconded protection, could react, the bass vibration started once more and this intrepid reporter identified the source. On the roof of a nearby building, sat the eccentric and treasonous wheelchair-bound Professor Malcolm X with a crew of locals operating one of his feared Sonic Weapons, later revealed to be the Bedouin Sound Clash device. Fortunately, this time the fearsome device had no effect on the grounded Hermes. Reacting to this sudden show of force, Bromhead and the 24th leapt the railing of the Hermes to engage the local militia.

A noise sounded at the other end of the courtyard, behind the Hermes, as the dread Mutawa charged from a building, lead by the great British Traitor El-Laurance; they threw explosives at the Hermes, but the heathen weapons had no effect on sturdy British engineering.

At the same time, Falafel's militia opened fire on the 24th, sadly killing one man. In response to this, the 24th moved towards cover, hoping to regroup and allow the crew of the Hermes to escape.

In the distance we began to hear a familiar rumble, it seemed that help may have arrived, help in the form of the Prussian army.

My fellow British and I retreated to the area around the local Mosque with the 24th forming a defensive line to hold off the advancing militia and Mutawa, their fire dropping two crewmen of the Hermes as we fled. Then the air was filled with catastrophic sounds, the bass rumble of the Bedouin Sound Clash Device keeping us diving for cover and the crash as the Prussian Steam Tractor the Rammstien pushed through the walls of Mogadishu, spearheading the rescue effort.

As soon as the Rammstien pushed through what little rubble was left by its Disintegration Cannon, the Prussian Cuirassiers charged through the breach as the Rammstien's Maxim gun felled fully half the crew of the Bedouin Sound Clash Device.

Cheering at this sight, the British rallied and the 24th formed a firing line. Panicking, the coward El-Laurance turned his Mutawa towards the walls to fight the incoming Prussians. A glint of brass could be seen on the wall, as another sonic weapon, the Electric Camel Drum, repositioned to fire on the Cuirassiers, who now found themselves under attack by Prince Dastan of Persia, who began to carve a path through man and horse alike.

As the Prussian Sturmpioniers and Strahl Gepade Regiment began to flood the breach, Major Lothar Von Tannenbaum, the Prussian commander began to push the advantage of surprise. Although they took further losses in the charge, Hauptmann Leopold Rothe, leader of the Cuirassiers claims to have downed Prince Dastan, although no trace of a body was found afterwards. Meanwhile, one street over, the Rasmmstien gunned down the remaining crew of the Bedouin Sound Clash Device, removing that threat. In a turn-about of luck, the crew of the Electric Camel Drum found that they were too far out of range to fire effectively. This reporter and the surviving crew of the Hermes had managed to reach a nearby dock, but no boats could be found to escape the city on. For a moment I thought I spotted a famous face in the form of the Great Hunter, Alan Quartermain, but it was such a fleeting glance that I could not be certain.

The unstoppable Rammstien rumbled into the square, downing the lead Mutawa with its maxim gun, hot on its heels were the Prussian Sturmpioniers, clearing the walls and entering the town proper.

The 24th opened up at the local militia, downing four, but losing three of their own in the return fire. Enraged, the Mutawa threw their grenades at the approaching Rammstien, detonating on the hull but having no effect on the thick steel plating.

Professor Malcolm X dove for the controls of the Bedouin Sound Clash Device, but even the fruits of his warped genius were not enough to halt unstoppable Prussian engineering. Meanwhile, the Rammstien continued to butcher the Mutawa with machine-gun fire, although a lucky return shot from the heathens killed the brave turret gunner.

Worried about being in the open too long, Bromhead withdrew his remaining men, but not before Mutawa carbines felled another couple more in a lucky panic-fire as the heathens fled from the mighty Rammstien. El-Laurence had snuck to the roof of a nearby building in an attempt to rescue Professor Malcolm X, but the heroic crew of the Rammstien spotted them and gunned them down ending the traitors' threat to the Empire once and for all. With another burst from its maxim, the Rammstien reduced the Mutawa to its leader, Asneeze, who fled towards the nearby Mosque.

It was then that something extra-ordinary happened; the Jihad's Vizier brought forth from sealed bottles a great cloud of green smoke, from which charged a horde of ghostly Persian Warriors. Understandably, when faced with such an assault, the 24th beat a tactical retreat around the back of the Mosque towards the dock where Captain Henderson and the crew of the Hermes waited for relief.

Major Lothar Von Tannenbaum had became bogged in soft sand near the walls of the town, and in a panic for his safety amidst the Sonic Weapons, ghostly Persians and constant rifle-fire, he ordered a retreat. As the Rammstien backed up, the Prussian infantry and remaining Cuirassiers flooded back through the breach, leaving us confused and still marooned in hostile territory. Fortunately, at that moment, the ghostly Persian Jinn vanished into the air.

We began to follow the retreating Prussians through the wall breach, but the local forces were still on our heels; bravely, Colour Sergeant Bourne stepped forward and drew his sabre. Asneeze, screaming a challenge, charged at Bourne and the two duelled briefly before Bourne put an end to the screaming heathen.

However, just as things were looking up, the Vizier brought forth the fearsome Jinn once more, they charged into Bourne and cut the brave man down. By now, the Rammstien was the only visible Prussian presence left in Mogadishu, doing nothing more than keeping the few surviving locals cowering behind buildings. Despite this, the Jinn bore down on the crew of the Hermes, who stood their ground allowing this correspondent and the remaining Hermes Stokers to escape.

The battle continued after I had reached safety, what happened exactly we may never know, but as Captain Henderson and Lieutenant Samson never joined us, we have to assume the worst. Once we survivors had caught up with Lothar Von Tannenbaum and his men, we were taken back to Blighty on the next available Zepplin. The full effects of this disaster are yet to be felt; the Hermes was recovered, but several components had been stolen and it may be months before the ship is combat-ready again. It is clear now just how much of a threat lies to the East of the Empire, how long until armed forces are deployed to take care of this menace?

Sir Ridley Scott, Foreign Correspondent for the London Times,

Dictated to James Wright, Author of Minor Note.

_________________________________________________________________

The above is an account of our last Gaslight game for the year featuring my newly finished Middle Eastern buildings and New arabic opponents commanded by the author and fellow NWA'er James Wright.

Cheers

Neil

OzBattler - My new gaming business venture!

2010-12-14T22:39:00.000+11:00

Hi Guys,

In case you have been wondering where I have been lately , I can now reveal part of the reason for my silence :)

This is my new Business venture Ozbattler!

http://www.ozbattler.com/

OzBattler is now the official Australian and New Zealand Distributor for Old Glory US range of 15mm, 10mm and 28mm miniatures.

In addition to Old Glory, I will be stocking the popular plastic ranges currently available and I am also working on my own miniature range starting with my War of the Worlds Tripods and Martians.

Bye For now

Cheers

Neil

P.S. Next update more ECW madness!

Consumer Warning!!!

2010-10-14T20:35:00.000+11:00

Hello all,

On the Yahoo Crossfire group recently a member posted a notice letting members know that the crossfire rulebooks were available from http://www.wargamesmini.com/. I have been wanting to get a copy of crossfire for ages.

After this was posted, I visited the website and ordered both the rule book and

hit the dirt scenario book. That was 29th of August.

I have not received these goods yet. The supplier (His name is Baxter)ignored my

emails and happily charged my credit card.

After a couple of emails I finally got an excuse claiming the shipment

disappeared. I was then told it would be shipped next day using a courier to

track it. That was back on the 30th of September and again no delivery and

ignoring my emails again.

I am now demanding a refund.

I strongly suggest you do not purchase from this guy. He is either not to be

trusted or incompetent or both.

Cheers

Neil

2010-09-15T19:15:00.003+10:00

Remember " The Few" who fought for our freedom in the dark days of 1940.
Battle of Britain Day today 70 years!

Eagle Day 70th Anniversary WWII dogfight!

2010-08-14T12:49:00.001+10:00

Yesterday was August 13th. The 70th Anniversary of Alder Tag "Eagle Day" the first official day of the Battle of Britain. To commemorate that day I decided to run a WWII Battle of Britain dogfight game.

Over the last couple of months we have been wanting to expand our Canvas Eagles WWI dogfight game. Canvas Eagles has proven very popular at the club with some games involving over a dozen players in massed dogfights over the fields of France. I have also had a keen desire to play Battle of Britain games, so I have collected a number of 1/144th scale planes. Another club member has also picked up some Hurricanes and Me110 and HeIII.

The WWII rules are a bit harder to track down. Knights Cross is the name for the WWII variant of Canvas Eagles. There is a yahoo group for these rules but the rules and aircraft sheets are a bit haphazard. I spent a bit of time collating the relevant data and playing around with the aircraft sheets in photoshop to make them as similar to the Canvas Eagles sheets so club players could quickly switch over to the new period.

The Knights Cross games are faster than the Canvas Eagles games, mainly because of the higher number of critical hits in the game. Planes tend to smoke, catch fire, or blow up more often, which of course is a lot of fun.

Last night the scenario was the German side launching an attack on the Kenley airfield with two Ju 87 "Stuka" dive bombers and a HeIII escorted by 4 Me109 Emil fighters. On the British side the airfield was defended by 4 Mk 1 Spitfires. I found an 1940 aerial photo of Kenley airfield on the net and enlarged it on the printer and stuck onto Hex card sheet to make the objective. To achieve victory the Germans had to successfully bomb 4 out of the 6 airfield hexes. The Stukas had only one bomb attack each while the He III could do 3 bombing attacks.

We had 7 people playing the game, 5 on the German side and 2 playing the Brits. Here are the photos, my camera technique was pretty poor on the night, so I apologise for the blurry photos.

The game began with the German bombers flying straight for the target flank on each side by a pair of 109s at a higher altitude providing the cover. The Spitfire climbed to gain height and split into pairs to take on the Germans.

The German Fighters worked well together coordinating their attacks on the Spitfires. The Spitfires however seemed disorganised and this result in several instances where Spifires were surrounded by more than one fighter. The first Spitfire was destroyed by a long burst by a 109 and finished off by a Stuka. The British pilot bailed out successfully. Meanwhile the German bombers dived lower to prepare for their bombing run.

The Stukas commenced their Dive attack on Kenley and both succeeded in hitting their targets. However as they pulled out of the attack one stuka was hit by a Spitfire killing the pilot and sending the Stuka crashing into the ground. The first bombing run of the HeIII failed however.

As the Spifires concentrated on the HeIII the Me109s swarmed around the Spifires sending another one crashing to the ground. The HeIII continued its bombing run successfully hitting its next two hexes to successfully destroy the mission objective.

The HeIII and Stuka turned for home pursued by the remaining two Spitfires. One of the Me109s took the term "close fighter support" too literally and crashed into the HeIII. The HeIII survived but with a killed waist gunner. The Me109 broke up and exploded.

The Stuka made a quick retreat without incident while the damaged HeIII sought the security of a cloudbank to escape the pursuing Spifires but it wasn't needed as the two spifires were despatched in quick fashion, one of the Spits a ball of fire as its fuel tank exploded. The other pilot while wounded managed to bail out successfully.

So the night was a reversal of the historical result with a comprehensive victory to the Germans. Kenley had been severely mauled and all four Spitfires destroyed , however two of the British pilots did survive.

On the German side they had lost one Stuka and one Me109 with all three aircrew killed. The HeIII received repairable damage, but lost one gunner. So the German casualty rate of 4: 2 did seem to reflect the historical casulty rate of Casulaties on both sides during the Battle of Britain.

We are planning on having more Battle of Britain games in the coming weeks to commemorate the Battle of Britain.

Cheers Neil.

Warlord Games ECW Dragoons review.

2010-07-16T16:58:00.000+10:00

Hello again,

Now that I have temporairily exorcised my WWII bug from my system, I have been able to get back to painting ECW. I have finished another foot regiment and a cavalry regiment along with my William Waller command figure. I will post pictures of them shortly in another post.

At the moment I am painting up the Warlord Games Dragoons and I thought I would give a quick review of them.

What do you get? Well in the box, you get 12 mounted Dragoons (metal rider and plastic mount) and 12 metal dismounted Dragoons and a set of plastic bases. The plastic horse sprue is the same as the cavalry horses. The size of the horses are quite big compared to other manufacturers and the difference is quite noticeable. Dragoons typically rode poor quality horses compared to the cavalry so these horses are a bit too good for dragoons but that is only nitpicking.

The sculpts of the figures are very good with good poses, and good facial expressions. The characters come with separate metal hats so you can choose what type of hat they can wear, however there are not enough hats for you to, for example, give them all monteroes, so you would need to use some left over plastic ones from the infantry boxes.

Overall quite good value for money.

Now for the down side.

The plastic cavalry are good sculpts but they are let down a bit by the poor casting. The bodies are in two halves which require a fair amount of putty to fix up the gaps around the neck and across the chest.

The metal riders are cast very poorly with quite a bit of flash. Parts of the sculpt are wrecked in the casting so that I had to use green putty to hide it by turning the blob into another sack. The figures look like they have been quite carelessly pulled out of the molds with muskets and standard poles bent quite badly (particularly the standard pole which was also twisted!). The cast riders also do not sit on the plastic horses without considerable filing and bending of the legs with pliers.

Also the mounted commander figure was missing an arm! Luckily I was able to use a leftover plastic sargeants arm from the infantry box plus some green stuff to effect a passable repair job.

These issues took a lot of time to fix. The finished and painted figures will no doubt look very good, but I will not be rushing out to buy another box anytime soon based on the poor quality of the casts.

There were no problems with the dismounted dragoons.

Overall, very good sculpts severely let down by poor casting. Methinks that they have rushed these figures out to meet the demand and the quality control has gone out the window.

5 out 10.

Cheers
Neil

World War II British Paras - The curse continues...

2010-07-02T19:27:00.000+10:00

Here is the latest addition to my World War II forces. The airborne operations in Normandy during D-Day and the Operation Market Garden in Arnhem have always interested me so it was the next obvious force to make to oppose my late war germans.

The miniatures are from Peter Pig and I picked them up at Little Wars back in May. They are excellent figures with good poses and attention to detail. They painted up pretty easily followed as usual with the army painter dip which I am pretty much addicted to right now. The denison smocks look particularly good.

Here is the company arrayed.

Here is the company commander with radio operator. During the Market Garden operation the British paras at Arnhem had great difficulty maintaining radio communications. The Cromwell IV tank is a prepainted miniature from the Axis and Allies collectible game. I picked it up in a bargain bin along with a Russian T34/76, German Panzer III Ausf. F and US M4A1 Sherman for a few bucks and surprisingly they are correct 15mm scale and will be good for the crossfire games when we start using tanks.

1st Platoon. In the Crossfire organisation list for a Para company they give one 2"mortar. However a bit of digging on the net showed that each platoon had a 2" mortar team which was directed by the Platoon commander. I therefore decided to add two more mortar units to the company along with a HMG section. The added points cost brings them up to the same as the late war german company.

2nd Platoon

3rd Platoon

Forward observer.

Heavy Machine Gun section.

I now have my opposing forces done. I need to start working on the terrain and plan to have my first game this weekend.

Cheers

Neil

The Curse of the Wargamer - Dawn of a new age!

2010-06-06T16:38:00.002+10:00

Hello,

The curse of the wargamer has struck again!

I had my wargamming year all sorted out. I had finished my Bloodbowl team ready for the league starting this year. I had painted up enough Gaslight VSF stuff to keep me busy playing for a while and I was slowly building up my ECW parliament forces.

My other project planned for the year was Zulu war. I picked up a couple of boxes of the Wargames factory zulus at the Little Wars show and with the new Army painter leather brown primer spray and dip, I should be able to churn out plenty zulus for a Rorkes Drift game later this year.

So I had a bit on, but totally manageable.....really?

It started as a few emails between fellow wargamers and then the show Band of Brothers rescreened on TV, and then came The Pacific, a fantastic series (although IMHO not as good as Bof B).

Our emails of course moved to the subject of WWII. Before I knew what had happened people were buying miniatures and discussing rule systems. It was uncontrollable; my nice ordered world was crumbling around me. I had no choice but to succumb to the curse of the wargamer.... another period to game.

WWII is a foreign country to me. I had always been a "Horse and musket" man. My early days spent playing Napoleonics, ACW and colonials. After a break from wargamming I have dabbled in Ancients/medieval with DBA and its cousin HOTT and I guess dogfighting is WWI which is the 20th century but I have never played land wargamming in the 20th century.

After many discussions we settled on a scale... 15mm; and then a ruleset.. Crossfire. So what to paint first?
Some of the guys at the club had already bought some Old Glory 15mm WWII stuff and I was able to buy some of their late war Germans. I had no reference material on WWII but there are plenty of people at the club gamming WWII and I got hold of info on painting up my late war germans. I was painting camo!! I have never painted camo!

The good thing about crossfire is that you only need a company to start playing, which is about the same number of figures as a DBA army approx 40-50 figures, so I have managed to get my first army finished in pretty quick time.

Here are my late war germans i.e 1944 -45

The company arrayed

Company HQ

The First platoon equipped with Panzerfaust antitank rockets.

2nd Platoon

3rd Platoon

Heavy Weapons HMG

Heavy Weapons 81mm Mortar and Forward Observer.

Heavy Weapons 120mm Mortar and Forward Observer.

The miniatures are all Old Glory Command Decision WWII with the exception of the 81mm and 120mm mortars which are Peter Pig figures. The figures were base coated in black and then painted with GW,Tamiya, and Vallejo acrylic paints, followed by the Army painter strong tone and matt varnish spray to finish.

I have never used Vallejo paints before, but they have a large range of correct colours for WWII camoflage. I think these paints are terrific. They have a lot more pigment than the GW paints and covered black undercoat easily. I will definitely get more of these paints as my GW stuff runs out. They also have a fantasy range as well.

So there you have it! The curse has struck again! I am very happy with how these guys have turned out. Now I need to give them an opponent. At little wars I also bought a bunch of Peter Pig British Paras. Airborne operations have always been the one thing about WWII that has appealed to me. I also read Pegasus Bridge a few months back so I am keen to do some glider actions.

Oh and then I need some WWII terrain for Arnhem scenarios and some Marines and Japs for Pacific games....Aaaaaargh the curse! The curse!

Bye for now :)

Oh and I just realised today is the 66th anniversary of D-Day!!

Little Wars Gaslight demo game photos.

2010-05-24T21:57:00.000+10:00

Hello again,

This weekend was the annual Little Wars Wargamming show here in Melbourne. The venue was the German Tivoli club so there was some excellent beer and sausage to be had on the day. It was a great day with some great displays covering a diverse range of periods and scales.

I was running a demo game of our War of the Worlds on Mars game that I ran last year at the NWA club open day. The display proved very popular with lots of positive comments. The day before, I changed the way the Martian Tripod legs were attached to the Tripod head. The finished product is now much closer to my original designs for the Tripod.

In the afternoon we had 5 people playing a fun game and hopefully we may have some new members for the club.

Here are the photos taken on the day.

We were using the Gaslight and Battles by Gaslight Rules for our games.

The Martian Tripods with their new design legs. They look a lot meaner now!

The British and Prussian Figures are from Eureka Miniatures.

The HMLS Dauntless Landship is Scratchbuilt by me. The Flags say, " England Expects Victory!"

The British advance on the left with the Prussians on the Right. At the fore for the British was the HMES Hermes and a platoon of the Queens own Skywalkers resplendent in their Union Jack wings!

Spot the Tardis!

The Hermes into attack against the Tripods.

Prussian Gyrocopters fire Rockets at the Tripods on the right flank.

The Skywalkers fire down on the Red Martian Lancers inflicting heavy losses.

The Hermes takes a direct hit from a heat ray and comes crashing down. Miraculously Captain Henderson walks away from the carnage!

Queen Victoria (Gaud bless ah!) gets up close and personal with the Martians. Tea anyone?

Queen Victoria will cast out the green devils!

Prussian Spider (Converted GW Chaos defiler) destroyed by the heat ray.

The Tripod comes crashing down after a direct hit from the Dauntless' heavy main gun.

The Red Martians are from Parroom station. They are excellent figures.

On the day I had some time to do some shopping and I picked up some army painter primer spray cans, some more wargames factory zulus, and for something new I got some 15mm British Paras for WWII Crossfire games that I am just getting into.

Bye for now.

Painted Martian complete!

2010-03-21T19:26:00.000+11:00

Here are some pictures of the first production model Martian now painted. The Martian is now ready for sale through Eureka miniatures. Keep checking their website for official notice. http://www.eurekamin.com.au/

Cheers
Neil

Queen Victoria (Gaud blessah!) comes face to face with her nemesis. Professor Pratt offers his scientific opinion of the creatures biology.

If anyone wants to paint their Martian the same as mine, this is what I did.

Resin body was cleaned in detergent and any small air bubbles filled with putty or removed with a dremel. The metal tentacles were are drilled and pinned and glued with super glue (important). The completed model was then undercoated in Chaos Black.

Base coat was GW Lyanden Dark Sun foundation paint. When dry this was given a wash of Bestial Brown and then drybrushed with a 50/50 Bestial Brown/Skull White mix.

Eyes and mouth were Mechrite Red foundation paint, followed by a wash of Scab Red and highlights with Blood Red.

Ear drum was Lyanden Dark Sun base coat, followed by thin coat of Snakebite Leather and then a wash of Gryphonne Sepia with a light dry brush of 50/50 Snakebite Leather/Skull White to finish.

When completely dry the model was given a good coat of a satin varnish.

Secret Photos revealed- Captured Martian!

2010-03-12T13:58:00.001+11:00

The London Times. March 12th 1885.

Recent photos have now been released from those terrible events caused by the Martian invasion of southern england last year. While our defensive efforts around Woking proved unable to halt the Martian advance on London. Further north a crashed cylinder was able to be surrounded by a detachment of the 24th regiment of foot lead by Lt Bromhead and assisted by Colonel Shaftsbury. It appears this cylinder may have landed off course, since it did not come down in the usual " tri pattern" observed elsewhere in England.

When the Martians emerged from their cylinder the 24th lead a gallant charge into the pit where they were able to quickly kill the surprised Martians.

One Martian was able to climb out of the pit and try to escape, but it was surrounded by the 24th and captured. The following photographs provide the only examples of a live Martian to date.

This photo shows clearly the tympanic organ that acts as a primitive ear. More suited to the thin atmosphere of Mars as suggested by astromoners. The bayonet wielding soldier in picture is Lance Corporal Jack Jones of the 24th foot. Afterwards he was heard to say that the Martians "Don't like it up em! sir"

The Captured Martian was held in captivity for several days but eventually like its brethen succumbed to disease and died. Its body has been preserved and is now on display at the national museum.

This model is the finished "green" master that will form part of my Martian range of models and miniatures.

The body will be cast in resin with white metal tentacles that can be bent and posed. The model will be available through Eureka miniatures http://www.eurekamin.com.au/ soon.

Cheers Neil.

The Battle of Britain - John Ray

2010-03-11T17:23:00.000+11:00

I have just finished this book and thought I would put up a quick review. Firstly my view point of the Battle of Britain is largely based on the well known film of the same name and the odd bit of reading here and there, so I have a general and somewhat romantic knowledge of the battle.

We know the story, outnumbered gallant british (and colonial, polish , czech) pilots ,outnumbered and out gunned take on the might of the Luftwaffe and defeat them. Hugh Dowding the commander of fighter command lead this band of the "few" to victory but was replaced as head of fighter command shortly after the battle.

Several books have been written on this subject (none of which I have read) but John Ray sets out to give a balanced unbiased account of the possible reasons for Dowding's removal.

If you are looking for a dramatic action packed review of the daily dogfights during this battle I suggest you put this book back on the shelf and look elsewhere. This book goes into incredible depth, sifting through the many memos, letters, reports, interviews etc. of the period to piece together the machinations of the RAF, Air ministry and politicians in the eventual removal of Dowding. It is a bit dry reading but incredibly interesting.

Leading up to the war Dowding took command of an ill prepared british fighter defence force and turned it into the best fighter defence in the world by the time the battle of britain began. He championed the cause of Radio Direction Finding ( now known as radar) and prevented fighter's being gobbled up in the disaster of the defence of France. Dowding was ably assisted by Keith Park who then took command of 11 group. The group which was to be pushed to breaking point in the ensuing battle. Dowding plan was to fight a defensive battle to conserve his forces and keep britain " in the war" until the weather turned bad and the possible german invasion was averted.

However once the battle began disagreements arose between his subordinates over tactics, in particular Leigh-Mallory commander of 12 group who advocated "Big Wings" to aggresively attack the germans in large numbers versus Park commander of 11 group who prefered a single squadron response.

Dowding comes across as indecisive and reluctant (almost stubborn) when it came to adopting new tactics in a changing battlefield.

Dowding and Park spent the entire battle defending their position from criticism coming from within the RAF and the air ministry on an almost daily basis when they were supposed to be fighting the most important battle in their nation's history. Air vice marshall Douglas comes across in this book as very ambitious and keen to see Dowding's removal and actively worked to see it happen. By November Douglas had succeeded and he took over command of Fighter command.

This is a fascinating book. John Ray is like a detective piecing together the many sources to give an accurate and even handed view of Dowding's command and the behind the scenes movements to have him removed.

A must read for any person interested in a serious examination of this famous battle.

ECW Quickie - Saker Gun and Crew

2010-01-25T20:09:00.000+11:00

Back to the English Civil again now that the Bloodbowl work is done.

This is a quick post of a Saker gun and crew I painted up before starting on my next foot regiment.

The gun and crew are from Warlord Games, painted just like the previous foot regiment. The gun and crew are nicely posed and sculpted.

I have some resin Gabions that I will make up on bases that will surround the gun's base so they can be used in siege scenarios as well.

Cheers Neil

First Project for 2010 - Bloodbowl!!

2010-01-20T20:14:00.001+11:00

Happy New Year everyone!

Well the Xmas holidays are drawing to a close and the wargamming year is only a week away. At my local club this year we are having a Bloodbowl league. My son was keen to take part so before Christmas I bought an orc team for him off ebay. I too caught the BB bug and also purchased a goblin team off ebay.

I wanted to paint these teams quickly as I wanted to get back to my main project for the year English Civil War, so it was a simple paint job followed by the armypainter quickshade. I am becoming quite addicted to this technique, as I am getting things painted to a very good standard in half the time of my normal painting style.

I have had a copy of blood bowl since the first edition with the grey polystyrene foam board. However I expect my son to be a bit rougher in his play, so I decided to make a wooden board for him.

The board was made from 12mm MDF board. I used a saw to cut the squares out and then covered the wood in sand. It was then painted black, and then drybrushed with bestial brown and then bleached bone. Flock was added for the grass and then I masked the different line markings and sprayed them with skull white. For added flavour I made some advertising boards with some famous products given the Bloodbowl twist. I downloaded these off bloodbowl internet sites.

Here are the pictures of the board and the orc and goblin teams.

The Greenfilth Packers (Goblin)

The custom bloodbowl board!

The Waaghington greenskins!

So that finishes the bloodbowl project just in time for the start of the season. I have promised my younger son a Skaven team so that will probably get squeezed in between ECW units.

Bye for now!

Cheers

Neil

ECW - Sir Ralph Weldon Regiment of Foot

2009-12-18T11:59:00.000+11:00

Since finishing off the last of my VSF stuff (for the time being), I have began working on my main project for 2010. English Civil War. My army will be based on Sir William Waller's Southern Association army which defeated Sir Ralph Hopton at the battle of Cheriton March 1644. The figures I plan on using are predominately the Warlord Games plastic 28mm figures however, I also plan to have a Cuirassier regiment from Renegade Miniatures and some personalities, villages etc from Wargames Foundry.

The miniatures were base coated in black and then painted with Games Workshop colours. I applied a base coat of each colour (red was two coats, one foundation base coat followed by blood red top coat) and then used the army painter " miracle dip" technique which I had tried out on some zulus with good results.

I plan on playing some ECW skirmish games as well, so a few figures were based individually. I therefore decided to use the Games Workshop movement trays. I normally don't like movement trays but for this I will make an exception :)

So here is the first completed regiment... Sir Ralph Weldon's Regiment of foot.

Here is the command stand. I think I will buy some more command stands and paint them up with red sashes instead of orange so I can quickly convert these Parliament chaps into Royalist scum :)

Next up, another regiment of foot, this time with green coats.

Cheers

Neil

The Queens Own Skywalkers!

2009-11-07T13:35:00.000+11:00

November 7th 1883.

Lord Harrington looked at his watched, 8 o'cock in the morning. He wrapped his scarf more tightly around his neck and wished he was back in his office at the Foreign office in Whitehall, having his first cup of tea for the day and maybe a couple of those terrific ecceles cakes Mrs Sunderland made. The morning mist lay in thick streaks across Salisbury plain and the wind had an icy bite heralding a cold winter ahead. He looked skyward and surveyed the dark clouds above and thought whether they held yet more rain or maybe sleet. Either prospect seemed to darken his already bad mood.

Since the news of the disaster on the Zambesi last month his office had been a frenzy of activity gathering more information on the fate of Major Robertson and Professor Pratt. People had been detained at the Cape Colony suspected of being Prussian Spies and the many traders that had come into the town from the North had been questioned for more information.

Initial reports from the Dauntless had indicated that the expedition had been completely wiped out, however a trader had reported a small group of whitemen being held captive by natives in a nearby village which gave him a glimmer of hope that they may yet salvage something from the disaster. Some good headlines to grace the cover of the London Times and better still take some pressure off himself.

He had discussed the possibility of a rescue mission with the war office and he had been introduced to Stanley Heathcote who was head of the conveyances division at the research headquarters in Hackney.
Heathcote was an short, rotund ,excitable fellow who seemed to perspire all the time and had an annoying habit of rubbing his hands together. Harrington looked over at Heathcote and he was doing it right now as he gazed skyward.

" Honestly Heathcote, this will not do! This damn cold will be the death of me! What are we doing here?"

Heathcote looked at Harrington and he seemed to relish the discomfit he was causing his companion.
" Ah yes, the purpose of our adventure into the "wild" , he said with his hands outstretched palms open.
" If you can for the moment, transport yourself from the cold of England to Africa you will recall the terrain in which our forces operate yes?"

Harrington shrugged, " Damn dense jungle, stifling heat, and rather aggressive inhabitants by all reports."

" Yes! " said Heathcote and raised his finger to empthasise the point. " What's more any attempt to retrieve our countrymen will not have the advantage of surprise as the natives know their country and will spot our forces long before we are aware of them."

" Damn it Heathcote, I know all this! What of it?" Harrington's patience was wearing thin.

Heathcote smiled gleefully, "Well, we at the Hackney division have developed something that will give our troops the vital advantage of surprise."

Harrington was about to respond when a noise distracted him. It sounded a bit like a flock of birds, however there was a mechanical aspect to the sound he couldn't quite place. " What the devil is that?" he said.

"There!" Heathcote shouted and pointed skyward over Harrington's shoulder. Harrington whirled around and looked upwards. At first he couldn't comprehend what he was seeing. it seemed a dark flock of large birds were approaching their position fast.

As the flock drew closer the mass of birds resolved into individual birds. No not birds, they were men!
" Its not possible!" said Harrington.

Heathcote laughed in jubilation, " Hah! Its more than possible Lord Harrington. I give you the Queen's own Skywalkers!"

The mechanical birdmen landed in front of Harrington in perfect formation. British redcoats with wings!

The platoon officer lead his men up to Harrington and then signalled them to halt at attention. He walked briskly up to him and saluted.

" Lt Pelham at your service sir!"

Stunned though he was with this amazing new revelation, He imediately realised the potential of this new technology. He turned back to Heathcote who was smiling and compulsively rubbing his hands in glee.

Lord Harrington smiled and for the moment he couldn't feel the cold, " Heathcote my dear fellow, I think you may have something here."

____________________________________

The Skywalkers are from Eureka miniatures.

Cheers

Neil

October WWI dogfight

2009-11-03T18:20:00.000+11:00

Here are some pictures of our October game for our WWI Canvas Eagles campaign. 6 players took part flying Camels, DR1 and DVII with the night's honours going well and truly to the Germans winning 3:1

The highlight of the night was a mid air collision between a Camel (flown by me) and a DVII. The DVII player drew his first red damage chit and scored a "fuel tank hit, plane explodes". I put the chit back in the box and gave it a good shake and then pulled out my first chit. It was the same result! Both planes exploded in a flash of flame and littered confetti down over no mans land!

I am really not having much luck lately with my last three games ending with me getting killed!

For this game we tried clouds for the first time. Clouds add a nice terrain element to the games and made the games more interesting. We have enough players now that have played several games so we now can have tailing and clouds to really make great exciting games.

After the game I took some of the photos and photoshoped them to make some nice pictures.

Cheers
Neil

The Golden Belasarius!

2009-11-03T10:43:00.000+11:00

I have quite a few posts lined up for this month since I have some more free time on my hands.

At my local club Nunawading Wargames Association http://www.nwa.org.au/ I am running the annual DBA tournament. Each year we get typically 30 players taking part.

This year I decided to make a really cool trophy that I hope will become a bit of a tradition at this event.
I call it the "Golden Belasarius" which is of course modelled on the DBA rule book confused general.

I sculpted the master in sculpey and greenstuff and then made a silicone mold for casting copies. After casting I fixed up any airbubbles etc with green stuff and then painted it gold.

I am happy to make copies for people wanting to use him in their own DBA tournaments. I would just need some money to cover casting/painting costs. Email me on neil_hughes@optusnet.com.au if you are interested.

Cheers
Neil

My new project - finally!

2009-11-02T20:15:00.000+11:00

Hello again,

I have finally started on a project I have wanted to do for the last few years. Now that I have finished my VSF stuff, my next major project will be The English Civil War.

When I got back into wargamming after a break of several years I wanted to do ECW, but I had to decide which scale 15mm or 28mm. I decided that 28mm was the scale I really wanted to do, but the cost of a 28mm army was an issue. I even tried sculpting up a couple of 28mm figures to see if I could make my own figures to save money.

Then I was saved by the appearance of Warlord Games plastic 28mm ECW range. I gleefully handed over my money and bought a few infantry boxes.

I had been doing a bit of reading on the period and would have initially gone with a Royalist force but another member at my club was doing Montrose Royalist scot so I sided with Parliament.

The battles between Sir Ralph Hopton and Sir William Waller (who were close friends) seemed to epitomise the period and so I started research on Waller's Southern Association army which was victorious over Hopton at the battle of Cheriton.

For painting I also wanted to try something different from my usual style. For this project I will be using the army painter strong tone varnish to paint the army quickly, but still give a good wargamming standard. I had tried the technique on a few different practice figures including a ECW musketeer and the results were quite frankly excellent.

The army painter system is another version of the so called "miracle dip" technique which has been around for several years. On a Seljuk Turk DBA army I had tried something similar using a chestnut ink wash over a basic paint job which came up nicely. I have also heard of other people mixing black paint with diluted gloss varnish too.

I bought a can of wood stain varnish as well, to compare it to the army painter system. The army painter varnish is the perfect viscosity for the coating miniatures and it is far superior to the wood varnish. While it is relatively expensive you can coat a lot of figures with one can.

Very important. You must spray the varnished figures with matt varnish to complete the effect, otherwise they will look awful.

The Warlord games plastic figures are excellent sculpts and the casting is very good with minimal flash, however gluing all the arms, hats etc. on the figures is a chore. I would much prefer a little less options so I could get painting them quicker but I am probably in the minority in that respect.

The assembled figures.

I have undercoated the figures in black and I am using GW movement trays. Movement trays is something I normally would avoid but since I may be playing some skirmish ECW games as well I have kept more figures on single bases.

I hope to post back with some eye candy of the painted regiment soon.

Cheers
Neil

Disaster on the Zambesi!

2009-10-04T11:37:00.000+11:00

October 5th 1883
Cape Colony
South Africa

Lord Harrington
Foreign Office
Whitehall, London

Dear Sir,

I am writing to inform you of a most terrible occurence on the Zambesi river earlier this month.
With the return of the HMLS Dauntless we have received news of the destruction of our expedition headed by Professor Pratt and Surgeon Major Robertson. At this stage we hold little hope of any members of the expedition being found alive.

The Dauntless was unable to rescue any members of the expedition due to the presence of a large number of native warriors which overwhelmed the defences in a sudden and terrible surprise assault. The correspondent aboard the Dauntless was able to take photographs of the action, and from interviews of the Dauntless Commander and crew we have been able to piece together a rough outline of the event.

As you are aware the expedition headed by Professor Pratt was directed up the zambesi to investigate the site of a temple where there have been rumours of strange creatures and a mysterious power source. The aim of the expedition was to locate the source of the rumours and retrieve any useful material for our country. The expedition was to be conveyed via HMLS Dauntless with two infantry detachments of the 24th foot and Cameron highlanders under overall command of Surgeon Major Robertson.

The British camp beside the river. HMLS Dauntless in the foreground. The 24th foot postioned on the right flank and the Cameron highlanders on the left flank. The light steam tank which had been adapted for jungle terrain occupied the centre position

After establishing their camp on the side of the Zambesi river, a reconnaisance of the surrounding area revealed a temple to north west. A native village was found in the north east but the early contact with this tribe indicated they had hostile intentions. The plan was for the Dauntless to remain on station to protect the camp while the infantry and steam tank were to move towards the temple and secure it.

Our only photgraph of the native camp. By their dress and huts they appear to be related to the fierce zulus tribes of southern africa, possibly a tribe which migrated north following the wars of the great Zulu king Shaka.

Before the force was able to commence operations they were attacked by a Prussian force which had clearly been shadowing our expedition. It appears that there were two infantry platoons supported by marvellous aerial machines, armed balloons and some strange gyrocoptic conveyances employing some galvanic means of propulsion. It is unclear where the Prussians obtained their intelligence of our expedition but enquiries are currently underway in the Cape Colony to discover the source of the leak.

The attack began with the Prussian Gyrocopters firing on the british infantry with their gatling guns. Their fire forcing the infantry to move off the river bank and take cover in the elephant grass lining the bank.

The British take cover.

The infantry could see two armed balloons to the north and moving through the jungle two Prussian infantry platoons. The infantry seemed to be heading towards the temple while the copters and balloons pinned the british to the camp. Major Robertson ordered the steam tank forward to engage the Prussian infantry.

The steam tank moves out of the camp to engage the Prussian infantry.

The steam tank opened fire on the Prussians inflicting several casualties among the infantry and also killed the commanders black alsatian mascot. The Prussian commander was enraged by the death of his pet and ordered the balloons to engage the steam tank.

The steam tank took several hits from dropped bombs and eventually was immobilised when its steam pipe ruptured. As the crew attempted to repair the vehicle a bomb landed right on top of it and it exploded killing all crew.

The steam tank is destroyed!

The Dauntless proved ineffective against the Prussian copters despite scoring two hits. The Prussian infantry were about to secure the temple when they were assaulted by strange blue reptilean savages who assaulted the Prussians with spear, bows and blowguns.

The Prussians were surprised by this new menace and suffered casualties as the reptiles charged home. However the Prussians survived the initial onslaught and then combined rifle volley fire and machinegun fire from the balloons virtually wiped out the blue savages.

At this point in the battle with the temple about to be taken by the Prussians and the British steam tank destroyed and alert infantry man of the 24th spotted a large native force which had moved along hidden paths to assault the british right flank.

The British turned to face this new threat and the guns of the dauntless were aimed at the natives. Interestingly the prussian copters switched their attacks to the natives indicating some previous argument between the Prussian commander the native chieftain.

Despite concentrated fire from the infantry, Dauntless and Prussian copters, the dense grasses provided good cover to the advancing warriors so that they only lost one unit before closing the distance to the british and charging home.

The left horn attacks the 24th. As they charged they threw their assegai killing several british infantry.

The right horn of the buffalo screened by the chest and cover of long grass was able to charge home against the Cameron highlanders at full strength!

Once in contact the massed natives destroyed the infantry.

The 24ft suffered a similar fate.

The last moments of the Cameron highlanders as the piper and sergeant defend the colours.

The following photograph is the last image taken of the battle before the dauntless was forced to retire. We see the last moments of the 24th as they are overwhelmed by the natives. Surgeon Major Robertson standing beside his men. While no one on the Dauntless saw the major fall in battle it would require a miracle for the major and his men to have survived. Our only hope remains that maybe the Major was able to make it to the Prussians for refuge.

A new force is now readying to embark on the Dauntless from Cape Colony to return to the sight of the battle to check for any survivors and recover bodies.

I remain,

Your Obedient servant,

Sir Henry Bartle Frere

British High Commisioner South Africa

Wargames Factory Plastic zulus review

2009-09-29T20:07:00.001+10:00

Hello all,

A year or so ago, Wargames factory released zulu war 1879 British in 28mm in Plastic. I already had some 28mm Eureka metal british infantry painted up for a future zulu war game when I could find the pile of money I would need to put together the 300 odd zulus I would need. So the appearance of plastic brits obviously lead to the next question when are the plastic zulus coming?

Well they have finally arrived, and when they finally arrived here in Oz I grabbed the first pack I came across. I was in wargamming heaven, the possibility of playing the zulu war in 28mm without taking out a 2nd mortgage to buy the figures was now a reality.

The following is my review of these figures.

Firstly, value for money. You get 30 figures with lots of weapons. You get throwing spears (assegai) and stabbing spears (iklwa) , clubs (knobkerrie) , antique percussion muskets and captured martini-henry rifles. There are 30 cowhide shields and enough heads to do the zulus as unmarried or married (with head ring). The price works out around the same price of 15mm figures.

The plastic revolution has gripped the historical wargamming world with Wargames Factory, Perry Brothers, Victrix and Warlord games all bringing out superb products but to me they all have one annoying trait... too much variety and options.

I know this may sound a bit silly but these products offer lots of equipment, heads, hats etc options and separate arms as well. More options than you could poke a stick at, however once you choose the different options, clean up the parts to remove flash etc and then glue it all together it takes ages. I would personally sacrifice a little variation so that I could get painting them quicker.

Anyway I sorted my figure options and cleaned the parts up and assembled the 30 zulus. I made one unit (10 figs) unmarried and 2 units of married. I decided to make my zulus pre-isandlwhana so they only had a few percussion muskets among their traditional weapons.

My first criticism with the plastic zulus. No bases are supplied with the figures. I ended up sticking them on Games Workshop round bases and using war of the ring movement trays. I would have liked some plastic bases like are supplied with the warlord games ECW range.

Here are some pictures of the assembled zulus:

Once I had assembled the figures I was a little dissapointed with them. Firstly the arms seemed to be a tad short, and the arms had a couple of poses which meant the shield was held akwardly.

The zulu heads sit pretty low on the shoulders giving them very short necks and looking a bit like ex english fast bowler Gladstone Small. The hands for the weapon arm are badly sculpted so that the hand doesn't look like it is grasping the weapon tightly. Lastly the shields have no hollow cavity where the fist should go so that it looks like the hand is holding the shield. I had to get out my dremel and grind cavities in each shield so the fist went in properly.

I then sprayed the zulus and movement bases black and drybrushed the movement trays and bases with GW bestial brown, snakebite leather and bleached bone.

I recently bought some of the army painter "miracle dip" stain varnish and I have tried it out on a few sample figures with good results. I wanted to get these zulus painted quickly and decided for a basic paint job followed by a coat of army painter stain ( don't dip it, paint it on with an old brush) . The zulus were painted with games workshop acrylics. I used bestial brown for skin, snakebite leather for spear shafts, knobkerries etc. loin cloth was snakebite leather and bleached bone, spear heads were boltgun metal. I suggest you paint the zulus before attaching the shields as it is a lot quicker. Once the shields are attached I painted on the stain varnish and then once dry, gave them a good coat of matt varnish (very important to get a good result using the army painter system).

And ta daaaa! Here they are zulus "thousands of em!"

Once they were painted and set up en masse I have to say they look very good. I was quite surprised how well they came up compared to my opinion of the assembled unpainted figures.

I just need to add some flock and static grass to finish them off. 30 zulus down, now only 270 more to go!!

So in conclusion, I think I would give the plastic zulus a 7 out of 10. A few annoying things about the design of the figures, in particular the shields but they paint up very well and at such a reasonable price I will be buying a lot more of these for my zulu war games. In the future I would probably add just a few empress miniature zulus for chieftains, commanders etc for a bit more variety.

I hope you enjoyed the review.

Cheers

Neil

Canvas Eagles dogfight latest.

2009-09-03T12:01:00.000+10:00

Hello all,

Here are some pictures of the last game played in our NWA Canvas Eagles campaign. The game was a Fighter sweep mission with three Germans ( Fokker DR1, Fokker DVII, and Roland CII two seater) versus 3 Brit Sopwith Camels.

The game was quite bizarre. The British had an early set back with the first Sopwith Camel shot down by the Roland on turn 4. I was flying a camel and suffered some nasty damage in two separate head on encounters with the Dr1 and DVII. I tried to make a run for home but my son flying the DVII chased me down and put me into the dirt. 2 down for the Brits.

At the same time as I was shot down the Fokker Dr1 and Roland had a mid air collision in their eagerness to shoot down the last camel.The Roland survived but the Dr1 fell apart and crashed to the ground.My son in the DVII was flying back to his own line being very low on fuel but managed to get a burst off at the last remaining camel sending it into a spin from high altitude from which it never recovered.

With the British wiped out the Roland limped home. My son flying the DVII and out of fuel, fell one hex short of making it back to his own lines and crash landed in no mans land suffering a minor injury.Unfortunately for him he was taken prisoner! So out of the 6 players on the night 4 were dead and 1 POW!!

My son is leading the campaign with 4 kills, but his plans to become the first ace of the campaign has been dealt a savage blow as he faces a long stretch in a English POW camp hoping for a prisoner exchange.

The game was a lot of fun.

Cheers

Neil

Building HMES Hermes

2009-08-10T09:04:00.000+10:00

One of the main features of the War of the Worlds display on our Open day was the ethergunboat HMES Hermes.

The Hermes was a last minute addition to the games day roster. After finishing the tripods and terrain I thought the display needed something extra for "wow" factor. Since Tom, my opponent had taken a massive lead in our arms race with his five steam tanks and balloon vehicles. The Brits needed some serious aerial support to bridge the gap. So the Hermes was conceived.

In retrospect it was a bit silly taking on a big project so late in the day. In fact I finished painting the crew on the morning of the open day so it was a close run thing.

The Hermes was of a similar construction to my HMLS Dauntless. It was made of foamboard, balsawood, styrene sheet and lots of pins for rivets. With VSF you can never have too many rivets. The crew and guns were from Eureka's colonial gunboat range. Ships wheel from Reviresco.

Since I didn't have much time to work on the design I largely imitated SPACE 1889/Cloudships of Mars designs. When I revisit this project to finish off those few little things I may put a floating platform above the boiler so that I can have a Hale Rocket Battery for a bit more firepower.

I am very happy with how it has turned out but it needs a couple more fittings to completely finish it like ventilation funnels and search lights. I'll get round to that in the coming weeks.

The Hermes pretty much finishes up my VSF Brit force for now. I have one unit of skywalker jump infantry to finish and a few personality figures to paint and then I am done.

My next project is English Civil War with the great Warlord games plastics, however I did buy a packet of the Wargames Factory plastic zulus, so I may get distracted! :)

Anyway here are the pictures.

Cheers

Neil

I found some pictures of steam gauges on the net and shrunk them to size for the cabin display panel. On the back wall is a painting of the Cutty Sark. Later on I put up a photo of Queen Victoria (Gaud Bless ah!) and a schematic of the SPACE 1889 Aphid class gunboat.

Rivets Rivets Rivets!

More rivets!

The propeller is from a balsa wood Sopwith Camel Kit that I have had in my cupboard for years. I thought the prop could be put to better use on the Hermes.

Painting was very basic. Grey Base coat. Drybrush with grey/white mix. I used grephonne sepia wash from Games Workshop for rust stains. I liberally apply it over seams and around rivets. I drag the brush downwards for streaky rust stains from the rivets. The deck was balsa wood stained with the sepia wash.

The Hermes in action on the Mars Station.

Thanks for stopping by.

Cheers

Neil

Nunawading Wargames Open Day 2009 display.

2009-08-09T09:06:00.000+10:00

Over the last few weeks I have been flat out working on the display for my wargame clubs open day.

http://www.nwa.org.au/

My fellow gamer Tom and I have been building up our VSF forces, and we decided that we would introduce the VSF genre to the public at our annual open day. The theme: The War of the Worlds on Mars!

Here is the scenario description for our display game:

War of the Worlds II

Folllowing the failed Martian invasion of Earth the great powers were able to harness some of the new technology and fearing another invasion from the Red planet set upon taking the initiative and attacking Mars itself.

The Martians were devastated by their defeat and had expended vast amounts of resources in both material and personnell in the failed attack. So depleted was their strength that when the Human forces landed on Mars they were in no shape to mount a defence and instead retreated into their underground cities to regroup.

The Great nations of Earth, finding Mars undefended set about colonising the red planet. While initially cooperating, old tensions soon resurfaced and very soon Mars was carved up as each power sought to establish their own colonies and sometimes this resulted in conflict.

The Battle of Mare Australis.

The British Martian Expeditionary forces (BMEF) that arrived on Mars, also brought along a number of scientists including,archaeologists and botanists.

The Famed Eygptologist Dr Heronimous "Digger" Pratt escorted by a detachment of the BMEF including the Landship HMLS Dauntless have discovered an abandoned Martain City near the sea of Mare Australis.

Their investigations into this city have discovered a Martian power device which luckily is intact and operational. They hope that this power device will prove useful in providing energy to the new British settlement and may also enable the British to use some of the captured Martian Heat ray weapons captured in the failed invasion.

However the British discovery has been leaked to Prussian forces and the small British Camp is attacked by overwhelming Prussian troops lead by their Charismatic leader Count Otto von Brakenstein.

While the British and Prussians fight over the power device the Martians have now chosen this moment to recommence offensive operations. Two Tripods that had not been ready in time to take part in the Earth invasion have been completed and they intend to recapture the power device and eliminate both British and Prussian forces.The Second War of the Worlds is about to begin...

And here are the photos enjoy!

The British left flank.

The British right flank

The Prussian forces:

HMLS Dauntless advances towards the enemy flanked by the Naval Brigade.

The evil Martians survey the unfolding drama waiting for their moment to strike!

The right flank consisting of HMLS Dauntless,Naval Brigade, 21st Unicycle lancers, and the 24th Regiment of foot commanded by Lt Bromhead advance.

The left flank consisted of two thunderer cannons, the Hardlove light steam charger, Gordon highlanders, sikh regiment and the impervious suits.

The first main Prussian assault was conducted by the jump infantry. The whirlegigen troops attacked the british right flank while the rocket infantry attacked the left flank.

While the Prussian attack was a surprise, their assaults were miss timed and both units were virtually wiped out with the british only taking minor casualties.

HMES Hermes provides vital aerial support.

The British camp. Queen Victoria (Gaud Bless ah!) watches the unfolding battles with her usual grim resolve. By her side is her faithful scottish bodyguard.

The Hermes attacks.

The Prussian armour advances. The Prussian Daleks cross the bridge to engage the British left flank.

The Prussian attacks were faltering. The jump infantry had been wiped out. A prussian balloon was destroyed by a thunderer cannon and the Dauntless had immobilised the Prussian spider tank and one of the steam tanks blocking the advance of the second steam tank.

The P49859081.8; __utmz=150635877.124m cover led by the Ramstein steam ram tank.

The gallant Prussian Currasiers charged the Sikh Regiment hoping to break through the british lines but the Sikhs saw them coming and the Prussian cavalry were exposed to the deadly effects of modern rifle fire.

Miraculously the Prussians charged home against the sikh but they arrived in too few numbers to strike hard and the sikh quickly despatched them with minimal losses.

The height of the battle, as the Prussian cavalry was destroyed on the Prussian right flank.

HMES Hermes was engaged by Prussian Copters powered by new galvanic cells.
The Prussian machine gun fire swept the decks killing a gunner and rocket fire damaged the Hermes propulsion systems. The two forces continued to spar but were unable to destroy each other.

It was at this point that the Martians chose to attack. One tripod engaged the British, while the other attacked the Prussians. Heat rays swept the battlefield.

The sudden appearance of the Martians threw both forces into confusion. The Prussian commander appealled to the British commander to work together against the martians.
"Why should I fight the Martians when there are Prussians to kill", the British commander was heard to say, which infuriated the Prussians, but eventually the British commander saw sense and both forces turned to engage the new enemy.

The Landship Dauntless survived a direct hit from the heat ray and its engines stalled preventing it from bringing its huge gun to bear. The Prussian Ramstein was disabled by a heat ray and then flipped by the tripod's tentacles. Two Prussian steam penny farthings madly rushed their tripod to plant sticky bombs against a tripod leg. One prussian blew himself up planting his charge but the other Prussian was successful. Unfortunately the damaged caused to the Tripod was minimal.

Lt Bromhead gallantly lead the 24th in a mad dash to plant a sticky bomb against a tripod. They succeeded in planting the charge but again the tripod survived the blast. Tentacles swept down on the 24th decimating it.

The last thing Bromhead saw was the towering mass of the tripod above him and the sound of the heat ray ringing in his ears.

With the tripods destroying the humans the game finished for the day. The display was enthusiastically received by the public and we were able to win best display on the day!

Just some quick background on the game.

We were using " Battles by Gaslight" rules.
http://www.brigadegames.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=CTGY&Category_Code=BGGLR

The miniatures were all Eureka Miniatures. http://www.eurekamin.com.au/
except for the Prussian cavalry which were from Wargames foundry.

The Prussians tanks were conversions of GW tanks.

The Prussian balloons, HMLS Dauntless and HMES Hermes were all scratchbuilt.

The tripods are my own design and are now available from Eureka.

Thanks for dropping by.

Cheers
Neil

The Battle of Mitcham - GASLIGHT

2009-06-30T14:03:00.000+10:00

NEWSFLASH..... BRITISH & PRUSSIANS IN OPEN CONFLICT!!!

The tensions between the British and Prussians have now escalated into open combat. Reports of a large action around the small hamlet of Mitcham have caused us to despatch correspondents to obtain further information. The following photographs, taken at extreme peril to our reporters fully illustrate the seriousness of this event and it leaves us with no doubt that war is inevitable between our two great nations.

It appears that both sides have employed fantastic new technology to devastating effect against the enemy.

Our reporter has been able to obtain the first images of the new Prussian forces.

The Prussian commander identity unconfirmed at this stage.

It appears the mystery of the disapperance of genius inventor Lucifer Hardlove has been solved, and sadly for our country it is evident to all where his allegiance now lies.

An array of deadly new instruments of destruction employed by the Prussian menace.

These strange contraptions were heard to scream in a mechanical voice.. "Exterminate Mein Gott! "

These Prussian Uhlans have obviously appreciated the benefits of unicycle mounts.

Prussian shock troops that can incredibly take to the sky in short bursts of rocketry to cover large distances in a moment.

Some of the Prussian subcommanders.

The following images were taken during the actual battle. Sadly our photographer was wounded by stray gunfire and as the battle intensified we were forced to retire to safer ground. It appears that the battle ended in a bloody draw as nightfall forced both forces to retire.

The British lines

The Gallant Sikh regiment commanded by Surgeon Major Reynolds.

Sir Wellyn Shaftsbury (and dog Toby) commands the british right flank.

The Prussian lines

Prussian infantry moves through the woods to engage the British right flank

The British forces advance with their powerful Impervious Suits supported by the 17th Unicycle Lancers.

The 17th Lancers sheltering behind the Inn after taking casualties from the machine gun armed Prussian Daleks. The Daleks enter the village. The Lancers prepare to charge. However their plans are foiled by the sudden attack of the Prussian rocket troops attacking them from behind

those callous fiends! Booo! Hissss! Watch out! He's behind you!!! "Oh no I'm not!"

All miniatures are from Eureka Miniatures here in Melbourne. The terrain and British forces are my own while the Prussians are owned by fellow NWAer Tom Brake.

Cheers

Neil

Martian Tripod is finished!

2009-05-28T22:57:00.000+10:00

Here are some pictures of the finally finished Martian Tripod.
Enjoy!

The Tripod approaches the small village of Woking.

The deadly Heat Ray!

The gallant defenders prepare to die for Queen and country.

Bows and Arrows against the Lightning!

The Unsympathetic Martian prepares to unleash the dreaded heat ray.

The Gallant Shaftsbury and his loyal companion confront the invader in the name of Queen Vic "Gaud Bless er!"

The last thing our gallant hero saw before oblivion!

The Tripod should be available from Eureka Miniatures in about a week.

http://www.eurekamin.com.au/

Hammerings from the pit

2009-05-10T21:45:00.000+10:00

Hello all,

A project that has been brewing slowly in the background over the past 6 months has been my desire to build my own War of the Worlds Martian Tripod to use in my Victorian Science Fiction games. Well finally it has reached a stage where I can show some pictures of it progress. After initial design drawings, I made masters of the hood and legs of the tripod. Moulded them in silcone and then cast copies in resin. The tripod was assembled (pin every part and glue with epoxy glue) and after clean up it was painted in a metallic green colour with glowing red windows.

Here are some pictures:

And here it is... The Fighting Machine!

The Tripod is 28mm scale and stands 34 cm high and will look quite impressive on the wargame table!

The tripod is going to be used as part of our wargames club's open day where it will be the focus of our Gaslight Victorian Science Fiction Game set on Mars.

There are still a few things to do to finish it off. I have sculpted up some tentacles which my friends at Eureka Miniatures will cast up for me in white metal (so they can be bent and posed) and I need to sculpt up the heat ray and black smoke launchers to also be cast in resin.

Afterwards these Tripods will be available for sale from Eureka Miniatures so keep watching their website for news on the Tripod's release. This is my first attempt at a commercial project and I am excited by the prospect of people all around the world getting the chance to game with my tripod design. If it takes off I hope to expand the range to include the Handling machine, crashed cylinder and of course miniature figures like Ogilvy the Astronomer.

Cheers

Neil.

Canvas Eagles campaign at NWA.

2009-04-27T14:43:00.000+10:00

On Friday night the Canvas Eagles WWI dogfight campaign kicked off with a mass dogfight featuring 12 aircraft (6 allied vs 6 German).

Aircraft flown on the night included, Sopwith Camel, Sopwith Dolphin, Spad XIII, Fokker DVII, Fokker DR1 and Albatross DIII.

The night started well for the Germans with very quickly one british camel being seriously damaged and forced to retire and then another camel was shot up by Manfred Voss’ Dr1 and then finished off by Victor Von rumple in his Fokker DVII. His brother Manfred Von Rumple flying another DVII was badly damaged and was forced to leave the battle. As the fight progressed other aircraft joined the fray. A collision between Barker’s Camel and Von Wise’s DVII left the Fokker’s tail smashed and the plane plummeted to the ground. Charlie Barker’s plane survived the collision and made it back to allied lines securing the young pilot his first kill. We hope next time he employs more orthodox methods to destroy the enemy.

Manfred Voss found himself surrounded by Allied planes and Lt Lewis flying the lone Dolphin sent Voss’ Dr1 crashing to the ground.

The lone American pilot Lt Chuck Budwiser spent the night flying back and forth in his Spad using his speed to evade the enemy but caused the Germans little damage.

Over enthusiastic, Budwiser forgot about his fuel and had to glide back to allied lines, just making it home despite being harrassed by two Albatross. Indeed if not for the presence of Lewis’ Dolphin to draw fire, Budwiser may well have come a cropper. As it turned out he will have some explaining to do to the CO as to why his plane is stuck in a field out of gas rather than back in the hangar.

The Remaining Dolphin turned for home leaving the two German Albatross controlling the air but the day belonged to the allies.

pictures to follow shortly.

Cheers
Neil

The Building of HMLS Dauntless

2009-02-26T13:06:00.000+11:00

The HMLS Dauntless is my first scratchbuild attempt at a Victorian Science Fiction Landship.

I have gone for a fairly historical appearance to the vessel, based on a Colonial ironclad gunboat that would be seen patrolling the nile or yellow river. The vessel is to be used for both VSF and regular colonial gaming. In VSF mode it has a large heavy gun in a forward turret and is amphibious. For regular colonial games the forward turret can be removed to be replaced with a regular cargo hold and the wheels are removable too.

The construction was fairly straightforward. I used foam board and card for the main superstructure while the cabin and decking was made using styrene sheet. The Turret was scratchbuilt , however the machine gun and Hotchkiss quick firing gun are from Eureka Miniatures colonial range.

I have ordered a few ships components from Reviresco so I can add ships boats , anchors etc. but for now the ship is game ready. The ship is crewed by Eureka miniatures from their colonial range, however the Captain is my own conversion of the Eden Hardlove miniature from the Pax Limpopo range.

Cheers

Neil

First eye candy Victorian Science Fiction!

2009-02-13T09:54:00.000+11:00

Hello all,

Here are the first pictures of my British VSF army. I will post more pictures in the coming days including a series on the construction of the Landship HMLS Dauntless that I am just finishing off at the moment. All figures are from either Eureka miniatures Pax Limpopo or Colonial ranges in 28mm. At our wargamming club their is currently an arms race between myself playing the Brits and Tom ( Baron von Brakenstein). We are scratchbuilding steam tanks and walkers like mad. The rules we are using are Gaslight and Battles by Gaslight.

The 24th of foot lead by Lieutenant Bromhead and Colour Sargent Bourne.

The Hardlove Steam driven Impervious Suits armed with Explosive harpoons, Light Gatling gun and Galvanic Discharge Cannon!

The Light Steam Charger provides a mobile heavy Gatling Gun with armour protection from small arms fire.

The Thunderer provides important heavy support but its absence of armour makes it vulnerable if exposed to enemy fire.

Welcome to little lead men of valour

2009-01-18T20:23:00.001+11:00

Hello all and welcome to my wargamming blogsite. My Name is Neil and I am a keen wargamer based in Melbourne. I am a member of Nunawading wargames Association http://www.nwa.org.au/index.html

This blog will cover current and past wargamming projects and provide plenty of eyecandy for the wargamming fan. I will also add articles I have written on various aspects of our curious hobby including lots of how- to stuff.

Currently I am interested/playing the following games/genres:

De Bellis Antiquatatis (DBA) - Ancient & medieval wargamming.
For this I use 15mm figures. At the NWA we run a different campaign each year. Last year was the 1st Crusade, previous years we have had Fall of the Roman Republic, Samurai Age of War
http://www.members.optusnet.com.au/neil_hughes/sengoku%20jidai.htm
and this year we are going to be playing The War of the Roses.

Hordes of the Things (HOTT) - Fantasy wargamming
A great set of rules for fantasy/sci fi gaming based on the DBA system but with some great extra troop types. I use 28mm figures (God's own scale) predominately Games Worshop figures. Despite GW's many faults they do make superb figures. Here is the NWA HOTT club page:
http://www.nwa.org.au/hott/hott.html We play a fair bit of Big Battle HOTT >36AP rather than standard HOTT.

Warhammer EPIC 40K.
One of the best games to come out of GW. I play the imperial guard and plan to do Feral orks in the future.

Canvas Eagles - World War I dogfighting
We play this great game using 1/72nd scale figures. I recently scratchbuilt a Zeppelin for our club open day. http://www.nwa.org.au/events/080809games08/backroom/g08backroom.html#ww1

Gaslight- Victorian Science Fiction gaming
We have just started playing this. Currently I am painting a 28mm British force using mainly Eureka Miniatures figures and scratchbuilt vehicles.

English Civil War - 28mm
This is the other main project for 2009. I plan to play it in 28mm using probably Foundry,Perry and the upcoming Warlords games plastic 28mm figures.

other games/periods I have some interest:

Warhammer 40K
Lord of the Rings
Bloodbowl
American Civil war
Napoleonics
Napoleonic Naval 1/1200
Colonial

I hope you enjoy visiting this blog.

Cheers
Neil.