My First Gaming Table

When I started wargaming (early GW that is) I was still at school, and whatever space I had was extremely limited. In fairness my parents attempted to accommodate my interest with my dad bringing home a couple of plywood boards from work one day. Unfortunately the only place to put them was across my bed and whenever I leaned on them most of my figures would slide and fall about or be fired off into the air.

This restricted me to using friends' houses, and thankfully one of my mate's had a huge bedroom that we could easily place four 6x4ft boards and literally get out every figure we had in enormous summer long 'Good vs Evil' battles. Despite this it never stopped me wishing for enough room to at least have a decent sized board where I could run through a few games either with a few friends or on my own.

Fast forward approximately thirty years and my ever understanding and considerate partner suggested that I utilize our back room for my painting, and possible gaming endeavours.

So today we finally (literally) dragged, pushed, pulled and heaved a medium size table from the summer house up to its rightful place amongst all my figures and gaming stuff. Although this also involved the frustrating removal of one internal door, the efforts were worthwhile. I then laid two plywood sheets over it and got my Kallistra Hexon terrain out of its box (flocked and scattered and unused until now). Andrea suggested getting some trees and buildings out to "take a photo for my blog". Although I debated her decision to put my WotR archers in trees and on rooftops ("they can shoot better up there") and endured some of her jibes about 'Robin Hood Men in Tights', I think it looks great. I know many of you with gaming rooms that could double as second holiday homes (note: my mate Paul actually turned up at someone's home and knocked on it only to be told that he was calling at the bloke's games room - and he and his family lived in the house next door!!) but I'm actually really happy with it :)

28mm Modern Afghans - Empress Miniatures

This is my first personal foray into moderns and it was influenced by Sebastian Junger's incredible book "War" which details his experiences in the Korengal Valley in Afghanistan as an embedded reporter. It's probably some of the finest war reporting since reading Michael Herr's "Dispatches" back in the 1980's.

For a ruleset I've chosen Skirmish Sangin by Radio Dishdash publishing (http://www.skirmishsangin.com/). The reason for this is that the conflict lends itself excellently to low level skirmish gaming, with small squads and irregular forces etc. Also I liked the narrative role playing aspect that Skirmish Sangin promotes. At the time I was not aware that Too Fat Lardies were bringing out a modern day expansion rulebook for Chain of Command called  Fighting Season. So I'll be checking that out at some point too.

The Empress Miniatures figures are absolutely lovely. Very well proportioned and excellently sculpted. When it came to a painting scheme I watched a couple of highly informative documentaries on Youtube that followed the Taliban side of the fighting one of which is called "Behind the Taliban Mask - The Other Side of Afghanistan's Front Line". You can find it here: https://youtu.be/5OI8Y0jjM0k

I was surprised that the so-called Taliban uniform isn't the stereotypical black turbans, black eyeliner etc etc. Instead it was a mixture of many styles and colours which included both civilian wear and military clothing. This is great from a painter's perspective because you can make each figure unique.

I started with a black undercoat and then applied the base coat with a brown inkwash over the top. Once dry I highlighted in the same colours. I'd considered foregoing the inkwash completely and doing layers of highlights, but once I'd tried this on a sample figure I felt it was way too bright and lacked a certain earthy, realistic feel that I wanted from my fighters.

I've currently got a few more packs on order, including some US, British and Australian forces. So watch this space for more updates!

28mm Chain of Command Normandy Fight

This game was put on at the club a few weeks ago, but I just came across the photos and thought they were worth reproducing here. Apologies for not remembering too much of the details of how it unfolded. What I do recall is how I'd initially pushed my Germans to the edge of the town forming a defensive perimeter against the advancing Brits. There were shell holes providing cover for an MG team on the right, and a small ruined farmhouse on my left. Running between these was a line of barbed wire. I'd also got a sniper covering from the building in the town.

Pretty solid I thought. My plan actually worked for about three turns. I'd covered a gap in the hedge where the Brits were coming through, and they'd lost a full squad in the process. However, as soon as their mortars came into play it was obvious my men could only take it for so long. This gave the British time to recover and move their men forward. The first problems happened around the ruined farmhouse and I had to pull the Germans back into a second defensive position. Despite spirited resistance I had the feeling they weren't going to last, as the mortars began to shake them once more. One lucky event happened when German reinforcements arrived in half tracks and started to bolster those who had by now fallen back into the buildings.

Whilst I had my doubts that even this would save us, I was reassured by news from the other end of the table that Dave's several tanks had successfully defended the Chateau (a major objective) and I glanced over to see plenty of burning Shermans and Dave looking rather pleased with himself!

Battle of Evesham Festival 2015 and Participation Game

Thanks to Dan at Wargames Illustrated, our Club (The Sons of Simon De Montfort - https://www.facebook.com/SonsOfSimonDeMontfort ) was invited to run our participation game at The Battle of Evesham Festival last weekend. It was an early start on Saturday morning for myself, Chris and Rich as we headed down in the cars from Loughborough, although special mention has to be made of Dan and his family's huge efforts in not only successfully transporting all the terrain boards, figures and display items to the site before us, but making sure we were well looked after while we were there.

The organisers had arranged for our game to be put on in a very large 'Yurt'. So we were a bit intrigued as to what that may entail. As it happens it was a miracle of olde tyme engineering, as the owner proudly showed us its impressive design and structure. At one point he described it as "the cadillac of Yurts" which I for one couldn't disagree with.

As anyone who saw us with the participation game at salute 2015 will attest, it consists of a representation of the battlefield of Evesham (a large sloped hill with De Montforts charge starting at the bottom and crashing its way into the Royal Army assembled at the crest). This whole thing was created by the master craftsman himself Mr Ron Ringrose. The rules had been written by Dan and called 'De Monfort Must Die' where a player took the role of one of the twelve assassins that were tasked to hunt down De Montfort on the battlefield and slay him in personal combat. Very simple and fun. As it happens Dan also decided on including a sort of side game for the very young children in attendance called "Spot the..." where they had to try and identify tiny details such as a wandering monk, some ducks, a cat. a lady on a horse etc. So successful was this, I made the joking suggestion that we should print the 'rules' as a hard back deluxe leather bound tome and charge fifty quid a pop for it.

As for the older children (along with a few of their parents) they took to the proper game with absolute gusto. At a few points during the weekend there were people lined up waiting to take their turn, and we were really bowled over by the response. Sometimes the kids were coming back two or three times throughout the day trying to beat their previous score or those of their mates. We even got a local Senior Councilwoman and her husband asking for a go!

It was a brilliant chance to introduce Wargaming to people who had perhaps never experienced it before, and whilst packing away on Sunday I smiled and expressed the idea that there would probably be people years from now saying "I played my first Wargame at the Battle of Evesham Festival!"

The Festival itself was indeed great. Very well arranged with loads of different stalls and dozens of tents for the reenactors as well as a large field for the latter when they recreated the battle. Everyone had the benefit of glorious weather and to see something really educational and inspiring.

1/3000 WW2 Italian Battleships with Aircraft

Today's painting project is complete. These are the last few of my Mick Yarrow 1/3000 Italian Battleships (Roma and Vittoria Veneto), so now I've a considerable collection which should help towards future Naval games at the club. Also featured are my first 1/600 SM79 Torpedo bombers from Tumbling Dice UK.

To create the flight stands I used some mdf bases with a 1p coin glued to each, so as to add weight and balance. Next I took some large paper clips and stretched them into lengths of approximately 6cm (one large clip should make two stands). I bent each at the bottom into a 'flat hook' and super glued it onto the coin, then put filler across the coin and base to hide it. While they dried I cut very small, short lengths of hollow biro re-fill and super glued these to the underside of each aircraft.

This means I can pop the planes onto alternative flight stands if I should ever feel the need. I painted each stand with a sea effect, as I'll be primarily using these for naval games.

Carry on Up the Khyber - 15mm Northwest Frontier

We used the rather excellent Battles for Empire rules again for this Colonial jaunt. Set in 1888 it was a factual scenario pitting a British force comprising of an Irish regiment and several Indian and Sikh ones, against Pathan tribesmen.

Three columns of British had ventured into the area and begun to destroy villages and crops in the hope of starving the rebellious tribes out. This focussed on one of these columns, advancing tentatively across an open plain and encountering woodland on their left, hills on the right and a dry river bed running across the front. Their aim was to exit the board directly opposite. The Pathans were initially hidden and required spotting by the Brits.

As a Pathan, I'd decided to wait to see how the British elements would arrange their progress before trying a few pot shots with some marksmen I had hidden in the trees. Unknown to the British we'd arranged our tribesmen in stone sangers both on the hills, and across the riverbank on the far side. The shock of the day would be around 2,000 Ghazi fanatics laying low on their left in the riverbed, ready to spring their trap once the time was right.

The initial Pathan rifle fire was pretty useless, but I was hoping it may confuse or distract the enemy as to where our real whereabouts. We had two smoothbore cannons in the woods in the same area, but they didn't have the correct range as the British were not taken in by the ruse and moved further across the plain.

I could still sense that the British were feeling tense, and as they neared the hills some units of Pathans opened up at long range. Paul who commanded this position was quite successful in inflicting some casualties and some Sikh units began to pull back slightly. The British tried to move a couple of Gatling guns up, but after an initial ineffective burst they both jammed!!

By this time the tribesmen across the river started firing and again revealed their position. Paul came up tops with the dice rolling and cut down an entire company of Indian troops. After this it was all brutal hand to hand fighting in front around the sangars and the British were forcing their way up the hills under constant fire.

About this time I decided to launch the howling war band from their hidden positions onto the enemy left flank. As the British stood astounded at this host appearing suddenly, I was required to roll the d6 to decide their movement factor.....and what do you know, a 1!!! This slowed me down to a meagre 6 inches movement when I should have been steaming along at 12 inches. Ok, so the Brits were still trying to form into a firing line hence I'd get another crack to get it right. So...roll again and another bloody 1!!!

Now the British had sorted themselves out and began a steady fire which resulted in some of my Ghazi units faltering. Nevertheless I still had at least four units bouncing forward and my next rolls resulted in sixes which meant "Fanatic Charge!". Thus began a furious melee, and the British showed fantastic mettle in forcing two more Pathan units into retreat despite high losses. The Pathans did ok with their dice rolling after this, but the minus caused by those early casualties had made it difficult and the remainder also began to leave the field. In conclusion those two bad dice rolls in the previous movement phases had been my downfall. Had it not been for them, I'd have swamped the British positions with sword wielding lunatics before they knew what to do. But hey, there you go :)

15mm Ansar Camelry (and the Trials of Living with a Miniature Painter)

Here's some more of my Peter Pig 15mm Sudan Ansar. The bases on these are not quite finished. I've been painting every chance I get during the past few weeks, and the Ansar army is near to completion. Just a few more horse and command bases...then I'm straight on to the British.

You may notice the state of my laptop keyboard in the above photo. It's been a (bad) habit of mine to use my computer as a mini mobile paint station. This is because I can sit in the living room, where there's plenty of light, whilst my partner watches her programmes on the TV. It also means I can stick the headphones in and catch up on a few history documentaries or films when I'm painting away. The downside is that I've a tendency to get paint literally everywhere I go. The other day I narrowly avoided destroying the laptop altogether when I spilt superglue across it.

It struck me that over the years I've wreaked a certain amount of havoc with my hobby pursuits. So here's a list of the ones I remember:

- Hacking into the living room carpet with a craft knife, then trying to fix it with PVA glue.

- Realising that I don't own a pair of jeans that don't have paint on them. I even managed to get green paint on a new leather belt I bought the other week.

- Accidentally spraying GW Chaos Black onto the hallway floor of the old Flat I used to live in. I tried to hide it by spraying the carpet again with a similar shade of Grey (the landlady never noticed thankfully).

- Getting Vallejo White on one of the Cat's tails. No idea how this one happened.

- As a kid I dropped the lid of some Humbrol Enamel onto a new duvet cover, then tried to get it off with white spirit. It was difficult to disguise the toxic smell once my parents came home, and I was subsequently banished to the garage for about 6 months. Which was like Siberia but full of old engine parts.