The Ball o' Kirriemuir

So this weekend, I took the short trip (30 minutes), up the road to Kirriemuir, to play at the Kirriemuir Wargames Club.

Attendance was a bit thin, primarily because quite a few of the members had been to Partizan in Newark with the 'Bloody Big Battles' Gettysburg game. So we were very fortunate that Dale made a huge effort to organise a smashing big game using some of his 28mm Napoleonics.

Now in common with most wargamers, there's a touch of Obsession, a soupcon of Megalomania and certainly an uncontrollable lead lust, so the game naturally was 'Big'  - in keeping with the Auld Alliance, I took the French, tasked with defending a vital river crossing somewhere in Spain.

The rules used were General de Brigade, which I have played before, and they give a pretty good game, though to be honest, the initiative roll seems to be absolutely critical. Late in the game, the British had a series of rolls to win the initiative, and I was virtually steam rollered in one sector.

All in all a great fun game, thanks to my opponent, Chris, and to Dale for doing all the heavy lifting (literally!)

A sleepy Spanish town, somewhere near the French border.

On my left, one of my battalions routs in the face of a suicidal British charge across the river, The neighbouring French battery does great execution though.

Chris moves up the Royal Scots in another suicidal attack, this time, French musketry drove it back.

On my right the Brigade of Guards shrugs off enfilading French Horse Artillery

French Dragoons hang about optimistically hoping to catch the Guards disordered by the river.

Lots of fun, classic style wargaming, and I am now keen to get my Napoleonics painted up, though as my basing is designed for Sharp Practice, it's not really compatible with these guys.

Cold War Gone Hot 1985

Number 1 nephew is all excited about Team Yankee, I think because of all the cool kit. Plus he's a bit of a tank nut (I foresee a trip to Bovington sometime in my future). Anyway, he's been buying himself a fair bit of East German kit to do Team Yankee in 15mm.

Regular readers of this blog (are there such creatures?) will know I did a whole lot of 20mm Cold War stuff, which is sadly, still in Australia. But if there's an excuse.. ok, 15mm it is.

Of course, being me, I couldn't just settle for something easy as an opponent, so I decided, rather than Brits, or West Germans, or US troops, I would do Danes..   they have cool kit, like Unimogs, Walker Bulldogs and even better.. that all time classic.. Centurion tanks! So an order has gone in to QRF.

So I have the softcover Team Yankee rulebook on order, some Zvezda M109 for artillery support, the QRF gear and an F16 all due to arrive in the post, but I visited HobbyCraft today, and there was the Revell 1/100 Harrier. Wrong version, a pre paint, dated 2010, but a Harrier none the less. Still one of my favourite aircraft.

It's quite a nice little snap together kit, I did use glue, and it went together in 20 minutes..

The observant will note a couple of minor differences, the nose cone got the bulges taken out, and the outrigger wheels were moved back out to the wing tip, Then it was paint out time...

An hour or so later, and this was the result. I have to go back and tidy up the paint job, especially the tail, add some further details, and  make a flightstand, but not bad for 1/100. If you squint your eyes, make some whooshing noises, it's pretty much "Good enough for Government work".

Carronade 2017

Firstly. apologies - had camera difficulties, so no pictures. But Me and 'He' - aka First Nephew, took a drive to Falkirk for Carronade 2017.

I have to admit a certain fondness for Carronade. It is the first UK wargames show I visited when I got back (last year), it's large but not impersonal, great traders - big shout out as always to Warbases, and also to Lancashire Games, top blokes. When freedom comes a) 'don't piss in the water supply' (Alex Harvey), and b) I reckon we should ask for the border for the Scottish Soviet Peoples Republic to be about as far south as Manchester...   good people.

Ok, so the flea market.. 3 painted and based Irregular Viking longships - 1 squid, 3 sets of 1900 French legionnaire, tirallieur, 12  mounted Chasseurs Afrique, a Nordenfelt gun and a dozen naughty Arabs = 9 squids...   bargains! No idea what I will use them for, but can't resist at that price.

Then Renedra fences, an 'American Church' by Perry, and enough to do an AWI 16th Dragoons unit for Sharp Practice.

Good fun, and special nephew got all his 15mm Team Yankee East Germans...  now I need to source some 15mm Danes circa 1985...   I get to see how Centurions do vs T55.

AWI - British - or Webbs

Well, almost a year since I was at Carronade, the Falkirk show. While I was there I picked up some very cheap Wargames Foundry figures for the American War of Independence.

It has taken me almost a year, but I finally finished up the batch, and I elected to paint them very simply. My intent is to use the Too Fat Lardies 'Sharp Practice 2' rules.  These usually have between 30 - 50 troops per side, but as usual megalomania kicked in, and I added some boxes of Perry plastics, and the Warlord Games Woodland Indians & Artillery. Troops are organised into groups, of varying sizes ranging from 6 figures for skirmishers, to 8 for regular infantry, 10 for militia, and 12 for tribal troops. There are no set army sizes, but games normally scale for 5 or more groups.

I now have enough figures painted to field a decent sized British force, with Hessian grenadiers &  jager, British skirmishers, a group of Highlanders and 3 groups of line infantry. The poor old continentals have been somewhat neglected to date, but they are now a priority!

The last lot of troops I decideed to make 'multi-purpose' so they can double as British line, with one group retaining their laced coats. The other two groups are wearing the simplified coats without lace, and can double as the American Webbs regiment.

The pictures aren't the best I am afraid, I need to work on my photography.

Call of Cthulhu - miniatures

Out of the blue, sometime before Christmas, number one nephew announced that he loved the look of Achtung Cthulhu. So what is an uncle to do except encourage him by getting him the CoC rulebook and Achtung Cthulhu as a present.

Of course, as I was trawling teh Interwebs for content to encourage him, I saw a bunch of painted miniatures and was struck with nostalgia for the original Cthulhu I was playing in Glasgow in the early 1980s. Back then, I had a bunch of the Grenadier figures, which now retail for silly money on eBay, and thoroughly enjoyed painting them.

Temptation is never far away, and before I knew it, parcels from Moonraker and Northstar had arrived, hard-fisted pulp detectives and brawlers, clergy and lizard men. I rather enjoyed painting these, and I would like to think they have turned out a bit better than my 1980s efforts!

Byakhee

I experimented with oils on these guys. It's hard to see on this picture, but undercoated a brown, then oil that I then partially rubbed off.

Clergy, Detectives & Doctors

Diletantes, Explorers, Professors and Dandies

A Nightgaunt & Ghouls

Lizardmen

Dread Mi-Go

Deep Pne, Servitor and Proto-Shoggoth

Tough Guys

More Tough Guys

More AWI in 28mm

As promised, I hacked away at another batch of figures for the AWI and got them to a finished state - though when I look at the close-ups, some of them make me shudder.

So here they are:

American Militia

American 'Regulars'

Big Men & Musicians

Black Watch & British Officers

British Light Infantry (Royal Scots)

Finally, I also received my decals, so managed to finish off some British armour for Chain of Command. 

Sherman by Warlord/Italeri, others are diecast

Hessians in 28mm for Sharp Practice

So I have been periodically adding various AWI figures to the lead (and plastic) mountain since last year, but thanks to my jackdaw nature, not really getting anywhere with them. I finally knuckled down and tried to get at least a couple of 'squads' finished for Sharp Practice 2.

The figures themselves were part of a job lot bought second-hand for next to nothing at one of the Scottish shows last year, probably Edinburgh. I think they are 'Elite' figures, which looked pretty unprepossessing in the raw, but when painted I rather like them. They are from the Seven Years War range but can easily do double duty if you sort of squint a bit and ignore the Jager cartridge box being at the hip rather than belly.

So here they are, apologies for the lighting which has flattened the colours a bit:

I have quite a few other 'units' which are nearing completion, so with a bit of discipline, I should have a few more to post over the next week or so. What with the buildings that I have been working on, I should have a decent chunk of the forces I need to put on a game.