16 May 25 - Hobby Update

It has been a while, hasn't it? I haven't done too much gaming - although not quite nothing - but I got made redundant at the end of March and I have been busy with a new business venture since then, so gaming time has been at a premium and sometimes, frankly, thinking about gaming has felt more within my remaining energy levels than actually doing any! 

That said, I have managed to get a bunch of 6mm WW2 infantry done...

Some US Paratroopers from 2D6.

Some Volksturm from 2D6.

And some extra French infantry from Heroics and Ros. These have a wider variety of support weapons, so should come in handy.

Plus some Baccus WW2 British: artillery, anti-tank guns and armoured cars

And some American armoured cars and artillery too.

I also did a bunch of Warlord Games' Greeks for my youngest. They turned out quite nicely I thought, they are nice figures. I did two batches, one with coloured shields, the other with bronze shields.

Games-wise, there hasn't been so much. I have nearly finished the Caesar's camp pint-sized campaign, will put up some more of the battle reports soon (there is one more scenario to go, although of course it is possible that that will imply more than just one action in the context of a campaign).

I have also had a couple of games of the old SPI game WW2: European Theater of Operations, just using the introductory scenarios as I start to get the hang of it. Here, the Brits are hunting the Bismarck...

Otherwise, the little gaming I have been doing has been RPG-based: some Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 1e and some Original D&D.

Plans are to finish off this CoC campaign and then move on to other 1940 stuff; I would like to continue my intermittent refights of the battles of the Thirty Years' War; and maybe get something Napoleonic to the table too. I am also quite keen on starting a new campaign of some kind. But, as ever, so much I would like to do, so little time to do it! I have plenty to get on with painting-wise so I should try and be restrained about new purchases: OTOH, the new Napoleonic Spanish from Perry are very tempting and it is Partizan on Sunday! And plus, there is something nice about getting a bunch of new stuff occasionally. That said, filling in the gaps is still the order of the day, rather than whole new periods and so on. 28mm Napoleonic Spanish do fit into that: I do have some 28mm Napoleonic British and French for them to fight with or against, and I also want to have at least one 28mm horse-and-musket army in my collection, for if my eyesight starts to go when I am older - and it would make sense I think to have that more-or-less ready now. But I do still really want to eliminiate the lead pile, so I need to everything reasonable in terms of quantity.

 

13th April 2024 Hobby Update

I haven't played quite as many games over the last fortnight or so, but I have managed to get a couple of things to the painting table, which are nearing completion.

The painting tray, in all its glory!

The based 6mm stuff are a variety of somewhat speculative things for the Jacobite Rebellions. This isn't too much of a problem since the whole collection has a slightly whimsical air in the first place, with the foundational armies being a British WSS force for the Hanoverians, whilst I mainly use some WotTK Highlanders for the Jacobites. That probably isn't too bad for Killiekrankie, not awful for Sherrifmuir but more the legend than the reality for Culloden. Ho hum. Anyway, these few bases are too round out some of the troops for both sides. The Hanoverians get some combined Highland Independent companies, using Baccus 6mm AWI highlanders with tam o'shanter type bonnets; the Stuarts get two 'non-Highland' Scots' Jacobite units (using the remainder of the AWI highlander pack), plus two 'English' Jacobite regiments, one being the Manchester Regiment and the other being given the semi-fictitious name of the 'Forster Regiment', as the kernel of the English Jacobites who ended up surrendering at Preston to end the first half of the '15. Like the Royal Eccossais unit, the Manchester Regiment is in a WSS-ified version of its uniform, so historicity is not quite the first priority here! I painted the other unit in brown coats, I think from the cover of the book about the Second Battle of Preston. Is there a book which covers the uniforms of all the Jacobite rebellions in sufficient detail to do all the armies? Anyway, a few non-Highland Jacobite foot units in whatever guise will be helpful for some of the battles. I would like to add some English and Lowland Jacobite Horse for the '15 but I am not quite sure how to paint the English, or whether Scots' Covenanter Horse would be 'close enough' for the Lowland Horse.

Sorry, not a great photo here, but just finishing off a few very nice Perry late C15 knights, plus a conversion of a Mahdist body with a Statuesque miniatures female head, for a 'Hammer Horror'-type scenario with a heroine running around in a nighty and a sword pulled from the mansion wall! It looks okay at wargaming-distance...

German WW2 vehicles: PzIVFs from 2d6 Wargaming* to the left in (dark) Panzer Grey - I have only very recently become aware of the differences of opinion between 'darker' Panzer grey and 'lighter, bluer' Panzer grey. I think the darker Panzer grey looks better on the smaller models especially, plus they match the early war tanks I have which are in the Panzer grey/dark brown camouflage schemer.  To the right are some more German motorcycle and sidecar combinations, and some more cars (BMWs?); I didn't have as many as I would have liked for playing some of these WW2 campaign scenarios that I am doing at the minute, so thought I would get in some reinforcements!

Still some more work to do on these Hanomags, but they are nice models! From Baccus.

Hopefully I will get most of these off the tray today or tomorrow. Not sure yet what will replace them, I might have a rummage and see what takes my fancy. I do like the colourful simplicity and elegance of WSS-era soldiers!

Game-wise, my e-mail Napoleonic Italy campaign is drawing towards its climax. Not sure what I will tackle next as a campaign. Apart from that, there are a few battles left to do in 'Kampfgrupper Heller' in Poland; France 1940 is calling my imagination again; there is still lots I want to do in the Neil Thomas-esque vein I have been mining; and I would like to do some Twilight of Divine Right battles soon too. So plenty to be getting on with.

*Incidentally, 2d6 Wargaming seems to be back trading again having been up for sale only a few months back! Strange, but welcome. Will have to have an e-rummage soon. In fact, what I really feel like doing is having a shop for a few books and a few miniatures. Will I resist? Should I even try?!?!

Hobby Update - 28th March 2023

 It has been a super-busy time and no mistake! Lots of work things going on, lots of family things...at times, it has been quite tough-going. Unusually for me, it hasn't impacted too much on the gaming, but it has seemed to effect the painting side more.

 In January, I was working on some US paratroopers from Warlord for my youngest son. As usual, my painting is very average, but the figures are nice and kind of carried them through. My son seemed happy enough, in any case!

Next up, some 6mm Dutch from Baccus for the War of the Spanish Succession. And as befits that army, no more than half of them are Dutch...there are Scots, Swiss, Huguenots and Nassauers in amongst them...I mainly used a combination of the Kronstadt website and Mark Allen's old Wargames Illustrated articles to guide me; hopefully that isn't too awful a choice! I know that real afficianados should be buying Robert Hall's stuff, but since this project has a touch of the imagi-nations about it, I didn't want to pay more for the reference guide than I did for the army...

Next up, some buildings from 2D6 Wargaming, before they very sadly closed down - these are some of their Normandy buildings. They were still a work-in-progress at this stage, but good looking buildings will always find a use!

 Next, some Baccus WW2 US artillery, 105s and 155s. More nice models, and very important if you need to get a game at slightly higher command levels.

More figures for my youngest: Perry Mahdists. Again, really great figures, and not too complicated to paint. My youngest seemed pretty happy...

More Perrys for my youngest. This time, Agincourt-era Mounted Knights. I can really not do these justice, but they were nice all the same. I used the horse painting guide from Henry Hyde's Wargaming Compendium in a step-by-step wat for the first time, and it did make the horses slightly better, with more convincing socks and face markings and so on.

 And then to accompany them, the Agincourt Foot Knights:

Very repetitive I know, but same again: delightful figures, painting not so hot, but niceness of the figures shines through anyway. And the son seemed to like them too!

I have a feeling there are a couple of bits and pieces of 6mm stuff I may have forgotten to put on, but I am sure I will remember at some point! In any case, I have finished the stuff that my son had wanted me to do for him, so next painting phase will be more me-focused. In no particular order, the main 'themes' are:

6mm WW2 Vehicles and Infantry (more German vehicles and Volksturm, some US Paras)

6mm WSS/Horse & Musket (just 'bits and pieces' really, filling in gaps where I would like a new unit)

6mm Byzantines (whole army to paint up)

6mm Napoleonics (more gap fillers, particularly Confederation of the Rhine units)

6mm Ancients (a couple of minor gap fillers - e.g. some Cataphracts)

6mm SF (more gap fillers)

15mm Cold War (some militia and terrorists, plus some East Germans)

28mm Heroquest figures, plus a few historical fillers (e.g. Napoleonic French Dragoons, Vikings)

 

So more than enough to be getting on with, even if it is only the Byzantines who individually constitute a big project.

I have prioritized gaming over painting, and to some extent blogging. I am just over halfway through the Napoleonic campaign I am running with my two fantastic volunteer generals - it has been a lot of fun (for me at least), really interesting (I have a lot to write about how much I have learned whilst doing it) and has also generated a few exciting tabletop encounters. I guess depending on how we pace it, there is another 1-2 months left in this one, and I am beginning to think what the next one would look like. Additionally, there are a couple more Kampfgruppe Heller encounters for Gummipanzergrenadier playtesting to write up, a couple more Napoleonic scenario playtests to report on and a couple more 'Neil Thomas-esque' scenarios that I have played. I have a couple of days off over Easter, that might give me a chance to catch up!

 

Hobby Update 03 Nov 22

I still haven't got many wargames in for one reason or another - although I did get to play a DBA game head-to-head for the first time yesterday! I really enjoyed it, although my abysmal combat dice rolling meant there was only going to be one result!!!  I have been playing some roleplaying games, specifically Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 2nd edition (review here, adventure review here)

In any case, I have managed to get a few things painted up.  Some rather nice Stargrave figures:

There are a couple of conversions using some Gripping Beast Dark Age Warriors at the back of this one

Apologies, some of this crew have darker skintones which rather blended into the background in this shot!!!

And another bunch of Skaven, which I have in mind for a very specific project next month:

A platoon of Battlefront "Team Yankee" West German infantry, plus some civilian vehicles from a 15mm 3D printing company.  Apologies, the name escapes me, but these were actually got at the JoS show this year(!)

And some limbers for my Heroics & Ros 6mm WW2 French artillery pieces:

In my last update I mentioned that I had been painting up a few figures for my 6-year old son.  I have finished these off now, a platoon of Warlord Waffen SS Grenadiers and a platoon of their British Paratroopers, along with their 'Ruined Building'.  I think that they turned out quite nicely despite my fairly duff painting - the bairn seemed quite pleased in any case.

And lastly, I got a few Soviet assault guns from 2d6 wargaming painted up, alongside a Baccus 6mm US Armored Infantry company's halftracks and extra bazookas and what-not.

I also went to the Other Partizan show a few weeks back. I didn't stay for too long, I developed a bit of a nasty headache quite early.  I didn't get much for me, although I did pick up some cheap Airfix kits being sold off for my son. I got a chance to say hello to a couple of people, including Steve Jones who was putting on a very nice-looking WW2 game and trying to sell me on the virtues of Fireball Foward, and I had a chance to have a quick chat to Henry Hyde for the first time, which was nice.  I didn't take many photos, but I thought I might share these of the TooFatLardies amazing Arnhem game - check out just how authentic all the buildings look:

The story of this game is on Henry Hyde's latest Battlechat podcast, for anyone who might be interested.

Looking forward, I am going to start a new job next week. This new job looks much busier than the last one, so I think that painting and paying time will be at a premium.  I mentioned in the last update that I was looking to organize things a bit better to make quick games more easy for me to do.  I have had a few failed experiments in that regard but I am going to give that another shot today!  It is important to me: my life is better when I get a game to the table each week or two, worse when I don't.