Wargames Atlantic 28mm Afghan Cavalry

       Wargames Atlantic recently added to their Imperial Conquests line with this highly versatile set of Afghan Cavalry, it is labelled 1815-1914 but this set will happily cover from the 1500s through 1940 (and with some simple modifications you could extend that another century in either direction). The figure are very cleaning cast in a firm gray plastic that takes detail very well. The figures exhibit no flash and very few mold-lines. They should be a quick build as they have few parts and can be assembled with common plastic model cement. 

       Of particular interest (especially to guys like me that love swapping parts and modifying figures) are the three new horses. These horses differ from the generic horses set produced by Wargames Atlantic a few years ago and are well sculpted and vigorously posed. The riders are dressed in the common voluminous Afghan clothing which is very well sculpted and drapes over the figure convincingly. As usual there is a dizzying array of heads, this is the one spot that I think Wargames Atlantic missed the ball; a few spare heads with Ray-Bans and ball caps along with some hands holding AK or AR platform rifles and the odd RPG would have brought this set into today's headlines. Conversely a few more spears and a few bows and bow-cases could project this set back to the 1400s. Maybe we could petition WA to produce a couple of conversion sets in resin!

 

 

 the front of the box

 

 

the back of the box

02Hundred Hours, Escape From Stalag Luft III, Escapees in Civvies

        A further expansion of the 02Hundred Hours Escape From Stalag Luft III game is this set of Escapees in Civvies. It contains four crisply detailed and well cast figures of escaped airmen trying to blend in with the local civilian population (you really can't go parading about in Nazi Germany in your Air Force uniform). The figures are well sculpted and dressed to blend in with the average civilian; three are walking calmly and carrying bundles while one poor fellow has his hat in his hand and is sprinting with a look of consternation on his tiny face (his papers failed inspection!).  The minis are cast with small "puddle" bases but are provided with larger MDF bases that will ensure that they figure isn't tipping over constantly during a game. 

 

the front of the box

02Hundred Hours, Escape From Stalag Luft III (or The Great Escape by another name)

         I am a big fan of the 02Hundred Hours systems which makes night-time Commando raids into a playable game. It rewards careful play but usually ends up with a touch of Hollywood shoot-out at the end. I found it an impressive effort at re-thinking the usual skirmish game. Now comes Escape from Stalag Luft III, this game uses the basic principles of 02Hundred Hours, but instead of a highly-trained band of heavily armed elite combat soldiers  the Allies are cast in the roles of essentially unarmed airmen trying to organize a break-out and escape from a German P.O.W. camp. Yes, think about The Great Escape in all its glory (but sadly no Steve McQueen on a motorcycle).

        This is an expansion, not a stand-alone game, it presumes that you have a copy of 02Hundred Hours to supply the minis and game components. Inside the box you will find six metal minis of the fearless Allied airmen bent on escaping from their Nazi captors and one motorcycle kit with a positively lethal-looking German soldier riding it. These minis are all new and match the exacting standards of other Grey For Now Games products. Also in the box are MDF bases for the minis, new cards to add to the Action, Equipment and Event decks and a scenario/rule book that explains the different  approach that this games takes.

 

the front of the box

 

The Unstoppable Force encounters the Easily Moveable Object

       Editor's two cents:

       We did our usual shenanigans of dicing for which book/which half and found ourselves in the first half of the third book. In the interest of further hobbling ourselves we agreed that I should pick an army and The Housemartin would choose a historically legitimate opponent. In a further act of madness I resolved to choose an army that I have never played before. After consulting my supply of Light Cavalry I selected Cumans with the idea that playing on the larger 5x8' table would allow them to skirmish properly. I've never had any luck with cavalry and I hoped this would be a turning point.

In riposte to Anton's loony choice of the Cumans, I responded with the Teutonic Order, I figured that since the army lists said that the Teutonic Order were the ones who destroyed the Cumans I might have a chance in the sand storm headed my way.  Anton outscouted me 204:13, so my army deployed first.  

Gaming Update, My place Saturday 04/13/24 7pm

 Like it says, my place 7pm. Be there or we will talk smack about you.

Old Dudes and Old Rules, Champa vs Scots-Irish

        So this time Anton convinced me that limiting our selections would be a good idea so it was decided that we would still dice for a book, and then dice for which half of that book.  We ended up with the first half of the second, or yellow book (this is where the Roman Empire armies reside).  Anton selected the Champa, one of the armies of Vietnam.  I selected the Scots-Irish (Ireland during the Roman invasion of Britain).  Anton volunteered that he chose his army to field nine elephants.  I chose my army because it gets even more Light Chariots than the famous "Ancient British Panzer Division" of these rules.  I outscouted Anton 33:12, so he had to deploy his army first and I elected to have an element of my army go on a flank march to arrive later in the battle.  Here are our deployments.  

       As a note Anton got tired of me not giving units titles so he went through and applied titles in the photo editing stage, so I will say thanks and am forced to use them.  

 

28mm Fireforge Ashigaru Shooters

 

the front of the box

 

       Hot off the presses and courtesy of my local Brick & Mortar, Michigan Toy Soldier, we find one of the latest releases from the fine folks at Fireforge Games, Ashigaru Shooters from their Samurai Wars range. Crisply and cleanly cast with no trace of flash and hardly a mold-line these minis are made of a firm medium gray plastic that exhibits excellent detail and will glue up well using normal polystyrene cement (model airplane glue). The poses are active but restrained, no silly leaping or twirling figures, they will rank-up very well. Body proportions are realistic and the figures have delicately detailed hands and faces. Weapons and armor are correct for the mid-late period and these models can easily be mixed with the Samurai Shooters figures from Fireforge to represent poorer samurai or ashigaru that serve a particularly generous lord.

28mm Fireforge Game Samurai Shooters

 

 

the front of the box

        Fresh off the presses I got a look at the Fireforge Games Samurai range figures courtesy of Michigan Toy Soldier and what an impressive group of figures these are! Cast in a medium gray plastic they exhibit fine detail, excellent proportions and historic fidelity in equal measure. They are solidly in the middle of 28mm size-wise which perhaps makes them "overscale" as most Japanese were smaller than Europeans of the era but it matters little as they spent most of their time playing on their home turf.

        In all honesty I am no authority on "things samurai" so I dug through my references and spent some time online before I looked at these minis. I find that he equipment and armor are excellent depictions of mid to late period Samurai. The armor is delicately detailed and fits the figures well, it doesn't appear "stuck on" the figure as some other ranges of samurai minis look. The weapons are correct for the period including the eccentric Japanese longbow. But enough of my chatter, let's look at the figures themselves.

Khmer and fight me like a man*

       Despite our latest move to picking armies from the same half of one of the army list volumes we managed to get an even more unlikely pairing than the last one. This time we had the Vikings facing off against the Khmer, that is one long trip halfway around the world. Perhaps we should limit ourselves to a geographic areas? Second book, eastern Europe.... who knows, it's all just silly fun anyways.

The Terrain Gods proved fickle this time around and with neither of us taking much of a mounted arm I ended up outscouting Anton 2:0 so he had to deploy first and here is our initial deployments.  

 

Battlefields, the morning at least!

        Despite the wonderful weather (a rarity in Michigan this time of year) The turnout was quite good with 100+ gamers partaking in the days events. All games were participation games and most were full to capacity. The jovial Pro or Con staff was welcoming and the company convivial. My apologies to the Gamemasters, Tabletop Events took down the list of games the day of the event and the game guide provided on the day didn't list the Gamemaster's name (which it used to do) you will remain anonymous but the great games that you brought will get credited!

 

overall shot of the hall in mid-morning

Gaming Update, 23MAR24 My Place 7pm

        As usual the title says it all.

Be there!

Thracians take a thrashing, WRG 6th ed, yet again

 This time Around Anton gave me the "head fake".  We were working out of the first half of the first book, so all the VERY early armies were in play.  Anton spent the week talking about using the "Northern Barbarians" the Asiatic step nomads before they discovered horses, so I went with the Historic opponents, The Early Shang Chinese.  Anton however instead went with the Thracians which guaranteed a blood bath for our battle as both armies relied on 2 handed cutting weapons.   Anton massively outscouted my 49:1 so I deployed my army first.  

Prehistoric Terrain

        When I think about it my idea of "prehistoric terrain" is more informed by Saturday morning "B" movies than any sort of erudite study.  These epics often took place in the desert valleys near Hollywood, a terrain MOST unlike anything encountered by humans trying to survive at the end of the last Ice Age! Some quick study made it clear that the climate was far more temperate. Land so recently scoured by glaciers would have far less topsoil and much more exposed rock so plant life would be scattered and struggling. With those thoughts in mind I sat down to paint the terrain for Zhodani Commando's caveman game.

 

a now-dead volcano's basalt core bared by the relentless weight of the ice

Wargaming Update, Battlefields is coming soon 16MAR2024

        That perennial favorite, Battlefields, will soon be upon us. Make sure to set the day aside to attend this great local convention, it is always a fun time. New this year is a Bolt Action tournament and a Paint and Take table, two great additions. Of course there will be the usual raffles and free Flea Market tables. Just $10.00 gets you in all day and games are free. There is hot food and a bar in-house and any number of good restaurants nearby. Easy access off of I-96 or I-275.

         You can find the list of games and the location on Tabletop Events.

Marius visits Persia

       Just an explanatory note; our group long ago adopted certain "alternate methodologies" when playing WRG Ancients. Frankly we abhor book-keeping so we began substituting a "saving throw" rather than carrying over fractional casualties. As, under the rules, each figure represents twenty real soldiers we decided that we would roll a D20 against any fractional remainders after the whole figures had been removed. An example would be a unit suffering 35 casualties would have one figure removed (twenty soldiers) and then roll a D20 against the remainder of fifteen. A score of sixteen or higher and the figure stays with no fractional accounting, if the result of the die roll is fifteen or less the model is removed. This can lead to some unpredictable results but we had always considered that casualty generation under WRG was far too predictable (and everyone finds my ability to roll one less than the needed number to save quite amusing). The other thing we did was to discard written orders and just announce general orders to the opposing player at the beginning of the game; "This lot will skirmish forward" or "The main line will advance and engage the enemy" and trust that our opponent will cleave unto their orders honestly (and who would care to game with someone that isn't honest?). This has worked admirably in speeding play and getting rid of tortuously-written standing orders loaded with conditional circumstances. 

This time around Anton had 19 scouting points and I had 14 so no one was outscouted and we both followed the rules and deployed our armies from our own right to left.  Below is initial deployments.  

 

Roman vs Roman

       Ed Note: I must say that in all my years of wargaming (nearly a half-century now) this is the silliest terrain that I have ever played across. The Housemartin and I followed the terrain generation rules exactly and ended up with this odd terrain. Also, despite my endless carping about poor dice rolling, this game saw the longest run of positive rolls in many a decade. Therefore I will quiet my complaining and work on my generalship!  

         Anton's cessation of complaints not withstanding, I would be remiss to not complain about the fact that We rolled to play out of the Second Army list book, but Anton "senior momented" (Ed. note I am officially a Senior Citizen and I plan on milking it for all it is worth!) and decided to run an army from the first book.  So his Marian Romans will be taking on my Late Imperial Romans.  One thing for sure, the terrain turned out quite silly.  I was trying to get a gentle hill for my artillery and Anton placed a wood line in front of all the hills ( I placed four of them).  Two of my hill stuck, but unfortunately Anton's wood line obscured the field of view for both.  I had 16 Scouting points, Anton had 14, so no one was outscouted and we both deployed from our right to left.  Here are our deployments and the messed up terrain.   

1/72nd Hobbyboss F4F-3 Wildcat

 

overall it is a nice model, I liked the flashy paint-job

       In an effort to distract myself from building a vast (unauthorized) underground cave complex for Zhodani Commando's cavemen I decided to build this kit. The "easy assembly" is a bit of a misnomer, it is easy to build if you don't mind that the wings and the fuselage don't quite fit together, or that there is no option for retracted landing gear and no trace of a pilot. Assembly required a fair bit of filing and a dash of brute force to get the wings and fuselage to accept each others company (I had the same problem with the Dewoitine D-520 from the same manufacturer). Once that was done and a bit of putty and filing had been administered the retracted landing gear needed to be scratchbuilt. After all that it made up into a decent looking model, fine panel lines and an excellent look.

AN IMPROBABLE CLASH The Anglo-Danish VS the Tabascans

        Despite some far-fetched claims that the Vikings made it as far as Central America during the Dark Ages it seems unlikely that Anton's Anglo-Danish armies ever faced off against my Mexican force. But Anton and I made it happen anyway!  Since Anton's army knew what a horse was, and mine did not (an old Steve Breismeister joke to those of you who knew him), Anton Out scouted me and I had to deploy first.  Here is our initial deployment.  

Assembling the forces for Battlefields

  

 the Japanese bombers

        Last Saturday I ran my scenario for Battlefields with my usual gaming group. The conversion from hex-based movement to octagonal movement went without a hitch. Some valid points were made regarding the rules and adjustments have been  made.

Last Minute Gaming Update, my place 7pm Saturday 24FEB24

 Well, the title says it all.

Be there!

Mudslide!

 

wallboard compound, to be truthful, not real mud

       I was puttering in the workshop and struggling to resist the urge to build a vast underground cavern system to go with Zhodani Commando's cave men. To keep myself busy I decided to add some wallboard compound to the existing hills to blend in the features and add to the texture. I use the sort with a latex base as it survives handling better than regular "mud". Now I have to wait for that to dry so I'm back to the "idle hands" problem......

       Maybe I will build a model airplane as a distraction.

Some prehistoric terrain bits and a little side-project

       My good friend, Zhodani Commando, is setting up to run a caveman game using the Tribal! rules. You can check out his beautifully painted minis over at his blog. I offered to put together some terrain for the game using the still massive pile of insulation board that I have. He happily accepted. I haven't been painting much lately so I thought that a terrain project would  re-light those fires. 

        I dug out my old friend, Proxxie, and got to work cutting insulation board. Pretty soon I had several bits sorted out and enlisted my buddy, Mr 60-Grit, to round off some edges and get the models ready for spackle and paint. That is where things stand for the moment.

 

I bought this off a flea-market table at a convention a couple of decades ago,

a coat of primer was as far as I got with it, I'm sure the talented brush of Z.C. will bring out the best

Enter The Octagon!

a little package of happiness

        I have to confess to being incredibly lax about posting of late. In my defense the first couple of months of this year have been rough; on top of my usual "January Blues" a couple of sudden funerals and a long-running revision of my air combat rules have eaten up both my time and energy. That is all behind me now and I have renewed energy with the arrival of a package from 24 Hour Crafts (a specialist woodworking shop) who made me a custom set of octagonal bases for my revised rules. Everybody and their brother makes hexagons but these guys were the best price/service that I could find that would cut octagons. Product quality is top-rate and they got me my fifty octagons in less than a week, I would happily recommend them to anyone.

 

the items were carefully packaged

 

the octagons were very precisely cut, fractions of a millimeter tolerances

notice how it is possible to get much more subtle movement patterns once hexagons are forsaken

 

 

it took me a while to work out the "tweaks" in the new movement system

 but this seems to work very well

       I am currently working on converting the individual aircraft maneuver books and will post them as I get them completed. I will leave the hex-based books up as well in case you prefer those.

Warfare By Proxy, or At Least It Was Quick

       This time around we were working out of the first book once again  Anton selected the Early Hebrews (list 13) and I selected the Illyrians (list 26).  Anton's army had absolutely no cavalry, and there was not enough terrain on the table for his light infantry to count for scouting so he had officially "Zero" scouting points.  With my army I had presumed that I would be outscouted and elected to have my CinC on foot.  I also chose to include an allied contingent, whose general could only be selected as on a horse, so I had exactly 1 scouting point.  Due to the odd system of scouting in WRG because "1" if more than "50%" more than "0", I out scouted Anton and his troops had to be deployed first.  I also had the option of flanking him on either, or both flanks if I wished.  I did not!  So here are our deployments.

  

 

An Encounter In France sometime between the Hundred Years War and the War of the Roses

        This time around in Anton and my game we were working with the third army list book for WRG 7th edition.  Anton went with one of his preferences, French Ordinance and I went with one of mine, Hundred Years War English.  The terrain dice proved kind to me and I managed to clutter up the fringes of the board as well as Anton's deployment zone with some woods.  Unfortunately Anton went against type and stocked up on missile troops some of which could handle woods.  Anton outscouted me HORRIBLY 60:12 so I deployed first.  Here is our Deployment

  

 

Flintcon '24 coming soon! 3FEB24 I will be running Mad For War

 

I will be running Mad For War in the 1st session using the 1/350th scale models from Zvezda

A powerful English supply convoy will try to fight its way past the nimble Dutch frigates

        Flintcon is a one day annual gaming event held at St. Paul Lutheran Church and School in Flint Michigan. It is an all day event featuring Miniature, Role Playing, Board and Card games.

This is the registration site for the Pathfinder Society events durring Flintcon

Two sessions are scheduled.

9:30am to 2pm and 3pm to 8pm.

All times EST

The Worst of News, oldSarge has passed away UPDATED

 

 

        It is with a shattered heart that I have to report the passing of one of my oldest and dearest friends, Gary Vikar. Known in the modeling/gaming/blogging world as oldSarge. He has been a great friend and fellow wargamer for the past forty years; a man of vast knowledge, a kind heart and a wicked sense of humor. My world is diminished by his passing. 

        Funeral visitation will be tomorrow, Monday, at A.H. Peters on Schoenherr from 9am to 1pm. Interment will be in Resurrection Cemetery for military honors

A "Family Squabble", with a different 'Caste' of characters

       Anton and I got together for another of our WRG Ancients Games.  This time we randomized the First book for army selection.  This meant that we each had 60 armies to choose from, and we both happened to select the same army, Ancient Indian.  The Indian Army has four different versions in this time frame.  Anton and I happened to both select the same version (the third which is focused on the infantry).  Furthering the "Civil War" nature of this game we selected almost the exact same armies as each other, with only some difference in unit numbers between our troops.  Below is out initial deployment.  Naturally there was no "out scouting", so it was simultaneous deployment, right to left.  

 

Spartacon 2024 is 13JAN24, This Saturday

 

 

        Spartacon24 iwill be held on 13JAN24 which only four days away.  You can find the info here at Tabletop Events. This is a fun local convention and I like to start the year off by attending. 

      I tried to sign up to run a game but Tabletop Events said that they were full. This will be the first time in nearly twenty years that I'm attending as just a gamer, it seems weird. But this is a good sign that the hobby is active and vibrant and has fully shaken off the Covid curse. See you all there!