Whoo, whoo

 Another visit to Matt's Dungeon, always a pleasure, this time I was greeted by his new project, a model railway which trundled around almost on the ceiling, the ridiculously small space hosted workmen, bridges, sheep pens and a station! As ever with Matt, all done to perfection, stunning, you have to see it to appreciate the work.

We were doing a 'Back of Beyond' game where I was the British supported by an armoured car and howitzer along with Indian troops and Afghan mercenaries whose loyalty may be suspect. The Russians also had a number of tribesmen, a howitzer and a lovely model Tachanka machine gun wagon, I was quite taken away with this piece, Warbases sell them. There were three objectives, on my left a railway wagon with an armoured car on it, a road junction in the centre and on my right another railway wagon with fuel drums. I decided off the bat to fight for the armoured car and sent British and Afghans towards it, I wasn't quite sure whether to just concentrate on the junction or try and get that and the fuel dump, in the end I put my howitzer and MMG opposite the fuel dump with the hope of making it costly for the Russians to take while keeping a squad in the area ready to pounce if the opportunity arose. Everything else was going for the junction.

Somewhere in the back of beyond.

Beautiful terrain.

I had some Bengal Lancers and was at a loss how to use cavalry in a Bolt Action setting so simply threw them up the road at the Tachanka and wiped it out, this left me able to push some Indians and British up to take the centre where they stayed put. The cavalry then wiped out some Russian affiliated Afghans before falling to regular Soviet rifle fire, but they had done spendidly and assured that in order to get the centre back the Russians would have to take some hard decisions. The Soviet gun was pretty useless as was my own, the medium machine guns of both sides also turned out to be bad shots. Over on my left I had made it to the wagon with the armoured car and set up a nice defence line as a Soviet horde appeared from over the hill, OK, two squads. I lost quite a few men from one British squad and pulled the survivors back into cover, I had to do the same with one of my Afghan squads, this rabble now decided they were on the wrong side and shot into the backs of my stalwart Tommies. These cutthroats were then put to the bayonet and my boys went back to their defences.

My left flank advances.

I take the centre.

The lancers arrive.

Reds get surprised.

 Some desperate hand to hand combat took place on my left but the line held, the Soviets were now running out of men along with their opportunities to retake the junction, they did however ignore my ineffectual howitzer and machine gun to take the fuel dump a second squad made a desperate run at the junction into my waiting defenders only to be gunned down. As the clock ticked down and we got one last move I could rely on keeping the centre but the Soviets could grab the flank objectives, sadly for Matt his right hand squad kept refusing to move and therefore I was now two objectives up, that spare squad I mentioned above now moved to contest the fuel dump, the British had won.

My armoured car secures the centre objective.

Very impressed with this model.

 I have said it before but it is a real joy to play in the Dungeon on one of Matt's lovely set ups, just what wargaming is all about for me. Matt is also far more lenient with the rules than many wargamers and concentrates on commonsense and playability, another plus for the Dungeon.

I got my new metallic paint box from Army Painter, a nice deal from Wayland Games with free postage. First off there were a couple which as an historical wargamer I will not use nice as they were, Red Copper, Rough Iron and True Copper, I gave the first two away. The paints flow better than Vallejo metals which can be like porridge, especially Gunmetal, they also cover easily, well they do on a white primer which I nearly always use. The Weapon Bronze is just that and has a reddish tint to it, it is not a shiny bronze. I decided to use the Greedy Gold for my bronzed armour which is more akin to artwork and reenactor bronze armour, I got one more bottle just in case and got Tainted Gold, I might use this now and again but it is not shiny. Bright Gold is beautiful and bright, perfect for decorated armour on officers etc. Cobalt Metal is blueish and good for tinting mail, I will use this but sparingly, Gun Metal is nice, better than Vallejo. Plate Mail is fine and does what it says on the tin or bottle in this case. Shining Silver was a let down, Vallejo and GW are much better. So I didn't do too well out of the deal after all, the only colours I really like are Greedy and Bright Gold.

I have almost completed the first twelve figures for I Minerva and moved on the second batch, I have an idea the vexillation will be complete at the weekend. I have to once again thank Phil Robinson for sending me more freebies in the shape of some shield transfers.

Work in progress.

And so to last night, Chain of Command with Simon, somewhere in the Don Basin as 6th Army strikes for Stalingrad. I chose a Panzergrenadier platoon and went heavy with armoured support, a Pz III, Pz II and a 250/1 halftrack. Simon chose a Soviet infantry platoon, two flamethrowers and two minefields. I was attacking a village and Simon was defending, I was determined to actually attack rather than sit back as you can do in CoC and simply out shoot the enemy. 

My objective.

Taxi!

Workhorse but getting old in '42.

I did however set up two squads to cover the advance and sent another in the halftrack along my right flank, I pushed the armour as fast as I could as I wanted this to lead my attack but it took time and I always seemed to need the command dice for something else. Simon tried an advance and got shot up then withdrew to cover, this gave me time to get the armour a bit further on. I then found an opportunity to run the halftrack up and dismount the passengers to assault the survivors of a shot up squad on the right. This was successful and put the Soviets on the back foot while their morale was dropping due to losses As the German armour began to pick on the remaining squads we called it a day, with only one flamethrower left now the Reds had little chance of holding off the German panzers.

Pz III.

The armour in support.

 Sadly the Russians were outclassed from the start and Simon suffered from a few bad die rolls while I for a change was on fire, especially when wounding and killing Soviet NCO's. The only Russian vehicle they could have had was an SU-76 due to the time period and support points and this might have made a difference but who knows.

I have bought the latest issue of 'On Bloody Ground' dealing with Sub-Roman Britain, written by my good friend Dave Toone and his son Dan, the series draws on their experiences with WAB and War and Conquest but with their own unique take on fighting large battles, you won't get away with doing Hastings on a two foot tile with 25 figures. As you know I am a WAC fan but as Hail Caesar tightens its grip on the club and no one seems eager to enjoy WAC perhaps I can persuade someone to take an interest in OBG. Dave missed his vocation as a double glazing salesman as he persuaded me to take a look with his unbounded enthusiasm, also I liked his idea of holding weekend meetings, something I still miss with WAC and even being a newbie I would try and take part. 

Postie on time for a change.

Parthian Shot: The last time we celebrated the anniversary of the Battle of Trafalgar I remember the lunacy of two model fleets being Red and Blue, not British and French seemingly in an effort not to affect the Gallic sense of pride but more to indulge the morons in charge of the celebrations. Can you remember 'Nelson' wearing his life jacket in the dinghy! Although these days perhaps the kids do think the fleets were Red and Blue. The same thing now seems to have happened with the naming of the latest nuclear submarine, HMS Agincourt will now be HMS Achilles, I remember the Battle class destroyer HMS Agincourt as I rowed past her at her moorings in Pompey harbour waiting for the knackers yard. I have no problem with Achilles as it is a proud name to carry, but I do find the nonsense that it will upset the Frenchies a bit of a storm in a teacup.

Size does matter

I have cleared the decks of quite a few projects that were on my mind, the new Legion for the Patrician Romans, the Companions for the Seleucids, the pillboxes and all the buildings before them and now I have turned back to the Seven Years War. You will remember I got some artillery (Eagle Figures) at FIASCO, the other night I opened the French pack and built the guns, the figures were thinner than Front Rank but would fit, there is not as much detail on them but again they would do, I went for this range due to the number of different gun models they produced.

I looked at them and thought not much work there so I turned to the British pack, lovely guns but the crew were not going to do, they were huge compared to the French, big and bulky they also stood out next to Front Rank. I mulled it over and thought the difference may not be noticed on the tabletop, now this might be the case but I would see it every time I looked at them. I ordered up two new crews from Front Rank along with two mounted officers, they arrived today and are beautiful. I got some officers from Foundry recently and found them to be incompatible with Front Rank also, again they were simply too large, so as much as I like to mix different manufacturers it looks like I will not be doing it for the SYW.

What the............

British to the left French on the right, big difference.

 This weekend I am looking into ordering my first SYW cavalry, it is permissible to have eight figures in a regiment but although this would save me money and painting time twelve men just look much better. You really do not see many units on forums or blogs lined up with eight men, twelve seems normal with many being sixteen or more. I have not made my mind up yet which units they will be, this normally depends on the look of their uniform, mainly the facing colour, their flags and whether they are easy to get. I think these troops along with the guns already on the tray will see me into the New Year.

I finished my pillboxes, these were a last minute buy at FIASCO and will be used sparingly in my Bolt Action games, more talking points than strongpoints. Which is just as well as I have already been told they are British, I thought they were simply generic, no, in fact I did not think about their prominence at all, I do still think they are lovely little kits and you get three for the price.

Seleucus and I

Friend Matt asked me about the recently completed Seleucid army, what it contained and how that affected its performance on the battlefield. Firstly I play War and Conquest which is a big battle game similar to the old Wargames Research Group rules I gamed with back in 1979 when I left the Navy. I won't get into the whole historical tactics thing, suffice to say when I played WRG and now WAC I feel like I am commanding an army and generally enjoy trying to get it to do what I want, whether good or bad.

Units 1, 2, 3 and 4 are a mix of Crusader, Aventine and Foundry and generally fall into the same category, well armed light infantry, mine are Thureophoroi, Thorakitai, Thracians and Mercenary Peltasts.  These troops are for protecting the flanks of the main phalanx but they can also be used to attack enemy flanks as they are so well armed, however they need protection as only the Thorakitai have armour and can prove vulnerable to enemy missiles so you need to have a screen of skirmishers in front of them for support.

5 are first and foremost escorts for my elephants, however I find they are better used as simple javelin armed skirmishers, they can do nothing about missile troops or bolt shooters targeting your elephants from long range hence their use, for me, as skirmishers. These I got from Foundry and they are beautiful sculpts and are a mix of Thracians and Greeks, the former are some of my favourite figures.

My own bolt shooters or Oxybeles come in at 6, these are very large composite bows set on a frame, these came from 1st Corps, I only take these if I suspect the enemy also have elephants, but they can also be used to whittle down very heavily armoured troops like cataphracts. They tend to either be deadly or useless depending how lucky you are on the day.

The Galatians, number 7, a mercenary warband from Crusader, these do not conform to what Galatians in the service of the Successors really looked like but you will not find any in 28mm so the best you can do is grab some Gauls. I am not fond of the figures as they look a bit wooden and you do not get a lot of variation. However, these little guys are brutal opponents and are garnering a reputation, so much so I would be loathe to change them if real Galatians ever turn up. These troops are shock troops, they cannot be left where they can fall prey to enemy missile troops or left dithering in the rear, to get your money's worth you have to use them. I use them on a flank supported by some of those light troops above, I always give them light armour as well as I want them to give them every opportunity to outclass their opponents in the first clash.

8 is more mercenaries, hoplites this time, Aventine figures, these have to be upgraded with light armour which, in tandem with the WAC phalanx rule (of which I am not a fan unless the figure in question is a real pikeman) means you get a lot of bang for your buck. Unlike the Galatians these guys can sit and take a pounding so sometimes they are a flank guard and at other times shock troops, they work well with the Galatians or the main phalanx.

The Phalanx, 9, all Aventine. I personally do not always lead with the phalanx preferring to use them to pin and threaten the enemy, I do on occasion put all my eggs in one basket and send them haring forward but that is unusual and very much depends on what is opposing them and what is happening on my flanks. If you maintain your flanks these guys can easily win you the battle, once engaged they usually win the numbers game. They also come in all sizes, elite or raw and anything in between, a unit for all seasons.

A bit of fun at 10, scythed chariots, why not, you have to. Historically useless but if used properly on the wargame table they can turn a melee into a rout, the trouble is you have to keep them alive, so if they turn up I keep them way to the rear but with an opening to unleash hell at the right time. I tend to use them aggressively to hopefully break up an enemy attack. These models are 1st Corps.

And of course no Successor army can be complete without 11, elephants from Aventine, I always try and take at least one for the reason I just iterated. I do not tend to use them very aggressively as I am not sure about the unit yet and I have a house rule which states that any unit in contact, friend or foe, is disordered by the monster, in the rules it is just the enemy and I do not think that fair. So I keep Nellie as a threat, usually out of harms way unless I can get rid of the enemy missile troops or cut down their bolt shooters. I do like to have one around when enemy cavalry are about but I tend to forget that it can also have a tragic effect on my own horsemen, I am also always wary of the thing going mad and trampling my own troops.

12, command and control, I do not keep officers at the rear out of harms way, I want my leaders to lead from the front rank. In a large army I will take the king and at least two other officers, in smaller games I will allow the 2/ic to take charge and have maybe one support. I don't tend to take mounted officers and will generally put supporting commanders with mercenary units while the King leads a phalanx unit. I think all these men are Foundry although one or two of the foot command may be Aventine.

I have two further units of skirmishers 13 and 16, the former archers and the latter slingers, I do like archers and at times I upgrade these chaps to elite Cretan missilemen, you cannot not have skirmishers in an Ancient game and I like to destroy the enemy's first, this can be a huge advantage and force your opponent into an advance he doesn't want to make. Slingers are very dangerous in WAC because they get two shots a turn, I do not allow this on home ground as I do not see a good reason for it, so with their diminished range I do not take them very often as killers but as shields. Both of these units are Aventine.

14 are the Companions, heavily armoured shock cavalry, these are expensive in points so will probably only turn up if I am fighting large battles, they can quite easily run over lesser horsemen and the temptation to smash them into an infantry formation is always with me, it is just possible for the shock to rout the infantry. I use another house rule which allows cavalry to disengage from a fight with infantry, it is dodgy but better than sitting around getting massacred. I think we have only used it once in battles to date. Aventine figures.

More archers at 15, but on a horse this time, elite Skythians, usually very dangerous to enemy skirmishers and other troops as well due to their excellent shooting abilities. I normally always take these guys although on at least two occasions I have lost them to elephant fear. Like the bolt shooters they tend to be either brilliant and deadly or dithering and useless. These too are Aventine, you can see the trend here.

More armoured cavalry at 17,  Line Cataphracts this time, again they only turn up now and again in large games, and like the Companions they generally are used to destroy an enemy flank with that added bonus that they might also take on infantry. The Seleucids also get Agema cataphracts which are elite versions of these guys and Aventine do some lovely figures for them, I have not bought any of these (yet) as I figure I can simply upgrade the line troopers. Fitting them into the army would mean another Really Useful Box as I will not mix troops (Wargamers OCD) so the unit would be very expensive for me. Yes, you got it, Aventine again.

At 18 we have Macedonian Light Cavalry, a lovely little cavalry unit which can be upgraded to what passes for medium cavalry so a very useful unit. These I would normally use to sweep away enemy skirmishers or light troops or have them in reserve behind the main line to deal with any possible breakthroughs. This unit can also be used to represent other cavalry types allowed in the list. Aventine.

Now, 19 is particular to WAC, each army has a rally point to which broken units will run unless they are too close to the table edge. These bring out the artistic tendencies in most players and can range from a simple tent to a sacrificial alter or drunken warriors whooping it up. I was a bit stumped for this army until I found some large, broken Spartan statue heads (Scibor) which fit the bill, to dress them up a bit I bought a range of Greek gods from Foundry and popped Zeus on the top of one. Another fun element of WAC is Strategy Intervention Points, you could easily use a die but again most people go that extra mile and use all sorts, ancient coins, Gods, monks, wolfhounds, civilians etc. my extra Immortals came in handy for these.

So there it is, my Seleucid army and why it looks the way it does and how I use it on the battlefield. It is not an easy army to use and there is a long learning curve, it is expensive and therefore is usually outnumbered by the enemy. You have to be careful of the flanks and rest one on rough ground if possible or decide to throw in your shock troops hoping you can burst the enemy before your flanks collapse. Here at Casa Anderson  they usually fight the Twelfth and the Legion has excellent supporting troops which can cause all sorts of problems for the Seleucid flanks, and although the legionaries are outnumbered by the phalanx they are very difficult to shift.

Red Letter Day

Thursday turned out very well for me, I had the afternoon off from the PO and thoroughly enjoyed it, I also decided not to continue drawing maps so I took a quick feather duster over the house so that the boss would not need to do it when she came back, I can do in an hour what takes her three, how efficient is that.

Anyway just before I shut the shop I got an email from Paypal saying my money had been refunded from Wacom for the drawing display I really didn't need, I managed a small jig, it was supposed to take three weeks and they managed it in one, it now sits safely in my bank account. I am still looking at upgrading my old machine but for something more suitable and much cheaper. I also noticed some anomalies in my account, there wasn't as much in the Legendary Map Fortune as I had thought, after some sleuthing it transpired Amazon was hitting my card and not her indoors'. Ching, refund!

I sat and finished off the Late Romans and as I checked my emails and Facebook just before turning in for the night I noticed a post from Aventine, the Companions would be ready to order the next day, my cup it runneth over. So after keeping an hourly eye on Aventine's site on Friday I ordered as soon as I saw them come up, Keith has managed to get them posted out despite getting ready for his hols, great stuff, great firm.

Now, below is a couple of maps from the Atlas, anyone have any thoughts on them, at the moment only myself, the author and the editor look at them, but I thought the more the merrier, so if you feel like commenting go ahead.

 Apart from Bunker Hill which I showed earlier, we haven't touched on any large battles yet but I was wondering what people thought of the overall look?

Off to spend some money at FIASCO tomorrow.

Shadespire

I was on my own again for the club meet last night and had not managed to sort anything out, I could join a tryout of 'What a Tanker' from Too Fat Lardies, despite being a rough Jack Tar and North Sea Tiger in my day the childish play on words annoys me for some reason, I digress, the second game was Shadespire a fantasy game based on GW's Age of Sigmar world. I had read a review of WaT on a blog and it reinforced my prejudices about TFL rule sets so I jumped for Shadespire.

Julian took time to explain everything to me and the gameplay revolves around cards, objective cards and 'ploy' cards which you use to gather gold tokens, the winner is the one at the end of three turns who has the most tokens, even though his gang may be all dead. I took a bunch of Orks, Julian Chaos and when Ryan arrived he brought Skeletons, a canny player at Shadespire is Ryan. As the game kicked off the objectives I needed were firmly in enemy territory and my chance of getting there pretty slim, so I thought I would just kill stuff, Julian's stuff.

Despite my efforts I got nowhere, my objectives were out of reach and my cards pretty much useless to my fighters, oh and I might as well mention my dice luck here, it was bad. Both Ryan and Julian ended the game with eleven gold tokens, I had three. I ducked out of the second game as it was not my thing and you couldn't possibly learn much in one play so I left the lads to get one decent game in before closing time.

I wandered over to see how the Tankies were getting on, it was a Sherman and a Stuart vs a PzIV and PzIII, two and a half hours into the game and not one had been taken out, I believe at that point the PzIII had just made it's first hit (no damage). I did manage to catch the Stuart circling the PzIV at one point while the panzer tried desperately to get into position for a shot. I think I dodged one there.

A bit of a red letter day last week, a friend sent me some pictures of his latest work and along with them was a picture of a new Aventine Miniatures Successor general with two Galatian bodyguards, both Gary and I are fans of Aventine and have a lot of their figures (two armies in my case). I messaged Keith at Aventine to ask for his advice about late Hoplite figures I wanted to add to the army and mentioned the lovely Galatians and that no one made Galatians and therefore Gauls had to be recruited to serve instead. He asked me to wait and five minutes later having talked to Adam, the sculptor, said they would do figures for a Galatian unit, how is that for service. The new cavalry will also be out by the time I finish the mercenary Hoplites, my cup it runneth over.

Galatians in the background, beautiful.

Mate Julian very kindly made up a wet palette for me some time ago and I used it but then went back to my plastic palette as I ran out of paper or something just as daft. But the idea has stayed with me and I went to buy a commercial one but found them too big, now a company called Red Grass Games has produced a small version which should be perfect for me. Even though I am almost at the end of my Seleucids I do have other paint related things to do.

What I use now.

God(s) Almighty

I have taken a break from painting phalangites, the core of my Seleucids will be three phalanxes and I have three now, so I thought it was time for some fun. I knew I wanted to use the large statue heads I had seen somewhere online so I tracked them down, Scibor Miniatures, you get quite a few in the pack, far more than I needed, now I just required something else to go on the base. I looked around and settled on the Greek Gods selection from Wargames Foundry, I needed two sets, some for the base and six for Strategy Intervention markers, they turned up and they were perfect.

Rally Point, Bacchus, Hades and Zeus.

Aphrodite, Hephestus, Hermes, Apollo, Poseidon and Ares.

 At the same time as I ordered up the Gods I decided to get the next bunch of troops for the army, I needed some javelin men to double as normal skirmishers and elephant escorts, I looked at several manufacturers but settled on Wargames Foundry due to the varied range. I have relegated Foundry to the back of the queue up until now but I was wrong, these figures are lovely, I was also impressed by the fact I ordered them Friday lunchtime and they arrived Saturday lunchtime, it was the same with the Gods, just great. After some deliberation I went with A&A Miniatures for my Galatian warband, I was not going to bother with these mercenaries but thought better of it as it won't hurt to have the choice of a bunch of hard hitting barbarians in the army. Next up were Theurophori, Aventine used to do these unarmoured but the new ones have linothorax armour, I wanted unarmoured so this time chose Crusader Miniatures, I am looking forward to painting these. Last but not least I will pick up two scythed chariots from Michael and Simon of 1st Corps at York in a week or so.

Elephant escorts on the tray (although the real tray has been retired).

This leaves Generals and the cavalry still to get along with a second elephant, these will all be Aventine once the new cavalry are released, Companions and cataphracts. I am also tempted to get some characters from Foundry, you can never have enough officers. I received some army lists covering Successor armies from the death of Alexander right up until the arrival of the Romans, so with the addition of several more very colourful units I can field some very interesting combinations, but that will have to wait.

I got the book by Bar-Kochva on the Seleucid army, the library had to get it for me as it is almost impossible to get otherwise and to be honest I am wondering what all the fuss is about, he mainly concentrates on the top end of the army and I at least have not garnered a lot of useful information for a wargamer out of it, I still have many questions which are going unanswered.

Anyway, I can field 2,500 points for now, so you may see the Seleucids on the table very shortly.

The end of the tunnel gets further away

I have managed to finish my nomad Nobles a few days early and I am very pleased with the way they have turned out, when they were 90% complete I revisited them and started to stick on some of those extra bits that seemed a pain at the beginning but which now enhance the models.

Hun Nobles.

As the basing was sitting drying I dug out the warbands I wanted to re-arrrange and to my delight found that I did not need to buy any new figures as I had spares already painted and based on a nearby shelf, I have no idea why. I also had the bases for them, so within an hour I had the four warbands enlarged, based and ready to go. I am hoping the the re-basing might give the Franks a new lease of life.

Back, Franks and Welsh, front, Picts and Saxons.

This of course means I now have a lot of spare hobby time, so I went online today to order up some MDF bases for my terrain, six quid for half a dozen sheets but fifty-four pounds for postage! The next outfit took £5.45 for postage, I wonder if that was a mistake, however I did not want to take the chance. I then jumped in and ordered up another two Roman units, one infantry and one cavalry along with their shield transfers, I already have the infantry movement tray and can make one up for the cavalry. These units are extra in order to field 3,000+ points if needed and also to give me a bit more of a choice when constructing a force depending on the enemy, I hesitate to say that is it as I would also like to add a unit of Roman mounted bowmen, they are not required but I do like the look of them.

It looks like I might get around to building that Roman Villa in the next week or so. I have been inspired by some of the terrain pieces I saw at Snaith, instead of just plonking down a bit of carpet or whatever there were nice areas with small huts and pieces of fencing for broken or uneven terrain, they had enough room to move troops but visually the were very appealing. This will all happen soon if I can keep my hands off these new figures.

Tidying Up

As you know I am at a loose end at the moment, my wargame nest egg is dangerously low at the moment and will not meet my expectations, I blame it all on Brexit of course, you got to laugh, and I have just had an unwelcome email telling me I need to renew my licence for Adobe Illustrator which I use for cartography, well there goes those kubelwagens and jeeps. Hopefully that situation will end in a month or so with all the work I have piling up.

Anyway rather than play a solo game, which I should have done, I mucked around yesterday and decided to get around to putting some camo on the Panther. I took some of my camo netting and 'Germanised' it by adding some brown paint to the watered down PVA and this time I stuck some cut up lichen into the mix. I knew the look I was going for as I had been looking at some Panthers in Normandy. The lichen sank into the netting and needed bringing out, so I gave it some flock to represent fresh foliage added by the crew. I think I now have a battle worn tank on my hands.

Before.

After 1.

After 2.

I also got around to a job which has been on the backburner for some time, I rebased most of my Dux Brit troops on two customized bases made for me by Warbases so they can go back to the game if I ever convince someone to try it out with no hassle. I also took the characters off their 2p's and based them to fit with War and Conquest, I now have plenty of priests, musicians, champions and leaders for all my needs.

So what is left in the dark recesses of my mind, nothing sadly which does not involve an outlay of moolah, having said that I do have some WWII barricades on the way along with an MG42 team, the Germans can have two MMG's on the table in Bolt Action.

I now know how the victim of a snake feels when it is mesmerised, I found Tabletop Battles on YouTube hosted by a couple of Norwegian guys, Swien and Damon, they play a lot of Bolt Action along with Frostgrave and some Age of Sigmar, and I find myself watching whenever I have some spare time. I don't know why but I especially liked their visit to the UK, which took in North Star and Warlord Games along with a tournament, go figure. They have an enthusiasm for wargaming which is hard to ignore, they are also fighting their way through WWII in almost every theatre from 1939 to 1945, the aforementioned firms have been very kind to them, especially Warlord Games to enable them to do this. It is not everyone's cup of tea, but I like it.

I can't go without saying that at last we have a decent Spiderman, the kid in 'Captain America: Civil War' was brilliant, I am looking forward to seeing more, oh, and I loved Ant Man as well, two very nice surprises for me.

A Good day and still to go to Salute.

I ordered my new 'wargame' table a couple of days ago and got word that it would turn up this afternoon, this did not please Mrs. Anderson as she had made plans for lunch and to drive No.1 granddaughter home and my delivery time seemed destined to upset that plan. No fear, the table arrived early, I was off the hook.

Partly off the hook as I knew a couple of orders were due and we would of course be out as the mail now comes at a later time than it did in the late nineteenth century. I took the precaution of leaving a note as the normal unhelpful postman has been moved to another round and crossed my fingers that this one would be more accommodating.

Sure enough I returned home to find two parcels in the shed, good man. So the swag for the day came to a new table, German and British FOO's, a British HMG and 2" mortar teams along with some German 'tank hunters' and a number of German decals graciously sent by Matt of the Wargames Table. If I keep this up I won't have enough money for Salute in just over a week.

I got the 9x5 table as it is perfect for large ACW games, something I must get around to again, and if they are not big games then it gives me plenty of space at the edges for all the normal wargame paraphernalia without encroaching on the battlefield. Also one side should be perfect for Dead Man's Hand, X-Wing and Bolt Action games. As you can see it is still surrounded by a Post Office, but this will change in the fullness of time, and no, it will never see ping pong or table tennis, not from me at least.

Another couple of map projects completed, the Scots Guards as I mentioned before and another on the Iran/Iraq war, I am back on the Somme at the moment then moving to a book about South African Armour during WWII and after.

Giddy Up!

I am hurrying along with my painting so that I have the upgraded cavalry ready for Sunday, I only need to wash these guys, varnish and base. Before I ventured into the jaws of the great British public this morning I painted their shoes, magnetised the bases and got the movement trays ready, I then sat back and admired them.

They are all Gripping Beast Saxon mounted Heroes if my memory serves me well, I only ordered them a few weeks ago so I should be right. I think they are quite a dramatic little group, excellent action poses and a real sense of speed and menace.I couldn't resist a quick pic.

This has taught me one thing, get your army right the first time, perhaps I was being a bit optimistic using 24 man units for what are essentially warbands, my actual warbands have 32. Despite this the Romano-British have a decent average score in the tournaments and this may improve as I hopefully will improve. I might also have been trying to keep some money in my pocket not having the extra figures, who knows. Now I have the best of both worlds, I have extra figures and two types of movement trays so I have more flexibility when choosing an army for the day.

On the subject of army lists I have to make one up for Sunday, I shall be fielding the Romans again and am torn between fielding the same as last time, which I believe is a good all round army for the upcoming tournament in February or just have some fun and bring some cataphracts and Praetorians which if I do will leave me enough points for two dogs and a goat.

Nothing Much

I have completed as far as I can the upgrading of my Dark Age warbands from 24 to 27 men, the reason I did this is that most of the Dark Age armies I have fought against or seen in the WAC tournaments have 27 or 30 man units and I felt my own guys were at a disadvantage. With me it is only a feeling, something intangible, but there are other wargamers out there who work on probabilities, percentages and all sorts of other black arts which deal with numbers, I am not thick by any means but life is too short.

The new, improved Romano-British and Saxon hordes.

I paint my guys to the best of my ability and I then become attached to them, no matter whether they are elites or cannon fodder of the lowest order, I do expect them to perform on the battlefield but I leave it up to them and the dice gods, not the numbers.

I played a guy a long time ago who played by the numbers, a very clever, nice lad who turned up every week expecting his HYW English army to destroy everything in its path as he had worked out nothing could stand up to the arrow storm he would let loose from behind his barricades. I have to admit he was usually right, but not with my boys, we bucked the trend. Why, because my troops had heart not computers and I trusted them rather than the numbers. I fought one game against him where he simply could not believe the number of sixes I threw over three or four combats destroying his army, s**t happens.

I am only pottering about at the moment, I still have two infantry units to add to, then eight cavalry to paint and then I am done, I have no patience as you know and I have already started on the last six infantry, the cavalry I hope to have finished by the end of the month when I am expecting another WAC battle.

I have a tournament in May and if the new army lists are made official by then I will be tempted to take my Saxons as a Heptarchy army, they haven't always fought well for me but I still live in hope.

Cheers!

Why a second post today, why not. We have no visitors, the weather is cold and wet, there is a steak pie in the oven, red wine getting to room temperature and a movie to sink into the couch to watch later in front of a lovely wood fire.

I have finished the Saxon rally point, the revellers are actually Vikings but who is going to complain and perhaps they will come in handy down the road if I ever get a Viking army. I added some barrels, a table and the chickens for a bit of colour. The scene reminds me of the night before we kick off a tournament, you know who you are under the table, answers on a postcard.

Oi! Mind your 'and Olaf.

I also had an attack of my old OCDC or whatever, I pulled out my Dark Age armies, moved the figures on to new trays, cleaned, primed and based the new figures and fit them in where applicable. I have to say that the Arthurian Saxon Miniatures pack was far better than the Anglo-Saxon one, although I still dislike the hands. I have decided to give most of the Saxons to my son and to that end I ordered up a few figures from Gripping Beast along with additions to my Dark Age cavalry, who are being changed from ten to twelve man units. That will mean that my three WAC armies will be complete, no need to add anything else, no sir.

Not Impressed

I opened up my packs of Saxon Miniatures last night in order to get them based for painting and up close I was disappointed, the photos on the website are terrific and the painting is impressive, but now that I had them out of the pack and getting ready to base I am not satisfied.

Considering these are fairly new figures there are a lot of mold lines on them, and the metal used is that crisp stuff which I haven't seen in ages, the stuff that you dare not bend too far as it will crack, you can hear a distinct clink as you pop them back into the bag. The King Alfred figure especially has large pieces of metal holding his leg and cloak to the base, and you can't just cut it off as it is so thick, thankfully this is a figure I do not require.

I do have a complaint about the hands, they are tiny and my usual 1mm diameter spears look like large logs in them, they are also not well disposed to take weapons and I have had to take a modelling knife to ensure some kind of fit.

There are some nice sculpts in the packs but there are also just as many which are pretty average and I bought the 'hero' packs, I also noticed that some are fairly chunky while others are much slimmer. I am putting my own shields on the Arthurian figures and I have no doubt they will paint up fine and fit in with my Gripping Beast and Musketeer units, perhaps my expectations were too high after seeing the photos.