Secret Project

Just a quick note, that while my posts have and in the future will be slowing down a bit, it's not because I'm not still blogging and wargaming. I'm just working intensely on a large personal wargaming project that isn't yet blog worthy, but in a few months may be. During the down time I'll still be posting games I've played in and the occasional unit I've painted up during short breaks from my big project.

I promise, when I have something blog-worthy I'll post it here right away. Until then, check back for the occasional post but please forgive the lower than normal post volume.

Miniature Building Authority 28mm Wrecked Buildings

These are two pre-painted 28mm European wrecked buildings that I bought at Cold Wars. They're made by Miniature Building Authority. I intend on using them for WWI and WWII Bolt Action skirmish gaming. This first building has two usable floors and a very interesting side with no windows which should make it quite the fortification from that direction. I liked the versatility of this piece a lot plus it fits in just about anywhere from England to all the way to eastern Germany.

This second building I fell in love with right away due to the great advertising on the side of it. It's slightly less useful for troops with the 2nd floor caved in, although I may scratch build an insert to use as an improvised 2nd floor. We'll see. The only tiny complaint I had with this piece is the shutters on the back side weren't painted differently from the rest of the building. This I will correct myself with a small spot of paint - probably a nice forest green.

March 2014 Game Night

Last Friday was our club's monthly game night. We had 27 attendees, including four pledge members and a guest, playing in two games and a mini DBA tournament. The DBA tournament is our 14th 'annual' running of the 'First Man of Rome' tournament run by Mike C. (standing below left). This year the enemies of Rome were Macedonian successor armies: Later Seleucid and Pyrrhic. While the Pyrrhic army wasn't too difficult of an opponent for  most of the Romans, the later Seleucid with its two units of Knights gave most of the Romans, including myself, fits all night. I ended up 1-3 and definitely NOT the first man of Rome. I was scrambling to take photos at the end of the night and didn't get a photo of the winners, sorry to them!

Peter (left) ran his pre-Dreadnaught, pre-WWI naval game. We have a bunch of naval gaming fans in the club and Peter's games are always popular because they're well run and good fun. From the excitement at the table I think this one was another roaring success.

 Gordon ran the club's first Bolt Action game, a north Africa attack-and-defense historical scenario. The club's been looking forward to learning the rules and Gordon's game was nearly filled just with pre-registrations. Please forgive the missing ground cloth which was forgotten. We've all done that once or twice right?

Gordon's scenario is well designed and the Italian tanks are a personal favorite of mine. Gordon uses a rolling dust storm in the game as well as other beautiful terrain items.

28mm WWII German Weapons Teams and Prone Movement Trays

These are two weapons teams I picked up painted in the flea market at Cold Wars. One is a 5cm mortar team and the other an anti-tank rifle team. Each weapon has an assistant and both teams are prone. Te figures needed bases so I cut the rectangular bases with rounded corners on my laser.

To make moving the teams easier I cut two movement trays for them. If a figure is killed the remaining one may be removed and placed alone on the table. I imagine these would also be useful for prone command teams and sniper teams. Snipers always seem to be sculpted as prone poses.

28mm Spanish 'Large Shield' Cavalry

This is a unit of 28mm Spanish 'large shield' cavalry for my Carthaginian army. The figures are Old Glory and are intended to represent Spanish skirmish 'small shield' cavalry. Not knowing a lot about them I ordered them with the intention of converting them to battle cavalry by adding the large shields. When the figures came, much to my dismay, one of the poses had the small shield slung on the figure's back and the only armor on the figure at all was the helmet.

Discouraged, I forged on but as the paint job shows, my heart wasn't 100% into painting this unit. I chose plain white tunics. The shields are a mix of leftovers from my bits box and some made on my laser. The patterns are hand painted and with the exception of the shield that looks like it belongs more in a Swiss unit than a Spanish one, I think they came out ok.

This unit can represent a single battle group in Field of Glory, or four units in Hannibal at the Gates. I have one more large unit of Carthaginian citizen cavalry and a couple small units left and I will be able to call my Carthaginian army done. For painting totals, I'm calling this 24 'figures': 12 riders and 12 horses.

Cold Wars 2014 - Dave Waxtel Wargame Building Class

This past weekend I attended my first HMGS Cold Wars convention. Normally I go to HMGS Historicon in the summer, but since they moved it too far south I've decided to start attending Cold Wars instead as Cold Wars remains located in Lancaster, PA. The past three years I had conflicting commitments so this year was my first successful run down to the convention. In short, Cold Wars is for all intents and purposes the same as Historicon only held in March and with possibly a few less attendees.

I've been to so many HMGS conventions I didn't bother photographing anything except the excellent class I attended hosted by Dave Waxtel (photo left). Dave showed a bunch of his scratch built 28mm buildings, and then gave all of the attendees materials and instructions to build one! After 2 hours we all brought away a building ready to paint. Mine is below and will be the subject of a future blog post once painted.

I have to say Dave was enthusiastic, encouraging and above all, patient with all of us students, even when we messed up! I'm excited to use the new knowledge I gained in the session and look forward to attending more in the future. If you read this, thanks Dave!

If you're wondering about my roof, it's supposed to look caved in with some planks and rugs thrown over the hole as a temporary repair. Once painted it should look more obvious. The 'carpets' are mad by soaking paper towel with thinned wood glue. Believe it or not they're quite hard and durable once dry.

28mm WWII German AT Crew, Officers and Specialists

These are crew for my recently painted Pak-40 AT gun and Kettenkrad as well as some additional officers and specialists just because painting a few more figures isn't all that much more work due to economy of scale. The figures are all Warlord lead figures.

Here you can see the Pak-40 crew on a dedicated base. As each casualty is removed I can pull the figure and replace it with a blank filler with some terrain on it (see below). The final photo below is a better close up of the three removable figures. The fixed loader is shown to the left.

 Here is the Kettenkrad utility vehicle with two crew, a driver and an SMG-armed passenger. As a transport this can pull up to medium AT guns and could also be a nifty two-person transport for my Lieutenant and his assistant.

These are the two officers and specialists: a medic and a forward observer. I love these two officer personalities. One has my 2nd favorite small arm of the war, the broom handle Mauser pistol with an extended shoulder stock. The other is a badass guy with a monocle. Growing up on Hogans Heroes as a kid, this guy just screams "German Officer" to me.

 Here are some close ups of the medic. The lighting I have is still terrible so the shading on the smock doesn't show up very well. I have to admit this guy looks a little too 'jolly' for a WWII medic, but the figure is very animated and completely impossible to confuse as a combatant on the tabletop, which will be quite helpful.

Last up is a great FO figure from Warlord. This guy has all the required equipment: radio, headset, rifle and a signal flare. Another great sculpting job by Warlord.