Nothing to do with recent dalliances with the Dark Ages or Early Medieval history…
Currently on holiday in Low Newton and today was the first day of lovely sunshine and no rain. Whole day spent at the beach and culminating in a barbecue and beers. Kids and us knackered!
The beach was crowded today and the group to our right set about building a sandcastle:
The Opposition!
Now it was a large castle, with a deep moat so this was obviously to be taken as a challenge and brought out the Cnut in me! So I went for something a little more sophisticated. Quality not quantity!
The Fortress!
Now, as the tide was coming in I felt the need to stem that for as long as possible so constructed outer defences to deflect and delay the inevitable aquatic onslaught!
Outer Bastions
Despite a valiant Cnutian defence the tide did not turn…
The Collapse BeginsAn E-moat-ive moment…The Last Stand.
And finally it was all over as the fortress succumbed to the inevitable…
The End
I don’t think the weather over the next few days will allow another construction but I feel if opportunity allows another fortress will arise!
My Inbox this morning was graced with the PDF copy of the new Dux Britanniarum rules. Click the image above to link to all the options available but basically this is another excellent production from the Too Fat Lardies stable. I’ve been following the playtesting of this via the TFL Yahoo group and it has been good to see the rules develop. The rules are not just a set of rules for battles/skirmishes in post-Roman Britain, but a campaign framework for taking your lowly warlord from obscurity to fame and power! The production quality is excellent and I’m looking forward to getting the hardcopy and card set. There are several purchase options available with combinations of PDF, tablet version, hardcopy and cards and if the production of those is comparable to their recent I Ain’t Been Shot Mum then this will be a quality product.
So, do I have any armies/figures for this period? Of course not! But I do have a Romano-British warband pack from Splintered Light Miniatures that has been sat in a box since 2009! So these will get painted up and some Early Saxons ordered soon to accompany them. Well, that’s the plan, along with numerous other little projects. But it would be a shame not to give these rules a run out…
And so we have more! Spent a little time over the last few nights finishing off the extras I needed for the three BTR-70 battalions. Did another full unit plus the extras for all to carry the support elements. And the HQs
Three battalions of BTR-70s
I’ve been quite pleased with these. A nice model from Heroics and Ros that paints up well.
BTR70s
Needed to do the three HQ stands as well. Basically just went for another BTR and some sort of command/support vehicle and a couple of figures.
HQs
I have a load of infantry and other support elements waiting to be done but started on a mortar stand.
Mortars
And here are the HQs.
First battalion HQSecond battalion HQThird battalion HQ
Back in the last post I had done a single base of 122mms with the transport on a 40x40mm bases. Have now completed the other two stands. I may still do some sort of artillery ‘HQ’ as well.
D30 batteriesD30 batteries
Next up are the BMP-2s. I have the three battalions done but with basing needing finishing but needed the support carriers and the HQs. These are ready to go next.
HQ and Support BMPs
And this is the pile of support kit I still need to do!
Still not done…
I also took the chance to finish off some trees I’d based up a while back. All are from Timecast. They were soaked in thinned PVA first, then drill and superglue in the hole. Usual basing method followed. I still have about another 40+ trees to do. You can never have too many!
More trees…
All in all, not bad progress. I have managed to acquire a load of T-64BVs which will form the tank battalions for the BMPs and BTRs. I also managed to get a load more bridging/ferry kit so I think that will be on the table soon once I decide how I’m going to base them!
I had intended finishing off the pile of Soviet AFVs and APCs that needed basing before I posted the results but inevitably I realised I needed more little bits to add to them to make up ‘proper’ units (i.e. the BTRs and BMPs for the support squads). So I thought I’d do a quick progress report.
I painted most of these last year and had only got so far as adding the ‘sand’ to the base. I had done three battalions of T-80s, three of BTR-70s and three of BMP-2s. Two of the T-80 battalions are Scotia but everything else is Heroics and Ros. The T-80 ERA being a particularly fine model.
These are the BMPs still in their ‘to be finished’ state:
Heroics and Ros BMP-2sHeroics and Ros BMP-2s
I’ve completed the three battalions of T-80s. A mix of Scotia and H&R (rear three rows) with two of the BTR battalions in the middle and my recently acquired Dark Ream SF force to the fore! Bar some tufts/clump foliage these are done:
Scotia and H&R T-80s and H&R BTR-70s
As I said, the H&R T-80 ERA is a really nice crisp model:
Heroics and Ros T-80 ERA
I had to add/paint an extra BTR-70 unit along with two models for each unit to carry the support squads:
Extra BTR-70s
And the command stands are partly done basing:
BTR HQs and extra BTR-70s
And finally, I’ve decided to do all my artillery assets on 40×40 bases so this is the first as a tester:
122mm D-30122mm D-30
I know in CWC they are off-table but I like doing the bases!
So there we go. I’ll be ordering some T-64 ERA to go with these and maybe another lot of the H&R T-80s. Another lot of BMP-2s as well although from recent comments I think I need some BMP-1s as well.
I’ve also started the engineering and bridging assets. I seem to have two types in the my lead pile:
Bridging units. What types?
I’m not entirely sure what is what. I think one is H&R and one Skytrex? The top I’m pretty sure is Soviet, the bottom I’m less so.
So there we go. I’m not entirely sure why I did all these. I already have over 10,000pts worth of Soviets for CWC! I think I just wanted to move the date range to late ’80s as all the other stuff is T-72/T-62… Still, more Russians is always a good thing!
Today I secured a full day pass and headed down the A19 to the Pendraken Birthday Bash. This was to be my final capitulation as I succumbed to the lure of 10mm! What can I say about the day. I got there just before 11 and the games were in full flow. And I can say with confidence they all looked bloody great!
The Border Reiver club demo’d a brand new SCW game made purely for the event, the ‘Fight for Madrid’. This looked excellent and was a great showcase for the range.
Border Reiver SCW game
The Brompton Bankers displayed their fantastic Ratshire game. This looked excellent with some lovely vignette bases (Irn Bru facility!), excellent terrain and a superb info board.
Ratshire gameRatshire game
Goat Major and GavinP ran an excellent little AWI participation game using Black Powder. The figures were lovely and the painting did full justice to Clib’s lovely scuplts. I managed to take part in the afternoon game of which more anon. Fun game and nice to see Simon and Gavin again.
AWI game
Hoka Hey Wargaming‘s Rorke’s Drift participation game looked good too. I didn’t really get chance to stop and chat though.
Rorke’s Drift
Burnley Wargames Club displayed the Battle of Jarama, 1937, another piece of SCW action! This looked great fun with excellent figures and terrain.
Battle of Jarama
Section 8 Games club had Morocco 1908, as the French try to relieve Fortress Soixante Neuf. It was nice to see a Colonial game that wasn’t Sudan. Some very nice figures and terrain.
Morocco 1908
The WWII Pacific participation game by Rubicon with the USMC attempting to seize a couple of bridges from the Japanese was an excellent little game. The board was only c.4’x2′ but it really showed the benefits of 10mm. It used the Blitzkrieg Commander rules. I had a nice chat with Rubicon(?) and was very impressed with the terrain and the basing (nice use of tufts). Unfortunately my other photos all came out blurred!
BKC WW2 USMC game
The games really did justice to the Pendraken range and there are more pics in this gallery. All of them were well presented with excellent terrain and figures. And it was a friendly day. Everyone willing to chat. Inevitably I spent more than I planned. I was intending to get the first of my 1st Schleswig-Holstein figures so I collected them. I also grabbed a load of bases for assorted projects from the Minibits stand. And some static grass. And some orange paint. Oh…and a small army pack totally unrelated to any period I am currently doing! 🙂
I had an interesting little chat with Goat Major at the end about using 10mm for skirmish gaming and I have a feeling my planned IABSM games will end up in 10mm and not the 6mm I had planned. But not ’til next year!
The afternoon was spent playing an AWI game with GavinP and Goat Major using Black Powder. I’ve never played the rules before and we had some doubts over their use as stands for AWI. Especially re skirmishers. I recognised a lot of the mechanisms from my Cold War Commander games and did enjoy them. I can see them working well for bigger games with a few ‘period’ tweaks. There are some pics from the game and a more detailed writeup here.
So all in all a very good day. I have resisted 10mm for quite some time. I almost slipped into Colonial last year but resisted. But I fear this is the start of something…:)
