28mm AWI 17th Lt Dragoons

I have been short of mounted units for some time now for our groups AWI collection, by short I mean we haven't got any  ! I had decided on my entry into the Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge this year that this unit would be my main goal as a "must" get done.

12 28mm AWI British 17th Lt Dragoons made by the wonderful Perry Miniatures, I bought the bare metal a long time ago and they have, like many other things, been hanging around in a "to paint" box for a long while. Some people in the AHPC have commented that they have had problems with excess flash on Perry Figs, I have too say it's something that I haven't encountered myself but I tend to buy Figs when they come out (and then leave them in a box for 10 years !) so I can't comment on the newer casts.

I have used my standard painting and basing techniques for these, oil paints for the horses, Vallejo Acrylics for the figures then polyfilla basetex and grass tufts for the bases.

For some reason I ended up with a mental block with these bad boys, I set off with them as my first unit for the challenge like a whippet down a pipe but after completing the horses and two riders I just ground to a halt. It's strange how sometimes you end up in a battle with a unit.

It was a case of percying with them, don't get me wrong their is nothing wrong with the figures and there are harder and more complex units to paint as well, for some reason it just didn't happen. Being in the Challenge helped, I had started them so they WERE getting finished !  I have no plans as yet for an AWI game this year but you can guarantee that there will be some Cavalry in there somewhere.

Next up on the paint table I have a little 6 figure unit of 28mm AWI Queens Hussars and some 15mm buildings.

Saxon SYW Infantry Completed

Late last year in an attempt to keep the painting mojo going I decided to try painting a small unit every 10 days (for me that's a working "week"). I would start the unit on my first day at work and then work on it, and that alone until it was completed.

Once finished I was "free" to paint  (or not) anything else I fancied from the Lead Mountain until the end of my last day off, when that would be put to one side and I would start the next small unit and so on.

As a method it has worked wonders for 140 days, because here we have the 14 Infantry Battalions of the Saxon Infantry Contingent at Minden, 16 Figures a piece, all based, varnished and flagged (if you can use flag as a verb ?).

The vast majority of the figures are the specially designed one I talked about in the inital post on this mini project, with Minifigs command, there are also two units of Grenadiers which are solely Minifigs and a units of Old Glory Fusiliers. The flags are by Maverick Models.

I can see some big SYW games happening this year, I have the last of my British Cavalry on the go at the moment and when they are done it will be time to get the collection on the table.

My SYW "to paint" box is nearly empty now, so using the above method I will try and finish off the odds and ends I have left. But the little unit per 10 days is here to stay, a few rules and a little discipline worked wonders

SCW Action - Attack and Defend 1936

Anarchists Advance

Just before Xmas I had a last minute call from the guys at the Leeds Club, the lad who was putting on our display game had fallen ill and we needed an emergency display game for the local (less than 2 miles from my house) Recon Show held at Pudsey.

Luckily the gaming room shelves and boxes here at YG are always ready to go, nearest to hand and needing least prep was the Spanish Civil War collection.

Set Up

Firstly apologies for the photos, the table was set up on the stage of the main hall with a particularly bright light shining down on the table from behind the Nationalist lines which made photographing the action interesting to say the least.

Guardia Civil Forces

With little time to set up anything fancy I went for straight up Attack and Defend game but had the Republicans attacking for a change, I set the table up with a Crossroads in the centre with a small village clustered around it. The table we were given was roughly 6ft square so that's how big the table was !

La Legion

The Nationalist forces consisted of a company of Legion and a company of Guardia Civil, each has a command of 4 Figs and 3 x 8 Fig company's,  the Legion have an LMG section in each of their companies. They set up 9" in from the base line giving them the head start on getting to the village.

A Company of International Brigade and a Company of Milita

The Republicans were given 4 Companies of troops, all starting from the base line (as they were attacking). There was our favourite Company of Anarchists, a Company of Milita and 2 Companies of International Brigade. All with the basic organisation as above. Each figure fights with what the figure is armed with so we have some interesting  (realistic) mixes in our Republican Units.

Brigadista

We have a home brew rules system so the lack of support weapons may seem a bit strange in the initial orbats. Each side rolls dice at the end of a turn which generates cash (I even have some old Spanish currency to use) and the players use that to buy there support and ammunition from a central pool of resources.

Ground Attack

As expected the Nationalist forces grabbed the first group of houses and formed a defensive line, the Republicans hadn't been hanging around either and the forward houses in the village proved just out of range for Francos troops. Thankfully for them an early air attack on the Guardia Civil missed it's target.

Legion sniping from a house roof.

The Militia especially suffered under heavy fire during their advance, their poor Morale didn't help them much in the quest to go forward.

Elsewhere on the table the Republicans were making steady progress on their left flank, the Anarchists threatening to get round the side of the Guardia.

General Game Chaos

The Nationalist forces invested wisely in a T26 however before it could make an impact a Republican T26 rolled onto the table. You WW2 gamers may smirk at a T26 but in the SCW it's the equivalent of a Tiger Tank.

The Nationalist tank got the bounce on its counter part, finding some cover it opened up, the God of Accuracy was appeased as 3 hits in 3 turns were obtained however the God of Destruction was in a bad mood as epically poor dice throwing resulted in no damage. However with three hit markers the Republican Tank was an unmissable target and it had to seek cover.

Polis In Da House

At the end of our allotted time, the game was nicely in the balance, the Anarchists has broken a company of Guardia Civil and has out flanked another. The Legion had neutralised the Militia but the International Brigade were giving as good as they were getting in the village.

The Nationalists had however managed to purchase a second T26 and as soon as it entered the table it engaged the Anarchist troops causing consternation in the ranks. But it was pack up time. A lovely little show Recon, made all the better as I always seem loads of old gaming chums there.

Brigade Command.

A Matilda called "Tubby Toad"

A quick show off post today with this, the latest addition to my WW2 1941 British Desert Force, a Blitzkrieg Models 28mm Matilda Infantry Tank with a Warlord Games Commander.

I haven't done any WW2 stuff for a while but those of you who follow the blog will know that I have taken part in this year's Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge. Every two weeks or so there is a bonus "theme" round and this time the theme was "Armour".

I had a quick think and it was either a tank or some Crusader Knights, this won hands down as the Knights are a real pain in the backside.

There are 50 or so entries in the Armour Bonus Round, why not pop by and vote for your favourite  (open until 24th Jan) there are some great entries. This LINK will take you straight to my entry and then you can explore the others from the links on the right of that. The voting panel is there too, a word of warning, it will only let you vote once and it doesn't save your choices as you move round the pages, so have a wander then vote in bulk.

So let's get down to the name, of course it's made up but there is a story behind the name. A couple of three years ago I painted my first Matilda and that was christened "Fat Badger" in honour of a local restaurant and the fact that it looks, well, like a Fat Badger. During our Ctesiphon refight our little group where talking about the new tank when The Wind in the Willows came up with and the four main characters in the story, so I decided on "Tubby Toad" stand by for Rotund Rat, I am open to suggestions for Mole.

It would be remiss of me not to show a picture of "Badger" and "Toad" together so here they are. Badger has a greener Light tone on the Caunter Scheme whilst the Tubby Toad has come out darker in the photos but with the scheme paints were sourced locally and the sun caused all sorts of fade effects, so a bit of variation is fine with me.

I did a tutorial a while back on my tank painting which is HERE if you are interested.

It's been quite good fun painting these as a one off, the next theme is "East", let's get searching for something to paint.

The Walking Dead - Days Gone Bye - Expansion Review

Following on from my recent review of the core box set for Mantics Walking Dead, All Out War game I have, through enjoyment of the game decided to expand my collection.

My first choice for my next addition was this expansion "Days Gone Bye" which focuses on the early part of the story when the group of Survivors are camped outside Atlanta, this is a true expansion and you need the starter set to use its contents.

Of all the current expansions available this one provides the most extra kit for the player who is looking to game in a group (there is a similar sized Solo expansion available).

You get another gaming mat, which is quality gloss paper and very cleverly it has a small section of road which fits with the game mat from the initial game to give a double sized playing area.

Added to that is a booklet explaining the Days Gone Bye set, it has some new rules and explanations along with a narrative Campaign of 6 linked scenarios. Here is my one quibble with this set, the scenarios in the booklet use figures outside the basic set and this edition meaning you need to buy more booster packs to get the figures. Agreed it's a good marketing tool but we were looking forward to having a go at the Campaign when this box arrived and both my and YG Jnr were disappointed.

You get 6 more character cards covering the 4 miniatures in the box plus upgrade "Veteran" cards for Patrick and Sandra from the starter set.

Then you have more Event, Supply and Equipment cards. Fire is a new addition to the game with this set and the event cards cover that and the addition of woodland to the gaming area.

The equipment includes a lovely Gory clothing card for those of you who wish to add Stale Zombie to your Cologne collection. There is however a nice Rain Storm event card to wash away the smell.

Most useful game wise (I think, haven't tried it yet) is the Remington Rifle which gives you a decent ranged weapon, my set is one of the early misprints where the Rifle range is 10", it should be 30" (or 36" can't remember).

Apart from the miniatures the last items in the box are these two thick card game and terrain counter sets. They include trees, tents, fire and woodland themed supply tokens. The art work is great and quality superb.

On to the minis next, they come in the dark grey hard plastic that the starter set comes in, however I forgot to photograph mine before I put primer on them. Here we have Dale on the left in his lookout pose, you can just imagine him like some Chief Meerkat stood atop the RV looking for danger. Next to him is Allen.

Then we have Jim and Donna.

Before we have the two exclusive Walker Miniatures for this game, a guy with a fetching Mohawk hair style and an undead female Police Officer, nice character on these Figs and something that stands out from your general Walker horde.

Hope that's been helpful to some, this really is a great game, the quality of the kit is lovely and I would recommend it it to anyone with a passing interest in the comics or TV show and that's from a dyed in the wool historical Gamer.