28mm WW2 Desert Game Time

WW2 Desert Big Game Tryout

British Mark VI

Over the last few game sessions at Castle R we have been getting the current main project, WW2 Desert in 28mm on the table. The painting of the figures has been the subject of a number of blog entries. This started off as a "skirmish" game, a box of Perry figs and a couple of vehicles a side, a quick look at the painting count on the right of this post (over 450 since last year at the time of writing this post) will show how its got out of hand, we have done lots of play testing of the rules over short "club night" games of 2-3 hours and got them sorted in that format. This was the first dip into a bigger game form, I knew we would need a few changes to them for the larger number of units.

The Italian Recon enter the arena

The scenario was my standard rules breaker game, running down the length of the table both sides move on table on a single road through a small village, the objective being a central village. Lots of hills and scrub spread round the table (you don't want to be caught in the open in WW2) to hide behind. Both sides start with a company of infantry plus supports and a two vehicle recon unit. The Italians had an Autoblinda AB41 armoured car, a CV38 armed with an 20mm AT rifle, a rifle section of 11 figs, a Mg section of 9 figs, a HQ with 45mm Mortar and AT Rifle plus a 10 fig Bersaglieri section. The Brits had a recon unit of a Marmon Herrington AC and a Mark VI Light tank plus a company of Desert Rats, 3 10 fig sections plus light mortar and A/T.

British re enforcements arrive.

The rules we use are basically the same set we use for Spanish Civil War, loosely based on Seven Coffins for Seven Brothers with bit of Toofatlardies. We use a card driven activation described in detail in earlier SCW blogs. For that period we have a money element to the game which enables players to buy upgrades and more stuff. I was looking for a mechanic to set the WW2 game apart from the SCW game and one early morning, not being able to sleep due to shifts I was watching TV poker when inspiration struck

Here comes the flop !

It works like this, at the start of each turn the deck of unit cards is shuffled and each side is dealt two cards, 5 cards are then put face up on the table, the flop. Both sides now roll 2d6 to determine who has initiative, the highest score gains it and holds the initiative on a score 2 less than the winning roll. So a player winning with a 10 holds the initiative on an 8. Once initiative has been won the turn begins and cards are activated in order from left to right, that unit moves and or shoots and then the next card activates, standard stuff.

The player with the initiative is in control of the flop, he can choose to let it run, allowing the cards to activate in turn. Or he can take one of a number of actions, he can exchange the position of two of the cards in the flop, so above if the Italian player had the initiative he may want to exchange the Sicilia card for the Allied Recon so that that unit activates first. Another action is to take a card from their hand and place that anywhere in the flop, a particularly evil move if you have the Tea Break card.

A brave Italian tanker looks over t'hill, it'll end in tears

Finally a player can draw a card from the unused deck, once the effects of the card played moved or drawn have been finished (so in the example above, after the Italian Infantry had moved and or fired) the player has to roll to keep initiative, 2d6 greater than or equal to the current initiative score (8 in the example above). Pass the roll and the player keeps the initiative and adds 1 to the initiative score, fail and the initiative passes to the other player, who then takes command of the flop. Each player has a maximum of one action per flop. After all the cards on the table have been used another 5 cards are dealt as new flop.

When the turn ends on the tea break card a new turn begins and initiative is rolled for again. The system has produced some interesting game play, win the initiative on a 4 and off you go like Rommel on speed, win it on a 10 and you're a bit more cautious !

Can you smell burning ?

We managed 2 games, both predictably wins for the Brits. The first game was over quite quickly, poor re enforcement rolls for the Italians and excellent for the Brits gave them an unbeatable numerical advantage in armour. The second game was more even to start with, the Italians briefly got a toe hold in the objective village, only to draw fire from every man and his dog, wiping them out to a man, everyone gave the village a wide berth after that !

Last thing the Italians wanted to see.

The main body of rules work great in the big game setting, I want to try a couple of other things with the card activation to see if we can speed things up in that department. More units activating on one card is one possibility, the other would be to use a Johnny Reb type order chit method, both will get a run out before Xmas I hope. Weekend game tomorrow will see the dust blown off our ACW collection for a one day only battle. X Wing, SCW and Vietnam are cued up after that before we return to the Desert. Our regulars have purchased some Afrika Korp so the next game for the Brits might not be so straight forward.

You can never have too many Recon vehicles

British Armour dominating the battlefield

British Infantry wait in cover for the order to attack

X Wing, Holidays and Common Ground Games

 The 3 R's, Reillys Random Ramblings

Its been a bit quiet on here the last couple of weeks, I took a bit of time out with the family for a couple of weeks, heading up, possibly for the last time without a passport, to Scotland. A lovely cottage in the Pentland Hills a short journey from Edinburgh and a great time was had by all.

I'm very lucky in the fact that Baby R (14 now and taller than me) and Mrs R indulge my hobby and join in on the odd game or two especially on holidays. X Wing has been on my radar for a while, any regular readers of the blog will realise by now that I am generally 18 months or so behind the curve with new stuff. I see something think, oh that's nice and I'll be halfway through a project and put it to one side then suddenly remember my interest a year or so later.

So onto X Wing, I don't plan to review the game in detail that's been done at length elsewhere. I will say that I am very impressed by the whole thing. The starter set shown above comes with everything you need to get going. There are three ships with the game the iconic X Wing itself and two opposing Tie Fighters, dice, movement templates, tokens, game cards, the lot. The production on the game is fantastic, very high quality, the ship models themselves are really good, great detail and a cracking paint job. Some "pre painted" stuff is dreadful but this is much much better I don't know how they do it. For so long I have been used to buying rules and figures and then waiting months until I have enough for a game, opening a box and playing straight away is new and fun.

As for game play its great, easy to pick up but not too simple, lots of variation between ships and characters, we had some cracking games. New ships to add to the game can be picked up for between £10 and £12, I think that's pretty good value. As stated above they are really well painted and come with high quality movement base, counters and cards for the ship itself. When I think I was paying this and more to the completely useless "Mongoose Publishing" for unpainted Star Fleet ACTA stuff a couple years ago ( which surprise, surprise they dropped and screwed up, never ever buy anything from Mongoose ).

The back story to X Wing was its purchase. One of the first ports of call on any Scottish Holiday is Static Games in Glasgow, sadly they didn't have a copy of the starter set, lots of ships but no game, we tried Black Lion Games in Edinburgh who had very little of anything along with every Waterstones and Forbidden Planet, no joy. I went on the tinternetweb and found Common Ground Games in Stirling and The Games Hub in Edinburgh, two places I wasn't aware of, at 7pm I e-mailed both asking if they had the game. An hour later CGG had got back to me with a positive result and put a copy under the counter for me. The Games Hub still haven't got back to me, they haven't got any of my money either !

We travelled over the next day and picked the game up with a couple of extra ships. I was very impressed with the layout, there is a well stocked shop area with a good selection of figs, board games and accessories. Added to that is a nice cafe area to chill out in which is tagged on to a really big games room.

We had a nice chat with the owner who is clearly enthusiastic about gaming and his store. Most game shops are tiny in the UK and struggle to fit a 6x4 table in and when they do you can't get to the stock, this was, to me, different and a great step forward. Leeds is 8 times bigger than Stirling and has nothing like this, if I lived in the area I would be a regular, if you need some re enforcements during a game you can pop next door and buy them ! I wish Common Ground Games every success and will certainly be back to visit.

1/3000th WW2 Naval - From box to table

1/3000 WW2 Naval - From box to table

After the success of the last (and first) From Box to Table blog, which got half as much again in reads as my previous most popular post, I thought I would continue with the idea as its clearly useful for some of you guys and gals to see how I do stuff and hopefully get some ideas for your own painting. I started reading other blogs to get ideas, if I can pass on ideas to others then that's great.

A British destroyer finished with the method described below

This post covers 1/3000 Naval, which has consistently been the least popular (usually half the normal numbers of reads) so probably not the best way to increase my follower numbers but its what was next in the production list. I have used this method for years, I used to paint 1/6000 Figurehead ships for Hallmark so that the owner had a stock of painted stuff to sell at shows so I can safely say I have done thousands of ships this way over the years, its mostly technique rather than skill even Mrs Yarkshire has been known to paint a bit of sea in her time.

So lets introduce our two "models" for this blog, both from www.skytrex.com HMS Hood (4 turrets to your right) and HMS Renown. First job is to clean up the metal casting and glue it to a base, I use artist mounting board. Stage two is to create a textured sea base, I use polyfilla or similar straight from the pot, I use a knife to form the filler with a bow wave at the front of the model and a flat tag space at the rear. It takes a while to get this right at first but you soon get the hang of it, of course the smaller 1/6000 stuff come with a pre cast textured sea base.

All paints are Vallejo unless otherwise stated.

After leaving overnight for the filler to dry I use the trusty Matt Black Halfords spray primer to undercoat the whole thing, then I paint the whole of the sea area with Miniature Paints Navy Blue, you can see with the black undercoat there is already some shading going on.

Next up is the painting of the sea, on the left the first stage, this is a heavy dry brush ( ie I don't remove that much paint off before dragging the brush across the surface) with 930 Dark Blue followed by a lighter dry brush of 904 Dark Blue Grey on the right.

Two views of the sea finishing stages, HMS Hood at the back in the top photo and to the left above has had a light dry brush of 820 Off White on the whole of the base. HMS Renown has then had the sea base finished by me painting the bow waves and prop wake in Off White, I also apply an extra spot of dry brush down the side of the ship where it would disturb the water. While the white paint is out I hand paint the ships name on the rear of the base.

The sea painting can be as messy as you like, a bit of blue paint on the ship is no problem at all, in fact a build up of filler around the bow painted white really gives the feeling of the ship cutting through the water at speed. The next stage painting the ship its base colour is one of the few stages that needs a bit of accuracy and patience (the other being the deck painting). Renown (now named so you can see it) has had a base coat of 992 Neutral Grey applied along the belt and all over the superstructure, Hood shows the next stage where the Neutral Grey has been dry brushed with 990 Light Grey.

Hood shows the next stage, she has been lightly dry brushed with 820 Off White and the Renown has had its deck painted 912 Tan Yellow.

These are two shots of the "finished" ships ready for the table, an ink wash of Army Painters Strong Tone ink on the decks, Lifeboats highlighted white and funnel tops black.

A final splash of "dazzle" camo on Renown, Hood was sunk painted grey and has been left as she was on the day she was lost.

Hopefully that is a useful guide to getting your ships on the table, each Nationality had their own colour schemes and little quirks, the above book (if you can find it) gives a lot of detail, however these days a google search brings up most things.

Empire of the Dead - Holmes, Watson and the Ripper

Empire of the Dead - Holmes, Watson and the Ripper

The Evil Ripper cornered by the Good Guys

I have got a bit of time off work coming up and was keen to get these last three figs done before holidays. Regular readers will be aware of my detour down the road of weirdness with EotD, these guys finish off the figs I need to play the introductory scenario (available as a free download on the West Wind Website )

The worlds favourite detective (close run thing with Eddie Shoestring !, google it young people and none English types) in all his front and back glory.

Trusty sidekick Dr Watson, with an impressive back pack of weapons.

And finally (cue comedy booing) the evil one himself, The Ripper, Member of Royalty, Surgeon, Liverpool Businessman, Polish Immigrant or Judas Priest song who knows ?

Game looks fun, hopefully Junior will like as well, got a couple of the box sets to have a go at if he does.

28mm AWI New Unit - 27th Inniskilling Foot

28mm AWI Inniskilling Foot

Here we are with the 3rd Battalion of 5 for my next Brit AWI Brigade, staffed with the wonderful 28mm Perry plastic figures and the GMB Flags.

A 20 fig unit I have used a couple of the casualty figs to make up the numbers so I have enough figs to complete the Brigade without buying another box.

Next up will be the 40th South Lancs another "Buff" regiment, after the success of my Desert Rat box to table post, which was my highest read to date, I will be doing the same format for those showing the whole process.

28mm Perry Desert Rats - From box to table

28mm Perry Desert Rats - From box to table

Rather than just put up a new page when I finished the next box of figs, I thought for a change on this blog I'd do a beginning to end blog, showing the figs going from the box to the table. All paints are Vallejo Model Color unless stated.

Fig glued together on 2 pence base, sprayed Halfords Matt Black

Shorts, shirt and hat painted Kahki 70988

Dry brush above with Buff 70976 and then a 50:50 mix of White 70951 / Buff

Socks painted Russian Uniform WW2 70924, Rifle and Flesh areas painted Beige Brown 70875

Highlight to rifle 50:50 Beige Brown, Tan Yellow 70912, highlight to socks of Green Grey 70886 and the painting the webbing Green Grey

Rifle parts Gun Metal Grey 70863, bayonet GW Mithril Silver, South African Div Patch on upper arm, yellow over green.

Flesh outlined in 70804 Beige Red and Highlighted with Flat Flesh 70955

The fig has been finished with a wash of GW Devlan Mud Ink on the socks, rifle and webbing and then a wash of GW Ogryn Flesh ink on the flesh. Basing has been started with a texture base of ready made filler.

Filler painted Lifecolor Sand Yellow, then drybrushed Dark Sand 70847

And there it is ready for the table, a bit of green Basetex highlighted yellow. With a grass tuff for good measure.

1 down 37 to go. The Lifecolor paints are quite hard to get hold of here in the UK, luckily I saw some in a model shop in Italy when on holiday, cue strange looks as I bought all 6 bottles in the shop. I use Humbrol Matt Cote as a varnish, its oil based and much harder than acrylic varnishes, dry clear and dull, good stuff. Hope you have enjoyed this little trip into the paint room.

Empire of the Dead - Organ Donors (civilians)

Empire of the Dead - Organ Donors

Regular readers will know that over recent months I've been wandering off into the unknown with a bit of Steampunk stylee EotD. I'm slowly building up the figs for the introductory scenario with The Ripper vs Holmes and Watson. Having been gaming for 35 years or so this is the first time I have painted figures one at a time and its a bit weird to say the least.

I got these figures from Old Glory In their Blue Moon 28mm range found here , quite good value for "fantasy" figures at £30 for 20 figures. I have found these considerably better than the usual Old Glory fare who in my experience have often suffered with poor quality metal and bad castings from worn moulds, therefore I was pleasantly surprised at how little cleaning up they needed.

Newspaper seller - things are weird in the world of EotD, Bradford City won !

A lady from the Temperance Movement fights a losing battle with a drunk

These 10 figs will act as victims in the first scenario, their organs earmarked for harvesting by the Ripper, although he might give the drunks liver a miss. There are 10 more to paint in the box.

The Tramp (hobo) painted with the aid of smellovision

Working Men - Sweep, Postie and Organ Grinder

The Ladies, Old Woman, Nanny and Washerwoman

And of course, baby