Making slow but steady progress getting my 28mm sailors in white tropical / Pacific uniforms painted, including two
versions of Vera Lynn, all for Menelduir's the Pulp Alley China Station campaign.
Along with them some RN sailors in blue (Atlantic) uniforms and a Humber
Scout Car, all for Bolt Action.
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| Figures by Warlord, Pulp Figures and Bad Squido |
Sadly no Halloween game this year, but recently I did receive Tim Prow's The Battle For Black Mere kick-starter set of 28mm skeleton figures.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/diehardminiatures/the-battle-for-black-mere-undead-faction
These pictures are from the Kick-starter project and not my work, I have yet to paint my figures. These are by no means all the figures available in the kick-starter, just the ones I ordered.
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| Die Hard Black Mere Skeleton Pikemen |
Now that I am back in to playing 6mm W.W.II (Spearhead and Fist Full of TOWs3) I have pulled some of the figures out of storage including German, French and British AFV and infantry. Although the scenarios I have played recently with the Spearhead rules were set in Normandy in 1944, I have always wanted to play some games set in France in 1940 so it is time to start painting my French 1940 Infantry by Heroics and Ros (H&R) and GHQ. Plus as I will note later some 6mm German Fallschirmjagers (FJ)/ Paratroops that can be used for 1940-45 will be on the painting table soon (I hope).
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| Painted H&R Classic German Fallshirjager with LMGs |
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| WIP GHQ & H&R French 1940 Infantry in Vallejo khaki green |
This was a 15mmSpearhead game run by my friend William at the Ottawa Miniatures Games Club on Friday night February 17, 2023. The terrain and figures were contributed by multiple players, including myself resulting in a bit of an unmatched look The Scenario is called Pushing Forward set in the Summer of 1944 and was a test Game for Cangames 2023 and can be found here.
https://ww2spearhead.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/pushing_forward_1944.pdf
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| Overview |
This is a summary of how I built a 6mm scale prototype forest with a removable canopy top in 6mm scale for second World War games, which might also work for 15mm scale infantry, possibly for War of 1812 games. The finished product is shown below.
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| Top half of photo shows Forest with removable canopy and base |
I decided just to make one forest to start with, figuring I would likely learn by my mistakes, and best to do that with one forest before going into "mass production" of 10 or more.
I was pleased that some new members at my Games Club the Ottawa Miniatures Gamers (OMG) club have expressed an interest in playing Spearhead, a battalion / regiment level Second World War land battle game, reviving one of my favourite micro scale Second World War rules sets that I had not had a chance to play in over a decade at the club. This game took place on Sunday February 5th, 2023 at OMG, it is set in the Summer of 1944 in Normandy with two reinforced British battalions attacking one German reinforced battalion that is defending a town and a nearby ridge line. The scenario is an introductory scenario since both players had not played for some time and with an AGM a the club meeting interrupting the game we had limited time. The game was played in 6mm, 1/285 scale on a 3' x 4' gaming area, a Warzone Homeland - green grass and earth mouse pad mat.
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| Scenario map |
The
map above is based on a 36" wide by 48" deep table where each grid square is 12" in width or 1200 yards. A series
of woods break-up the battlefield and provide cover for both the British forces and the German defenders, whom I was playing.
The scenario called "Battalions Advance" can be found here: https://ww2spearhead.wordpress.com/2012/11/20/battalion-advance/comment-page-1/#comment-292
Here are some pictures of the new Deformable LED light I installed over my upstairs game table. One lamp provides more than enough light to illuminate my 58" x 72" games table. It was only $14 from Lee Valley, is easy to install, removable / portable, uses very little electricity and relatively inconspicuous. It also required a hanging socket with hooks and a long cord from Amazon.
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| The Lamp suspended to the season |
Having slipped on some back ice just before Christmas my back was not up to bending over the standard 29" high folding / banquet table I use for miniature games. If yo think about it these 29 to 30 inch tables are designed for sitting at for dinning. A more appropriate height would be that of kitchen or bathroom counters designed for standing at which are around 34" to 35" high. The early proponents of modern day wargaming like Donald Featherstone and Terence Wise advocated higher tables between 36" and 42" high in their books. So I tested a 37.5" high table for my first Fantastic Battles 1.2 game of 2023 (see separate post in my blog).
The experiment worked well, the table was stable, the risers did not get in the way and there was less bending. The only minor downside was it does limit how far across the table you can reach, a small price to pay for less back discomfort.
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| Table extender & riser combination used to achieve 37.5" height. |
Below is a picture of the activation tiles / counters I use for Fantastic Battles 1.2. I bought them from the Dollar Tree, they costed only $1 plus tax for a packet of 26 in 4 colours (medium royal blue, green, purple, fuchsia) and measure 20mm x 18mm x 5mm.. They are marketed by Craft Medley and I have also seen them in black and white.. I add number stickers to them to keep track of the number on the table but this is not essential. You can of course paint them, and I have painted some of the fushia counters dark red. Sadly I did not see any on my last visit to the Dollar Tree, but they may have just been put in storage to make room for seasonal decorations.
https://www.dollartreecanada.com/
However if you can't find them at the Dollar Tree you can buy a pack of 100 from Amazon for a higher price, but with a different mix of colours (red, orange, white, green and light blue), see link the below.
https://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/B09MZGVSRB/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
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| Tiles by Craft Medly from the Dollar Tree |
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| Tiles sold by Amazon |
A belated Merry Christmas and best wishes for a Happy New Year - 2023.
Picture above of part of my SAGA Age of Magic (AoM) Warband, I will be posting an AAR of the 4 player Christmas SAGA AoM game we played on December 27, 2022 soon.
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| Overview turn 1 SAGA AoM |
This Christmas I hosted a 4 player game of SAGA age of Magic n December 27, 2022 with our forth playing being John was visiting over the holiday. This is something we had not done since John's departure and the onset of the pandemic. Once again I used the SAGA AoM Battle Royal scenario.
As a follow on from my discussion about a Kings of War (KoW) campaign (see blog entry) and discussions with friends in June 2020 I had been thinking of setting up a SAGA Age of Magic campaign using the Might Empires (ME) campaign rules. However more recently (2022) I think an even better rule set to use for this would be Fantastic Battles (FB) l.2, and it has its own campaign rules.
Alternatively the Mighty Empires campaign rules can be found here:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1L_5kUsTuwlADt99VXN5-hD3MxPejhbHS/view?fbclid=IwAR36QepvlSigFF_IgO3NDWuEexC98iCewMythS2dmjZOiBGe6YzCXfc8Vbc
The campaign I envisage will be for 4 to 6 players as anything larger has the potential to breakdown if players don't contribute in a timely manner. .
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| From the old Avalon Hill board game Wizard Quest |
