From the Shed: Great War era King’s African Rifles.

My good friend Bill, boss of Under Fire Miniatures, asked me to do some painting for him, specificially his latest release. I tried my best at them, blending and everything. I’m quite pleased at how they turned out so I’m going to show them off here before the pictures get uploaded to the Under Fire Website.

These KAR men are ideal for any Great War games set in East Africa– the campaign there is rather interesting. A small German force moved around the area for four years evading all British attempts to catch then and eneded the war unbeaten. Well worth looking up. The figures are multipart so you get a choice of weapons and I believe they’ll be sold with different heads so you can make up figures representing the different Imperial regiments from that era.

I used Vallejo paints for these- Khaki for the uniform and Canvas for the webbing, Pale Sand was added to highlight the previous steps. A wash of Army Painter strong tome helped too. Many thanks to Bill for letting me use his pictures too.

Cheers,

Pete.

2021… that was the year that was and a look towards plans for 2022….

Firstly I like to apologise for not commenting on peoples’ blog over the fesative period. I’ve been away in Ashford with Nicola to see her family down there, consequently I was away from my PC so was just looking at things on my phone. It was a very nice and relaxing time. I caught up with some reading too which was good. I was surprised to find a MKIV tank in the town centre there as a memorial.

In all 2021 has been a bit of a mixed bag (something that I think can apply to almost everyone) health has been a bit low but uni has been going well, further more Nicola and I rescued a pair of cats that are wonderful company. With the opening up of things a little more here in the UK face to face gaming has made a welcome return, also I’ve started going back to the local club that is most enjoyable. A new Necromunda campaign did start up that I joined for a while but ultimately had to leave; a combination of poor health and the move of gaming nights to a weekend when I was usually busy meant I didn’t want to be unreliable so I decided it would be best to withdraw (I will do a post next week though on what I did do). I have been managing to get quite a bit of online gaming in too- whilst this has often been a live streamed table top game (covering many periods and scales) it has frequently included something a bit different. Having the oppertunity to play in varied role plays, committee games and matrix games has been great.

As for the coming year I’m still pretty much going to stick to the plan from November… I’m closing in on the last few bits of my Death Guard army for 40k, then it will be on to the Adeptus Mechanicus. Zona Alfa will feature more as I’m really enjoying that game- hopefully I’ll be able to get a campaign up and running. Not sure what to do about Necromunda… whether to rejoin in on the clubs next campaign or do something at home. Building a table for it could be good fun. My Winter War project has nearly been finished too, just got some bits to get and finish off then I’ll look to start getting that gamed. The rest of the stuff is bubbling along in the background.

With regards to board games, and here is the biggest overlap with my uni work, there are lots I’ve bought recently but not got to the table, including some print and play games I’ve got to make up. I’ve also got the itch to do some traditional RPG stuff. A few has been released recently, mainly Cyberpunk Red, that has triggered a wave of nostalgia, even though I have grave reservations about the whole format.

Finally, all that remains to do is thank you the reader for being with me for the past decade and more and wish all of you a Happy New Year and the very best for 2022.

Cheers,

Pete.

From the Shed: 6mm sized WW1 tank.

I wanted something to test out my printer- to see how small it would go….

I had a look about thingiverse and found a pack of WW1 vehicles scaled for 1:200th. I hada look at the files and they vehicles were all modelled fairly robustly so I figured they could be shrunk further; so in my slicing software I scaled a Mk IV male down to 1:285th. I wouldn’t try shrinking down a more detailed, larger file as the finer detail would just fail to print.

I ended up with this:

After a quick coat of paint I got it to look like this:

Given how well it has turned out I’m now considering printing out many more for a ‘Plan 1919’ game to explore Great War armoured action, as envisiged by JFC Fuller, that could have occurred had Imperial Germany not collapsed and the war continued. Something to think on….

Cheers,

Pete.

From the Shed: WW1 French tanks.

I’ve backed all three Kickstarters for The Great War board game. However when the last expansion was up, the French one, I didn’t buy any accompanying French tanks at the time.

 

Having got the box through I saw that the scenarios featuring French tanks need either three Schneider tanks or one Schneider and one St. Chamond. I decided to order myself a set of 3D printed tanks from Butler’s Printed models… I went for 1 of each type initially. I wanted to see what the quality was like firstly, then I figured I may order two more Schneiders later.

 

Then I got the 3D printer for xmas so I decided to print myself off a set of 3 Schneiders anyway.

 

First up are the Butler’s Printed Models. They are nice prints, didn’t take much cleaning up at all.

They look pretty smart with a coat of paint on too.

The 3D prints of my own aren’t as fine as the others but this isn’t down to my printer, rather because I scaled a 1:200 file up to 1:100, consequently the lack of detail in the original file became more apparent.

However with a coat of paint on them I’m really very pleased with how they look now.

The colourful, even stylish, French camo was fun to do abd I can’t wait to add this new dimension to my Great War games now.

Cheers,

 

Pete.

3D printer- my initial foray.

As previously mentioned I recieved a 3D printer for xmas and the past couple of weeks I’ve been playing around with it. I have also been looking on various website for as many interesting looking free files that I could find to try out.

Assembly was a breeze with only one recalictrant cable proving to be difficult so I quickly printed off the test file to see how it turned out. I was rather pleased with the results. Fast and not too noisy (the cat is happy to sleep through it running)- generates a lot of heat though.

The next day was, however, less succesful due to what is best described as user generated errors. I tried printing out a different figure but that one failed when a support gave way.

 

I decided to get some simpler terrain bits printed, that is after all what I primarily want to use it for. I found some rather nice manhole covers/ sewer entrances so printed off a set of 6 for myself.

Given how pleased I was with these I tried my hand at rescalling some vehicles and printing them out. I found a 1:100 set of experimental/ prototype WW2 German designs and selected the smallest and resized it to 1:72. The first time I printed it I didn’t reorientate it so whilst one side printed out very nicely the other didn’t do well at all.

I asked about and it seems that the correct way to go is tracks down so I tried again. Much better this time, but when it cam to cleaning off the suppors I fear I may have lost some detail.

On person did suggest printing AFVs with them stood on their rear hull, I’m not really convinced but in the interests of experimentation I’ll give it a go.

 

I also resized some 1:200 WW1 tanks to 1:100 to use with the Great War board game I enjoy. It is a rather chunky print but once cleaned up I rather like it.

That is where I have got to so far. I want to try some more scenery before I go into full production to make myself a Necromunda set up.

 

Cheers,

 

Pete.

1914 British Expeditionary Force.

I went to see the perimer of the Peter Jackson film ‘They Shall Not Grow Old’ a couple of weeks back; if you haven’t heard of the film please look it up. Technically amazing and a very powerful piece of cinema. When it goes on general release I highly recommend you to go and see it.

I was inspired, partly by the film and mostly because I wanted them for a scenario, to dig out my small collection of WW1 figures and paint some up.

This small unit of 20mm BEF troops from 1914 are from Lancer Miniatures clicky and are mostly armed with rifles barring the few command figures that go with them.

The figures have plenty of character and painted up very quickly using my standard techniques. Now I just need to get all the German opposition painted so I can game out the opening phases of the Great War.

 

Cheers,

 

Pete.

Assorted games from recent weeks.

As much as I’ve been busy beavering away in the shed making kits and painting I have been getting quite a few games in too. I’ve not done a battle report in a while for the simple reason that trying to take photos at meaningful points in the game comes third to a) playing the game and b) having a laugh with my mates, the latter is the best reason for gaming imo.

Nonetheless I have taken some ‘happy snaps’ as it were of a few recents evening’s gaming so thought I’d put them up here:

First up we have the old Milton Bradley game Battlemasters from 1992. Done in conjunction with Games Workshop as an entry level game it comes with a rather nice printed plastic mat.

Paul had found a cheap copy in a charity shop so he took it up to the games club and gave it a run through that evening. It plays quick so we managed to get two full games in. The above photo gives you some idea of how the random card cannon mechanisms works.

The second scenario saw the ‘evil/ chaos’ army attempting to force a river crossing to take out a fortified tower. It seemed to be a quite a tall order for them to do that given that the ‘Empire’ army was at full strength.

I ran a nice little 6mm 5core: Brigade Commander game for Evan and Bill that saw Bill’s 1980s British defend a section of the German countryside from Evan attacking Soviets. You can’t beat a bit of 1980s Cold War what if? gaming to stir nostalgic memories of the 1980s. I really should get a CD of 80s music to go with these games.

The twist in the scenario was that the Soviets faced a large flanking counter attack that they weren’t ecpecting. Here Evan tries to reposition his troops in the face of approaching British armour.

Here a MIG 23 from the VVS tries to halt the encroaching Chieftans threatening to overrun the Soviet HQ. The game ended in a bloody draw.

I have managed to get a couple of games of the French expansion of The Great War board game. The op[ening games are based around the battles for Verdun. The first game seemed a tough ask for the defending French. I played the game twice in an evening with Paul swopping side: on both occasions the French were decisively beaten.

I played the second of the new scenarios with Evan. Again we played it twice, again the French were beaten both times. Evan played as the Germans the first time. Veteran gamer that he is he quickly indentified the the weakpoint in my defences and went for it winning comfortably. After we swopped sides I looked at the board and couldn’t come up with a better plan so copied his shamelessly for much the same result.

I dug out my modest fleets of Russo- Japanese War ships for a naval battle with Paul. We could have probably done with a bigger table as this turned out to be the naval equivalent of a knife fight in a telephone box.

Here Paul’s Russian battleship is trying to ram my battleship squadron, having crossed his ‘T’ I gave him little option. Fortunately he bounced off my side armour and a lucky critical hit roll sunk him. A fun game, I need to add to my collection though before I can play the war as a campaign as I intend to do at some point.

Finally with have the recent Too Fat Lardies’ tank skirmish ruleset What a Tanker. Evan ran the game for Bill and I, I had three BT7s and a T28 facing off against a STUGIII, Pz38t and a PzII. After a lot of to-ing and fro-ing around the table Bill whittled me down for the win. I’ve mixed views on the game (I think the games set in the early war don’t work, for boring mathematical reason, due to the game design) but that aside it was one of the most enjoyable evening gaming I had had in a long time.

 

Cheers,

 

Pete.

The Great War: The French Expansion Kickstarter has arrived.

The Great War is a game inthe Command and Colours family by Richard Borg which I got into when it was first kickstartered (is that a verb now? I kickstarter, you kickstarter, we all kickstarter?) a few years ago. The Great war as a conflict can be tricky to game, especially the Western Front in its trench warfare phase; whilst low level games of trench raiding may work gaming the actual attacks across the no man’s land can be problematical.*

Richard Borg has made a very fun game that uses managing two hands of cards to allow you to ‘enjoy’ the frustrations of the war. It is very difficult to set up a good run of things, tanks break down all the time and you never have enough artillery but when you can coordinate everything it is very satisfying. As a result when the 3rd, French, expansion (based around the battle of Verdun, was announced I backed it straight away.

I picked it up from the Post Office on Saturday and got it opened up.

The main box with the modest extras I got, I managed to restrain myself and not go overboard with buying everything this time.

The back of the box telling you what you get.

The contents- lots of scenarios, a full set of figures for the French and extras for the Germans and British.

The figures again separated by type.

One nice feature is that this exapansion adds loads of specialists to the mix (spotters, officers, extra ammo carriers, flamethrowers… that kind of thing) as well as rules to add them into the previously published scenarios. By using a list to see how many to add into each game and then cross referencing a table to see what was available in each year of the war you have, for the first time, a personal choice in the make up of your force in a scenario.

Talking of scenarios: I’ve played this game at least 20 times now and am yet to repeat a game. Now with this expansion bringing the number of different scenarios up to 62 I reckon I’ve still got about a hundred game left at least before I repeat myself (I’m counting playing the same scenario from different sides as different games).

In other news, and featured here because she sat in the box the game expansion came in, I’d like to introduce my new cat: Ticker.

I had been with out a pet for a couple of years after my last cat Mickey (huge b&w Tom) had to be euthanised after developing tumours and was waiting until a cat needed a home came along. Ticker was the cat of a friend of a friend of my Mu7m’s who sadly passed away and she needed rehoming. She has been a little timid and standoffish but she is partly, or probably mostly, siamese and I’ve heard they can be like that and take a long time to bond so I’m giving her plenty of space and affections while she settles in.

 

Cheers,

 

Pete.

 

*Though not impossible see Martin Rapier’s work here: http://tgamesweplay.blogspot.com/2018/08/amiens-1918-2.html

Bargain price game mats.

Given the quality job Pix Art Printing clicky did with the game maps for my recent Case Blue megagame I decide that I put some more business their way. Several years ago I bought a few game maps from Wargames Vault clicky with the intention of printing them out onto paper and assembling them as a jigsaw. This didn’t work so well for various reason… but now there is Pix Art I decided to send them there to be printed. Using MS Publisher I added all the images together into one massive file and then waited for a special offer to be on to maximise my savings.

In the End I got a 130cm by 350cm vinyl at printed for £30 including delivery from Italy.

I got a 120cm square wasteland mat that will be ideal for any game set in the Middle East/ North Africa, as a point of comparison the going rate for a comparable sized mat by itself seems to be about £25.

This 120cm by 60cm costal strip will be great for ampibious landing be it in WW2 or the Dark Ages, the textures should work for both 20 and 28mm sized figures.

I added a few maps from my Print and Play board game collection- here we have maps for the Russo- Japanese War, WW1, fictional WW3 and right up to date with the War in Donbass.

 

A slightly smaller urban mat- should be useful for some of the 40K figures I’ve painting recently.

Finally I printed the map for use in Brian Train’s free urban COIN game: Maracas clicky

 

All in all I’m really pleased with this. They should last for ages and as they are easy to roll storage isn’t a problem either.

 

Cheers,

 

Pete.

 

 

NormandyTrip: Back to England and Bovington Tank Museum.

The overnight ferry from La Harve to Portsmouth was uneventful, I spent it either reading or watch films on my tablet, also it was the longest I’ve ever spent on a ship. As we arrived early on Friday morning I went on deck as the boat docked to see what was moored up in Portsmouth Harbour. The two historic ships HMS Victory and HMS Warrior were visible along with a fair few contemporary RN vessels including the new HMS Queen Elizabeth aircraft carrier.

HMS Warrior, undergoing some restortation.

 

HMS Victory.

 

HMS Queen Elizabeth, Britain’s biggest ever warship, I have to admit feeling a little underwhelmed by it.

 

A Type 45 Destroyer HMS Dragon.There were at least 4 Type 45s berthed when I was there.

After docking we drove a hour and a half westwards to visit Bovington Tank Museum, a place that has been on my must visit list for a long time. The number of vehicles on display is mind boggling. Divided up into different sections it takes you through the development of the tank then we went through the Trench Experience covering WW1 and from War Horse to Horse Power and much more including the Tiger exhibit bring together a Tiger and Elefant, two Tiger IIs and a Jagdtiger. I took so many photos I can’t upload them all but I’ll put up a representative sample. If anyone has anything in particular they want to see let me know and I’ll post it.

A view of the first hall we went in, Centurion front and centre.

 

WW1 Mk IV ‘female’ tank.

 

British Crusier tank from 1940.

A Panzer III painted up in Africa Korp colours.

 

A Sherman Firefly with Cromwell in the background.

 

Moving on to modern stuff we have a T72 with a Patton in the background.

 

A Saladin Armoured Car

 

British Challenger.

 

Another shot of the Firefly and Cromewll with the front ofa Chruchill peeking in.

In the WW1 section we have a MkII tank.

 

A Mk IV male with fascine.

Austin Armoured Car of the type used in Ireland during the Anglo-Irish war.

 

Tiger II with Porsche turret and Jagdtiger.

Tiger II with Henschel turret.

 

Elefant (all the way from the US) and Tiger 131.

 

Hetzer SPG in front of a Jagdpanther.

 

Protype of the Tortoise SPG- a British proposal to attack the Siegfried line.

 

A T34/76 in Finnish colours.

 

The ridiculous TOG II- a British failure from WW2, very cool all the same though.

 

British heavy metal.

 

The Sherman used in the recent Brad Pitt film ‘Fury’ still with its sfx weathering.

 

Not all of the vehicles that are in the Bovington Collection are on public display- this is a view of part of the storage shed.

Going round Bovington took all day; all that was left was a long drag on a journey North back to Yorkshire to end Dad and I’s holiday.

 

Cheers,

 

Pete.