Few odds and Ends

A quiet week or so. Been the wife's birthday had a poorly 1 year old and was ill myself so not to much time free. After making up all the late war British infantry (mentioned in last blog) I set about painting my airbourne troops. I've played skirmish games for so long I forgot what it was like to paint an army! Slow start as I want to take my time and do my best with these.  So only started on the base colours at moment.

Next up once work shifts are done will be the green on the jackets.
I've also under coated all the regular British infantry so they will be next up.
On the horizon (christmas) I will have a tank to make up and my friend who is my main adversary in war games has a few tanks he is making up so I thought I would try my hand at making a destroyed vehicle marker. I have seen these used in various battle reports and they add to the battle field I believe. I scavenged some flickering battery powered tea lights and raided the baby supplies for cotton wool. I found a few different videos with techniques on so used those.
I stuck a lollipop stick to one side of the tea light and then stuck cotton wool around tea light and up the stick to hopefully maaaje what appears to be a smoke plume.

I think the lighting effect looks great but white smoke won't do for burning vehicles!  So I blasted it with black spray paint!

I think these will look great and took very little effort to make. Hopefully I will be placing them on my opponets tanks and not mine!
Lastly I reciveved my war bear and rider from the Dead Earth games Shattered Crown Kick starter. Lovely looking model. I've had to order a new base as I wanna try something a bit different with this one. It did come with a base but that was more a cavalry rectangular base so the bear can be used is a unit.  It will be a while till I get a unit of bear riders.

Have a good week folks!

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Bolt Action Mid/Late War Infantry

Throughout the week I've been working on British infantry box set. The British Airbourne units I already own were solid models so required no assembly. However this box sets contains options for many varieties of soldiers. Obviously being new to bolt action and didn't really know what to aim for and there are a lot of sprues! Luckily I got some advice from Jamie at Infamous wargaming club (the very man who gave me the box set) and had a list in my mind.

My officer and 2 body guards with SMGs

My officer has got 2 bodyguards along with him. He did start out as pointing with one hand but after looking at the sprues I decided that I would have a slightly eccentric officer who had 2 pistols! No in game effect but I like it anyway.

PIAT Team

Next up a bit of anti tank. A PIAT team setting up their gun.

Light Mortar Team

A light mortar team next. The loader does look like he will fling the mortar round himself but with some special placing of mortar and loader hopefully the effect I was after will come through.

Sniper Team

I made a sniper team up (virtue of scoped enfield) there were no specifically designed prone figures in the box set so I went for a sniper getting into position with spotter. Point to note: the binoculars were a nightmare to fit in the spotters hands!!!!!!!!!!!!

Squad of 8 Tommies

2nd Squad of 8 Tommies

Last was two 8 man squads containing an LMG team, 2 SMGs and 4 rifles each.
Great fun putting these together as the amount of sprues give you plenty of options and poses for your soldiers.  I think this box set is great you get virtually a platoon on it so could start playing straight away. Now a mass bolt action force painting session is required!
Have a great one guys

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Busy weekend

After finishing a large run of shifts Saturday was games night. First off we tried a tiny game of bolt action just to give the rules a try. My friend had a German  lieutenant and a 10 man squad I had a British Para lieutenant and 2 5 man squads. We really liked the bolt action rules and they flow really well. Great fun can't wait to finish up our armies and have a full on battle.

Next up was a large game of x wing!

2 large squadrons were assembled. The empire had slave 1 and 4 tie aces the rebels had the millenium falcon, an E wing , b wing and an a wing.

The board was pretty crowded with ships. We started our game both sides speeding towards each other. A few shots were exchanged before unfortunately my little 1 year old got ill so had to call it a day and look after him all night. He seems much better today though. On Sunday I took a trip to a new gaming club that has opened up  Infamous Wargaming club based on oldbury at a community arts place. Here I met Jamie who set up and runs the club. He gave me a demo of bolt action (I know i had played a game the night before but I always find it good to have someone that has played a few times to show you). He had a german force and we played a scenario called envelopment. I lost the roll so Jamie picked the defender and I got the attacker. I had to get my forces across I to his deployment done and off the board.

My forces were in white as they haven't been painted yet just under coated  as you can see I suffered from a lack of cover where as the Germans were well dug in.

One of my squads (above pic) managed to get into opponents half and some brave charging and close quarter combat.  This squad did make it off the board.

My other squad did not fair so well as it had more open ground to cover. In bolt action (as I'm sure many of you are aware) you have pins this reflects squads receiving incoming fire.  I had made my own pin markers to look like little explosions. As you can see from the picture the squad had already acquired 2. Pins affect taking orders and shooting

They fought their way across the river but were wiped out. I lost the game but 2 victory points.
One of the other blokes at the club offered me a second game against Russians.  After set up I noticed there were a lot of Russians on the other side of the battle. This was a straight up meeting engagment where both sides run into the table.  This went fairly evenly but we ran out of time so didn't get to finish though to rub it In my artillery spotter at extreme long range and enemy in cover took 2 enemy out with his SMG with some lucky dice rolls. I love bolt action and can't wait to get my army sorted. Also Jamie was super kind and gave me a box of British soldiers which should be enough to make up another 2 squads of regular British Tommies.
The box is full of sprues and loads of choice!  Below is what I started this morning (wonderful children waking up before 7 am)

Have a great day!!

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