To War!!! Well to practice war!!

 Today I went over to my mate Daves house and we played 2 games of Bolt Action. Just to remember the rules and test our lists. And instead of our usual kill everything scenario we rolled each one. The first one we rolled Take and Hold then proceeded to read the wrong scenario rules (good start I know!). So we started Dave and his Germans defending all hidden and I had to come onto the board and secure upto 3 objectives. I had some luck with my artillery and not such in the way of armour. Both tank and armoured car dead on 2 turns but I managed to grab 2 out of 3 objectives and took the win.

Next up we tried actual hold until relieved scenario, I opted to defend as that seemed harder. One squad set up on the objective (a very snazzy looking V2 rocket)   and my sniper team providing over watch. The sneaky Germans were all hidden away. My relief force entered and a frantic battle occurred. I had some supreme look with my mortar and artillery barrage but my squad were forced off the objective and 

 The Germans took it, I held it for a brief moment but lost most of my infantry trying to capture it. Both armoured vehicles survived this battle but it was a loss. 

Really good games. I'm glad I took the 8 man squads instead of one or two big squads. Gave me a bit more flexibility. I need to keep my armoured car on anti infantry and not use it on a tank fight (this seems obvious in hind sight).  My sas should make a good shock squad but I need to pick my moment to use them.  

Anyway all good fun was had and that's the main thing isn't it. 

Chaos reigns around the objective! 

 

I Gather the troops for the Upcoming Tournament

 As I've mentioned I've entered a tournament so I thought I would do a post about what forces I will take. I would love for this to be an in depth choice but a lot of my choice is necessitated by the fact that's the only models I have.  It's mid war so 42 to 43 ish. Which straight away is a problem as my army is mainly late war (no firefly for me) but I have used the Tunisia selector on easy army. I chose Tunisia as my guys are late war European so have the the khaki battle dress and wouldn't fit a desert rat 8th Army type selector but on a quick Google I found some pics of British soldiers in Tunisia who looked similar to my guys so that will do.

So here we go

HQ Choice

Regular First Lieutenant with one guy as a bodyguard. The lieutenant has a pistol and his bodyguard an SMG. 

Infantry 

8 man squad featuring 2 SMGs and an LMG. 

8 man squad featuring 1 SMG and an LMG

7 man squad featuring 1 SMG and an LMG

5 man SAS squad featuring 4 SMGs and an LMG

Team Weapons 

Sniper team

Medium Mortar with spotter  

Vehicles 

Sherman 2

Dainler Mk 1 Armoured Car

Bren carrier

National Characteristics 

Rapid Fire

Free Artillery Observer

That's it 995pts and 11 order dice.  I have a few infantry squads to give me a bit flexibility, the SAS to provide some punch in assault. The armoured car is purely as I want to play it. The sherman is in as its the only tank I have that fits the mid war.  The spotter with medium mortar is a new thing for me so I have to learn the spotter rules! The sniper team to take out weapons teams, officers and enemy snipers. The Bren carrier well I love Bren carriers and will always have one. Either the SAS will use it or my free observer after he's dropped his artillery can jump in to provide a mobile gun platform.

What does everyone think? I never was good at min maxing or finding the exact right mix of units. I've font with what I have and what I think is cool as that what I always do! 

Of course this is all bound to go quite wrong but hey it will be fun!! 

I enter a tournament and paint some minis!

Since my last post I have played a 40k game. Just a 3 way battle to get an idea for the rules suffice to say my guard got absolutely pummelled (I had a whole squad wiped out and all they did was walk 12" across the board and Bam dead) !!! Was good fun but I struggled with doing everything in one turn. So I have to learn to switch my brain between the bolt action system where you can react to an opponents move very quickly and the 40k way of having a whole turn to yourself. I prefer the bolt action style system I have to admit and it would be cool to see 40k using an I go you go system instead of the whole try and wipe out as much of the enemy on turn 1. My highlight of the battle was my commander, commissar and 4 remaining guard charging a ghost keel and managing a wound with a bayonet!! I mean they all died but that's not the point.

Fot the Emperor!!! 

I had a good time and enjoyed the game though and am looking forward to the crusade type thing. I've painted up my first squad. I thought they looked a bit like starship troopers so I went with that style

Was a bit awkward as I had undercoated the models grey, then had to paint the armour and clothes grey as well. Next time undercoat white!

Next up was my veteran squad (Otherwise known as Schaeffer’s Last Chancers)

My motley band of vets

These were an interesting mix of characters. Finished in the last few days was my take on the militarium Tempestus Scions. In the GCPS Mantic set I brought there was options for some different looking troops with heavier Las guns so I made these into my Scions. They do have a Halo look to them I think? 

I have bought a leman russ of my friend Matt who also gave me a Sentinel as well which was super nice of him! So on the painting tray at the moment are my heavy weapons team, a leman russ and my Daimler armoured car. 

Which is a lovely segway into Bolt Action. I noticed one of my local gaming shops advertised a bolt action tournament and I was off work so decided to give it a bash. Its 1000pt mid war, should be fun. My 2 friends who I got into Bolt Action are going as well. Matt will be bringing his Soviet horde and Dave will be bringing his Germans. 

I'll do another post on my list and stuff later. Well that's all for now! 

40k update

 First of I need to address my little moan about the mantic plastic sprues arms and guns etc in my last blog. Sooo it turns out if I looked at the sprue more carefully each arm has a letter next to it and all you have to do is find the other arm with matching letter!!! This sped up the building process no end! So 2 squads built and some heavy weapons

One of the heavy weapons is clearly a GW model I know but the 2 at the back ar the Mantic ones

Both sgts from the Mantic sprue had to have a bolt pistol and chain sword added  but they are all prepped awaiting paint. As my unit will be called the Roughnecks in thinking of going the starship trooper grey uniform. I will have to try one model see how it looks.

So far I have managed to get my 2 Company commanders and Commissar painted!

Two of the models are from the Last Chancers set. I really like the bandaged up commissar. The rest of the Last Chancers are being painted as a veteran unit.

I have also completely forgot to mention I got a new Blood Bowl team!! In September so sorry about that

Meet the Bakersfield Massacres my chaos team. The yellow was a pain but I had some great advice from the staff at my local games shop Warlords and Wizards.

Oh and I also painted up my British Support group for Bolt Action. 

 

Regular British MMG team

3 officers and a medic 

A medium mortar. My army really needed this! 

There ya go I think that's that. For now 

40k a new....... Old adventure

 As I have convinced my friends to play Bolt Action, Blood bowl and Victory at Sea it seems the tables have been turned................. Mwha ha ha ha ha  (Matt, Dave and Dean's evil laugh!) They  have been talking about doing a Warhammer 40000 crusade campaign thing.  40k was where it all started for me  (second edition!) and I've always loved the lore, stories and video games. My very kind friend Dave offered his space marines for me to use but the problem is 40k there has only ever been one army........ Imperial guard. Typically the army I like needs lots of models!!! Matt (check out his blog here) gave me a small pile of guard. A couple of squads worth and offered me use of his leman russ's which was very nice!! One of the squads turned out to be vintage Schaeffer’s Last Chancers!! A very old special unit, they have no rules but I have found uses for all the models!

Schaeffer’s Last Chancers 

Obviously now I needed to bulld up some more infantry. One squad of infantry is around £20 for ten men....... Now I'm sure I can get more soldiers for my money some where. Best thing about the guard is they are drawn from all over so lots of variety and options for playing around. First thought was a unit like the old Pretorians (like because the old GW models go for £15 plus for one model!!!), so my thoughts went to warlords British soldiers from the Zulu war. I knew Wargames Atlantic has Space Brits in production but not out now so stuck for now. I then found some Mantic models from their game Dead Zone.

£18!!

The GCPS Faction for the bill they even have Las guns! Plus the helmeted dudes have heavy Las guns so I'm thinking Scions (Stormtroopers to my second edition brain) with their hot shot Las guns. Plus I get an officer and 2 heavy weapons. So I've ordered these and thry arrived yesterday and I am. In the process of building them. Small side note they are fiddly like bolt action models where you have to glue arms seperate to guns or one arm has a gun and you need to find the right arm to fit. I much prefer the newer bolt action which has arms pre attached to gun and you just glue the arms. You lose pose variety but honestly with my fat fingers and flagging eyesight I just want soldiers to play with I'm not to fussed about loads of variety.

After my experience of putting some blood bowl models (Not you Wood elves sit back down!!) together I can see why people use GW models 😂.

Well that's my update for now hoping to have those minis built this week end. Still need to finish painting Rumbleslam stuff and fallout stuff as well. 

Stay safe guys! 

Christmas 2021

 Well what a busy few months! Sorry the blogs been quiet. The run up to Christmas has been a bit crazy and the wife working from home has limited my gaming space that I used for solo games. I have been playing bloodbowl I need to write that up.

Still painting my birthday Fallout and rumbleslam stuff, I tend to flit between wanting to paint lots and then not feeling it at all. Well Christmas has been and gone I hope you had a good one! No super big ideas for me this year as I'm having a severe and boring adult look at the space I have and what miniatures I can probably get rid of but I still got very lucky through friends and family.

I got the Victory at Sea full rules and Star grave rule book. 

My good friend Dave got me some subs and MTBs for my IJN fleet so more torpedoy goodness. The green box is a Cargo ship free with Vas rules. Last an Armoured car added some more punch  to my Brits 

Another friend got me some Commandos so a new force is on the horizon me thinks! 

My sister in law got me this so will be interesting to learn how to use it! Be a bit different to the glass ramikin I use at moment. 

My aunt got me this swanky dice holder. I'm thinking blood bowl and Dnd dice in here. 

Non gaming item of excitement is a Churrio maker!!

Have a good new year period and here's to gaming in 2022!

RCBBL Season 3 Week 5 and 6

Here we go 2 weeks worth of action for you.

Death  Spectres vs Eaglettes

Some elf on elf action! The dark elves chose the physical side of the game and took it to the Elven Union side. Taking the win 3 - 1

Glade Runners vs Gnoblar Gobblers 

The wood elves used their speed and agility to mostly avoid the ogres. Mostly because the tree took a hell of beating but survived but a linemen was killed by an ogre. The Runners win the game 4 - 1

Fury Cutters vs Osiris Scales 

Due to coach illness this game was conceded so Fury Cutters took a 2 - 0 win.

That wraps up week 5, the Eaglettes loss to the Death Spectres has broken the 3 way tie at the top. Now only 2 teams on equal standing the Death Spectres and Glade Runners and guess who play each other next?

Week 6

Glade Runners vs Death Spectres 

Meeting of the two top teams in blizzard conditions (not at all ideal for my Wood elves) . The Glade Runners pulled an early touchdown out of the bag but then struggled on defence. The Wardancer failed a crucial leap, the wizard did not earn his gold at all when his fireball hit 7 players and managed to knock down......... 1. The Death Spectres march on to the top of the table winning 1-3

Eaglettes vs Osiris Scales 

The liazrdmen ls strength proved to much for the Elven Union and they won 1 - 2

Fury Cutters vs Gnoblar Gobblers 

This was a close match the humans favouring their one catcher to do the scoring, helped massively by the thrower being on form today. The Ogres sent Gnoblar after Gnoblar into the human half scoring twice. But the Fury Cutter humans took the win 3 - 2

OK so that's another 2 weeks done. A couple of matches have changed the league and we now have a single team in the lead. Bit unhappy my woodies couldn't take the W against the Death Spectres the weather made my thrower and catchers redundent for 90% and my war dancer will one day make a leap.