Sunday 19 March 2017

A little more work on terrain for several projects

Like most of us, I assume, I work on several projects at once.  I suppose that is the pleasure and frustration with this hobby that there are so many possibilities but so little time to satisfy them all.  I know that some are good at ploughing through a single project at a time.  I am not. So, I am building windmills for a Lutzen 1632 scenario, the defences at Rorke's Drift, and also couldn't resist the Warbases Pegasus bridge model that turns out to work well for 20mm.  Suppose this is the very definition of unfocused.

Here are a few pictures

Saturday 11 March 2017

Still here

Yes, I am still here and gaming.  However, I am more in prep mode for colonials than actually pushing lead.  I sold much of my Imperial forces in order to expand and upgrade them.  I now have loads of unpainted Connoisseur (Bicorne) Sudan infantry.  They are prepped and based, but need to be 'dressed'.  This will take me  a while.

My Zulu War collection is more stable and I am finally finishing my defences for Rorke's Drift.  The Redoubt Miniatures set is very useful and the wagons are particularly nice.  This won't take me long and then I will post pictures of the finished set-up.  The image below is an old one....

In terms of other periods, I am doing a lot of Renaissance gaming and also prepping more WWII terrain for my D-Day and other amphibious operations using Rapid Fire.

Too many games and too little time!

Saturday 7 January 2017

Happy New Year!

Survived the Christmas holiday and now getting back the usual routines including a bit of hobby time.  Since moving last year I have had a load of different projects on the go and none seem to get finished.  So, I am trying to be a bit more focused and at the top of the list is getting my WWII ships, boats and landing craft finished so that I can finally play Omaha (Rapid Fire) and a few other amphibious games.  Here are a few snaps of my latest ships with several others already nestled in their boxes waiting for D-Day.  I'll be turning my attention back to colonials soon as I really want to put on Rorke's Drift again before the month is over.  I also have a complete set of walls to finish for my Sudan collection...


All the boats are 20mm from different manufactures.

Sunday 18 December 2016

Happy Christmas

I hope that everyone who looks at this blog will enjoy a happy Christmas.  Lets hope that we get a few heavy packages under the tree!
Cheers,
Chris

Monday 14 November 2016

Been a while since I blogged.  In fact, I haven't had much of a chance to game.  The group has been playing a lot of Armati and Armati Renaissance both of which (the latter under development) are fantastic games.  We also did a bit of WWII naval action as illustrated below.  Must say that as much as I love pushing lead (or plastic....) the fun of getting together and doing this hobby with friends is the best.  Ok, ok....I'll stop with the misty-eyed rubbish and get back to the game....

Saturday 10 September 2016

Casualty Markers


As much as possible I try to make markers for all the games I play into part of the aesthetic of the hobby.  For BFE we have lots of casualty figures available from Old Glory to make this possible.  For the Zulu War I have both British and Zulu casualty markers: Falling wounded figures for 1-3 casualties and dead figures denoting 4-7 kills for which negative modifiers apply.

I also made Shaken and Disorder markers using shields: 1 for Disorder and 2 for Shaken.

A bit of Rapid Fire 

Like so many gaming groups, we play games from ancient times to WWII.  Avoiding generic rule sets to ensure period feel, we have to choose rules that are not too complex and allow for large multi-player games.  We use Armati for all early periods up to 1650, Shako II for Napoleonics, BFE II (of course) for colonials and WWI, and good old Rapid Fire for WWII.  We are still looking for the ACW rule set of choice -- we have tried loads over the years -- and pull out lots of naval, aviation and skirmish games for occasional fun.

A couple of weeks ago we played an Eastern Front Rapid Fire game.  We don't play WWII games as often as I would like, but RF lets us get into the game quickly and easily.  We did amend the small arms rules to a dice throwing system that is quicker and more fun, but overall we play the game as per the rules.  Here are a couple of shots....