Early War British anti-tank guns

For our planned Blitzkrieg campaign I need something to deal with the inevitable onrushing tide of German armour. The support list includes bothe the British 2pdr and the French Hotchkiss in British service.

The former I sourced from Crusader

The latter is available from 1st Corps but doesn't some with crew (though apparently they are now available) So the Crusader chaps will do double duty.

Bring it on, Rommel!

Early War dug-in British

The first game in the planned (and again deferred to allow time to ferry offspring to various universities) Early War Chain of Command campaign has several drainage ditches as the only real cover. We'll be modelling these with terrain strips laid on top of the board, so they won't have any real depth

So, lifting an idea from John Bond's excellent blog I decided to make some "dug in" troops who can sit in the ditches.

I used parts from both the Warlord versions of the Late War British kit - ordering a spue of each from eBay. It was a simple task of cutting them off at the waist and then inserting a rare earth magnet. The uniforms (especially minus legs) are close enough for my purposes. However the sprues only have a small number of the unadorned helmet that will pass for early war. As a result most are currently bare headed, but I'm hoping some of my chums can turn up some others from the Desert Rats Warlord set.

Frostgrave Necromancer and Apprentice

The Frostgrave campaign highlighted the fact that I had never got round to finishing off the Wizard and apprentice for the Necromancer warband. The original choice of Necromancer had fallen from favour and I briefly toyed with ordering the official model - which is one of the best in the range and I need to get at some point - but then remembered I already had one from the Oathmark range - I picked up the metals when I ordered the Skeletons box.

I've not based him because ideally I'd like him to lead the Midgard/Dragon Rampant/OGAM skeleton forces - which will mean mud and static grass.

The apprentice is a kitbash of the Gripping Beast Arab models with a few Frostgrave bits and pieces and a Warhammer skull.

Contrast paints got the job done quick.

Warhammer Wound Markers

The Skull Pass boxed set (which, Google tells me came out fifteen years ago!) had all sorts of funny little extras on the sprues.
Extras that certain parts of the Studio disapproved of, so they were not allowed to be done on subsequent sets.
Anyway, a mere decade and a half later I've extricated them from the plastic mountain and applied some contrast paints.

Three of these, for marking wounds on Night Goblin characters

And three of these to mark wounds on trolls.

Frostgrave Soldiers - a Thug and Two Thieves

After the Total Party Kill of my first Frostgrave game I was in need of extra thieves and thugs as all the expensive soldiers had died and I had no gold to replace them.

So some quick assembly and painting and these three rolled off the production line.

The thieves made substantial use of Contrast paints - speeding things up no end.

They've all I think subsequently died in following games - but they're Thugs and Thieves, so who cares!

Warbases Wolves

For our Frostgrave games I painted up these Warbases Wolves.

Simple basecoat, wash, drybrush jobs.

They're quite small and wee - more like dogs than the huge slavering beasts of fantasy but they're lovely sculpts and just right for our games.

Warhammer 8th - Ogres v. Empire

Flushed with Warhammer joyousness after our Chaos threesome Stephen and I decided to play again the following day. Another T&T game with Keiron! Though then Keiron's jab kicked in and he pulled out. Leaving the two of us with just 1200 points apiece. Undaunted we decided to play anyway.

I took Ogres. You don't get many for 1200 points - even if you only take a bruiser as the general.

Steve took his yellow and blue Empire force.

The Ogres paddled off into the stream. Fortunately it only made them scarier!

The yellow trousers started turning a bit brown.

They'd bought a Luminark even though it looks like s steam tank.

And some of those filthy horsey shooty types

The Ironguts closed the gap

The Empire decided charging was better than being charged.

The big cat stalked his prey

While the shooty horsey types rode around shootin' and horsin' about

The bulls closed in

On the frankly terrified crossbowmen

The Leadbelchers stopped to take an unwise potshot instead of just yomping toward the cannon.

Desperately the Luminark charged the bulls

They routed it, but in the distance the Ironguts were reduced to running away...

And with the Ironguts fleeing the board the gig was up for the Ogres and Nordland was saved. Again!

1200 is a bit harsh on Ogres and quite good for Empire. But we had a fun game.