Defiled Statues

My chum Stephen and I are about to embark on a campaign with my Orcs and Goblins fighting his filthy Skaven for posession of an abandoned Dwarf hold.
So thought I'd knock up a little themed scenery - some proud Dwarf statues that have been defiled and defaced by Ratmen or Greenskins (or possibly both).
The freebie Dwarf from White Dwarf when Skull Pass was launched (a terrible, terrible model it has to be said), three round bases, some sand, cat litter and a little scenic shrubbery and I reckon they look ok.
Far more pictures than really necessary now follow.

Got Wood!

In the absence of a real job I've lately spent some time doing voluntary work for the Woodland Trust in Grantham.
This has been data entry type stuff as they prepared to launch their new VisitWoods website. The site is a useful guide to free woodlands that you can go and ramble around in.
Anyways it all went live earlier this week (I got some cake) so if you're at a loose end and fancy some fresh air and a break from the land of toy soldiers go check out your nearest (free) bit of the environment for a stroll.

Normal toy soldier based posting wll recommence over the weekend, honest.

Keeping it Old Skool!

I've been feeling a bit Old School recently, enjoying the Classic Wargamer's Journal perusing and purchasing some of the Featherstone and Bath titles from the History of Wargaming Project (well actually most of them were purchased from Caliver but you get the idea), and picking up a copy of Terry Wise's Battle Games book (subsequently reprinted by the History of Wargames fellas).
Most of this was kicked off by getting the reprints of Charge! and The Wargame and (more recently) the Wargame Companion. Of all these I think The Wargame is perhaps my favourite and so today I spent a short while Googling how expensive a copy of Grant's book Battle! would be. Rather too rich for me was the answer.
However I was delighted that the power of Google led me to Wargame.info and the excellent news that the whole lot (and more besides) is available for free download. Scroll down to the file that some kind hearted soul has prepared of it all in a single .pdf.
So what are you waiting for? Go get it and revel in some old school wargaming gold!

Festive Frolics

Last night the Sherwood Hucknall and Ilkeston Team of wargamers met in Matt's wargames shed to play out a festive scenario of my devising. Sadly one of the four cried off at the last minute, so instead of umpiring (and riding to the rescue with a Kislevite relief force) I was obliged to dig out some ogres and take part.
Here's the scenario:
Seize the Tzarina’s Baubles!

The ties between the Empire and their Northern allies from Kislev are strong. The grateful inhabitants of the northernmost territories know that it is the fierce men of the steppes who help keep their borders free from the ravages of chaos. As a result the good people of Ostermark have a long tradition of gifting the Tsarina two gigantic fruit puddings. The origins are said to lie in the aftermath of a great battle where Ostermark and Kislev fought side by side against a great Chaos horde in the very depths of winter. After the battle was won the Elector invited the Tzar to his tent to share the special pudding his mother had made for him. So taken was the Tzar with the delicacy that the Elector promised to send him two puddings each year on the anniversary of the battle.
Over time the puddings have increased in size and splendour until the present day when a small army is needed to move the gigantic puddings from Ostermark to Kislev. On arrival in the Kislev capital the Ice Queen distributes portions of the puddings to her grateful subjects and rioting frequently breaks out as they fight over the richest portions.

The fame of the puddings, known colloquially as “the Tzarina’s Baubles” has spread far and wide and jealous eyes now follow the convoy as it makes its way through the frozen wastes. This year forces are determined to seize the goodies before they reach the capital…

The attackers will each need a 1000 point army.
The Empire will need 1500 points.
The Empire will deploy on the short edge of the table and must get the puddings off the far edge.
The attackers will come on randomly from the long edges, having got a bit lost in the snow. The attackers must capture the puddings and get them off their own table edge.

You’ll also each have your own secret missions that will get you more points (basically each of us wanted one specifc enemy general dead and to try and keep the other enemy general alive)

Matt as the Empire deployed first then the ambushers moved on from opposite sides randomly. We jury rigged a frozen wasteland using a sheet stolen from my eldest son's bed and used some chocolate tree decorations as the puddings.

The Ostermark Pudding Guard

The trap is sprung

What a lovely pair of baubles!

True to form my Ogres died early leaving Steve's Dwarfs to take on the Empire single handed - which he did rather well. However when the dust finally settled Matt had acheived one of hs secret goals, giving him a hard fought, narrow victory.
A very jolly way to end a years wargaming.

Man and Boy

If anyone has seen my hobby Mojo coud they please let me have it back, it's been missing for a while now and just can't seem to be bothered with anything that involves a toy soldier.

Fortunately you can always rely on kids to chivvy you along, so today my youngest (aged 5) said he wanted to play with his Sherman tank and "kill all my Germans"

So we played a little game while his brother was out.
Here's a few pictures:




20mm stuff. Revel Americans, FAA (I think) Germans, Ready to Roll tanks mostly and some Hovels, Sentry and scratch built buildings.
We used the "Daddy Edit" of the Featherstone rules from his War Games book.
A jolly good fun hour or so of moving and shooting, though tanks are extraordinarily hard to kill in those rules.
I lost, inevitably.

I think I felt the stirrings of my hobby Mojo and may think about finally finishing my Son Bridge for Rapid Fire! project in the New Year. The plan being to collect everything I need for both sides and the necessary scenery to play the Son Brdge intro scenario from the Rapid Fire North West Europe book. We shall see.

El Cid Campaign Weekend: The bitter end!

Sorry for the delay.
Been busy and poorly and such like.
Anyway better get these pictures posted before I get old and die.

However before I do that realised on re-reading my last report that I'd got so excited about the success of my Camels that I forgot to say how much fun the game was and that Chris was a pleasure to play against. It was and he was. Sorry Chris.

So it was on to the final battle and for this game I was again paired with Lawrence against Jim and El Gary and once more I was on the outside of a walled city trying to get in.
As I was dead to Lawrence our planning process was hampered, but after eventually locating a Ouija Board and Derek Acora's phone number we came up with something. I was going to anchor one flank to the table edge and then run like billy-oh towards the gate. Lawrence was planning something altogether more sophisticated and I decided that it was probably for the best if I left him to it. This meant I was to face off against Jim's lovely Andalusians. Should be a breeze!

However before that we introduced a new phase to a game of WAB - the "Cor Doesn't that look bluddy brilliant" phase. This phase happens right after set-up and before you start the first turn.
To be honest I was happy just looking at the table and could cheerfully have gone to the bar for the afternoon, popping back at regular intervals to admire how splendid it all looked. The stick-in-the-mud traditionalists around me however claimed we should at least roll some dice - so I gave in and the game started.
Look at what follows and tell me I was wrong...

Onward the Kamel Korps!

And I don't, in all honesty, remember much of what happened.
The Kamel Korps reverted to type and died early
The newly painted, much vaunted Christian Knights of whom much was expected did finally earn a fraction of their points back by killing a few fellow infidels.
Jim discovered that Sayyids are quite tasty in close combat:

This actually ended surprisingly well...

And the New Plan(tm) of more marching less shooting meant I almost steamrollered my way through the gates of Valencia.
However Jim played very well and used his Andalusian horsemen to great effect to just deny Ibn Coldir glory. On the other half of the board Gary and Lawrence fought themselves to a standstill but somehow a unit of Christian (or possibly Andalusian) horsemen sneaked into Ibn Coldir's camp and pinched his favourite geese, resulting in a win for the Cid and his turncoat allies.

Stand still and fight dammit!

Something familiar about these walls, must have used the same architect as Marrakech.

A splendid game that simply looked fantastic - a proper wargame spectacle and again Jim and Gary were splendid and fun opponents.
And Lawrence bore the handicap of me as his ally with good humour.

With that the event drew to a close.
History had pretty much been emulated, loads of games and plenty of fun had been had by all.

There were even prizes and Khamu Karsai’s Kamel Korps won me a lovely blister of Artizan Almoravids for The Most Heroic Camel Charge!

I had a great time. And thanks to all the other guys who took part and especially to James for organising it all.
I can thoroughly recommend these events as a marvellous way to spend a weekend, roll on Age of Arthur in May!

The Daily Mash - MODERN MEN DON'T KNOW ENOUGH ABOUT COMICS, COMPLAIN WOMEN

Great news for Warhammer players and comic fans!

The Daily Mash - MODERN MEN DON'T KNOW ENOUGH ABOUT COMICS, COMPLAIN WOMEN