28mm WW2 TT Combat Northern Europe Houses

 A couple of buildings from the excellent value TT Combat range

Both for use in early war games with Martin when lockdown comes to an end.

First up the two story Maison Amelie 

Absolute bargain at just £7. Upper floor and roof both removable. The top floor can be rotated/reversed. I "rendered" the walls with some ready mixed plaster mixed with a little PVA. The shutters (some of which need a touch up, looking at the pictures) are made from cardboard (provided with the kit).

Next up Maison Celeste.

Single story and just £5.  Annoyingly I've taken pictures with the roof on wonky - it's a good fit in reality, honest. Similarly rendered with ready mixed filler.

Both models painted with mostly emulsion tester pots.

Really pleased with both of these models. I've got the village bakery up next and will be ordering a couple more.

My only mild criticism is that the doors and windows have been sized to the figures, which makes them (to my eyes at least) a bit oversized for the ground scale. Always a tricky thing to get right with buildings in particular - make them right for ground scale and the figures won't fit through, make them to figure scale and they look oversized. Not something I'm going to lose sleep over and you really can't argue with the quality and price.

28mm Fences

 My ongoing quest to make more scenery for my 28mm non-fantasy games led me to get hold of some fences.

These are from Minibits 10 pieces for £6 (eight regular and two with gates) - each piece 240mm long - excellent value.

They're MDF, so a little lacking in detail, but they're just fences, so I'm fine with that.

Painted with emulsion tester pots and some sepia wash. Static grass added, job done.

Completing these gave me the impetus to make some fields from a floor mat.

Dragon Rampant in 10mm

I've been enjoying a few Dragon Rampant games over Zoom with James and Martin. So I decided to get my tiny toys out and have a solo game. Although there are some solo DR rules out there with a nice looking AI I decided I'd just play both sides - the activation roles provide more than enough "fog of war" to mess with plans and make for a fun game

I used my Warmaster Chaos and Dark Elf collections. I stuck with the three stands per unit that Warmaster uses and marked casualties with a dice, removing a stand as appropriate (after 2 or 4 casualties depending on the unit strength). I played on a roughly 2'x3' battlefield and measured in cm instead of inches.

For a scenario I picked one from Neil Thomas' One Hour Wargames - in this case scenario 5. The Dark Elves would start with one unit across the bridge. Other forces for both sides would feed in as the game progressed with the Chaos forces entering from random points on the board.  The river is impassable, except via the bridge.

The army with most units on the Chaos side of the bridge and within 12cm of it at the end of 15 turns wins.

Forces

Chaos

• 3x Offensive Light Foot (Marauders and Daemons)
• 1x Elite Foot (Chaos Warriors)
• 2x Light Riders short range missiles (Marauder Cavalry) 

Dark Elves

• 2x Light Foot (Spearmen)
• 2x Light missiles sharpshooters (Crossbows)
• 1 Heavy Missiles (Bolt Thrower)
• 1 Scouts (Harpies)

The Game

Initially I was going to have the Harpies deployed across the bridge - as scouts it made sense - but in the end decided having the shooting power of some crossbows might slow up the Chaos forces more effectively.

First to show up for Chaos were Marauders and Marauder horsemen.

Dark Elf spears began a slow trudge to the bridge.

More Marauder horse and their Daemonic chums showed up.

Disastrous Dark Elf activations meant the crossbows were soon surrounded with no help in sight.

The Bolt throwers were slowly wheeled into position.

As the Chaos Lord arrived with the last of the Marauders.

Spear elves finally made the bridge, but too late to aid the crossbows who were shot to death before the could even move.

The Daemons charged the elves before they could form a shieldwall.

But were driven off with casualties to both sides.

The Chaos Lord trudged onwards.

More spears began to arrive at the bridge.

And the bolt thrower was finally able to drive off some of the horsemen.

The fresher unit of elves took the fight to the Daemons.

Both infantry units were soon wiped out - leaving the Harpies as the (unlikely) last hope for the Dark Elves.

The Chaos Lord looked on and laughed.

Boldly the harpies pushed up

And with a flurry of pointy rocks managed to drive back the Marauder horse.

Bit it was too late - with two undamaged units in range of the bridge the Dark Elves knew the game was up and the field belonged to Chaos.

That was a fun and quick little diversion.

Enjoyed seeing my Warmaster models out again and Dragon Rampant gives a fun little game without being too taxing.