Old Glory Pathans (2)

A few more of the Old Glory Pathan models.
Well, 12 more to be precise for that is the size of a rifle armed unit for TMWWBK.

This time I elected to include some dark brown and khaki clothing. to provide a little variety. Straight from the Halfords tin. Other than that they were simply painted with basic colours and then coats of various brown washes just like the previous unit

Someone over on the Lead Adventure Forum took issue with me over my description of these models.
Not because I don't like them (I do) but because I don't like them as much as he does.
Also because I like Artizan models and he doesn't.

Because I am a mature and reasonable person,  I say wargaming is a broad church and we are both entitled to our opinions.
In the same way that I'm entitled to the opinion that he's an arse.

Next, I'll be doing 12 more models including some Tiger models which are, shall we say, not castings I am looking forward to engaging with.

Fort Vaux at Barrage

On Sunday James, Matt and myself left Nottingham bound for the sunny(!) delights of Stafford and the Barrage wargames show. In the absence of Scrivs we eschewed the traditional "drive around the outskirts of a small British town looking for a McDonalds" phase of the day and headed straight (via a slight diversion the AA had chosen to keep us ignorant of) to the venue.

We uploaded and assembled in short order, had a traditional wargames show beverage "Ooh look, they've got Cappuccino. Ooh look he's opening an instant cappuccino packet and pouring scalding water on it. Ooh look it looks and tastes nothing like cappuccino" and prepared ourselves for the crowds.

Sadly they never really materialised.
James and I had very fond memories of the show last year (apart from the infamous "tree-gate" incident) it was small but perfectly formed with a good buzz and the organisers were very friendly. All of which was true again this year. Apart from the buzz. Visitors seemed very thin on the ground and I suspect most of the traders struggled to make a profit. We had some good conversations with interested folk and ran five or six demo games, but most of the time at least one of us was free to wander around, and sometimes we left the stand with but a single person in charge.
All of which was a shame, but didn't really spoil what was a very nice day out with James' toys on display again.

Anyway, here's a few snaps.
I didn't take many of Fort Vaux as I've already covered it quite extensively in this post

On the table to one side of us was a very jolly looking Renaissance/Late Medieval game. Featuring Charles the Bold and some Swiss Cheese. I think.
Anyway it looked lovely and made me want to get Lion Rampant out (not a euphamism).

To the other side was a large and lovely looking Seven Years Lace War thingy. They seemed to be using Beneath the Lilly Banners and Donnybrook as rules but it seemed quite slowly paced - which was fine, the chaps themselves were clearly enjoying it.
It looked terrific with lots of attention to detail and a big boat.
I am increasingly feeling drawn to men in Tricornes.

And that was it. Matt spent a bunch of dosh on loads of different stuff - James cleared some stuff on the Bring and Buy stand and my "haul" was a paltry 8 Tiger Miniatures which cost me a princely £4 - a fair price for some not great models that will nicely bulk out my Old Glory Pathans.

Old Glory Pathans

As part of preparing for The Men Who Would Be Kings (shortened to TMWWBK and pronounced Tim Wubbuk, the Canadian lumberjack, eh) I need some Afghans for my Artizan British to fight.

I knew from speaking to Andy Hawes that he'd used the Old Glory models (amongst others) for his playtest forces. I'd have liked to stick with the Artizan models, as they're dead nice and available from Nice Mr Nick Northstar just down the road, but the Old Glory ones seemed quite the bargain at £25 for a bag o 30 models.

However OG do get a bad press generally, so I was sceptical, but I figured if a talented brushman like Andy said they were OK, then they'd probably be alright for a cack-handed buffoon like me to mess around with.

So I ordered some to collect at Partizan. Annoyingly they only had one of the bags I was after in stock, but I figured if they were terrible better to waste only £25, rather than £50 so I grabbed the one bag I could and bought them home.

And here are the first twelve of them all painted up.

 

Simple white undercoat, pick out some details and the flesh bits then each one covered with a single wash all over. Some had CDA Mid Brown wash, some Devlan Mud and some Gryphonne Sepia.

I then went back and highlighted the white a bit.

Job done (apart from some basing)

So what do I think of the models?

Well, when I first got them out of the bag my heart sank. Used to Perry, GW and Artizan models these were undeniably cruder. 

But actually painting them was really easy and I'm really happy with the end results.

They're just nice simple soldiers - lacking in detail by some standards, but that's no bad thing when you've got to churn out a hatful of them and the exaggerated folds on the clothes and the characterful (caricature?) faces make them easy to paint.

I'll definitely be ordering some more.

Naps and 'Nids

Lat week I finished my initial British force for Sharp Practice 2.

So this week I set to with a will, painting and tufting up movement trays and basing all the figures.
Imagine my horror when I was nearly finished with this process and discovered I was actually three redcoats short!
I couldn't believe I'd miscounted, what an idiot.
So I dug out the sprues and prepared to start snipping again
And yet the more I thought about it the more I thought I couldn't have got it wrong.
So I went back through all my posts about Napoleonics on this blog and counted up the finished models that way.
And lo, there were 40 riflemen and 6 skirmishers, I hadn't miscounted after all.
I then recalled that I'd repainted the bases of five of them that for some reason I'd done with Scorched Brown instead of Khemri Sand - but looking at the post, there should have been eight of them.

But where could the missing musketeers have got to? I hunted high and low around my painting desk and even checked the loft to no avail. The only possible alternative, short of having accidentally thrown them out, was that they'd been left behind after one of our previous games at the Ilko Gaming Hut.

So I dropped General Ballroom a line to see if he'd spotted them.

This was what I got in reply:

Black Powder Space Hulk

So seemingly my three missing redcoats were in the Ilko gaming hut, but are now being recycled as genetic material for the next Tyranid invasion.

British Naps for Sharp Practice 2 (5)

Finished the last eight that I need for the Sharp Practice starter British force.
(Though I may want to go back and replace a couple of the shonky Vicrix ones at some point)

Now need to do the movement trays and fettle the bases.

Then decide what (if anything) to add...
I fancy some cavalry and I have some rifles on the go, but I may need to paint something other than Naps for a while

40K with the Gaming Heir

A wet and windy Saturday with the current Mrs ToySoldiers away in Spain (will she be allowed back?) and Son and Heir out watching movies with an assortment of lady friends meant the smallest boy and I had a window of gaming opportunity.

I suggested Frostgrave or OGAM but they fell on deaf ears - he wanted to play 40K.
Mostly he wanted to use his all new Twin Linked Lascannon wielding Centurion Devastators of Doooom on me.

So we set up on the diagonal setting, placed three objectives and away we went.

I won't bother with a breakdown of the tactics and nuances of the gameplay because this is 40K we're talking about, the game for children, deviants and accountants so there aren't any of those things. Just pile your models up and whoever has the best special rules is the winnah! Yay!

But here's the pictures:

 Da Boyz arrive

 Terminators and their ride

 Orks in da house!

 Insert music from Apocalypse Now* here

 Brum, brum, dakka,dakka!

 Steady lads, steady....

 The grim work begins

The game ended, unsurprisingly in a victory for the Imperium of Man.

It really is a very unsatisfactory game 40k. The models look good, and I like the background, but you end up just shoveling loads of models into a clump, rolling lots of dice and then taking most of the models off.
That or you shoot something from miles away and take it off.
God only knows what it's like if you have some of those big robot things all the cool kids have these days.

*Yes, yes, I know it's actually from Wagner but you recognised the cultural reference point, didn't you Mr High-brow

Warhammer Raze and Ruin

Abelard von Gesegnet lolled in the saddle of his warhorse. The knights around him looked at one another as the distinct sound of snoring came from beneath his large feathered hat.
The landscape was unnaturally quiet, not even birdsong disturbed the air.
Suddenly a cry went up from the watchtower and the captain of the knights slapped the flat of his sword across Gesgnet's horse barding.
"Eh, what?" roared the General "Charge!!!!"

Steve and I have decided to play some Warhammer. Currently the Sherwood Hucknall Ilkeston Team is undergoing it's very own political turmoil to rival that in the wider country, riven as we are between the Age of Sigmar faction (or AS-hats) and the fans of Warhammer 8th edition (Warnkers)
General Ballroom is a complete AS-hat
I am a Warnker.
Steve just wants to play soldiers.

Fortunately Gen B is currently indisposed, so Steve and I are in a position to play proper square based manly Warhammer.

Steve suggested the Raze and Ruin scenario from the WFB rule book as we've never played that and we settled on 1500 points of  Empire versus Undead.

I deployed some handgunners in the building on the left, crossbowmen in the tower and militia to defend the wall. The cannon sat in a corner and the spearmen defended the left of the village whilst my cavalry and pistoliers were deployed at the back of the board.

The host of Stefan von Grünstein shambled into view, replete with Graveguard, ghoulies, flying dead things and some skeleton archers.

The undead pushed forward and the Empire prepared to shoot
Unfortunately the poisoned arrows of the skeleton archers took a nasty toll on the crossbowmen in the tower.

In response the knights pushed up and the pistoliers cantered forward on the left flank.
Sadly the shooting wasn't very effective though the cannon mangled  a few graveguard.

Von Grünstein's flyng dead things lolloped over to the left and the spearmen turned to face them.

Another turn of ineffectual shoting followed before the charges began.
Unfortunately the graveguard managed to contact the knights.

And the Vampire count kicked down the door of the tower and slaughtered everyone inside.

Suddenly the flying dead things were in back field!
Meanwhile poiseoned arrows, wind of death and some skullchukka chucking means the militia were seriously weakened.

The graveguard began their grim work, hacking down the knight's champion and then the general in swift succession. And the flying dead things began to kill handgunners in the house.

Finally the ghouls hit home into the severely reduced spearmen.

Inevitably thre knights were thrown back and salughtered.

With the spears breaking and the handgunners all dead the battle came to a close with Stefan von Grünstein in control of the small village.

Well I took a bit of a pasting there.
I think I need more warm bodies, better understanding of the magic and just being better at Warhammer.
I've always found VC a tough nut to crack and my Empire army is at best "sub-optimal".
However it was good to get the WFB toys out again.

General Ballroom is making noises about not beuing able to return to gaming until the end of August, so in the absence of any AS-hats Steve and I are free to be Warnkers for a while - he left muttering about a campaign.