Show Business - Warlord Games Day 2014

Last weekend was the second in a row where I completely shirked my duties as a father to two small children, and ran away to look at toy soldiers instead (obviously, this makes it sound like there was much less grovelling than was actually the case).

This time, the event in question was Warlord's Games Day. This was (I think) the second Games Day run by Warlord, but the first I've been to.

You did get a free policeman, but he didn't quite look like that.

Obviously, I have no idea what goes on behind the scenes, but the event did remind me of a much smaller scale version of a Games Day I attended many years ago put on by another Nottingham-based company, but Warlord's affair didn't suffer for that.

When we arrived, we joined a big queue, and nothing seemed to be happening. There were a few re-enactors  chatting to the punters, and I somehow ended up holding an English civil war musket (lighter than I thought it would be). Eventually, we made it through the doors and were able to collect our "free" figure (yay!) and wristband (boo!). At this point we were able to sign up for the various seminars that were going on - it was a good job I'd looked these up on the website before going, as the forms only listed the presenters' names and not the topic of each seminar.

From then on we were free to look around. There were a few very nice looking games in the first room, including a Spanish Civil War table by Empress Miniatures that looked especially pretty.

The only photo I took all day. Obviously, this is an August 1914 Great War game being played with Black Powder.

Following some other people, we then found our way into the main room, which contained more tables and a few traders. Surprisingly, it also didn't contain that many people. According to one person we spoke to, last year the place was packed, but Warlord had limited the number of tickets this year, which went some way to explaining the ticket price (£10 (plus p+p!) for a ticket makes this the most expensive show I've been to).

We joined (or more accurately, "started") a Bolt Action tank battle being run in one corner of the room. I think I might have enjoyed this more than Wes, largely as I'd destroyed 5 of his tigers by the end of the first turn with a ridiculous run of sixes on my dice.

Before I could complete Wes' humiliation, though, we had to move across to the seminar we'd signed up for, hosted by Dan Faulconbridge, editor of Wargames Illustrated. I wasn't sure exactly what to expect from this, but what we got was pretty good - a run through some of the history of wargaming through the lens of WI, delivered in a very dry, witty style that I quite enjoyed. And some advice on how to turn your bed into a wargames table! Can't complain about that.

We went back to the main hall and poked around a bit more before joining a tour of the factory. This was quite interesting, I've never actually seen in detail how miniatures are made before. This also included a freebie model that was still even slightly warm (having just been cast) and will now, of course, require me to start a 28mm ancients army to get some use out of a druid.

We stuck around for a burger and some light shopping before getting back into the car (which had now been superheated) and heading home.

So what did I think of the show?

Well, on the plus side, there were some very nice tables, the seminars and factory tour were interesting, I got a couple of free minis, actually enjoyed playing a game at a show, and there weren't too many people there.

On the other hand, the tickets were pricey, and really we felt like there could have been a bit more organisation. Having the sign up sheets for the seminars on the door resulted in the big queue to get in, and we weren't sure what the seminars were. There was nothing to tell you where to go for the seminar either, so we had to ask for directions. It also wasn't clear which (if any) games were intended as intros to the different rules sets, so we ended up not trying out any new games while we were there. It was sheer fluke that we found the cafe at all. Really, I think I'm just asking for signs, which would at least be an easy thing to change.

All in all, I'm glad I went, and I did enjoy the day. Unless I find I'm playing more and more of Warlord's games next year though, I don't think I'd necessarily go to the next one, but let's see what it looks like when the tickets show up in Warlord's newsletter... 

Show Business - Joy of Six

Hello! Anybody still there? Yes, I know, I disappeared for two months again. I kept meaning to sit down and write a blog post, and then I, well, didn't.

But I'm here now, that's the main thing, with a brief note on a nifty little show that I visited recently - "Joy of Six" in Sheffield.

Using that die probably counts as cheating

Now, if I'm being honest, this probably isn't something I'd bother with if it weren't conveniently located in my home town and a two minute walk from my work car park. However, I'm very happy that this turned out to be the case and that we took the time to have a look around it.

The event is sponsored by Baccus (manufacturers of 6mm models) and Wargames Emporium (owners of Command Horizon, a 6mm sci-fi game), with the aim of selling their stuff promoting the use of 6mm scale in wargaming. It's not a big show by any means, but it's attractively priced at £2.50 to get in.

The show did have a pretty big and diverse collection of demo games all in the same scale, along with a few traders. It was also pretty quiet, which I liked, even if that probably isn't something the organisers are keen to keep up permanently. There were also some seminars (which we stayed out of since we were new to everything and didn't really know what was going on) and some sort of raffle, which we got a ticket for when we arrived but which I can tell you nothing else about. I might have won it for all I know (we didn't stay too long), but I have no idea what the prize might have been.

I'd never gamed in 6mm at the time of going the show, but having an event that is focused like that was quite nice. We wandered round the games on display, all of which looked very nice, and marveled at the effect of having hundreds of models on the table but still being able to maneuver. We had a long chat with a couple of the guys running a US Civil War game (which I think was the battle of Atlanta) using Black Powder, which led, somewhat inevitably, to our buying some US Civil War models with the intention of running some games using Black Powder.

I'm painting those now, so keep an eye out for my eventually posting something about them (possibly in late 2015, given the rate I seem to be posting at the moment).

I was also pleasantly surprised at how little scenery (teeny-tiny 6mm scenery, at that) seems to be needed to make a 6mm battlefield look sensible. I think that's at least partly because the games we were looking at were generally big battalion affairs fought in open field, but it does suggest that we could get some decent-looking games on the go without too much effort.

So, anyway. All in all, Joy of Six is a nice little show, and hopefully it'll be back next year. It would be nice to think that by then, I'll have a fully painted US Civil War army and will be looking for another project, but what are the chances I won't get distracted again in the meantime?

Resistance is not futile!

I did mention last time that I've actually been able to do some painting recently. I couldn't pass up the opportunity to steal a post title from Kieron despite talking about something completely different, so here are some luvverly pictures of my recently painted WW2 partisans for Bolt Action.

Let's start with the pièce de résistance (see what I did there?) - a captured Puma:

Eight wheels, two drivers, all awesome

A demonstration of how much difference different light can make to a photo!

I was pleasantly surprised by how easy this was to paint - basically, a base coat, highlight, bit of ink and it was done! I'm using the Armies of France and Allies book for my partisan force, which (in the later war anyway) allows them to take any captured German or Italian vehicle. The catch is that they can only be inexperienced, and they take an additional pin marker each time they get pinned (so after a couple of turns under fire, they're really going to struggle to do anything). For that reason, the Puma seems like a good bet - it's a recce vehicle with dual direction steering, which means it's allowed to run away when it gets fired on, and can do so very quickly. My hope is that this will mean I can avoid taking too many pin markers, so I can keep that AT gun firing and at least cause any enemy vehicles to think twice before moving.

Speaking of AT weapons...

So far I've not actually achieved much with anti-tank rifles in real games of Bolt Action - they don't put out enough shots (and are too affected by range etc) to be any good at sniping, and they're too feeble to be much of a threat to vehicles other than soft skins. On the other hand, it's another die in the pot for only a few points, and as a small team they have some protection from being shot at.

Also in the "there's only two of us, maybe no one will notice" area is this light mortar:

No idea yet what this will achieve as I've yet to use it in a game, but again, it's an extra unit for only a few points.

Finally for the weapon teams, here's an MMG!

OMG!

This is something I think my force has been lacking up to now, as it gives more ability to hurt enemy infantry squads, and perhaps even more importantly to get pin markers onto them so they're less able to operate. Again I haven't used it yet, but hopefully adding it in to my force will provide a bit more effective firepower.

I've also painted a few regular infantry to bulk my force out a bit more.

These, and all three weapons teams, have been made from the Perry Miniatures Afrikakorps set. That box contains loads of models, and they're all multi-part (including separate hats!) which meant I was able to put together lots of models with what (hopefully) looks like a mishmash of bits of stolen German uniform and civilian clothes. This needed a bit of cutting to take off webbing and a few extra pockets, but was pretty straightforward.

I then, somewhat belatedly, realised that this look means I can also use these models as Volkssturm (the final German conscripts that were called up at the end of the war). The ability to use pretty much the same force for both Axis and Allies really appeals, so I got a bit carried away and bought the new Last Levy box at Triples. Expect models from that to make an appearance soon.

To add some more inexperienced fighters and take advantage of their ability to save points with less useful weapons, I painted up these shotgun-armed civilians:

I originally got these for VBCW games, which they've never been used for (that's starting to be something of a theme).

I also wanted a suitable commander figure who wasn't too obviously wearing a military uniform, and I found this guy in an Artizan Designs "SAS Saboteurs" pack:

"When I point, I really point!"

Looks nice and civilian, has a nice pose, decent detail, easy to paint... but I really wish I'd done something about that massive sausage finger before I started. Oh well.

Finally, the rest of the SAS pack provided some extra infantry, carrying satchel bombs which will help mark out a squad as carrying anti tank grenades.

Beards are not optional!

I now have a target of getting 1000 points of this army done, which at this stage needs about 20 models for my current plan. Of course, my plans change all the time, so who knows what I'll eventually end up with?

To finish, here's a group shot that neatly demonstrates that I need to work out how to change the depth of field on my camera...

Ooops.

Triumphant Return to Posting

Yes, my adoring public, that's right - I have returned from the wilderness, ready to brighten your day with my well-informed, exquisitely-crafted, low-fat, easy-clean blog postings! Please form an orderly queue to shower me with praise, adulation, and crisp, large denomination banknotes.

Anyone?

Fine, be like that then. 

I'm back, anyway. This blog post has been awaiting my attention for some time, and it still won't really be complete by the time I post it. Hopefully your expectations have now been sufficiently lowered for me to crack on.

The delay in posting is largely explained by the arrival of this character:

I'm asleep!

That's Nathan, and he turned up in March. Working in concert with his big sister, he's done a pretty good job of either removing all my free time or leaving me too tired to do much with it (or in a few cases, both). Having two children under two in the house makes things... interesting. Still, in a couple of months I'm sure he'll be able to give me a game of Flames of War or something, so it's all good.

Before the number of young children in the house doubled, I managed to paint up my first fireteam for Force on Force - some Chinese PLA.

Poor camerawork here makes it look like they're all avoiding eye contact

I've got a lot more of these to do, but for the moment my painting time has become focused on my Partisans for Bolt Action... which I don't have any pictures of yet. Something to look forward to for my next post I suppose.

I've actually been able to keep up with more gaming than I thought I would - mostly in board games. The two most popular in our group recently have been Lords of Waterdeep and Axis and Allies 1941. I've been able to win at both, so we won't mention anything about the times I didn't win.

I've also managed to arrange to sneak out next weekend to Triples, and for once don't have any concrete ideas for what I might acquire while I'm there! So that's likely to be interesting - watch this space for details of whatever wildly ambitious project I decide to embark on as a result!

Painting the PLA

I've finally got brave enough to apply some paint to the first of my Empress modern PLA, that I got through Kickstarter.

Since I'm mainly planning to use these for urban engagements, it seemed to make most sense to use the Type 07 general camo pattern, since I'd expect the PLA to be using this, you know, "generally" and it looks a bit urban-y:

Urban-y is definitely a legitimate word.

So, as much for my own reference (once I forget what colours I used) as anything else, here's how I've painted my test model so far.

I started with a black undercoat. I applied this by hand rather than using a spray, mainly because the weather was terrible and I didn't want to go out to the garage to get the spray paint.

Next, the base coat for the camo. Looking at all the pictures I could find, this seems to be a grey with a touch of green with it. I wanted to use paints without mixing for all the basic colours, so I can easily get matches later on, so I did a bit of experimenting and settled on Vallejo Light Green Blue.

Next layer is a green, so some more trials on other models lying around my paint table suggested that German Fieldgrey WWII is the way to go. I tried to build up the pixellated effect by painting areas built up from horizontal and vertical lines.

Next is a greeny-brown colour, the closest match I could find was Brown Violet.

There's a small amount of dark grey in the pattern, which I'm using German Grey for. I use a lot of German Grey, it's a nice highlight for black stuff.

Then I filled in the flesh on the face, painted the gloves, and highlighted the rifle and boots. I like to put a fairly bright highlight on modern weapons, as most of the photos of them I've seen have them painted black, with bare metal on the edges where the paint wears away.

A brown wash dulls down the camo a little.

So, I'm nearly there. This has taken a while as I'm testing every stage to make sure it looks right to me, but once I have everything worked out I should be able to get through them pretty quickly. The last stages I'm expecting to do here are a light drybrush in the base colour to make the camo look a little worn, possibly with a layer of highlight on top of that. Then it's just the base and I'm done! 

Blood Bowl OFL Kicks Off

Blood Bowl is a bit of an oddity for me - I've been reliably playing a league at the start of each year since I first turned up at a club, about 10 years ago now. This looked destined to come to an end after the breakup of the last club I was a regular at, Wargamers FC, in April last year.

However, I was approached a while back by JP, one of the elite group of "people I should really try to see and play games against more often" (PISRTTSAPGAMO for short) who had been planning a league of just this group of people, as a way to bring us back together and make sure we don't lose touch.

It's such a nice idea, I didn't even mind JP's not-at-all-subtle method of getting me to be league commissioner, and so the Old Friends League was born.

The league was kicked off on Wednesday night as my goblin team, the Squig Fuelled Stabbers, faced off against Trev's Khemri, The Mummy's Curse. The game was played on Trev's attractive and only slightly confusing custom pitch from Fantasy Fields.

The game kicks off

Having won the toss, I chose to kick off first, as against the low agility undead players this was an easy way to move the ball downfield without having to carry it there myself.

I played my fanatic in the first drive, and watched him spin around cheerfully for several turns without achieving much other than worrying everyone near him on either team.

One of my trolls was much more effective though, and racked up a couple of casualties early on. The gobbos took advantage of the gaps and general milling about and ran towards the ball. Trev then started as he meant to go on, and managed to bring down his own blitz-ra in the process of tackling a goblin. The greenskins pressed their advantage and managed to get the ball away and run in a scrappy touchdown.

With a blitz-ra down, the goblins snatch the ball and run away

As there were only a few turns left in the half, I kept my loony off the pitch in reserve, and so lined up to kick off again with no secret weapons. I was lucky this time and rolled blitz on the kick off table, and was able to push some goblins forward before play started.

Once more, the middle of the pitch descended into an ugly brawl. Goblins were knocked out or injured left and right, but the greenskins didn't manage much in response.

However, once more, Trev's luck failed him and he downed his own players a couple of times in succession. The goblins managed to pry the ball free and ran in another touchdown right at the end of the half, going into the break 2-0 up.

A goblin sneaks out of the melee with the ball

In the second half, more goblins got battered by skeletons and mummies, including the loony, who as usual had failed to achieve anything with his one attack and was quickly punished for his insolence.

The throw-ra, lurking at the back of the field, managed to collect the ball, and a clattering skeleton cage formed up and began to drift down the pitch at a glacial pace.

The same troll that had caused trouble earlier took exception to this, and over two turns smashed his way into the cage and concussed the throw-ra.

The pogoer grabbed the loose ball and was immediately mobbed, but proved his worth by bouncing free and throwing the ball to a teammate waiting patiently in the end zone, taking the score to 3-0.

Bouncy-bouncy-throw-catch-huzzah!

The Khemri team had now lost interest in scoring as the outcome of the game was beyond doubt, and so lined up their entire team to simply attack goblins when the game restarted. This plan was thrown into confusion as the kick went high and was caught by a well placed skeleton.

A few lurching moves later, the Mummy's Curse had the ball and were deep in Stabbers territory.

Surely they must score?

More undead players shambled over and caged the ball right at the end of the pitch, and in desperation a lone goblin ran over to at least distract the ball carrier. He was knocked down for his trouble, and then fouled...

... right under the nose of the referee, who sent off the mummy responsible and ended the game before the ball could be run in!

Oh.

So, a 3-0 win in my first game of the league then! Not at all bad. Can I keep this up? Watch this space to find out...

Empress Chinese PLA here at last!

What's this? Another blog post? Less than a fortnight after the last one? That's right, I'm inspired at the moment, after spending Sunday at Vapnartak in York.

I picked up some dice for Force on Force, and the USS Excelsior for Star Trek Attack Wing, but much more interesting than that, I was able to collect my Kickstarter pledge from Empress Miniatures!

In the end, I picked up a full squad of People's Liberation Army, plus a Chinese Mortar and Anti-tank weapon. I also got a fireteam of Painting Chinese type 07US Navy SEAL Frogmen, which will go nicely with the US Army squad that I got as part of Empress' sale for Kickstarter backers last year.

So far I haven't been brave enough to paint any of the Americans - the Empress models are so nice that I'm afraid to sully them with my painting!

However, I am plucking up the courage to tackle the Chinese. These are posing a bit of a conundrum though as I'm not entirely sure what colours to go for.

It looks like this is the standard camouflage:

And it is possible to find a few images dotted around the internet:

So, I'll have a bit of work to figure out the exact colours to use to get as close as possible to this. Also, since it's a digital camo pattern, I'll have to figure out a way to paint that without going mad, blind, or both...

My intended use for these will be a "Red Dawn" style scenario as China invades the US. This is (hopefully) entirely unfeasible in the real world, but allows for some modern combat between major powers and will allow me to use my existing collection of urban terrain.

Since I'm intending to use Force on Force for this, both the US and Chinese forces will be based around fireteams of four men. My plan is to paint a couple of Chinese fireteams first, followed by a couple of US fireteams. If I keep things up in this way I'm hoping to start with some small games to learn the system, and then build up to more interesting scenarios as I get more painting done.

So, watch this space, I might even get something painted to share with you all...