First Game of 2026! More "Snorkers! (Good Oh!)"

Last Saturday night I had Scott and Big Pat over for a game of Snorkers! (Good Oh!). I reused the squadrons from my second Christmas Day game, except to make the Force Morale a little more even I took three destroyers off the Japanese strength.

Scott ran the Americans. Deploying his squadrons with the 6" Cruiser Brooklyn and her escorts on his right, the 8" Cruiser Portland and her escorts in the middle and then the 5" Cruiser Atlanta and three destroyers on the left.

Pat put the Tenyru and two destroyers on his right opposite the Atlanta. The Krishima with one destroyer in the center, and the Mogami with two escorts on the left opposite the Brooklyn. Banks of mist or haze were in between both fleets.

One flight of SBDs has attacked the destroyer, but the other flight of SBDs and the TBfs are staying on target. Torpedo hits have done 14 points of damage plus engine room and steering damage.

Scott and Pat both advanced at moderate speed, not wanting to come to blows to quickly. Scott brought his air wing onto the table early and then with an Ace card launched a strike on the Krishima. His airstrike went much better than mine. A couple of torpedoes seriously hurt the Krishima, causing an engine room hit and jammed its rudder into a turn to starboard, effectively keeping her out of the game for a turn while the Brooklyn and Portland dealt with the Mogami.

Mogami's squadron wheels to starboard to take the destroyer between the squalls under fire. The Brooklyn is just behind the squall on the left. The Portland is just behind the squall above it.

Brooklyn emerges from the squall to take the Mogami under fire.

The Mogami is taking on water and her leading escort has been sunk

Pat brings in his airstrike, well part of it. They're jumped by Wildcats and shot down 

Pat then saw an opportunity to be aggressive. Tenyru's squadron dashed forward on the right and unleashed a torpedo attack on the Atlanta's squadron causing some serious harm even though a heavy swell effected torpedo accuracy.

Tenyru and escorts launch torpedoes at Atlanta and cripple the leading destroyer

The Atlanta and her destroyers tried to do the same back, maneuvering aggressively for good firing solutions and firing off their full loads of torpedoes. But between the Japanese speed and a heavy swell caused by the recently pulled Joker card, Scott got only a handful of hits and five of those were duds, so he only scored one hit out of 23 torpedoes launched.

The Krishima then got her repairs done and returned to the battle. Brooklyn and Portland engaged, with the destroyers rushing forward to unleash their torpedoes. Two American torpedoes got solid devastating hits sending the Krishima to the bottom but not before she got off a salvo at the Portland which scored an unlucky magazine hit. Gunfire sank the Krishima's destroyer escort.

Torpedoes and 8" shell fire sinks the Krishima

But the Krishima got her revenge

The Brooklyn then moved to support the stricken Atlanta's squadron and engaged the Tenyru with gunfire sinking her. This left the Japanese with two destroyers when Force Morale was checked at the end of the second deck.

The Portland's escorting destroyers sink the Krishima's consort in the middle. Brooklyn on the left is moving to take the Tenyru's squadron under fire.

The Americans had lost their heavy cruiser, and they had the Atlanta and three destroyers heavily damaged and heading back to Pearl Harbour for extensive repairs. The Japanese had lost their battleship, heavy cruiser, light cruiser and three destroyers.

End of game. The two surviving IJN destroyers are in the upper left

This game lasted a lot longer than my previous games. It was good to go over different gun calibers and how they effect the damage, and see the effects of the different critical hits for a change, and try a couple of air strikes. The Japanese light cruiser and destroyers probably should have been deployed on the left where, with more sea room, they could have stood off for their torpedo attacks. The Long Lance doesn't take a range negative modifier until 20" where the American torpedoes take a -1 over 10". And I need to paint up more aircraft for the Japanese, especially some Vals. 

But most importantly my friends had fun, liked the game, and I gained more confidence with the rules.

First Figures for 2026

The first figures for 2026 are, naturally, more Quar as I finish the odd bits that Don has printed for me from the Zombiesmith MyMiniFactory Tribe.

First up we have a very whimsical musician to boost the moral of the Gloam-Hyyn. He's playing a stringed instrument reminiscent of a Mongolian fiddle.

On his shoulder is a helpful beetle who is singing along. 

I love all the little details in his kit. The bottle, a couple of fish hanging from his belt, the wine skin and assorted oddments.

Next is a figure from a set that Zombiesmith released for folks to print up and give away at conventions or use for conversions or test uniform schemes on. He's got his carbine over his shoulder and is missing one of his sandals. I'm sure there's a story there. He's probably the company awkward squad.

 

I gave him the pack with the frying pan and spoon on it to designate him the Company Cook. He maybe a bit dozy, and probably lost his sandal gathering crawfish from the bayou, but his shrimp po'

boys and etouffee are legendary.

Officially, the Gloam-Hyyn don't get cooks, but since when have I been official?

Another addition to the Gloamers are these very piratey chaps with flintlock weapons. Buccaneers and Blunderbusses. The Buccaneers have two flintlock pistols but with all the prints one (usually the left hand) pistol broke. So I swapped the hand for one holding a sword to make him another junior officer.

Now I'm not really sure what the official lore is for guys carrying old fashioned blunderbusses. Perhaps they're sort of low powered scatter guns or shotguns?

But I'm thinking I might make them a squad of Grenadiers with Rifle Grenade Launchers. The big bell shaped muzzle looks like it could seat a grenade and they're obviously reaching in their bags for another.

I painted the Crusader Cook a while ago, but I didn't like that he didn't have a pack. So when I saw in the plastic Crusader Command set that the cook pack was the same as the Gloam-Hyyn pack I got Don to print another up and painted it to add to him.

This Toulmorese character is from the same set of one piece characters Zombiesmith released to be given away at shows or the local game store. 

I decided that he would be the Toulmorese Company Cook and issued him the same pack.

He obviously likes his drink.

Finally, we have some Wysp Handlers to go with the Toulmorese Trench Raiders. They use swarms of the big wysps to drive enemies out of cover. Or you could roll badly and the wysps attack you, or just buzz off.

2025 Year in Review

Looking over this past year, although it started slow, it would seem I was quite busy on the hobby front after all.

I expanded the Princess P'trysha's and added three more forces to the Quar.

PPCLI get some tractor support

Master-Yawdryl

Messenger Squirrel Handler

The PPCLI are the only Quar force to carry a flag, because it's tradition. 

Grenadiers

Regimental Cannon Company

The PPCLI finally get a fat cook too!

Because the Gloam-Hyyn looked very much like WW2 Japanese to me, I went with a jungle theme for them and their matched opponent, the Toulmorese. So I did away with the 'official' uniforms and painted my Creole/Newfie flavoured Gloamers with Japanese colours, and painted the Australian flavoured Toulmorese like British Commonwealth troops in Burma. Both forces got jungle themed bases with laser cut foliage.

Gloam-Hyyn Squirrel Handler

Supply Train in the jungle

Trackers with Sarf-Cyn 

Toulmorese

Toulmorese Supply element

Master-Yawdryl with Tactical Mug

Medic ready with a healing brew

Squirrel Handler gives instruction

Light Mortar Team

The third Quar force had spikes on their helmets, so I immediately thought WW1 Germans and painted them appropriately in feld-grau. I'm thinking they can fight either my British flavoured Crusaders or my French themed Coftyrans. I also built them very much with trench warfare in mind, making four artillery crew to man the battery of howitzers and expanded the trench system. They also have some trench mortars and will get some extra machine guns as well. 

Cook on bicycle 

Trench Mortar

Gun crew 

Plus I got a lot done with my Cold War Imagine-Nations project, adding more armour and air assets to each side.

Mantovian J29s

Tartarian MiG-15s

Light Recce

More T54s and BTRs for Tartaria

Comet tanks for Mantovia

Centaur AA tank

Recoilless Rifle Teams

And I got some Midgard in and made good progress on the Goths and a second Roman force. Because I've always said that the best opponent for the Romans was another army of Romans. And the 3rd century was full of civil wars, so it's only sensible.

Suitably heroic commander for my Romans gifted to me by Carole Flint

First metal figures painted in over a year

I also knocked out some big and important terrain goals.

Jungle terrain:

Expanded trenches to accommodate a battery of four heavy guns:

The publishing of Snorkers! (Good Oh!) has put some energy into my naval efforts and after kicking the tires on a couple of ideas for What To Do Next, I've gone and bought a bunch of stls for Italian and British ships for the Mediterranean, which actually saw a lot of surface actions.

I got a good number of games in too, in a wide variety of eras.

Helped to actually win a Napoleonic PBEM campaign. I was also on the winning side in a second PBEM campaign around the destruction of the German East Asian Squadron in 1914, run by the Mad Padre. 

Midgard, using my feudal armies

WW2 using Xenos Rampant put on by Dan

Quar on the road

Working on my airships game

 

Pat and I went to Scott's for a big game of General d'Armee 

Some Seven Days excitement 

More Seven Days, this time with aircraft!

Quar in the jungle 

More Midgard, my 3rd century Romans vs Dan's Arab raiders 

Feallan, mini-con in October at the Port Albert Inn, I played five games

More Midgard, this time in the Warhammer Fantasy Old World put on by Brett

6mm O Group at Feallan run by Brian and Keith

Getting my Samurai out for Midgard 

Return to Brequar Manor 

So 25 games including some Blücher at KEGSCon, in a wide variety of eras and rules.

I hit all the objectives I set last year; built or finished 4 Quar forces, played more, got a good start with Midgard. As a bonus I made some jungle terrain and expanded the trenches. As an extra bonus the release of Snorkers! reinvigorated my naval games.

Not bad at all. 

For next year I think working on Midgard, with Romans, Goths, and perhaps finishing the Samurai I have in the lead pile. Plus some Skaven too. I've always thought Skaven were fun, and seeing Brett adapt Warhammer Fantasy to Midgard traits was inspiring. 

The big project will be 1/1800 scale naval in both the Mediterranean and the Pacific. My current models are 1/2400  and have a lot of curved hulls. I hope reprinting at a bigger scale will fix that.