A Fistful of Games

Thinking back, I realize that I have actually managed to play a few games these past months

I've played twice with Dan's Xenos Rampant project, featuring heavily converted GW dwarfs and night goblins on a desert planet.

Space Marine landspeeder converted into a recce vehicle 

Night Goblins with rayguns and a rocket launcher 

Bren Carrier turned into a Night Goblin light recce vehicle 

He's got both sides up to around 80 points now. We noticed all the vehicles became bullet magnets. I played dwarfs first time out snd goblins second time. The goblins have won both times. 

On Canada Day,  Scott came over and we pitted my Bavarians against his Austrians in some General d'Armee. But between checking on each other's health, discussing the world and life, and looking up the rules because we haven't played since last year, it was mostly a visit with moving a few figures around. 

My musketry drove back one of his Fusilier battalions,  but in the last turn, his artillery fire dispersed one of my Fusilier battalions, so I guess he won.

Then on the rainy Sunday afternoon after Canada Day, I went over to Dick's to join some good chaps for a big, old school, game of Rapid Fire Reloaded in 1/72nd scale. 

I haven't been to Dick's play room since before Covid. So here are some pictures to remind you. Dick is from the toy soldier end of the hobby. He has 1000s of big plastic figures set up on shelves in very busy set piece vignettes all around the room.

Several hundreds of Romans and Greeks face off. We played our game at the far end 

 Couches and an audio visual system for movie nights 

The scenario that we played was the German airborne assault on  Maleme airfield in Crete, 1941.

Dick and I had to defend the airfield on the left and the big hill (Hill 107) on the right. 2nd New Zealand battalion was on the hill back right. 1st NZ had Bn HQ and A Coy on Hill 107. C Coy in the town center.  B and D Coy in the olive groves covering the bridge. The Germans landed one battalion by glider in the dry river foreground and a battalion by parachute back left corner 

Shots of Ray's set up

Lots of walled olive groves

2nd NZ Bn dug in

My Bn HQ and 3" mortars among the vinyards on Hill 107

Glider assault lands reasonably well, but runs into fire from two infantry coys and the airfield defense detachment 

C Coy with tank support moves out to attack the DZ

Cretan Partisans size German weapons

Slaughtering German paratroopers trying to get to their weapons canisters 

Squeezing the German paratroopers covering in the olive grove and orchard 

The Bofors gun at the corner of the airfield put down a lot of fire on the glider battalion. We also shot down a Stuka!

I do love a bit of caunter 

It was a pretty decisive Allied victory. The glider battalion was shot to ribbons with about 75% casualties. The parachute battalion was trying to extract itself from the crossfire it was in, suffering 75% casualties as well as being surrounded on 3 sides. Allied reinforcements were coming in on the side they could retreat to. A third German battalion had arrived at the bridge but was stalled in the dry river, facing barbed wire and relatively untouched New Zealanders, supported by a troop of Matilda tanks. Dick and I had only lost two stands of infantry. So Crete was saved and the war probably shortened by a year.

Rapid Fire Reloaded is an interesting rule set. I've never played Rapid Fire! before. It gave me a wonderful nostalgic experience. I wish I'd found these rules when I was younger and still had all my Airfix figures.

So a pretty decent holiday weekend; saw some friends, played two games, and knocked out a couple of units from the painting pile.

Hard to complain, really. 

Back in the Saddle

My painting mojo has been lagging since middle of April. Looking over past posts I can see I've done a few things; knocking off some things I've wanted to do for my Expanse project for some time and poking at the Quar. But my ability to just sit down and bang units out has not been there. Lack of enthusiasm? Lack of time? Not playing any games? Distracted by Quar? All of the above?

My friend Dick has been having Friday night paint and chat Zoom sessions ever since Covid began, and he's kept them up since. He recently started including me in the invitations, and this has helped get me painting again. Since it's awkward to show up for a Paint and Chat and not have anything to paint. 

Consequently in the last two Friday sessions I've finished off a 12 figure shieldwall of Conqueror Model Dwarves. This is the third shield wall unit and has a blue raven banner. The banner delayed finishing the unit for a week as I searched for a raven design that I liked. I finally found one on Twitter,  on the shield of a viking warrior painted by @PaintsPirate. I modified his design a bit, mostly by adding a ring in its beak, something I'd noticed in First Nations raven art. In First Nations iconography it's probably the Sun, but this being Middle Earth, it's a Ring.

I do like the warrior's full face mask. Very dwarven. 

Trying to suggest a coiled dragon in the corners of the cloak. And I love the detail of the great axe on the warrior's back.

Detail of banner. Raven with ring flying over mountains

I just love Colin Paten's sculpts

This is the third shield wall unit. The fourth will have a red field and yellow dragon. I suppose for proper colour coordination I should have really done the bear banner with a yellow field? Although the next dwarves I paint should really be the archers I bought with my Christmas bonus. But at least the end is near for the dwarves and Middle Earth. 

Which is more than I can say for my Napoleonics. 

Last night i smashed out this 17 figure, 2 groups plus a Big Man, formation of Austrian Landwehr for Sharp Practice. Basic grey with red facings and black belts. I had abandoned them in April because I had tried something different and got frustrated. 

I find plastic figures on plastic bases knocks a day off production time. I can get the bases painted and flocked as soon as the glue sets, instead of leaving them for a day.

I've got more Austrians primed and ready to paint. I started a group of Cheveauxleger last night too.

A second PBEM campaign, this time set in the 1809 Danube campaign, should help inspire me to get more done. Although I'm expecting an order of Quar too.

Momento

My friends, Brian and Keith, live in the Chatham-Kent area and are members of a pretty active gaming club; KEGS (Kent Essex Gaming Society). Last autumn one of their members, Neil Hooge, who I remember as being quite a nice fellow whenever I had the chance to play with him or talk to him at Hot Lead, which wasn't very often if I'm being honest. Well, Neil died after a long fight with cancer. Keith and Brian are helping to dispose of Neil's wargaming estate.

So they have been passing along to me items that didn't find a home in the club. A box of old wargaming magazines. Quite a lot of 28mm Napoleonics, unpainted naturally. Neil was planning an ambitious Sharp Practice project it seems. But when I next get the itch, I'll have enough French in great coats to do an 1814 force to fight my Bavarians. With a fine selection of Guard, artillery and cavalry too. All I'll need to buy is some baggage and a Marshall to lead them. 

An 8 figure group plus a Big Man for each of Carabiniers, Dragoons and Chasseurs plus lots of line infantry (including a few dozen in great coats)

Warlord Old Guard and Victrix artillery set (3 guns)

There's another box full of a random, eclectic mix of 15mm science fiction stuff. Lots of Traveler figures. Some Peter Pig. Some Brigade. Lots of other stuff I have no idea where it came from. A lot of small ziploc bags with worn card headers. Various races and styles of figures. Some hunters from the Predator franchise. A lot of monsters from Alien including tiny facehuggers! Robed Fremen. Insectoid Isolani. Skinny Zhodani. Canines with guns. Or they could be racoons with guns if you painted them right. Dinosaurs with guns. Three different flying saucers from "Mars Attacks!" Random robots. I've got quite the influx of the figures I use for my Belters, plus station personnel in jump suits, some different robots and I'm seriously thinking about the tray of  Alien style xenos. I could just paint them blue and handwave them as protomolecule monsters or something, right?

Big guns

Bigger gun

Drones.

Dogs with guns! Or raccoons with guns if you painted them right. 

So much stuff! Just trying to make piles putting like with like

More Belters!

Stuff I'm interested in 

Three different flying saucers & xenoflora 

Some very 80s packaging containing dinosaurs with rayguns 

"Alien" aliens

There's box with a complete Nazi secret lair. Room modules with clever velcro lids so you can't see what's inside until you move into it. A variety of painted characters; nuns, Resistance fighters, SS she-wolves, minions in red, orange and blue boiler suits, white hard hats and SMGs, Nazi zombies, some were wolves in a zoo room, character figures obviously meant to be the heroes. A V-2 style rocket. A module labeled "electro-lab". There's a couple of counters with 7TV on them, so I assume that is the rule set Neil was using. I can really sense the enthusiasm he had for this with the effort that obviously went into building Dr. Evil's secret lair.

Cafeteria and kitchen 

Lab

Conference room with assorted figures

Spacious cells

Orange suited minions 

Holding cells full of zombies 

Missile on what I'm guessing is a launch pad

Guard room

This was obviously a big thing for Neil and he'd put a lot of effort into it. I don't want to pillage it for parts to make space ship or colony interiors. So I'm going to find it a loving home at Hot Lead. 

A lot of it will get passed along at Hot Lead I think.