2014 Wargaming Year in Review and plans for 2015

2014

So what did I achieve on the wargaming front in 2014:

Painting figures and making terrain - 250 pieces finished which is a big increase on previous years. Importantly I did start getting terrain done which is probably the key thing to getting more games in.

Projects:

20mm WWII - started on the vehicles and support weapons, got enough US and German late war infantry ready to be able field full platoons including variations in German organisation such as Volksgrenadiers with Sturm Zug using MP44.

Flintloque - some figures painted, but plenty more to go and I need to get a few small games in soon.

AK47 Republic - got the majority of my army painted so just need to finish that up.

Games:
I played a couple of games of Long Rifle from Two Hour wargames and apart from that little in the way of miniatures games. I also played the classic Up Front card game, Steve Jackson's Ogre and Football Strategy.

Plans for 2015

Projects:
Terrain: really a priority as it will help me get more miniatures games going and I'll concentrate on getting some roads, streams and woods done as a starter.

20mm WWII: Finish up support weapons for German and US infantry and get my Shermans, Panzers, half tracks and softskins ready for the table.

15mm  SF: Time to revisit this and get my Ground Zero Games, Laserburn and Hordes of the Future figures completed and table ready.

AK47 Republic: get my army finished which is not too big a project.

Flintloque: Finish up my part finished personalities and then get my mounted units finished for the Goblins and Ferach.

Games:

Rules and games I'm really looking to play:

• Ogre/GEV
• Flintloque
• Chain of Command - WWII
• Long Rifle/Muskets and Mowhawks - Two Hour Wargames though using my Flintloque figures
• Nuts! - Two Hour Wargames WWII skirmish games

Painting Update 22 December - Gingerbread is serious business

Possibly my last painting update of the year and 6 more Flintloque figures done. 

Bakerov the zombie chef and his creations. 

I did enjoy painting these and I believe that some of the limited edition is still available from Alternative Armies. 

Orcs in the Webbe Advent Calendar

As usual the festive season is brightened up for wargamers by the Orcs in the webbe Advent Calendar which will have a mixture of scenarios, fiction and modelling articles. These are often related to Alternative Armies Flintloque, Ion Age and other products but there are also stand alone games like Matthew Hartley's Beast game from the 1st December this year and for other companies game systems.

There are also previous years advent calendars going back to 2007 though some of the old articles are still to be loaded up since the site being migrated.

Orcs in the Webbe is an excellent resource with scenarios for some of  the Wessex Games, Pax Bochemannica and Two Hour wargames rules too and conversions for using Flintloque figures with the reaction system. A site that is well worth checking out as many scenarios can be converted to other game systems as well as the ones they are intended for.

Painting Update 3 December

A few more US troops finished for Crossfire. I'm not far off having a complete company in the late war, just needing to create late war Spotter and HMG stands.

Third infantry platoon which I still need to decide on the base marker for.

Last base for one of the platoons (log platoon) and the Company Commander base, though it has a gap for the remaining platoon's identification scenery.

Painting Update 27 November

Another painting update as I push on to the end of the year.

Some finished stuff:

Revell MG34 on tripod from the Afrika Corps set, NCO from the German Infantry set and rifleman from the Panzergrenadier set.  The first two items are based for Crossfire.

Rest of the German infantry platoon - a mix of Revell Afrika Corps, German Infantry, Elite troops and Caesar German infantry in camouflage capes

US Infantry

part complete Crossfire platoon, mix of Caesar, Revell and Italeri US infantry

A complete Crossfire platoon with the same mix of manufacturers figures as before.

Revell NCO with Thompson painted as wearing a Mackinaw and Caesar 60mm Mortar team, the second crewman is actually a MG gunner from the set 1 of US Infantry that was in my box of set 2. The 60mm mortar required an addition to the rear of the baseplate that was added with card. 

Work in progress - showing my Flintloque project is not dead yet.

Gingerbread men, Bakerov and his assistants

Otterman infantry

Painting Update 12 November - more WWII

Some more stuff finished now, still WWII infantry, but this time individually based figures for midwar.

Command front and rear views.

Machine Gun teams

Grenadiers with Rifles

Painting Update - 6 November

At last some more stuff gets completed though I have been working on masses of painting over the last two months, and there is a lot on the workbench still.

Some WWII support units with basing for Crossfire in mind.


Revell, Britannia and Esci figures for German spotter teams plus a Grenadier for my early war individually based and a platoon commander for Crossfire.

US Britannia spotter teams, MMG and Engineers.

Painting Update 28 September

Some more stuff finished at last. Another 20 figures done, so moving on  towards the total.

Flintloque Guerillas de Santanda and a Catatonic priest

25mm Fantasy figures including a Flintloque golem

15mm Space Todoroni, sorry Newtlings from 15mm.co.uk

Some more 20mm German Infantry in shelter quarters from Caesar.

Some 28mm terrain - more for the painting log

A tomb as a marker

A signal beacon inspired by Tony Harwood's work, but as it was done as part of a speed build at the Guild a bit rougher than I hoped to make it. 

Also I put together two individual graves using Renendra tombstones and three small hedges using the same method as my previous hedges. It takes me up to 7 more terrain pieces finished in August. So a nice addition to my overall painting total. 

Painting update August 14

Finally I get some more figures finished though the pipeline is very busy at the moment so hopefully far more to come this month. Some more figures for my AK47 Republic army done.

25 Infantry and an AA gun down, leaving me not too much more of the militia to paint up.

AA gun with regular crew and militia HMG

Militia RPG teams

Militia small arms units

Some more hedges and project updates

4 More hedges done, with one having a tree from the Minibits range sold by Pendraken. Another 4 items into my painting log where I am nearly on target for 200 pieces completed this year, though I'll really have to accelerate to reach the challenging target of 300.

Project wise my AK47 army is getting closer to completion as I have some militia nearly finished painting and there will only be about 6 bases of infantry to do after that and the vehicles, 2 T55, 2 technicals and some transport. Flintloque, for this project I've nearly sorted out my Catalucian guerrillas and will also have a Catatonic priest done soon too. 

My WWII project is slightly held up as I'm looking for a good source of US armour decals as there are plenty of sets of the stars available and other bulk things but not of the vehicle serial numbers, etc the way there is for German or British vehicles. 

Finished Terrain - hedges

5 sections - 4 15cm and 1 7.5cm 

Size comparison to Revell 20mm US Infantryman and King Fernando from my Flintloque collection. 

Terrain making - hedges part 2

Tools and materials. I use a hot glue gun to stick down the pieces of twig then PVA to stick on the scourer. I cut the scourer with scissors and also tear and distress the pieces by hand. The cardboard ground pieces have already been coated thinly with polyfilla to give them a surface. 

Attaching the pieces of hedge with PVA.

5 bases now painted with art shop Burnt Umber paint. 

Terrain Project - hedges

Wargames terrain using largely found materials. Initially I'm making up some hedges for the Guild's terrain group build. Based on ideas from the useful Lloydian Aspects

Cardboard from a chocolate bar packaging, twigs from the garden and a kitchen scourer.

Test piece made up with a Flintloque Elf and a Revell WWII US Infantryman in 20mm. Still drying with the PVA glue showing on the test piece. Going to make the next pieces about the same height as they will be a useful size for both scales. 

WIP Catalucian guerillas

Guerillas de Santanda - still work in progress.

A couple seem to be wearing pieces of military uniform so I am painting them accordingly, the others more as armed civilians. Now got another pack of guerillas to get started so these will probably be some time till they are finished. 

Back view. Like most Flintloque figures I enjoy painting these, but have got a little bogged down in what colours to use. 

Book Review - The Imperial War Museum Book of 1914

The Imperial War Museum Book of 1914 is one of a series that has been put together using contemporary letters and diaries from the collections held by the museum by Malcolm Brown. One thing that is quite striking in this account is how few of the individuals whose accounts are used survived the war, though this is not so surprising when it is largely the original pre-war regulars who made up the BEF and would have had to survive a further 3 years of the war.

It is written from the perspective mainly of the British forces and civilians as the IWM's archives are largely from the British and Commonwealth sources though some other nations are represented. There is a mixture of the services and ranks letters and diaries used to produce the accounts which does give a range of viewpoints. There are few accounts from senior officers which is useful if you are looking for a soldier's eye view of the war.

I would recommend this book and the series to anyone who wants to see the contemporary perspectives of the First World War as we do have a very strongly mediated view of the war and it has been clear from the discussion of the 100th anniversary of its outbreak that it is highly contentious.

The great advantage of this series is that it is based on accounts from participants written at the time rather than afterwards as I suspect many memoirs produced after the war were affected by the climate of memory that they were written in. I'll have to reread The Great War and Modern Memory fairly soon as it is useful in interpreting the many works of history and literature about WWI.

Magic in Scarlet Heroes

Magic in Scarlet Heroes is very much along the standard D&D style of having spell slots per day for a spell caster with the number of slots and level of the spells that can be taken being based on character level. Spells need to be prepared and can only be prepared once per day with the caster needing to be rested, but there are not rigid rules about how long rest or how long the rituals of spell preparation will take.

The actual spells will seem familiar to players of the OSR games however they do have setting appropriate names which do add a lot to the feel of the game, for example Hand of Merciful Succor is the clerical healing spell and Amber Cloud of Somnolence the magical sleep spell. 

There are 8 clerical spells available per spell level and 5 spell levels giving a total of 40 spells. Magic Users have 10 spells per level over the 5 levels to give 50 spells included in the rules. This will probably be enough to cover a lot of situations as the use of the Fray dice will mean that a lot of weak opponents will go down quickly.  As rules for researching spells are included it would be possible to add to the these if required.

Magic users will have a limited number of spells in their spellbook that they can learn and to add to these will need to copy from scrolls, other spellbooks or be taught the spell by another wizard. The other alternative is to research spells but that is expensive and time consuming too.

This is part of the game that is not too dissimilar to other OSR role playing games in the D&D style, but I do feel that the use of the different names for the spells does give it a unique flavour appropriate for the setting.

Painting update 1 May

And some more armour. All Plastic Soldier Company kits in 20mm this time.

M5A1 Stuart






Panzer IVH - 2nd Panzer Division in Normandy




Sdkfz251/1D - 2nd Panzer Division in Normandy