TFL Painting Challenge: Fat Wally's Return

An absolutely humungous update today aided by the return of that Lardy stalwart, Fat Wally.

Kev has obviously been storing up his entries all year, and submitted about thirty 15mm SYW units and over fifty 10mm houses. Lucky I had a free evening to upload them all!

So, in no particular order, we have:

  •  The aforementioned Fat Wally with some 28mm animals and gladiators, more SYW figures than even he could ever need, and enough 10mm buildings to solve the country's housing crisis once and for all
  • Mr Luther with more 6mm 'planes
  • Owen with...no, not just more Napoleonics, but some pirates. Ah hah, me hearties!
  • Derek Hodge continues his Blucher-driven re-basing drive, and adds some skeletons to the mix. Dem bones, dem bones, dem dry bones!
  • Matt Slade goes ninja
  • Mr Bowler slides in some more WOTR infantry: Percy's lot this time
  • Richard Naylor submits a few more Afghan police
  • Leif is getting ready for the new Star Wars film
  • and Mr Davies gets confused about the size of his infantry. Oo, er, madam!

Today's picture is, of course, from Kev. Just look at these Cossacks!

Vasily Grossman: A Writer At War

I've just finished A Writer At War: Vasily Grossman with the Red Army 1941-45, edited and translated by Anthony Beevor & Luba Vinogradova.

It's a great book: an account of the second world war from a Soviet perspective from a writer who, today, we would say was embedded with various Russian armies throughout the war.

Beevor's editing is superb: at the start of each chapter, he sets the scene to the excerpts from Grossman's writings, placing each one in its proper historical context. He then takes a back seat and lets Grossman do the talking.

As an example, I was going to pick an exert from Grossman's writing that was directly to do with matters military, but the piece below, about what had been done to the Ukraine by the Germans, is one of the most powerful I have ever read:

"There’s no one left in Kazary to complain, no one to tell, no one to cry. Silence and calm hover over the dead bodies buried under the collapsed fireplaces now overgrown by weeds. This quiet is much more frightening than tears and curses.

"Old men and women are dead, as well as craftsmen and professional people: tailors, shoemakers, tinsmiths, jewellers, house painters, ironmongers, bookbinders, workers, freight handlers, carpenters, stove-makers, jokers, cabinetmakers, water carriers, millers, bakers, and cooks; also dead are physicians, prothesists, surgeons, gynaecologists, scientists — bacteriologists, biochemists, directors of university clinics — teachers of history, algebra, trigonometry.

"Dead are professors, lecturers and doctors of science, engineers and architects. Dead are agronomists, field workers, accountants, clerks, shop assistants, supply agents, secretaries, nightwatchmen, dead are teachers, dead are babushkas who could knit stockings and make tasty buns, cook bouillon and make strudel with apples and nuts, dead are women who had been faithful to their husbands and frivolous women are dead, too, beautiful girls, and learned students and cheerful schoolgirls, dead are ugly and silly girls, women with hunches, dead are singers, dead are blind and deaf mutes, dead are violinists and pianists, dead are two-year-olds and three-year-olds, dead are eighty-year-old men and women with cataracts on hazy eyes, with cold and transparent fingers and hair that rustled quietly like white paper, dead are newly-born babies who had sucked their mothers’ breast greedily until their last minute.

"This was different from the death of people in war, with weapons in their hands, the deaths of people who had left behind their houses, families, fields, songs, traditions and stories. This was the murder of a great and ancient professional experience, passed from one generation to another in thousands of families of craftsmen and members of the intelligentsia.

"This was the murder of everyday traditions that grandfathers had passed to their grandchildren, this was the murder of memories, of a mournful song, folk poetry, of life, happy and bitter, this was the destruction of hearths and cemetries, this was the death of the nation which had been living side by side with Ukrainians over hundreds of years."

Vis Imperica Gallery: Crimean Russians

My Crimean Russians are a nice little army: solid battalions of drab-coated infantry commanded by glittering officers, supported by equally solid masses of cavalry and hordes of Cossacks. Although most of the army is painted to the standard I was achieving at the time, the officers and Dragoon Guards show that I was reaching for more.

The figures are mostly Essex, IIRC, with quite a few Minifigs thrown in, and one unit from Irregular. Confession time: the Hussars were bought painted at a Bring and Buy, and the Don Cossacks were painted by the Irregular Miniatures painting service. All the rest are my work...and I do love the Dragoon Guards!

Click on the pic to see the gallery:

TFL Painting Challenge: Sunday

Just a quick update today to keep on top of things.

So, as ever in no particular order, we have:

  • Chris Gilbride making his first contribution of the year
  • Matt Slade slamming in some impressive warrior women et al.
  • Keith Davies with some 6mm 6DW kit
  • Owen sends in his usual big batch of 15s
  • Quite Frank-ly, Doug Melville sends in even more... 
  • Treadhead gets ready for Fighting Season with some nice Afghan police
  • and finally Paul Blankenship sends in an enormous amount of 6mm Afrika Korps. I'm not surprised your hands hurt!

Today's pic is Treadhead's Afghan police:

More Chuhuac

I'm still determined to clear all the Chuhuac off my painting table: these 'velociraptors with guns' are just too nice to leave languishing in the lead mountain. They have such animation, such character, that they deserve their place at the front of the queue.

Here is a platoon of spec ops Chuhuac in city camouflage, and four Sirrus APCs in desert colours (to go with the desert colours platoon of infantry painted earlier). Very nice.

Army Lists for the 1967 Six Day War

It was the Battlefront 40% sale on their Fate of A Nation range that triggered my interest in the Six Day War: with the need to know which and how many of their figures and vehicles to buy leading me to put together army lists for the four participants: the Israelis, Egyptians, Jordanians and Syrians.

Do feel free to comment on the accuracy of the lists, designed to be used with Charlie Don't Surf!, as the Lardy rules closest to the conflict. My research has been mostly book and Internet based, and I'm sure there are those with better knowledge than I out there reading this!

You can find the lists on the special Six Day War page in the CDS section of this website, or click on the image below to go there direct:

Giles cartoon used courtesy of express newspapers

Giles cartoon used courtesy of express newspapers

TFL Painting Challenge: Three Newcomers Update

It's another big update tonight...made even bigger by the fact that we have not one, not two, but three new participants parading their pretties for the first time tonight.

So, as always in no particular order, we have:

  • Newcomer Pedivere with an amazing collection of French Foreign Legion troops from the early to mid-twentieth century
  • Steve Miller also breaks his duck with some very large and very nicely painted soldiers: our first 54mm entries IIRC
  • Mr Douglas submits three different entries, all ancient
  • Keith Davies, newcomer number three, pops in a platoon of British infantry for CoC
  • Mr Naylor turns to the Afghans, and an interpreter with seemingly very large hands
  • Mr Burt sends in some Napoleonics...some French
  • Thomas is obviously working at a frenzied pace: another entry and its only July
  • and, finally, Sapper submits some Samurai and some US troops

As I'm sure you all know by now, it's traditional to feature some of the newbie entries as 'pic of the post'. Today's pictures therefore come from Messrs Miller and Pedivere.

First up are some of Steve's absolutely cracking 54mm Victrix French:

Then we have the group shot of Pedivere's French Foreign Legion: amazing!

IABSM AAR: Tanks Forward!

Having played a couple of 6mm Franco-Prussian War scenarios, it was back to IABSM for Saturday night's battle.

This game is from a scenario that appeared in the TFL Christmas Special 2006: one of the scenarios from Chris Stoesen's mini-campaign set in the Saar region of Germany in 1939 as the French invade.

Click on the picture below to see whether les gens braves can make a success of their attempt to clear a village of German troops. As the title suggests: Tanks Forward!

Q13: Chuhuac Scout Squad on Grav Bikes

More sci-fi!

As part of my drive to clear some of my lead mountain, I am really concentrating on trying to finish my Chuhuac: superbly animated velociraptors-with-guns from Loud Ninja Games.

Next off the mountain and onto the painting table was a 'wing' of nine Chuhuacs riding grav bikes.

The figures come with body molded with the bike and separate heads. This was quite cool, as it allowed me to vary the amount of neck I used to show some of the wing craning upwards and some crouched low over the nose of the bike. I have even modeled one looking to the left as if to check his mates were still with him!

My only real problem was how to show the bikes 'floating' above the ground. I tried wire, but couldn't get a decent stick. I eventually settled on using those little Hama-bead things that gave me a big enough surface area to ensure a good bond between bike and base.

Here they are:

More Franco-Prussian War Action

Keen to get his revenge for my win last time, Neil suggested a re-match, but with him playing the Prussians this time.

The situation was fairly similar: von Neil's troops holding a ridge that ran down the centre of the table, with my French aiming to knock them of it. I outnumbered him about 2:1, but Prussian reinforcements were expected, and would arrive at a time determined by a roll of the dice.

The Prussian Line

Looking at the Prussian line, I noticed that all their artillery was in the centre, and that the Prussian right wing was hanging. His left was hanging a little, being sort of anchored on a farmhouse, but it was his right that looked vulnerable.

I therefore set up in a long line parallel to the ridge, but with a column of four battalions of zouaves (nasty, fighting, little buggers) supported by a mitrailleuse and a battalion of chasseur sharpshooters as an attack column on my left flank. My aim was to advance forward, give the Prussian line an unanswerable volley due to the superior range of my Chassepots, and then slam in my attack column. Once I had a foothold on the ridge, the attack column would roll him up as my line kept hammering in the fire. Tres simple but hopefully tres effective!

My commanders were obviously having a good day, as on the first turn my entire army moved forward into rifle range. I took some artillery fire from the Prussian centre battery, but because of its positioning, my densely-packed attack column remained untouched.

On my next turn (the Prussians remaining stationary and relying on their guns) I let loose a volley with the entire line that proved satisfyingly effective, with many Prussian units taking significant casualties. More importantly, the Prussian right flank brigade was disordered, mainly due to some brilliant shooting by the Chasseurs. The mitrailleuse jammed, of course!

Note also that the Prussian left flank brigade was also disordered, leading me to think that there might be something I could do here as well...but more on that later.

the french centre and left (about-to-be-victorious zouaves in the background)

My four-battalion column of zouaves charged up the hill and hit the end of the Prussian line. The lead battalion had been disordered by the fire coming at them as they charged in, so failed to simply smash the Prussians from the ridge, and fierce hand-to-hand combat broke out. Weight of numbers quickly began to tell, however, and the first brigade of Prussian infantry evaporated.

Over to Neil and his next turn: the next brigade of Prussians along attempted to punish the zouaves with fire from their Dreyse needle guns, but someone had obviously blunted their needles as they had no effect at all, not a single casualty being caused.

This was obviously quite worrying for the Prussians, as they retreated both the brigade that formed the right of their line and their guns off the ridge and down into the valley below. The left of my line quickly consolidated their gains: that end of the ridge was in my hands!

Meanwhile, at the other end of the line, I had decided that the opportunity of a disordered Prussian brigade was too much to resist, and had thrown two brigades of infantry up the hill in an attempt to dislodge them as well. Proving that the 2:1 odds were right for scenario (my zouaves had been 4:1 and supported by chasseurs), les gens brave found it hard going, and a hard-slog pushing match developed.

Hitting the prussian left (note the cavalry in the background)

Weight of numbers, however, meant that my men gradually pushed the Prussians back but, just at the moment that his line began to break, Neil sent his regiment of divisional light cavalry into the flank of my assaulting units.

Very messy, and even sending in another battalion of infantry to hit the cavalry in its flank in turn didn't really help matters.

Numbers, however, still told in the end, and although I effectively lost a brigade of infantry doing it, the right hand side of the ridge was now also in my hands so, with the enemy centre retreating, I had achieved my aim.

At that point, however, the Prussian reinforcements began to arrive. Unfortunately, the clock wasn't just ticking for the French, it was ticking for Neil too, so we had to call the game before he could get his extra troops into action.

Saved by the bell, the French were victorious!

losers!

Q13: A Very Big Space Ship!

Following my recent post about adding Daemonscape to the list of figure manufacturers, I am sure you can guess that it didn't take very long for me to send them my first order.

My Ursids (large anthropomorphic bears from Khurasan and Stan Johansen) needed a bit of transport to take them to their next mining job, so I ordered one of Daemonscape's big 15mm drop ships called, appropriately, "The Big Rig".

The kit arrived within days. I say kit, but we're talking six big bits of resin that fitted together surprisingly well using SuperGlue and just a very small amount of greenstuff in a couple of the cracks. Very easy to put together. The only complicated thing was adding the gun barrel to the turret, but I used drill-and-pin, and found that both gun barrel and turret were easily robust enough to make this relatively simple as well.

Painting was also a dream. A quick undercoat in black, then a coat of a very yellow ochre, followed by a brown wash and then several layers of dry-brush. Once all that was dry, half an hour's worth of touching up windows and viewing domes, grills and the additional of a flag from the bits box, and she was finished.

Not the most beautiful of vessels, but very practical for planet hopping. Really nice model:  highly recommended.

That's a 15mm figure (not an Ursid!) for size comparison

Vis Imperica Gallery: the Juarista's

My Mexican Juarista army is one of my absolute favourite armies from my collection of nineteenth century figures. Nicely painted, full of character: a wonderful mix of uniformed line infantry, less well-uniformed line infantry, and Mexican peasantry.

Another confession: I didn't paint this army either. Obviously feeling flush, I paid for this army to be painted and based for me...although I have added a few bits and pieces over the years.

The Juarista's have fought the French invaders many times, sometimes successfully, and have also swooped through history to fight the Americans and Texicans in earlier wars. A great excuse to showcase a range of appalling accents as well!

To see the gallery, click on the picture, below.

Los Supremos Podres

Los Supremos Podres

TFL Painting Challenge: Big Tuesday Update

My very quick round-up of where we are after six months certainly seems to have galvinised you all into action!

Lots of entries today, including one newbie. In no particular order we have:

  • Mr Douglas reverts to his Greeks
  • Andrew Helliwell submits another two battalions of AWI infantry
  • Richard Naylor sends in some more US Marines for Fighting Season
  • Mr Yuengling makes a welcome return with some LDV types (Home Guard precursors)
  • Thomas stuns us all by popping in some fences...and not a glued-on finger in sight. Most disappointing!
  • Benito Vera is also preparing for fighting season: some lovely Brits.
  • Matt Slade makes his customary appearance: three beautifully painted minis
  • Today's newbie, who seems to have christened himself Mr Nouveau, explodes onto the challenge with a huge mass of 20mm WW2 figurs and terrain (presumably for playing some Operation Compass scenarios)
  • and finally Derek Hodge is still stuck in re-basing hell (you don't think...you don't think he actually likes it do you?)

What an awful lot of submissions and points!

Today's pictures? Well one, as is traditional, is from Mr Nouveau. The other? Some of Benito's Brits I think:

20mm WW2 terrain and figures from Mr Nouveau

20mm WW2 terrain and figures from Mr Nouveau

The command section of Benito's 'fighting season' brits

The command section of Benito's 'fighting season' brits

Q13 Points System: Calculating Spreadsheet Now Available To Download

One of the great things about Quadrant 13, the TFL rules for company-sized sci-fi wargaming, is the fact that you can construct and use any army from any figure manufacturer or fictional source. This flexibility, however, does come with a price.

Quite a few people have mentioned to me that they have a problem not so much with actually building the armies themselves, but with then working out what troops to deploy on each side to give a good game…especially for heterogeneous armies such as humans versus bugs.

Put simply, they can use the guidelines in the rules to give their medium tanks the right sized gun but then have difficulty in working out how many tanks to field in order to make it a ‘fair fight’ with the opposition. Unlike the TFL historical rulesets, there is no frame of reference.

The TooFatLardies Summer Special 2015 therefore contained an article, written by me, detailing a rudimentary points system for Q13. The article references a spreadsheet that can be used to easily calculate the points values for any Q13 unit. You can download the spreadsheet by clicking on the Q13 logo that can be found here.

TFL Summer Special 2015

The TooFatLardies have just announced the release of this year's Summer Special.

This issue contains the following articles:

  • Blitz to Boulogne - A complete mini-campaign for Chain of Command
  • Action at the Crooked Billet - AWI scenario for Sharp Practice
  • Glowaczow - AN IABSM scenario from 1944 with Soviets versus Germans
  • Hadgranate! - Tracing the development of hand grenade tactics in the Great War
  • At our Convenience - A mini-campaign for Mud & Blood (or Great War Chain of Command) centred on the battle of Loos in 1915
  • Fight for Sesna -  A Spanish Civil War tank action for CoC Espana!
  • Straight out of Central Casting - Adding characters to your Bag the Hun games
  • Taking the Biscuit - A complete guide to using Sharp Practice for Garibaldi's 1860 campaign in Sicily.  Rule suggestions and five scenarios
  • Quadrant 13, A Point System - Robert Avery provides a point system for his popular Sci-Fi rules
  • The Roundwood Report - Sidney talks Lardy Games days with three veteran organisers
  • Fork-Tailed Lardies - Using the P-38 in Bag the Hun
  • Le Hameau - A 200th anniversary Le Feu Sacre scenario
  • Hunting Charlie with Captain Jack - A Charlie Don't Surf Scenario for Vietnam
  • Arise to Lard - Applying 1940 air tactics with Bag the Hun.
  • Scotland Forever - Try to capture the Eagle with the Scots Greys at Waterloo.  A complete game to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the great battle.

You'll note the article from your's truly about a points system for Q13.

The TFL Summer Special 2015 is available for only £6 by clicking here.

TFL Painting Challenge: Is It Really Saturday Again Already?

Morning all, here's another update for the painting challenge.

Quite a big one today as I've had lots of other things to bang up on this site during the week. So, in no particular order, we have:

  • A triple entry from Steve Burt: guns, limbers, entrenchments
  • Some 15mm WW2 figures from Mr McCarthy
  • Sapper sends in a Soviet battlegroup, also in 15mm
  • Paul Blankenship sends in another huge batch of 6mm WW2 vehicles and infantry
  • Mr Douglas goes Persian
  • Mark Luther has more 'planes for us: loving those Ju88s
  • Mr Slade has more minions of the non-yellow lozenge type

Today's pictures are one of Andrew's Forged in Battle 88s, and Sapper's Soviet battlegroup: