A New Project

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Regular visitors will know that I enjoy gaming the Ancients period with To The Strongest.

That rule set has a companion set covering the English Civil War (1642 - 1651) called For King & Parliament. A month or so ago, I invested in a copy and started thinking how I would create forces for both the Royalists and Parliamentarians.

To match my grid-ed gaming mat, I need units that are about 12cms wide, which means that a double-ranked unit would be about 24 foot strong, assuming 1cm frontage for each figure. This worked with the numbers given in the rulebook, so 24 men per regiment it was.

In FK&P, foot regiments are of different types: standard (2 musketeers for every 1 pikeman); pike-heavy; shot-heavy; all pike; all shot and smaller units for Forlorn Hopes, dismounted dragoons etc.

What I initially thought of doing was to have separately based blocks of musketeers and blocks of pikemen, a combination of which would allow me to build the different types of regiment that I needed for a game. After a lot of experimenting with paper and pen, however, I realised that this wouldn’t work: it would be fine for a standard, all pike or all shot units, but wouldn’t work for the -heavy units and their 3:1 ratios.

Good luck against the tank in the background, lads!

After a lot more thought, and more pen and paper, I realised that the easiest thing to do would be just to mount an entire regiment of up to 24 figures (plus 3 command, so 27) on a single big base. In effect, I was doing what many 6mm gamers do, but in 15mm.

A quick trip to the Warbases website to discover that they actually do a suitable base as a standard product. It’s called a Vehicle Base, and is 12cms wide by about 5cms deep. It’s the one marked as 110x40mm, which is the rectangular area in the centre of the base, surrounded by curvy bits that give it its 12cms width.

Okay, so it’s all feasible…but rather than cough up huge amounts of cash for a whole army that might not work, let’s try one unit first. Easiest place to buy figures so specifically is Peter Pig, so a quick trip to their website to discover a very nice and comprehensive ECW range. I bought four packets only: one pike, two muskets (one firing, one reloading) and a command pack.

The results you see in the pictures, above. I rather like them, and I really like the big base effect. I did have a little problem with warping, which surprised me given this was a 3mm deep “hard” base, but I could use the lip to flatten the base for a couple of hours and problem solved.

So that’s one unit done and more ordered!

The Last of the Gauls

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I really should have painted these myself, but I’m very busy with the last of the Sumerians at the moment, so when friend John offered to paint them up for a very reasonable rate, I jumped at the chance.

This is a Gallic, or general Celtic, warband in 15mm. Figures from Forged in Battle’s excellent Empire range.

IABSM AAR: Operation Martlet Day 2 (2)

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A largely photographic battle report created from a mash-up of posts from Desmondo Darkin and Iain Fuller on the IABSM Facebook Group. The game is adapted from the Chain of Command “Operation Martlet” pint-sized camapign book.

They are playing a version of I Ain’t Been Shot, Mum that uses dice, not cards, to control initiative: a mash-up, if you like, of CoC and IABSM. Seems to have given them a great game.

Click on the pic below to see all:

300,000 Page Views!

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If my calculations are correct, some time yesterday this website hit 300,000 page views since its launch in October 2014 i.e. just about five years to the month!

That’s not bad going for a hobby site that concentrates so specifically on the company-sized rules from the TooFatLardies (even if yesterday’s post was about To The Strongest!).

So thank-you all for your support and visitations over the last five years, and thank you especially to those who have kindly given permission for me to use their content on here.

If nothing else, and along with its Facebook page, I reckon we’ve kept I Ain’t Been Shot, Mum from going out of print, a worthy achievement by any calculation.

A few facts to amuse:

  • Most visitors come from the UK (42%), followed by the US (26%) and then Australia (7%) and Canada (4%). Quite surprised that the US number isn’t higher…

  • The most popular content is After Action Reports (so keep them coming) followed by the Army Galleries.

  • There are 956 individual battle reports on the site. I think I’m probably the biggest contributor, but honorable mentions have to go to many, many more people

More Sumerians

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Closing in on the last few units of my 15mm Sumerian army for To The Strongest.

Today’s offering is firstly a fifth spear block of 48 spearmen: a rather daunting prospect when you see them all ready to be undercoated, but fine once you get into the rhythm of painting them.

Next we have some of the marker pieces I’ll need. These are the Heroes: allowing you a one-off re-try of a round of melee i.e. draw the wrong card, use our hero, draw another card, discard hero.

As you can see, each of my heroes comes complete with their own scribe (to record their valiant actions) and their own parasol holder (to keep the hero cool until he is needed).

Once again, lovely 15mm figures from Museum Miniatures.

IABSM AAR: South of Cherbourg

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It’s always nice when you hear about someone returning to I Ain’t Been Shot, Mum after a bit of a break and having a thoroughly good game…so here’s a quick AAR from Rob Goodfellow of the Tamworth Games Club.

Here Rob and friends play through the second sample scenario from the IABSM v3 rulebook: South of Cherbourg. Click on the picture below to see all.

Even better, Rob tells me that they are now thinking of playing through the Blenneville or Bust! scenario pack: so I’m sure we can expect plenty more AARs in the near future!

TFL Painting Challenge: Huge Update

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Well you all seemed to respond to my request to get those last few entries of the year in…especially as we’re now in the final month of this year’s competition, and last year’s scores won’t beat themselves!

Just one of Doug’s 28mm Hetzers

Today’s entries are:

  • Doug Melville with an incredible amount of WW2 28mm kit on show. So huge an entry was this that I almost considered giving Doug his own update!

  • Some casualty figures and sabot bases from Chris Stoesen

  • More beautiful Aztecs from The Hat

  • Travis pops in three LVTs and some more winter Americans

  • Five houses and, most important of all, a pub from Mervyn

  • A massive re-base from Jason Ralls…but hasn’t made the classic “cardboard base” error in the past?

  • I scoff at Steve Burt’s claim to have sent in the last of his Crusades figures: it’s never the last!

  • Carole returns to Games Workshop, spiky bits and all (the figures, not Carole)

  • Bits and Bobs from Fred Bloggs

  • And last, but by no means least, Andrew Helliwell with his usual plethora of figures

As usual, clicking on the name of the person above will take you straight to their gallery (opens in a new window) and I do recommend doing so: there are some magnificent paint jobs and collections on show.

Keep them coming: the end of the year beckons…

Here are today’s pictures:

IABSM AAR: On the Northern Shoulder of Kursk, Fight 4: Karpunevka

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Here is another stupendous After Action Report from Just Jack, taken (with permission) from his excellent BlackHawkHet blog.

I say “stupendous” because not only is it a really good read, but it’s huge as well: 144 photos, all individually captioned with an account of the action that’s shown. It’s so huge that it actually broke my attempt to get a post every day in November: I managed one every day right up to Monday 25th and then ran into this monster!

It also didn’t help that Squarespace was playing up: I had to type out about one caption in every five as the cut-and-paste just wasn’t working. Thanks for the bleeding finger tips, Squarespace!

Anyhow, enough of my moaning. It’s a great read: click on the picture below to do so…

Praesentia Hyperion Drones

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Remember the Praesentia? Excellent 15mm sci-fi figures from what was Critical Mass Games, but is now Ral Partha.

Well I started painting all the figures I bought in CMG’s “closing down” sale but never quite got around to finally finishing them off. The half-painted remainder have been sitting on my painting table, occasionally shuffling their feet and giving a polite cough to remind me that they are there.

As I’m a bit sick of painting Sumerians (yes, I know I’m supposed to be on the final push to finish them, but I’ve painted hundreds of the little blighters!) I thought I’d just clear a bit of space by finishing the Praesentia off.

So here’s the first of the three lots of Praesentia: a platoon of Hyperion drone AFVs.

These are actually quite large. The bases are a good three inches long, so you can see the drones come in at about 5 or 6 inches in length.

Unfortunately I believe that they are out of production at the moment (they are certainly not listed on the Ral Partha website) so I’m quite glad I bought them when I did. Just goes to show what I always say: never hesitate to buy figures, as they might not be available when you finally do decide you want them!

Ancient, Ancient British!

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I play To The Strongest in 15mm, but on a 28mm-sized grid. I love the look of the huge armies that you have to field to fill the space.

The problem, of course, is that you have to have the aforementioned huge armies in order to play and if, like me, your collection was gathered to play (my own) Vis Bellica rules, then you find yourself short of lots of figures.

Three of my existing chariots

No problem, I hear you cry: an excellent excuse to buy more…and indeed it is. So there I was, mooching around Warfare, wondering whether to buy the final pack of Ancient British chariots that I needed to complete my 130 point army when I saw a chap selling painted Ancient British (or Gallic etc) figures, including chariots.

Now these figures were old, and painted in quite a basic style, but on inquiry were being sold for only £1 per chariot. Hmmm…four new chariots at about £5 each which I then have to paint, base etc, or just buy four of these and be done.

Well, I prefer to paint my own stuff, but then I looked down at these poor figures, all jumbled together in a box, suffering a bit from lead rot (which shows you how old they were) and thought “no, I won’t buy new, I’ll give these old veterans a new home”. After all, figures are not just for Christmas, they are for life!

So here they are: four ancient Ancient British chariots that look more like 20mm than 15mm; are basically painted (although shroffed up a bit by me); are suffering from lead rot (hence the very heavy coat of shiny car lacquer I’ve given them): but given a new home and a new lease of life. Only a shame I couldn’t have taken them all…

Battlefront 40% Off Black Friday Sale

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I though I’d at least better mention that Battlefront are currently running a 40% off Black Friday sale covering, as usual, some of their lines that obviously aren’t selling as well as they had hoped: western desert, Vietnam, Great War and Arab/Israeli.

I’ve been through it myself, but couldn’t really find anything I wanted to buy: incredible though that may sound. I’ve got enough to field decent size forces for ‘Nam and Arab/Israeli, and although I had thought to launch a western desert collection off the back of this, quite frankly I’d rather buy a whole load of PSC or Zvezda plastics.

Let’s take an example: Panzer II tanks. Battlefront sale gives you five resin and metal tanks at a sale price of £19.80 or £3.96 each. When they are in stock, PSC will do you a platoon deal of five Zvezda plastic tanks for £15.95 or £3.19 each. They are much easier to build (I used to let my daughter build my Zvezda Panzer IIs when she was seven!) and I actually think they look better than the resin and metal ones. Incidentally, the non-sale Battlefront price for five Panzer IIs is £33 or £6.60 each!

Same with the SdKfz 231s. Four from Battlefront in the sale at £17.40 or £4.35 each; five from PSC not in any sale at £20.95 or £4.19 each. And the PSC models are lovely.

So take advantage of the sale if you like, but do make sure you shop around first…and even if you don’t think you like plastics as an alternative to traditional resin and metal, do give them a go at least once. Makes an army easier to carry for a start!

Postscript

Okay, okay, I found something to buy!

I’m buying the Afrika Korps 90th Light Division box set. No, you don’t get the whole division for £22.50, but you do get the specialist tank hunters from their 605th Panzerjaeger Battalion: three Diana’s and three PaK36(r) anti-tank guns. At an average of £3.75 each, worth getting in case I ever need to field three of the nine Diana’s that actually fought!!!!!!

IABSM AAR: Bloody Omaha Re-Visited

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Those of you who have been on this year’s wargame show and Lardy Day circuit this year may well have seen Mike Whitaker’s excellent demonstration game Bloody Omaha. This is a fantastic set up representing The Big Red One’s assault of the eastern end of Omaha beach (Colleville-Sur-Mer).

Those of you who know Mike will know that he is a man of mighty generous spirit, as is proved here as he lays on the game for a couple of fellow Lardy’s who hadn’t had a chance to take part in any of the show sessions.

Click on the picture below to see a magnificent battle report taken from the Roll A One blog and Mike’s own blog Trouble At T’Mill.

IABSM AAR: 3RTR at Hames-Boucres

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One of the reasons I love running this site (at great expense in terms of time and money BTW!) is the opportunity to post battle reports from games based on scenarios from the various scenario packs that I’ve written.

I like seeing whether the game worked or not (fortunately they generally do!), and how people have interpreted the situation, terrain, any special rules and the like. It’s also great to see the beautiful figures and scenery that people use as well.

It gives me great pleasure, therefore, to introduce the following AAR by Time Whitworth using the 3RTR at Hames-Boucres scenario from the Defence of Calais pack (the first I wrote). It’s a great scenario that I’ve played several times myself. Click on the pic below to see all:

TFL Painting Challenge: A Bit Quiet For The Time of Year!

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Here’s the latest update to the 2019 Painting Challenge…and despite the healthy number of submissions in the list below, it’s a bit quiet for the time of year.

We’re just past the middle of November, which means you have about six weeks left to get those last entries painted, based, finished and photographed. Last year’s scores won’t beat themselves, you know!

Personally, I’m also on my final push: desperate to get to 2,000 points. I missed it last year by a gnat’s whisker…and it looks as if I’m going to do the same again this year. I must obviously try harder: so do join me in a final push.

Here, in no particular order, are today’s entries:

  • Travis is first up, as always, with some beautifully painted Winter Americans and a few moderns as well

  • Chris Cornwell submits a large chunk: medievals and a host of Zouaves

  • Mr Luther is back on the terrain: scratchbuilt houses and some gravestones

  • There’s more Condottieri from Carole

  • Steve Burt is in Zululand with the 24th

  • Joe McGinn goes Airborne for Market Garden

  • Another big entry from Mr Helliwell…he must be running out of space by now!

  • And last, but not least, Mervyn has some Haradrim

As always, clicking on the names of the people in the list above will take you straight through to their gallery (opens in a new window). Scorecard will be updated once I can get on my home PC: currently colonised by Minecraft every night!

Here are today’s pictures:

IABSM AAR: Objective - The Crossroads

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Another quick after action report from Burt Minarot’s excellent Spanish-language blog Las Partidas de Burt.

Here, British troops are trying to slow down a German force advancing towards a vital crossroads designated as the next jump-off point for the Allied advance.

Click on the picture below to see all:

Sumerian Commanders

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Coming close to finishing the Sumerians now: just two more units of spearmen, some heroes, and some skirmishing archers to go.

That means it must be time to paint the generals: three of them needed, each in a four-equine chariot:

And very nice they are too: this really is a cracking range of 15mm figures from Museum Miniatures.

Back from Warfare

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Although I know that some people hate Warfare (Richard!) I actually rather like it.

Good shopping (even if it gets a bit crowded sometimes), some nice demonstration games, and a huge competition gaming area. Above all, it’s full of people actually playing wargames, and always inspires me to actually wargame myself as opposed to spending my time painting and reading about wargaming on the ‘net!

This year was no exception. I headed over on Saturday morning (so if you’re reading this today, you can still get there tomorrow as it’s a two-day show), and saw the following:

Nice to see Big Rich, John, Bevan, Neil and Carol…and I’ll be back tomorrow for more.