26 December 2011
DRA60599 - German SdKfz 231 8-rad on the Eastern Front 1941
Dragon Armor has announced in the last few weeks the release of several of their new models planned for the 2011-2012 period, as many will know the Japanese Type 95 Ha-Go and Type 97 Chi-Ha have both been released (there are now 2 colour schemes available for the former and 3 for the latter) along with the U.S. LVT-A(1) with 37mm gun turret, and various German light vehicles such as the SdKfz 222 Light Reconnaissance Car and SdKfz 251/22 Half-Track with PaK40 on board. Most recently has been the release of the Neubaufahrzeug from Panzerabteilung z.b.V.40 in Norway 1940. Now due in early 2012 are the German SdKfz 231 Heavy Reconnaissance Car in early war Panzer Grey (a much missed model from all ranges), and a British Infantry Tank Mk.IV Churchill Mk.III (the 6pdr version that served from Dieppe in 1942 until the end of the war in Italy and to a lesser extent in NWE.
Posted in 20mm Figures & Models, Eastern Front 1941-45, Europe 1939-43, Europe 1944-45 | 
Tags: 1/72, 1940-1941, 1942-1943, 1944-1945, 20mm, British, Diecast, Dragon Armor, Eastern Front, German, Japanese, Manufacturer, Model Vehicles, News, Normandy, Norway, WW2 | 
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23 December 2011
For those of you who celebrate Christmas I’d like to wish you all the best and look forward to a great 2012 and thank you all for reading my blog!
Posted in Some Other Things | Tags: Happy New Year, Merry Christmas, Seasons Greetings | 2 Comments »
12 December 2011
My Warlord Games “Rorke’s Drift” box set arrived today… It’s an impressive beast- it was part of their pre-order special on the new Anglo-Zulu War range that’s the premier of their new strategic partnership with Empress Miniatures. At the time I resisted the urge to get the full “Horns of the Buffalo – Rorke’s Drift Collectors Set” which is an absolutely huge collection of toys! This set is the first of their collaborations planned with Empress Miniatures – so you get a swag of Warlord Games plastic figures and terrain pieces, some Empress Miniatures speciality metal figs, and a pair of “4Ground“ laser-cut plywood building kitsetsthe of the storehouse and hospital. There is also a mixture of biscuit box and mealie-bags barricades reported to be historically accurate renditions from the battlefield as well as the barricaded wagons and the stone wall from the Kraal. Add to that 40 plastic Married Zulus & 20 plastic British Redcoats plus 7 assorted metal “Character Figures” (including Chard, Bromhead, Bourne and Hook – the historical version of the chaps – and a mounted InDuna to command the Zulus as well as a Zulu Rifleman in looted red jacket)!
7 December 2011
Blenheim & Oberglau seen from behind Eugène's position with Schwenenbach in the left foreground
Following on from our two previous outings with Maurice (see Maurice: First Game Impressions and Maurice: Second Game & More Thoughts), Cam and I decided to have a go at a historical refight – deciding on Blenheim, so last weekend we set to it It would be heavily “Bathtubbed” to fit it down to the size of a typical Maurice game, and we’d be playing with all the full rules (rather than just the free Maurice Lite version). This meant we’d have troop quality, enhanced morale, and other factors involved. We both calculated out separately what size we thought the armies would be in Maurice – I based mine on the battlefield size & frontage and came to about 32 units of Infantry & Cavalry for the French (the larger force), however this was clearly too big so halving that came to 16, about the right size, and co-incidentally the same amount Cam had calculated starting with the troop numbers and working from that direction.
Posted in Battles In Tricornes, Spanish Succession War | Tags: 1701–1714, Age of Enlightenment, Age of Reason, Comte de Marsin, Duc de Tallard, Duke of Marlborough, Elector of Bavaria, French, Honour Games, John Churchill, Lace Wars, Maurice, News, Prince Eugène of Savoy, Rules, Sam Mustafa, War of the Spanish Succession | 13 Comments »
28 November 2011
Brigadier Rowe leads the British infantry to the assault on the village of Blenheim 1704
So a week after our first game Cam and I set about a second – the plan this time to start to try and be a bit more savvy and also Cam decided on a gimmicky “All Infantry” army to see how it’d do! Note that as I did with the previous game I’ll generally talk in terms of Maurice Lite (as that is what is currently published) but we were using aspects of the full game as referenced throughout the Maurice Lite rules (and I’ll note in the narrative where they occur). The game commenced with us determining a battle in the Tropics (this is a full game feature that determines type of terrain and how much can be selected, what type of troops aid scouting to gain the initiative, etc), Cam won the scouting (with the help of a special ‘Notable’ espionage card) and chose to Defend (another full game feature). Normally the players would then now determine and place the terrain but I had pre-determined it’s type and location randomly to save time prior to Cam’s arrival – so instead Cam chose which side he wanted. As Invader I then deployed first…
24 November 2011
Indus Indian Irregular Cavalry or Pindari with Bows, although the right-hand arrow looks a bit long?
I recently stumbled across Indus Miniatures – and when they announced a 20% off ‘Thanks Giving‘ Sale I couldn’t resist getting a few – even though they are aimed at the Indian 18th Century to Mutiny era rather than the later NWF (North-West Frontier). Still the quality of the greens looks nice in these pics, and some of the figs are designed to be fairly generic – for example the Irregular Cavalry or Pindari are described as “meant to represent the Irregular troops serving in India for the Princes, Mughals, Europeans, Sikhs etc. They can be used from 1700 till 1850′s. They probably can be used for other time frames as they are quite generic“.
Posted in 28mm Figures & Models, North West Frontier | Tags: 28mm, Afghanistan, Cannon, Colonial, Elephants, Figures, Indian, Indus, Medieval, Pike & Shotte, Victorian | No Comments »
22 November 2011
WF WSS Cavalry built as a French Grenadiers à Cheval de la Maison du Roi, Line Cavalry Trooper, and a Dragoon, by Steve Cady (from Castles of Tin blog)
A few weeks ago Sam Mustafa announced his latest rule set he would be publishing, “Maurice”, which would cover the rump of the 18th Century and include Campaign and Imagi-Nations aspects… This was especially interesting to me as I have really enjoyed Lasalle since its release (it’s the first time I’ve been totally excited and passionate about Napoleonics in 35 or so years of wargaming) and if Maurice was going to be anything along a similar vein I expected something worth getting excited about. Furthermore I’ve really wanted to get into 18th Century in some form, and the WSS (War of the Spanish Succession) has always interested me (because of my childhood memories of reading about John Churchill, Duke of Marlborough, and Prince Eugène of Savoy, defeating the dastardly French at Blenheim & Ramillies, etc). What’s more for me the WSS has always held that ‘Old School’ feel about it that brings back memories of pouring over Charles Grant’s “The Wargame” as a teenager and dreaming of one day having those large 18th Century Armies like in the book…
21 November 2011
Sam Mustafa has just announced today that Maurice Lite is available to download at his Honour Games Website. Maurice Lite is basically a stripped down version of Maurice, sans the advanced rules and the more detailed parts of the standard rules, and with a basic starter set of DIY cards to get you going. It will certainly be sufficient to get an initial feel of how the game works and for people to gauge the mechanics. I was lucky enough to have just had my first taste of Maurice too, and I liked several aspects of the rules – but it’s certainly a bit different to what many people may be used to. Incidentally Sam has also updated the status of the full version of Maurice in the last few days.
Posted in Community News, Spanish Succession War | Tags: 1701–1714, 1715-1721, 1740–1748, 1756–1763, 1775–1783, 1789–1799, Age of Enlightenment, Age of Reason, American Civil War, French, Great Northern War, Honour Games, Lace Wars, Maurice, News, Revolution, Rules, Sam Mustafa, Seven Years' War, War of the Austrian Succession, War of the Spanish Succession | 1 Comment »
21 November 2011
Brigadier Gaillard's brigade of the army of the Duchy of Veloires, these Wargames Factory units are just awaiting banners - Picture from the Platoon Fire blog (see below).
As mentioned previously the announcement of the release of Maurice by Sam Mustafa (due about March 2012) has got me inspired to finally get started on my WSS Armies, of which I have purchased several packs of Wargames Factory plastics (in fact I now have 15 Infantry & 7 Cavalry boxes, and am waiting for the hinted at Artillery box that is apparently being considered and will hopefully appear in 2012). Further inspiration is coming from several gamers blogs and such working on these same plastic figures, such as Platoon Fire, an Imagi-Nation WSS project. The photo above is from the Platoon Fire blog’s first Wargames Factory units, the author (Aidan) is constrained for space so is doing small 12 fig Infantry Battalions and 5 fig Cavalry Squadrons/Regiments. And there is more inspiration around too with a nice WF WSS Infantry Battalion at Castles of Tin.
Posted in Spanish Succession War | Tags: 1701–1714, Age of Enlightenment, Age of Reason, Duc de Tallard, Duc de Villars, Duke of Berwick, Duke of Marlborough, Elector of Bavaria, Figures, French, John Churchill, Lace Wars, Maurice, Prince Eugène of Savoy, War of the Spanish Succession, Wargames Factory | 1 Comment »
17 November 2011
“The Future is Clear” Henry Hyde announces, Battlegames will join Miniature Wargames in the Atlantic Publishing stable, and will remain an independent separate publication from Miniature Wargames. Henry will remain in the Editorial roll and all existing subscriptions will be honoured – the next issue, first under the new publishers, should be out at or just after Christmas. You can read more here…
14 November 2011
I saw this posted on TMP and couldn’t resist putting a link up here!
Posted in Grognard Chatter, The Hundred Days 1815 | Tags: 1/72, 1815, 20mm, Airfix, British, Napoleonic, Video | No Comments »
5 November 2011
Henry Hyde
In some surprising and sad news Henry Hyde, editor of Battlegames Magazine in the UK, has announced that he has had to cease publication. Apparently the magazine is in some financial difficulty and Henry is unsure whether he can continue it in electronic only format in a more adhoc manner (e.g. as quarterly periodical or such) or whether he may have to cease publication altogether. You can read the news on the Battlegames Website.
26 Jan 2012, 2:55 pm UTC WSS Here I Come - Well Almost! I have also bought a box of infantry and one of the cavalry. Being new to this period, I am not sure of which figure tops and bottoms plus heads ...
24 Jan 2012, 12:12 pm UTC Trafalgar vs. Signal Close Action Fast Play Hi Doug - yes, we found Trafalgar very random and I was also disappointed with the author's response regarding some things, including a query I had...
3 Jan 2012, 1:19 am UTC Some Lovely Langton 1/1200 Ships I use SCAFP, and there are some pics of the ships here: http://aleadodyssey.blogspot.com/p/11200-langtons-napoleonic.html
3 Jan 2012, 1:17 am UTC Trafalgar vs. Signal Close Action Fast Play Completely concur with your own experiences with Trafalagar and SCAFP. The latter gives a much better game, and the only thing that it 'Needs' tack...
30 Dec 2011, 4:47 pm UTC Blenheim 1704: A Maurice (Refight) Experience Yes it can. But ideally you need multiple card decks and run each side as multiple commands or armies with an opposing command/army.
30 Dec 2011, 2:08 pm UTC Blenheim 1704: A Maurice (Refight) Experience Can Maurice handle multiple players per side?