Author: Wargaming.info

Miniature Wargames Magazine: New Format

miniwargames314The latest issue of Miniature Wargames (No. 311 – March 2009) has arrived and in the editorial Andrew Hubback has announced that the promised new format will be implemented from the next issue (April). Miniature Wargames Website.

Update: 26 March 2009 – My copy of Miniature Wargames 312 (April 2009) arrived today and features the new layout and type faces. Definitely an improvement to the appearance and the gradual trend for more of the articles to be of more interest seems to continue at first glance.

An improvement in some of the photos as well – again significantly increasing the proportion that are of the standard found in Wargames Illustrated, Wargames, Soldiers & Strategy, and Battlegames magazines.

BC’09 Conclusion: Results & Aftermath

Well what a weekend – we had had two really intense full on challenging battles, one rather frustrating indecisive game, and one very decisive win. As with previous BattleCry events games were generally played in good spirits and the environment was great. The new venue at the ASB Basketball Stadium was fantastic and I look forward to future events being there… Once again Philip and Andrew had the ‘most ancient’ army present, and special thanks to Battleline Miniatures for the competition prizes. Continue reading “BC’09 Conclusion: Results & Aftermath”

BC’09 Round 4: Kushite Egyptians 700BC

Sunday afternoon saw us facing the Kushite Egyptians of Philip Abela and Andrew Hunter. For deployment we placed two very large open fields and 2 roads to try and restrict their terrain placement (see the green & brown areas in the photos below) and force them to deploy in the open. However they were able to get two patches of scrub into their deployment zone and consequently corner sat with their force crammed into less than half the width of the table on the Kushan right. They also had a command off-table which we expected to flank march on on the Kushan right (see photo below) to support that deployment. The Kushite’s also pulled out a Guides Stratagem (again) and placed a hidden track through the scrub on the Kushan extreme right. Continue reading “BC’09 Round 4: Kushite Egyptians 700BC”

BC’09 Round 3: Later Carthaginians 202BC

Sunday Morning saw us facing Andrew “Benny” Bennetts and Al “the Spartan” Donald, running Hannibal’s army from Zama, complete with Hannibal as the Brilliant C-in-C. Cam and I switched roles for the second day, and I’d command 2 fighting Commands and he just 1 plus the baggage. Faced with the Carthaginians mass of Expendable Elephants we were a bit gun shy and we basically had our worst game of the tournament – being both indecisive, excessively complicated in our plan, and overly cautious (although Cam may argue the last game was definitely our worst). Terrain had come down very conventionally with nothing affecting the game other than a convenient piece of scrub in the Carthaginian deployment area (see below). Continue reading “BC’09 Round 3: Later Carthaginians 202BC”

BC’09 Round 2: Medieval Portuguese & English Allies 1385AD

For our afternoon challenge we were assigned Ivan Truong and Richard “Uncle Dickie” Foster, and their dastardly Medieval Portuguese. Personally I have bad memories of the latter army from back home in Christchurch in the early nineties (playing DBM 1.1 & 2.0), and my 15mm Minoans & Early Mycenaeans getting regular drubbings by it from Corbon Loughnan! Anyway Campbell and I were a bit concerned by this army, I was actually of the opinion of being prepared to risk our Kn(X) Cataphracts against the Irr Kn(O) but Campbell wasn’t so keen as we would be fighting at a disadvantage due to being graded ‘I’ (inferior) against them. Continue reading “BC’09 Round 2: Medieval Portuguese & English Allies 1385AD”

BC’09 Round 1: Sassanid Persians with Sabir Hun Allies 463AD

First up we drew John Calnan & Lance Knighton running Sassanids – this was exactly the same army that had undone us the previous year in the last round of BattleCry 2008 (BC’08 Round 4: Sassanid Persian with Sabir Hun Allies 463AD)! We endeavoured to congest their deployment area with Marshes, knowing they would have the edge on us with Elephants, so as to then be able to concentrate our Cataphracts where their Cavalry could, with some reliability, be expected to be deployed. Continue reading “BC’09 Round 1: Sassanid Persians with Sabir Hun Allies 463AD”

BattleCry 2009 Introduction

Yet another successful BattleCry has gone by and congratulations to Karen & the AMERICA team for organising another great event, although the usual copious amounts of “loot” were a bit less (to be expected with the current economy) and I didn’t see any T-Shirts available this year! As with last year Benny (Andrew Bennetts) organised and umpired the New Zealand 25mm/28mm DBMM Doubles as well as playing in a team – it’s always a trade off and occasionally a thankless task – and thanks to Mike Campbell in Wellington who vetted the lists pre-tournament so Benny could be free of any ‘prior knowledge’ cloud over his head! The DBMM competition was enjoyable and went pretty well (with lots of exciting tension filled periods in our games), although it had a couple of flat bits on the second day for me personally – mainly because my brain just went into zombie mode and stopped working at a couple of crucial times in tense games! Continue reading “BattleCry 2009 Introduction”

London War Room Closed

The London War Room has apparently had to close indefinitely. The business has been run by husband & wife team Vince & Sharron for 15 years, however Vince has apparently walked away from the business at short notice. The business is being dissolved and hopefully it (or at least the masters) will get picked up by someone quickly – it includes good ranges of Wild Animals, Colonial Guns, Ships, and various other items not well covered by many other 28mm Manufacturers (although it’s suggested the range of Houston’s Guns may not be available again regardless). The site linked to above is currently offline but Sharron has stated she may get a temporary one back up to list what remaining stock they have left for sale until the business is sold. Sharron has posted a detailed account of what has happened on the Colonial Wars Yahoo Group for those interested – Hopefully things will work out for both the current owners and it will quickly find a new owner, I have purchased many Colonial Guns & Animals, and some long boats from them and they are on the whole a very nice range of castings…

Battlefront Miniatures acquire Wargames Illustrated & GF9 Miniatures

flames_of_warsmallWI-coverBattlefront Miniatures of New Zealand (the makers of Flames of War) have announced the acquisition of Wargames Illustrated magazine and Gale Force Nine Miniatures. You can read more in their press releases here and here… It will be interesting to see what the future has in store for Wargames Illustrated, and whether Flames of War will become the predominant content of the publication. Wargames Illustrated is the second major UK Wargaming Magazine to change ownership in the last few months – Miniature Wargames was sold by long time owner/editor Iain Dickie to Andrew Hubback around October 2008.

BattleCry 2009

Here in Auckland it’s that time again – BattleCry 2009, the premier Auckland Wargaming Convention hosted (as always) by the AMERICA Club from Auckland University. As always this year includes the 28mm Ancient & Medieval Doubles Competition, New Zealand’s original and first Ancient & Medieval Doubles Tournament – and the only one in 25mm-28mm scale! As with 2008 this year will be played with the DBMM Rules (2007 and previous years having been played under DBM), and Battleline Miniatures will be sponsoring the competition. BattleCry is over the weekend of the 21-22 February 2009. Continue reading “BattleCry 2009”

Building the Quatre Bras armies in 28mm

27th Dutch Jaeger Battalion
27th Dutch Jaeger Battalion

For a long time I had been musing over what to do about Napoleonics. However now I am back into Napoleonics full time in 28mm, re-enthused by the release of SHAKO II and possibly also LaSalle. I’ll be documenting here the assembly of my forces for Quatre Bras, along with gaming notes and more. Eventually I’ll be hoping to expand my forces to cover a portion of the Waterloo battlefield – Megalomania? What’s that!

It was my intent to include a SHAKO Order of Battle for the forces of both sides – but the new rulebook includes such an OOB in it! However I probably will be doing an expanded OOB at a later date to allow for the expansion of the battle beyond the critical stages as covered in the SHAKO II Scenario – allowing it to be played in a mini-campaign format, and to do ‘what ifs’ covering the possibility that Ney acted sooner and more vigorously…

Continue reading “Building the Quatre Bras armies in 28mm”

The Russians Are Coming!

The Russians Are Coming! CanCon 2009.
The Russians Are Coming! The RINS Vladimir Monomakh at CanCon 2009

Colonial participation game at CanCon (Canberra, Australia) wins ‘best participation game’ of convention. Depicting the feared Russian invasion of Australia, and generously supported by Askari Miniatures who donated figures to promote the game, the guys involved have done a fantastic job! You can see the photos and read more at the Defence of Melbourne blog.