Thursday 14 December 2017

Happy Christmas to me 😄😄

And so it begins with the arrival of my new project to start in the new year, lots of gluing to be done (what's that dad, you will glue the all up for me I hear you say 😉) and a first for me to be painting Orks or as they are now called Orruks... Still should be fun building an army....


Sunday 3 December 2017

ACW Demonstration game at Battleground Wargames show

Last weekend the Independent wargames group put on a demonstration game at the excellent battleground wargames convention bring the wargaming season to a close. We put a ACW gameon demonstrating  the Pickets Charge rule set using Robbie's wonderful 28mm ACW armies which he has just about completed (or so he led us to believe). The game attracted a lot of attention and a lot of positive comments which is always a satisfying outcome when putting on a demonstration game. The show it self seemed busy but unfortunately I really didn't get a chance to have a good rummage around the trade or get a chance to really check out the other games although from my fleeting walk around the hall the games looked to be of a excellent standard. I did manage to grab myself some 40k bargains from the bring buy stands which was a nice bonus to the day. The game didn't play out to a conclusion as is the case normally for demonstration games but hopefully it won't be to long to I can get a 'proper' game in using Robbies beautiful collection. I will leave you with lots of eye candy from the game......






















Friday 10 November 2017

A game of Sigmar


I had my first experience playing Warhammer Sigmar last weekend and it was definitely an encouraging one. This variant of the old warhammer game I played a few years ago has been totally transformed and I must admit for the better. When Sigmar came out a few years ago I just dismissed it without really been interested in giving it ago, moving away from 28mm fantasy battles to start different historical projects, really I think I just dismissed it as been a glorified skirmish game. Well here are at the present day and I openly admit I called that one wrong, last weekends game really ignited my intest again in 28mm Fantsy wargaming. I found warhammer Sigmar to be a really fun set of rules and both my dad and myself had a really enjoyable afternoons gaming. My dad has been steadily buying/painting the Storm Cast eternal and Blood gods armies and had enough done to have a decent size game. We played a open war game drawing a random card for deployment etc etc. The mission was nice and simple, scoring a certain number of points for models killed and double points for characters killed

The Warband of the blood gods played by yours truly 
My dad played the lesser numbered but equally powerful storm cast eternal
The game managed to last for the full five turns, despite my dads army having only two models remaining  at the end of the game he still managed to grab victory by the narrowest of margins. On my last turn I charged the remains of my blood Redvers into the Stormcast eternally general mounted on a monsterous beast just for a laugh to see if they could drag him down. Little did I realise that at this stage I was winning the game on points scored and did not need to charge the General, what happened next was the monsterous beast got very angry, wiped out every last model of the blood reavers giving my dad a 80-77 point victory, the demise of the blood Redvers in that one moment had lost me the game 😂😂😂😂😂
Skull crushers of Khorne trample underfoot the Liberators, these boys hit hard!
A Hellbeast is riddled with arrows from storm cast eternals bowmen (judicators?)
Blood reavers emerge from the undergrowth


The blood God warriors start to turn the eternals flank as the game tips in the chaos favour
All our troops finally clash in a long line of combat
The blood warriors clashing with the a Storm cast eternal icon bearer
The storm cast external line is just about broken
The Storm cast eternal infantry Are finally destroyed to a man
The infamous charge by the blood reavers.......
....and the outcome of that fateful charge......
The battlefield shows only troops in red armour remaining on the field aside from the storm cast eternal characters but this wax still not enough to se her victory.

We made one or two rule errors during the game and obviously forgot about certain abilities but the game was highly enjoyable and I am looking  forward to the next one, next time keeping track of my points scored during the game ha ha.








Saturday 4 November 2017

A Saturday afternoons WSS gaming

We had a cracking game last weekend using volley and Baynot rules to fight a straight foward meeting engagement WSS battle which saw me take command of the English army against my dad who commanded the French and allies. Our armies on deployment pretty much mirrored each other with my right flank in particular set to have a massive cavalry engagement.
The front line French infantry ready to march into musket range to engage the English 
My left flank was the weakest part of my deployment so I tasked the brigade to hold along a hill line and allow the French and Bavarians to advance onto my position as I was outnumbered 2-1 in brigades. My Dragoons in support had a thankless task of trying to repell 4 regiments of Bavarian Currasiers!
With my left flank stationary my centre brigade with 2 regiments of guards moved into the centre of the battlefield in a race to the high ground with the French infanty, both our brigades reached the hill at the same time although the French got the jump of having the first turn so they deployed on the ridge first to ensure that the fire fight was going to be settled at short range
After a couple of moves keeping out of charge range from the Bavarian Currasiers the inevitable charge came and against the odds the Dragoons withstood the charge. Indeed the Dragoons gave a great account of themselves throughout the remainder of the battle as they managed to repel and indeed counter charge against the Currasiers. At the games end the Dragoons brigade finally became broken but the Bavarian Currasiers had by this stage suffered the same fate.
The cavarly engagement on the right flank was not a sucess for my English heavy cavalry who as they have a history of doing so in our games fluffed there charge big style against the French Dragoons. The Austrian currasiers also suffered mixed fortunes, making very heavy work of dispatching the French Dragoons becoming somewhat of a disordered mess for their efforts.
The fire fighting was very heavy in the centre and I got the upper hand after a couple of damaging rounds of shooting, however importantly for my dads French their morale stood the test and they remained in the fight, this kept the centre of the French from falling as they pushed home their superior numbers on my left flank where my holding brigade was starting to feel the pressure.   
The battlefield shows how our lines have closed to engagement across the entire length of the table
The French Dragoons just wouldn't go away and somewhat shockingly for me the English heavy cavalry became spent from fighting, although the French Dragoons had suffered the same fate, my dad had a full fresh brigade of 6 regiments of cavalry already advancing onto my disordered remains of cavalry with only really a couple of regiments of Austrain cavalry to oppose the advance.
The English left flank staring to feel the pressure as the guard unit is broken holding the farm area suffering to many casualties from the combined French musketry fire, crucially due to the French morale holding in the centre my dad doesn't have reenforce his centre and could press home with his large attack on my left.
My English finally break the French centre but the chance had gone to influence the battle, the French brigade holding firm despite suffering casualties had bide enough time for the French to inflict severe casualties onto the English centre in return and blunted the attack.
My British heavy cavarly brigade was lost by this stage although the Austrain Currasiers (well two regiments, the other two ran away when charged!) had launched a brave last stand charge against the reserve heavy French cavalry and managed some sucess and delayed the French advance. The action on this side of the battle had seen a swirling cavarly engagement throughout the whole game time..
Finally my left flank collapsed as the Bavarians pushed home with the final attack, the weight of numbers had finally told and my morale throws at this stage of the game, well  not going to pass comment on them!!!! 
The final scene of the battle, all them nice lines of infantry and cavalry long gone into a chaotic disordered pockets of fighting

Well my dad claimed the victory with his Fench which might possibly be his first fighting myself in this period as recently I have held the upper hand. It was a excellent game which was pretty even until the closing stages. The rules played great, very fast and enabled us to spend more time moving figures and rolling dice than checking rules, this was despite myself been alittle rusty for the first couple of turns, but I won't use this as an excuse for my loss ha ha 😄