Is it a bad thing to read

 So, I've been reading. This is not a bad thing, in fact, it's a very good thing. A thing I would commend you for doing. However, it can lead you down an accidental wargaming rabbit hole. The other day, I was reading through the internet, and found myself reading the write up of the Battle of Hastings on the Shedwars website.

Now, the Battle of Hastings is something that every good English schoolboys learns about. How Harold marched from Stamford Bridge to take on William at Hastings, and got an arrow to the eye for his trouble. However, it's not often war-gamed. 

So, having read the write up, I ended up purchasing the Osprey book on Hastings, and now I'm spending free time looking at Norman miniatures. Conquest games has some very nice plastic Normans, and Footsore and Gripping Beasts have some lovely metal models. 

A while back, I purchased some Norman Archers from Footsore, (I need to hit free postage) and so I'm on my way to building a Hail Caesar Army now. It's going to consist of three to four divisions of foot warriors, and a couple of cavalry.

The foot units are going to consist of four units of spearmen, one of which may or may not be unarmoured. A couple of units of archers, and a crossbow unit. As powerful as crossbow are, I feel that they would be quite rare in an army. These units are going to be 16 strong. The archers are on 20mm rounds, which came with my Perry Miniature plastic WW2 desert forces. I'm going to get some bases from Warbases, so I can use them in Hail Caesar, or in smaller games like Lion Rampant.

The cavalry divisions are going to be units of 12, and will be three to four units of cavalry, which will be 12 strong. Again, I'm tempted to put them on pill bases, and so I can take them in and out again and use them in a variety of games. 

The second book, I've been reading is the first title in the Warhammer Endtimes, which is Nagash. This, is interesting, in the first forty pages, lots of things happen, characters die, the Green Knight is revealed. It was a big risk, when GW killed of the Old World, but they did it in style. 

Now, reading this, makes me want to play Warhammer again. It doesn't take a lot, so I'm going to start blogging about what models I want to get, and how I'm going to get them without paying a mortgage to get one Bretonnian Grail Knight. 

The first battle in the book, is the Warhammer favourite, La Maisontal Abbey. So this is Bretonnians vs Vampire Counts. I've got some of both of these, but I want to play these games with armies of 3000 points of troops. Time to start thinking and planning. Which reminds me, I've got some Knights Errant I'm watching on eBay.

Update time

 So, it's been a while since I've updated, and in that time, we've been in a pandemic, stuck in Lockdown. So I've been using my time productively and painted, a lot. You can see the Footsore Minotaur to the left, which is one of my more recently painted models. At the time of writing, I've been able to paint over 10% of my miniature collection this year. 

You'll understand how big a number that is when I tell you that I've painted over a 1000 models this year, and I'm on track to hit my target of 4 models painted for each day of the year. 

What have I been painting. A whole mix really, my Russian Napolenoic's have come along nicely. In fact, I had the nasty shock of finding that I had 2 more units that I was aware of. It's a nice find, up until you add them on to your spreadsheet. 

I've had some Warlord plastic ECW, which I brought as part of a bargain at Salute a few years back. I've had a Scott's force for years, but I'm now painting up a royalist force to add to our combined troops.

Finally, I've been painting a lot of Lord of the Rings and making a good headway on the Pelennor Fields project. Haradrim, Riders of Rohan, Corsairs all painted, and ready for the table top. 

2020 has been a bad year, but being able to get so many models finished, has been a highlight. 

Coming soon to a 40K table near you..... Necrons

 So, like a lot of you, earlier in the year I was able to pick up a copy of the new 40K big box, Indomitus. I was one of the fortunate few to get a copy in the early release and didn’t have to wait for it to arrive under a Made to Order (well done GW for sorting out that issue). In the box, you get some Space Marines, which, like my Dark Imperium boxset I brought a few years back, will be converted up to be more Space Wolf-like. 

You also get Necrons, quite a few Necrons, in fact, a good start to an army. Which, is of course how new projects come along. In the box, as well as a variety of cool new units, you get 20 Necron Warriors. Which can either be built with a Gauss Flayer of Gauss Reaper. So, knowing that GW is soon to be releasing these models individually, I built them in two squads of 10. One squad having the reaper, the other the flayer. I intended to pick up another box to flesh them out to units of 15. That will give me a good core of an army to start with.

From there, I'm going to add a Lord to lead them. This will be using the model from the Indomitus boxset. A squad of ten Immortals, an Annihilation Barge. This will bring me to a nice force of 750 points (give or take) I'm going to add the three Skorpekh Destroyers that I got in the Indomitus boxset for a further boost to my army and then either some Tomb Blades or  Destroyers to round it out to a 1000 points.

I've gone for a dirty metal colour for the warriors, to represent them getting dirty and mucky during their long sleep. When I paint more elite troops like the Immortals and Lynchgard. They'll be shinier to represent a better level of care whilst in the deep sleep.

Now I just need lockdown to end, so I can get some gaming in with them.

March update

So, March, is done and really not a lot more gaming happened after my last post. Covid has struck the UK, and since my last post and game, I'm now working at home, and gaming has stopped full stop. 

However painting has not hampered by the pandemic, and by the end of March, I had painted up 225 models this year. It's a good haul, and has seen me paint a unit of Russian Grenadiers (Russian and Crimea Grenadiers), Uruk Hai swordsmen and pikemen that I've had on the bench for at least a decade, and a unit of Chaos Marauders dedicated to Khorne. These last were built from the Blood Reavers that game in the first AoS box set. 

So, the pile of unpainted lead has decreased by 2.54%, which is awesome. So, April is now in full swing and I've set myself a target of trying to paint up the Mordor Orcs I brought from GW last year in one of their made to order weeks. This is a nice 36 models, and try and make sure that I've painted everything I've brought this year. 

This year, I've purchased 60 models (manufactures closing has helped stem the purchasing) and so it's not an impossible task to get through. At the time of writing, 20 of the Orcs are now done, and 14 of the purchased models are done. Things can look up. 

The longer the work from home continues, the more likely I'm going to be at exceeding this years target. I was aiming for over 500 models, or to have painted two models every day (732 models) but I'm wondering if I can get to a 1000 models painted this year. 

We'll see how it goes.

Taking Bardia

Another week, and another game in the Desert Campaign. This time, I would be the brits, trying to take the fort from Terry's Italians. Having seen how Terry had attempted to retake the fort. I took four squads. My plan was to use them to try and capture the various objectives, and two matilda's and a Vickers, to run rampant and destroy as much as they could. I also took an Artillery observer and a mortar. The Artillery Observer was risky, considering how poorly Terry did in the previous game wiping out two of his own units, but we'd see how they did.

Well, the game proved the old adage "a plan only lasts until it makes contact with the enemy" true. Instead of going for the two objectives nearing me and the big one in the middle, I sent a squad up to the objective in the top of the table. The game came to an end, at the end of turn 6, which meant that the objective was still being contested by a single man from one of Terry's squad that I had failed to wipe out. 

However, on the flip side, the tanks did a great job. I lost the Vickers, having moved across the whole of the board, to a well place mortar shell, but the Matilda's did their job, as long as the Vickers, were able to do plenty of damage, the Vickers even took our Terry's very large, truck-mounted artillery piece. Being able to take two of the tanks was really quite fun, though they were unable to destroy the Autobalinda, that had snuck down the side of the board, and putting fire onto one of my objectives hogging squads. 

 

In the end, as I was unable to gain control of the main obejctive, in the middle of the table, the game was a draw.

The next game, is back to tanks which I can't wait for.

Defending Bardia

It’s a bit late writing this one up, but Terry and I have played the next instalment of our Desert Campaign, with Terry trying to capture the water plant within Bardia. Defending the fort was going to be hard, as I could only take inexperience troops, which were easy for Terry to kill, and difficult for me to get to do things with once, they’ve got a pin or two on them.

As it’s been a while, my memory has got a little shaky on the specifics, but I was able to get a win. Somehow, I was able to keep hold of the three objectives and halt Terry’s troops. It was helpful that Terry was unlucky with his Air and artillery support. The Air support wiped out his Matilda, before it was able to do anything and the artillery took out his Vickers. Very unlucky.

As I had so many units because of Inexperienced rated troops being dirt cheap, I was able to keep throwing squads on to the objectives and keep pouring fire on to Terry.

Now, it’s my time to get the water plant.

Wednesday night fun.

So, the Wednesday before my trip away, we had another game of Bolt Action. This week, John was away so Terry and I had a quick 750 point Bolt Action game. Terry was bringing his Long Range Desert Group force, who was raiding an Italian outpost. Terry brought a number of Chevrolet, jeeps and a Bently. I had three squads, a machine gun, mortar, a howitzer and to round of the force, the M13/40. It’s the first time for the force. 

The game was played at night, and so it was hard to see each other. We were also using the sand rules, which will see vehicles taking double pins. 

The game was fun, I managed to achieve something that I have never achieved before, which was taking out one of Terry’s vehicles by pouring Pin’s onto it. That was fun and a real highlight. The game as a whole was a close run thing, which I won by killing four of Terry’s unit to two of mine. If we had another turn it would have been a different story, as several units were wavering and getting close to being wiped out.

I also really liked Terry’s LRDG and now I really want another force. If I am not careful I’m going to end up getting lots and lots of Bolt Action forces.