Warfare 2014

This weekend I made my annual trip to Reading for Warfare, one of my favourite shows in the UK wargaming calendar. As in recent years I was there with the Wings of Glory aerodrome helping to run the participation game. Great fun as always, we had two tables running with action packed games played throughout the day. I understand that traders selling Wings of Glory models, and KR (with their multicases designed to accommodate 1/144 WW1 aircraft) enjoyed a high number of sales as a result of our games :)

One of the reasons I enjoy Warfare is that so many of my wargaming friends from around the UK attend the show. So a good half of my time there was spent in deep conversation with them, and  a number of new projects discussed and potentially in the pipeline.....

Shopping is obviously on the agenda. But for once I was fairly restrained. A small bag of 15mm stuff from GZG, a couple of sets of "Tombstone" 28/32mm westrn gunfight figures, various 15mm bits and bobs from Peter Pig, and some 20mm Airfix Gurkhas and Aussies for my WW2 Burma Skirmish setup.

Oh, and something else on which I will be writing later in the week.....

 Anyway, as usual a rather nice selection of games, although not many that "wow"d me this time. Still, they were very nicely presented and quite a few of the players were happy to stop and chat.

Wings of Glory at Doncaster

This weekend I took part in the first of what will hopefully be the annual meeting of UK Wings of Glory Aerodrome members, held at the South Yorkshire Air Museum at Donnington. 30+ Wings of Glory players mainly from the UK, but also with vistors from Poland, Belgium, France and the US battled it out in the skies of WW1 and WW2 over three large tables in the museum. I ran one of the games on the Saturday afternoon, the latest development in my "Wings and Waves of Glory" game, with coastal Motor Boats, a motor launch and a U Boat duking it out with a variety of German, British, Italian and Austrian seaplanes (OK, the nationality mix was a bit random there, but I wanted to get a variety of these oddball aircraft in play).

I had a basic set of rules covering the motor boats already, but nothing for the ML or the sub; these were quickly invented, written up and implemented, and they worked just fine. A good time was had by all, with carnage in the skies and one CMB shot up and sunk before the second sneaked in and torpedoed the U Boat.

Alas I was thick with a bad cold all weekend which made the 5 (!) hour drive up from Bristol hellish, but which also fuddled my brain, causing me to forget to bring my phone (and its rather nice camera) so apologies for the poor pics, taken on my "alternative". I also managed to miss out taking pics of much of the rest of the event, although I did get some nice ones in the museum - which is lovely and well worth a visit if you are ever in the area, especially if you have an interest in the Falklands Conflict as they have a great collection of aircraft and other historic items, and a lovely memorial made in part from stones brought from various places in the islands.

Despite a head full of phug I must have been doing something right as I ended the event with the highest tally of kills (6) in the WW1 era games (which earned me a nice trophy) and I won the prize for the most successful WW1 player in terms of kills and mission objectives achieved. I also managed to go the whole weekend without being shot down in a game a first!!

So, loads of fun, looking forward to next year!

Donner und Blitzen at Devizes

I went along to the "Attack" show at Devizes on Saturday helping to run a participation game with the "Wings of Glory Aerodrome". As usual a lovely day out, we ran a number of exciting games and managed to get a whole load of new players into the game (we were so successful that the traders who were stocking starter sets sold out completely during the afternoon!)

Attack is one of my favourite shows, mainly due to the number of old friends who attend. So I spend a lot of time chatting with people whom I probably haven't seen since the previous year. I also had a long in depth chat concerning an article that may be appearing in the wargames press later this year - watch this space :)

The high spot this year was of course the weather - a thunder and lighting storm that shook the building and had the power going on and off, torrential downpours, floods into the halls through the doors (and valiant punters - your author included - getting soaked trying to get the latched doors closed against the tide) and then the lightning tripping off the fire alarm, which blared out for the next hour or so. It sounds like a pain but it really was good fun. No-one will be forgetting the show in a hurry!

I picked up a few useful bits and pieces, including the new Tumbling Dice 1/600 lake steamer models (which will be appearing here once they are painted up in a couple of weeks time), a Japanese SPG in 20mm for my WW2 Burma Skirmish project, and a copy of the new "Jugula" gladiatorial rules. I'm reading them through now, and they look like a lot of fun (but a pain that you have to shell out another seven quid over and above the cost of the rules for a set of cards for each player - I'm sure there is a cheaper way of doing this). Anyway, something for me to try out with my small collection of gladiator figures and the Berkeley Vale crew in the autumn when I've managed to make up a small arena.

2013 In Review

And so we come to the end of the year and the now customary review. From a personal perspective 2013 has seen a number of highs and lows. Settling in to the new house, enjoying our first Summer in the country and getting our third pony (little Ianto) has been lovely. I've been away visiting some lovely places around the world including Atlanta and Tromso, and on the work front I got promoted - yay! There have also been some rather unpleasant lows for us but with luck they are now behind us (mostly at least) and are not worth dwelling on more, especially in a wargaming blog :)

Ianto - Mr Cute :)

Gaming wise I'm pleased to say that I've got more games in this year than the last 5 at least combined, having joined the Berkeley Vale club in October 2012. I've played all sorts of games; colonial and western gunfights have been popular but I've also run several Sails of Glory and Wings of War games, and played in Muskets and Tomahawks, various WW2 games, A-47 (first edition of course), Russo Japanese using Square Bashing and lots of others. I also sorted out my X Wing collection and we've run a few good games of that. Looking forward to bringing in the Correllian Corvette into the games next year. 

On the show front the Naval Wargames Show in June was a great success and I will be organising the next event, again to be held at Exploson! on June 21/22 2014. I've also run or take part in a number of Wings of Glory and Sails of Glory demonstration and participation games around the southern UK (including Penarth, Devizes, Reveille and Colours) and ran my "Cod War" parti game at Salute - it was great to see a friend on Shapeways producing bespoke models to accompany the rules. The long awaited release of Sails of Glory is happening as I write, with Kickstarter backers receiving their sets around the US and Europe. I have put a lot of effort into supporting Ares with rule development and advice on the models, and this should continue into 2014 as Wave 2 and the first "special" releases hit the streets. It was a long time coming, but I think the wait was worth it.

Sails of Glory at Berkeley Vale

Now, how did my 2013 plan go? Lets see.....

1)      More games – see above. Although the plans I had to run a  few mini campaigns here in Gloucestershire didn't come off overall I've done well here.

2)      Medieval Naval – all the cogs I had at the beginning of the year were painted successfully. I then bought another 40, of which 10 are now done. With a stock of 100+ I think they can wait now :)

3)      Wings of War – played loads. Bought an airship. Still love it.

Our game at Thornbury IPMS Show - won the "best of parti game show" award :)

4)      X wing – All ships, including the large stock of Micro Machines, sorted out. A few more games of this would be good though.

5)      The Sudan – Apart from games of BFE2 at Slimbridge this part of the plan was a non-starter. The Bashi Basouks have at least been undercoated now. Plans for a colonial campaign at Slimbridge may see this take off though in 2014/15.

General Mitch McMog reviews the troops - alas no manoeuvres have been conducted this year!

6)      WW2 Coastal – Apart from a few uncompleted models painted up I didn't get anywhere with this either. 

So I'd say that was a 66% success rate on the plan. On the plus side though I did bring "War Rocket" into the plan and get my entire collection painted and based in quick time, and I managed to renovate my Babylon 5 collection (rashed after our previous house move 6 years ago) as well as my DBA Vikings on the strength of watching the TV series on Lovefilm (can't wait for season 2!)

So now here I am, planning the last game of 2013 - probably a playtest of the development of my medieval rules - and thinking about the plan for 2014. More of that tomorrow, but I suspect Sails of Glory and the new "Armada Invencible" game from Zvezda (got the first two model releases for that today) will feature in it.

Oh, and one last model to paint up before midnight. Something I've been waiting for for months!

The new Zvezda 1/100 T-35. I raided Antics today for a second one :)

EDIT: just for the record, my last game for 2013 has been a playtest and development of my set of medieval tactical rules. They seem to be coming on nicely :)

Odds and Sods

As usual the end of the year sees me finishing off various painting and modelling projects that stalled during the year. Or even in previous years. This year is no exception and in the last few days I've sorted out:

A number of 1/600 coastal craft
A couple of 1/600 models for my Lake Tanganiyka project
Four Shapeways 1/144 WW1 aircraft
Four 28mm "cowboys"
Ten 1/1200 medieval cogs
A Tau sniper team
Rebuilt 30+ broken Babylon 5 starship models and a handful of Full Thrust models
Finished a babylon 5 "Azimov" clas liner that I started 6 years ago (!)
Two 20mm M3 half tracks
 Repainted my collection of 15mm Vikings and added several stands of Peter Pig characters and captives

And I've just kicked off painting 32 Peter Pig Bashi Basouk cavalry (although I would not be surprised if they are still on the painting table this time next year!)

So, a busy few evenings. And still one more to go before 2013 comes to an end (although it is games night at the Berkeley Vale club tonight so little chance I think).

Tomorrow - the annual review of "The Plan"
Wednesday - The plan for 2014 :)

My posse for the Berkeley Vale western gunfight games :)

These are the new cogs from Ral Partha Europe. Very nice, and I may be getting a few more :)

A couple of Shapeways Morane Saulnier Ps

And a Shapeways Morane Saulnier BB - there should have been two, they only sent one. replacement coming :)

The Tau snipers. A snap buy on Ebay last January for a quid :)

I do rather like the Tau. Very businesslike compared with most 40K stuff :)

Loaches, Landing Craft and Little Friends

Many years ago I built up a sizeable collection of Peter Pig 15mm Vietnam figures, backed up by a load of Roco Minitanks vehicles and Revell Hueys. Of course, "Apocalypse Now" was a great influence, and I always wanted some Loaches to go with my Hueys. Some months ago Battlefront brought out a box set of two Loaches. Lovely models, they go together very quickly and easily, and come with a decent set of transfers (decals to you colonial types) and soe nice flying stands. They were quickly assembled, then languished in the painting pile until this weekend. As I discovered yesterday they are als a dream to paint up. And here they are.

 I'm very pleased at how these came out. But I now have a suspicion that 15mm Vietnam skirmish is about to find itself a higher position in "the plan"

I also finished off the LCM - a basic resin model with some additional bulwarks, a couple of gunners and a covered deck. I have another one of these - not sure what to do to soup that one up.

Finally I've finished off a couple of Siemens Schukhert D.IVs that I've had waiting to be painted for a little while. One painted in the colours of my altar ego, "The Black Hand", the other in a corn snake and purple scheme for Laura. a bit of fun.