The Plan – 2014

Having reviewed progress in 2013 yesterday, today I set out my plan for 2014. As a cursory look at the last 2 years will show I achieve between 50% and 75% of my objectives so I am confident I will be reporting a similar ration of success and “deferred success” in 364 days time J

1 – 15mm Colonial. Sort out those blasted Bashi Basouks and some river boats. Then look to see what we need extra (if anything) for the hinted-at Berkeley Vale campaign.

2 – Form Line of Battle. A surprise entry, but here because (a) I’ve remembered how much I love the rules and (b) Rodger at the club wants to give them a try. The plan here is to renovate the fleets and complete at least six ships from the “lead pile”

3 – Project X. Mysteriously referred to over the last 2 years, PX has three elements to it. I will complete at least 2 of them this year. You’ll know when I do J

4 – 1/600 Coastal. Resurrecting last year’s objective, I will renovate the existing fleets, finish any odd models that have yet to be completed, sort out soft copies of ship data cards and get some games in! A stretch target will be to do the same for my 1/1200 models.

5 – Armada Invencible. Another surprise entry, but 2014 should see the rules for this hit the streets. I have a couple of the ships already and it looks like my stock of old Airfix galleons might work with them at a pinch. The objective here is to get a copy, knock up small English and Spanish squadrons and try them out. And if they don’t work then an Armada variant of FLoB may be on the cards J

6 – Games. I’m well set up to run a number of games, including Wings of Glory, X Wing, Sails of Glory (of which more in the coming days I hope), War Rocket and a few others so the plan here is to get a number of games of each in. I’ll also try to run a one day campaign, maybe two. These may or may not be connected with Project X.

Inevitably there will be some mission creep. I can guess where the mission may creep to over the coming months (those 15mm Vikings would like a day out, as would my 7^th cavalry and Plains Wars Indians, and then there’s the “not the Spanish Civil War” stuff…..). So expect some variation.

However, one very firm target – NO NEW PERIODS!

And now to end, the first completed models of 2014 (which don’t fit in to objectives 1-6) – a pair of Zvezda 1/100 T-35s. They really are quite imposing! 

SCW (And Beyond)

Another of this year's projects has been to finish off my 15mm Spanish Civil War collection. This began as a simple "paint up what's left" operation, but as with so many things in life, it took on a momentum of its own and snowballed slightly. This was due in no small part to the Abbey Wood irregulars and their "Very British Civil War" games in 28mm, of which I've played in a few. I liked the quirky "anything goes" approach and the odd local militia units and 1920s/30s "technicals" (including, in one game, an armoured horse-drawn stagecoach!!). I thought it would be fun to try in 15mm but in a mythical 1930s Central/South American (or I suppose a Southern European) "imagi-nation" so that I could use my SCW kit as the bedrock and supplement with odd units of "irregulars"

Just recently completed are a couple of units of civilian militia with assorted transport. I used a variety of Peter Pig packs for these, including the French partizans SCW bomb-throwers and other odds and sods. it makes a nice irregular unit, IMHO

Transport is provided by a Peter Pig Russian staff car, an ex-SDD Home Guard armoured bus and an armoured steam roller (!) Fire support is courtesy of a couple of Garford Putilov armoured cars from PT Dockyard, and WW1 Russian and Belgian armoured cars from Peter Pig

Finally, I have replaced my old SDD BT-5 and T-26 models with some of the lovely releases in plastic by Zvezda. The BT-5 is the BT-7 model out of the box (to me they look close enough). The T-26 is a conversion, replacing the original turret with that of the BT-7. I now have load of BT-7 hulls and T-26 sloping turrets (so I'm looking at decent BT-7 conversions and wondering if a simple turret swap would make a good BT-7M, or whether to scratch build a turret and make a BT-7A; I've already decided my "imagi-nation's" more regimented neighbour and nemesis is going to be based loosely on the Finns, if for no other reason than I can use some Battlefront BT-42s!)

Fun for all the Family

Its Laura’s birthday weekend this weekend, I can’t believe she’s ten already. Anyway, after  a swimming party yesterday, a sleepover for her best friends and then bowling this morning, followed by a short Spanish Civil War game with her bestest friend Harry (vs. Dear daddy), Laura decided it would be good to wind down with a family game of WoW.

I broke out the Deluxe boxed set and Laura allocated the planes. I had the Dr1. She took the Spad, Philip flew the Camel and mum got the Albatros. A good spread – kids vs.  parents. The first few turns showed the effects of very little sleep, as we all made ludicrous “left/fight turn” errors and ended up all over the table. We loosed off furious snapshots as targets came into view, i for one was amazed how many “0” cards I drew (my Dr. 1 was rather lucky). But after a hard turning battle at the top of the table Philip and I found ourselves head to head at short range. I drew 0-0. Philip drew 5-BANG! “Foul” cries Laura, and subverted mummy into turning on me (girls vs. Daddy seemed quite attractive). Unfortunately mummy was in my 12 o’clock at the time and a short burst blew her out of the air as well.

Laura and I headed to the centre of the table for the final showdown, both of our planes staggering under heavy damage from previous encounters. I was perhaps inevitable that as we loosed off head-on shots at close range that both of us would succumb to our wounds at the same time. Laura of course claimed that her damage took out my poor Dr.1 a split second before her Spad went down J

All in all a jolly afternoon, and the kids are keen to get their revenge on Baron von Vater at the earliest opportunity. Now down to a quiet evening writing up Laura’s new SCW rules :D

Time Out, Time In

One could be excused for thinking that I've been sloping off on the wargames front recently. In fact, things have been quite busy. Laura and I did quite well at the Lincombe Barn tabletop sale, where my 9-year-old's sales and marketing skills helped me bring back about £300 (not for nothing is "The Apprentice" one of her favourite TV shows!). She also secured some amazing bargains, probably by virtue of being cute - or perhaps just by talking to people a lot so they gave her stuff to go away! Anyway, a good day out, my wargames room significantly decluttered as a result, and we picked up a few useful bits and pieces.

Since then I've managed to finish painting up all of my extant Peter Pig Spanish Civil War collection. Only 15-odd years since buying most of it. Of course, having done so I've found that a few of the units need some minor additions, and I've foud the Zvezda 1/100 BT-5 and T-26 models look a lot nicer than the lead examples that currently grace my collection, so an order for some replacement armour has gone to Hannants.

I'm having to refocus now, back to naval for a while. The NWS is holding a naval wargames event at the Explosion! museum in Gosport on the August bank holiday and I'm taking some games along. At present I'm not sure exactly what, but I'm sure some painting or at least some "sprucing up" of the model collection will be needed in advance. If you are at a loose end over the bank holiday and fancy a bash at some informal naval gaming why not come along to see us?