Half year progress report

A half year has flown by and it's time to review my progress against my plans. Overall I've made good progress with 917 items completed.

Painting/Modelling (all moderate sized projects)

• Terrain - only a few bits needed like new hedges are needed, but I'm tempted to produce some proper winter terrain to go with my figures - still not worked on the hedges, but the winter terrain has been a major effort. The winter hedges have confirmed the approach I'm going to use for my "summer" ones.
• Saracen cavalry and a few more archers (cf 2015) - completed
• Crusader cavalry (cf 2015) - completed
• HYW/WOTR English add some cavalry and a few more infantry (cf 2015) - completed
• Five Ancient German Warbands (18 strong) (cf 2015) - not yet started
• Some Assorted Ancient Light Troops to fill in various gaps in my armies (cf 2015) - not yet started
• Russian Partisans (cf 2015) - completed
• Upgrade my WW1 East African Germans with the new HaT figures (cf 2015) - really must do this! - These have just landed on the painting table
• Some extra Russians and Romanians for my WW2 winter games - completed
• More woodland Indians so I can fight more French & Indian War games - not yet started
• Plus a number of bits to fill in gaps in existing armies

Gaming

• It looks like I won't need to produce anything for this years big game and my Lentini terrain will get another outing
- Have replayed Lentini at Bristol, unfortunately the big game was cancelled and I replayed a bigger version of Stalingrad instead.
• One of the days at Gauntlet will be a Korsun pocket game, so I may need some terrain for this.
- Gauntlet is just about to happen and this has been a major focus for the last couple of months
• I'll also try and organise a big SYW game for one of the Deeside Defenders gaming weekends
- still to do, I'm wavering between rule sets - Honours of War, Black Powder or upgrading my own set.

Breakdown of painting/modelling completed
Well I've achieved 917 items so far, which is a reasonably total for half way through the year, broken down as follows

Medieval	419
Terrain	230
WW2	203
WW1	52
SYW	12
Revolution	1

Finally Stash reduction?
Down from 7,420 to 7,061, so moving in the right direction, although investing in the Plastic Soldier Kickstarter may push me a bit off track. If I can sell some stuff at Gauntlet it would help.

Last of the winter terrain - streams

Completed the reworking of the old Bellona(?) streams that Bob gave me at Phalanx. Hopefully I now have enough terrain for the Korsun pocket game at Gauntlet this weekend.

I still have plans to make some snow filled balkas and bridges.

Stalingrad revisited

Since the last game Dougie has extended his Stalingrad terrain by 50% by adding the Barrikady Factory works north of the Red October factory. For this game I commanded the Germans and personally took command of part of the 79th infantry attacking Red October factory in a reversal of my previous role. The location was again Bristol Independent Gaming

A quick check that my new urban aircraft bases fitted into the terrain




The open ground to Germans would have to cross to get to the Barrikady factory.


The Barrikady factory


Worker's Izbas on the far side of the factory.


Most of the buildings on the new terrain are free standing to make the boards more portable.


And, we're off with a dive bombing run on a water tower, a likely site for artillery observers


The curse of the new strikes and my Stuka on its new base is shot down.


79th Division moving up (Rob's units)


79th Division (My units) - the first line of buildings had be abandoned by the Russians.


Still nothing in sight the advanced companies await the arrival of the rest of the regiment


Also quiet on Rob's flank


14th Panzer runs into trouble, a Panzer IV is brewed running into a minefield and Russian militia are putting up a stiff resistance in the bread factory


Ouch!!


A second sortie of Stukas and guess what happened to my Stuka again.


My regiment assaults the Red October factory


Paul's 14th Panzer slowly makes progress.


My troops become to weak to continue the assault so they are pulled back.


Meanwhile Rob continues to make progress flanking the factory.


Adam's 305th(?) Division makes slow progress across open ground towards the Barrikady factory, despite reinforcements from 100th Jaeger Division.




Mulling over progress, although they had taken ground the Germans didn't have enough strength left to take their objectives of the to factory complexes


Some closing pictures, devastation in front of the Barrikady factory.


The positions around Red October factory

Urban flying bases

This coming weekend it's a replay of Stalingrad (link to previous game) and I'll be playing the Germans this time. My only contribution to the game is a Stuka, but I decided to make a couple of "Urban ruin" flying bases to take along as well. The construction is old CDs for the base and Plastic Padding filler mixed with stones to support the magnetic retriever. I then added some old walls and other scatter and painted it black. Dry-brushed with grey, terracotta red and a touch of sand they give a reasonably ruined feel.

The lower surface is a couple of 88p mats From Wilko that I used for ploughed fields

Winter terrain - rough ground

I thought that this would be the last of my winter terrain before Gauntlet, but Bob passed me some old stream sections at Phalanx, which just need a bit of work to be usable.

These are simply CDs with some bit of old foam added. Then textured and more old hedges and a some twigs added before finishing off like the rest of my winter terrain.

Back to the Sudan

Following the Salute show there was the traditional gathering of the Gentlemen Pensioners (becoming more apt every year) for a big game. And, once again we were in the Sudan, where the Madhists were threatening the Egyptian forces occupying a village and town on the Nile. A British relief force was on the way by train supported by a cavalry and mounted infantry column.

The train, a lovely example of the MDF equipment that's now available


In close up, there is even a driver and stoker on board


An overview before the start, unlike the usual games the Madhists are all massed in plain sight ready to attack


My command of Hadendoa ready to attack the town's southern flank


Meanwhile at the other end of the table madhists assemble to attack the village, but a British gunboat has been sighted


The British mounted column has come on in suport of the train, and our madhist cavalry are well positioned to deal with them


Sorry for the fuzzy pictures, I must have got too excited. The Hadendoa reach the Egyptians holding the walls surrounding the town.


Success! a double one resulted in the Gatling jamming as the Hadendoa charged in, resulting in the slaughter of the gunners.


However the other Egyptians resisted stronly and it took us a while to eliminate the defenders, Only one unit stood between us and taking the town.


Meanwhile at the village the Egyptians are also in trouble and so are the blue-jackets disembarked to support them.


The table is looking much emptier now. the Madhist and Imperial cavalry have fought themselves to a standstill.


The one remaining Egyptian unit in the town, just before my Hadendoa charged in and wiped them out.


After seeing the way the battle was progressing against the Imperialists, I decided that my Hadendoa had fulfilled their precise orders of eliminating the Egyptian garrison and that the time was right to withdraw back to celebrate our victory.

Yugoslav partisans (For sale)

These are my old metal partisans that I put up for sale a Phalanx. Next stop will probably be ebay





The price will be £20 plus P&P for 39 figures. leave a comment if you are interested

Pictures from Phalanx

Another trip to my favourite local show - Phalanx.. The Lance and Longbow put on the battle of Chesterfield 1266. and for the first game I took on the role of the Royalist commander Henry of Almain. I had good luck and defeated the rebels under Sir John d’Aynville attempting to join the rest of the rebels in Chesterfield. We then defeated the rest of the rebels as happened historically. We managed three games over the course of the show and the results were evenly balanced with one win each and a draw.





Culloden in 6mm, no problems painting tartan in this scale


Fuentes d'Onoro in 20mm






Dark age skirmish


Napoleonic Russians v's Austrians


Frostgrave, with lovely winter terrain.


A variant on Black hawk down


The Sudan replayed with Peter Gilder rules






An interesting variant on winter terrain. Unfortunately I didn't get chance to ask what they had used.


In keeping with the anniversary battles, Hastings 1066


Sally 4forths new rule system being demonstrated




Some lovely 20mm mexican Revolution terrain by Shellhole Scenics, Ian very nearly convinced me to start a new period, but it is definitely on my reading list now.


Apologies for the quality of the pictures, the lighting at Phalanx is its only fault. The B&B is well managed by the club and I picked up a few bargains. I didn't spend much, but I did get the Black Powder ACW supplement, so I may test one of the scenarios in a few weeks.