Two years down the line....

Well where do I start.

It has been almost two years since I last posted on this blog. That is certainly a bit of a shock for me. Is it really that long ago. It certainly does not feel like it.

My life has changed quite a bit since that last post, which basically coincided with my computer developing the habit of closing down when it decided it was too hot.

I won't bore anyone with the personnal details and events, but from a gaming perspective I had to have a massive downscale in what I can play and where I can play it.

I have room to just fit a 4' by 4' gaming table up at home now, so anything larger scale is restricted to playing at other peoples houses. I also have very little storage space now, so what I collect and play has also taken quite a hit.

This is actually quite a good thing, in that it has made me much more dedicated to the figures I do want to keep, and games I wish to play.

I sold a lot of my things off, and have a much more streamlined collection now, although I have also managed to branch out into a few new areas too.

So for the gamers reading this what do I play now:

SAGA:

I still have my very large Saga Collection. After all this time I am since enjoying this game immensely. I have a lot of extra things painted up from the last time I posted.

No pictures atm, something I still need to work on there, but effectivly I have the following Warbands all painted -

Scots
Irish
Anglo Danes
Vikings
Pagan Rus
Spanish
Crusaders
Moors

Plus I also can add a lot of other varied units to those listed, but I can certainly field 6pts of each force.

I also have a few unpainted/being worked on warbands too, Mutatawai, Franks and Revenants.

Frostgrave:

This is something we have picked up on that we play occasionally. Cheap to get and easy to play. Mordheim Lite as I think of it, I am slowly painting up my Chronomancer warband and then its onto my Sigilist who has been reading some of the more darker tomes - A great excuse to paint her in much darker evil colours, and field a band of more nasty looking guys with her. The group seem to think my nickname should be Team Evil, so I suppose I better live up to it.

DBMM:

I have also started playing DBMM a little while back, and have painted up a 15mm army for the Catalan Company. As one of their options they can take some turks, which nicely let me add some figures to easily make a second army of Seljuk Turks, which I am in the process of finishing off .

These are very nice armys for me to look at, featuring some nice colour, and being 15mm they are actually very easy to store.

Wargods of Aegyptus,

I still have my Wargods figures, and have one of the large GW carry cases full of them. Still a great game to play, I love the way the activation orders work for this system.

Other Forces:

I still have approx 1500pts of Arc fleet for critical mass,

A 2000pt Moria goblin hoard for War of the Rings

A Clan War Crab Clan samurai army - This may have to go I think for storage reasons, and the fact I have not used it in some 5 years.

My last remaining Mordheim gang, The Sisters of Sigmar. Sentimental, as it was the game that really got me more serious about miniatures, and I would also never be able to replace these at a reasonable cost now.

And somewhere(I think it is in a friends garage) I have a large Battle Fleet Gothic collection. - Again I only have this for sentimental reasons, and I suspect it really should go to.

Well that is a bit of a blurb after a two year break.

I shall try to work on how I can get some pictures up again, as there are some interesting things in there.

Cheers for now, John.

Activity unabated

Well the cold front is just hanging back making the garage still bearable at the moment down here in Kent.

Still getting Saga games in with my friend David on Monday nights, so the die are still a rolling, which is great. Very good warm up for the Wyvern Wargames Saga tournament we are going up to at the end of February too. Had a great time there last year, so am looking forward to this a lot. We also get to make a pit stop at Gripping Beast HQ, so I expect an empty wallet may be heading my way .... and if I don't clear it there, I have a trip to the Cavalier show  on the Sunday to totally finish me off. A whole weekend of gaming goodness, lord knows how I snuck that past the wife.

In other news I also announce a day of Saga Goodness myself and my good friends of the Friday Night Fire Fight Club are putting on in Canterbury on Saturday the 26th of April 2014.

More details of this can be found here -

http://studiotomahawk.freeforums.org/canturbury-kent-saturday-26th-april-2014-t4415.html

With this in mind I have been beavering away making some rocky ground markers for the terrain on the day.

Simple idea - a flat marker board or cloth goes down with moveable rock pieces to show what it is.

Easy in use and to build - here is what I have so far - also on show are two of the markers for one of the missions (Holy Icon) I am making too.

A good start, few more bits required though.

While I am at it, here is a shot of the rest of the painting bench. An army slowly being worked up there for Saga (if you ignore the Vikings lurking in the middle, and the 8 scot levy javelin men, and the 4 conquest platic flems I am making). Guess what it is....

Finally, a picture of two old plastic GW Bretonian bowmen. I said I would show someone on a forum how I painted mine, to make them more generic looking for many games, so here they are. Very nice figures for silly cheap costs these, hard to not recommend them really.

 Cheers, John.

2014....

Well it has been a while since I posted on the blog here.

What have I been up too? Mostly playing Saga, and Dark Heresy roleplaying, with a little 7th Sea CCG on the side.

A fair bit of Saga is under the belt, including some very interesting test games of some of the next release, but mostly getting ready for the Wyvern Games Saga tournament in February. Still trying to decide on which army to use, Franks are highly tempting at the moment, but then so are many others....Hopefully this coming monday will see me enlightened some more. Can not believe I have been playing this game for 2 years now, and am still enjoying it as much as when I first started.

I also got to watch a game of DBMM over christmas, which was quite interesting. Certainly a Cerebral game though, with lots of thought required to play it. (something I may just have to look at more, as I do like that sort of thing)

Painting wise, I am working on a few things, mostly Saga. I was kindly given some old Arab figures, (1980's figures I believe) so am working up Saga forces from them (this is for one of the forces for the next Saga release, old news I am sure as I was helping on the demo of it at Salute last year with one of the early versions of an Arab faction board).

I am also near completion on my Urban War Viridian force, with just  couple of figures to go. I got very lucky at a show with this and picked up a sauran rider very cheaply that I am working on atm, and a couple of final pieces I found at a reasonable price on Ebay, which when done will round it out nicely.

I will be going along to the Cavalier show in February by the way, so if anyone reads this and fancies meeting up for a hello, let me know.

For now, Cheers, and thanks for reading.

A brief note

A few words on what has been going on here at John towers...(hmm not a good name for a bungalow)...

I have been having a little break from Dark Age painting as I have overdosed somewhat in the last year.

So other than 4 cavalry, of a Saga faction I can't mention as yet, I have been painting a little sci-fi stuff, mostly as I wanted to use one of them as a character figure for Dark Heresy roleplaying, and also to finally get then painted.

Namely, some Urban Mammoth Viridians, for their Urban War game system. 5 Guardsmen, 1 Sniper, 2 Special forces and a sergeant. A nice little 300pt force which has been sitting around untouched for a while now. I have 4 guardsmen still to finish off, but they are chugging along very enjoyably. These are certainly some figures I would recommend well worth a look.

I have also been working on some deep ones from RAFM that I managed to acquire very cheaply a month or so ago. I have been converting a few up for use in West winds Empire of the Dead rule set. A jolly little game that is simple to play . I quite like it. It has definitely grown on me over time.

I am using the Holy Order faction rules for them, and have a couple of interesting conversions, including wings for one of them. Just finished painting them tonight, and have the base materia applied and ready to colour once dried. I look forward to doing a few pictures of these once they are finished, I am very pleased how they have turned out.

So not huge amounts to report, but work in the school holidays is always a bit more manic, so time is stretched a little till I get my holiday in the last two weeks of the summer break (also known as the two MOST expensive weeks if I did want to go away)

Cheers, John.

A Varied Day

Well what a long but eventful day gaming wise for me.

I started by going off to my local games shop for one of his open days where I said I would run Saga demo's throughout the day. Unfortunately most people who usually frequent the shop had decided to drive across the country for a Tank fair so I only got one game in with the shop owner, as the other customers that did come in had played at the last one I was at, or did not have the time. He enjoyed it though so that was cool.

Also had a good chat about M&T to another couple of the locals, and it looks like the next demo I will run will be for that. Should be fun.

Whilst there I did manage to pick up a few interesting pieces today - rubs hands with glee.

I picked up Hereward the Wake for Saga, who gives me the perfect excuse to make more Flemish Mercenarys.

Also a pack of  4 Crusader woodland Indians from the sale bin for £2.50

(and here is the good one) A pack of 3 Crusader pirate musket men that should work great with appropiate paint scheme for civilians for M&T, also from the sale bin (£1.50)

Finally I picked up a strange bargain I could not resist - 10 Deep Ones from RAFM for just £2.00

(photo taken from their site)

These have a plan behind the purchase - I am thinking potential here for a gang for Empire of the Dead which my friend Stu keeps badgering me to play again. A couple of small conversions to "Hero" three up and it should work well with luck.

Once home, I managed to find some time to finish off a load of basing I needed to do on my latest M&T stuff, Officer and 10 Regulars for the British (45th), 6 Cois de Bois conversions, and another English officer type. Hopefully I will get a few pictures of these up soon.

Had to get it done, Got a game tomorrow afternoon, and a load of Americans to try and see off.

So my day ended in setting up the table ready for play tomorrow. Hopefully I can stop enjoying myself long enough to actually take a few in game photos for a change.

Cheers, John.

Expanding the blog

I have decided that I am going to expand this blog into the other games I play and paint. Careful use of labels should keep it all fairly in order and aid navigation.

After thoughts (and brief effort) on starting a new general blog and keeping this running too, the ease of just having the one site makes so much more sense.

So the main things to expect in addition to the M&T are -

Saga - lots of it, for as you may know I have a very minor role within the Saga system and it is something I just love.

Wargods of Aegyptus - A system and figures I particularly enjoy. Mr Fitzpatrick really does some wonderful sculpts and the painting style of these in the age it is set is really cool to.

15mm - I am slowly working out some Gruntz pieces and Critical Mass games bits. My little jaunt into sci fi.

Roleplaying odds and ends - I love adding odd figures to my collection of stuff for use when we are doing D&D and Dark Heresy. A great excuse for those weird and wonderful one off figures you just can't resist on occassion.

Those cover the main things that take up my time, but occasionally other systems pop up too for a little reworking or additions etc. It will be nice to have somewhere to mention them.

Can't stop without adding a couple of old pictures, so here we are -

Firstly the last group shot of all my painted saga figures at the time -

A couple of 15mm walkers from Critical Mass

An Osiris unit from wargods of aegyptus converted to use javelins.

Cheers, John.

45th Regiment of Foot

Borrowed off the web for my sins, this is a brief about a unit I am basing my Regulars around.

45th Regiment of Foot

History

The 45th Regiment was raised in 1741 as Houghton's Regiment, for service during the War of the Austrian Succession. It was first posted to Gibraltar in 1745, before moving to Nova Scotia in 1747 for garrison duty. In 1758 the regiment fought in the Siege of Louisburg. which became the regiments first battle honor.

From 1774 the regiment was in action in North America during the American War of Independence, fighting in the battles of Long Island, Philadelphia, Brandywine Creek and Germantown. In 1783 they returned home to Nottingham, where the citizens petitioned for the regiment to be named "the Nottinghamshire regiment". This was granted the same year, becoming the 45th (1st Nottinghamshire) Regiment.
The regiment returned to the Americas in 1786, spending the next 16 years, with one break, in the West Indies. During this time they saw action against the French as part of the French Revolutionary Wars, at Martinique, Dominica and Les Saintes.

After an expedition to South America in 1807, fighting at Buenos Aires, the 45th returned to Britain, to take part in Wellington's Peninsular campaign. In this they fought in every major action, winning the nickname "Old Stubborns" at Talavera, and being commended at Busaco and Badajoz.

Following the end of the Napoleonic Wars the Nottinghamshires served in a series of colonial campaigns. In 1819 they were in Ceylon, and in 1824 in the First Burma War. In 1843 they were in South Africa for the First Kaffir War, and in 1851 for the Second. In 1867, now called the 45th Nottinghamshire Regiment (Sherwood Foresters), they took part in the Abyssinian campaign.
In 1881, as part of the Childers Reforms, the 45th was amalgamated with the 95th (Derbyshire) Regiment to form the Sherwood Foresters.

5 months and Trappers.

Well I see lots of 1/2 year reports on some of the blogs I visit. Perhaps I will jump on the band wagon a little here, and also show something I have been working on.

It is actually 5 months since I started this blog, and my attention has been a little diverted from time to time I will confess. From health issues with the wife, and other various home things, and my Saga duties and enjoyment, my M&T experiance has been very slow in coming to fruition. But slow is not always a bad thing.

I have been working away painting the odd figure and getting up to my target of two 300pt armys finished. Still not there yet but it is one of those things that is destined to be a wonderful diversion for me from the masses of Saga and other things I am working on.

The way things are so far =

British -

7 Rangers Finished.
6 Indians Finished.
10 Regulars - 2 done, 8 to go.
Officer - Unpainted
8 Light infantry - Unpainted
10 Light infantry - Unpainted

French -

Indian Officer Finished
6 Indians Finished
6 Indians Finished (painted by my friend Stu)
6 Chasseurs Finished
Officer Finished
10 Regulars - Unpainted

So, they are getting there.

 Something I am working on, for my French, is some figures I can use as Coureurs des Bois/Canadian locally raised militia.

To make these, a brief bit of explaining. Early in the year I got very lucky on ebay and won a dirt cheap bid on 24 Front Rank British Light infantry. (actually they are called Battalion Company, but they will do as Light Infantry for me) (basically the guys are on pictures 1,2 and 8 here - Link to Pictures

Sorting through them, I have organised two units, one of 8, and one of 10. This left me 6 spares....

Now my poor French are lacking in figures compared to the British, and as I was looking at the 6 figures I decided I would adapt them for my French forces. Chopping the hats a little, and some green stuff work presented me with some home made Canadians. Hope you enjoy, I mostly finished the first one today. Just a little touching up of the leggings and some basing and we are good to go.

I think he has turned out quite well, and certainly has a bit of a trapper look about him. Just leaves 5 to go..

Cheers, John.

Lifes Little Delays

As the post title says, Life has a way of delaying the gaming experience every now and again.

At the end of January, my wife went in for a minor operation.

Unfortunately some complications from the surgery have made it a very long recovery period.

She is getting better, but it is a long, slow (and very painful for her) process.

Hence no real time for me to hit the Blog or do a lot of my gaming related things at present.

I have managed to base a few British Light Infantry (24 erm yes I am sure I need that many....) I picked up off Ebay (Front Rank again).

I also did a trade for some of the Warlord Games Indians (6 in total I kept, 1 I gave to a friend to use as a Sachem with his Crusader Indian deal he picked up) which I have based.

Warm weather (well warmer) helps promote my chances to get out to the garage and begin a little painting soon.

Still more will come, as things start to slowly ease back to more normal routines.

Cheers, John.

Musket and Tomahawks Review

As I am sat here ruing the negative degree temperature in the garage where I do most of my gaming, I have decided to write up a bit of a review about the set of rules I am using for my French Indian War enjoyment.

First a little about me, which may help explain my choice for this particular set of rules.

I am currently one of the moderators on the forum for Saga and Musket and Tomahawks.

Studio Tomahawk

Note I am not employed by the company or anything as grand as that. Basically I just help out in a voluntary way on the forum with rules queries and that sort of thing, and generally try to help and keep it tidy and running smoothly. Basically I do this because of my love of the rule sets for my own use, and hope to pass this enjoyment on to others.

One of the advantages of this is I get to spend part of my day reading all the posts there about Saga and Muskets and Tomahawks. This obviously gave me a bit of influence in choosing this set of rule for myself, as it is difficult to assist people with their queries when you do not know what they are talking about at all.

The other thing was I got to absorb a lot of the battle reports and wonderful miniatures that were shown on the site too, which slowly ate into my brain and made me think "Yes! I want some of that"

Prior to taking up Saga, truly "historic" type wargaming was not something I had enjoyed enough of. Plenty of fantasy and sci fi, but as someone who is actually very interested in history (particularly English) I notice I had a huge gap where this sort of gaming comes in. Even my WW2 experiance seemed to be Weird War 2 rather than straight out historical style.

Saga was my first step towards this historic/wargame mix and I have to say, I love it.

Muskets and Tomahawks is to fill the little void I get every time I watch Sharpe, and think that would be great to game. The Era is extremely close, and the scale of the game fits the theme as I tend to envisage it inside my head.
There seems to be quite a wealth of information on the period out there, if looked for carefully too, which for someone coming in with no idea about the period other than a very very rough knowledge that it took place, is quite handy.

Still thats more than enough rambling, lets get onto the Review.

Muskets and Tomahawks - A Beginners Overview.

1 - Whats it all about.

This game covers the periods from the French Indian Wars, right through to the American War of Independence (or American Revolution depending what side of the pond you are on). So approximately 1750 through to 1800 will give you a good idea of the years covered (note this is not a true  historical time scale provided by me, but for my point of view it is good enough to give you a general overview of when it all happens).

So you have the -

French Indian War
The Indian Revolutions
The American War of Independence

It is a skirmish level game, with each figure acting semi independently (they are based in units but can act individually in these units with some restrictions)

Games tend to run in a variety of point scales, from which you purchase the units for your army. 200pts is the  basic starting army size, through to 600 points and more. 400 would clearly seem to be the average game scale to look too. 200pts will get you approximately 21 figures on the table top, al though this can vary dependent on the grade and types of your troops, but as a rough guide I would say that it is a good average. With many of the manufacturers out there now producing box sets and other deals, as a rough entry price cost you can look at about £30 for your army at 200pts. I bought two armys and the rule book, and spent a total of  about £84.00. This gives me two forces to fight with, and all the rules. Not that expensive on the grand scheme of things, and compared to some of the stuff available for gaming at this time, its damn cheap i think.

2 - How does it all work

The game works on a Card driven mechanic. When you select your forces they have a Unit type. These are things like Regular, Irregular, Indian and so on. What this means is you add the appropiate cards provided with the rules to the draw deck when you have units of that type.

For example Indians get 4 cards. So when you have 1 or more Indian units in your force, you add the 4 Indian cards to the draw deck.

The draw deck consists of your cards and the opponents cards. These are shuffled together at the start of a game turn.

The cards are then turned over one at a time. All units of that type then activate on that card.

For example, You have two indian units. When one of your Indian cards is drawn, All of your Indian units may take 1 action.

It is actually a very simple but effective change from the standard I go, you go style of play and tends to lend to some exciting flips waiting to see which units will go next.

Will those Indians get two actions to manage to run right through the open ground before those militia fire upon them, or will the militia go while the Indians are in the middle of the open ground?

What is an action though - well it is actually pretty simple - Move Shoot or Reload.

There are various modifiers and things to take into account, but these are usually pretty simple to work out. Ranges, cover, difficult ground. All the standard wargame things. The rules for these are nothing new, basic d6 requiring certain numbers.

3 - What brings it all to life for me is 

What really makes this game shine for me is the important part of scenarios and missions this system then delivers.

Each player rolls a basic mission they are attempting. There are 6 basic missions in the book. This mission chance is modified by the type of army you have built, so a more scouting type army will be more likely to get an appropriate scouting type mission.

You can then add a "side plot" to this mission. These are separate mini missions which help affect the outcome of the game.

There are also random events cards that can be added to the Decks for even more variation. It may just start raining mid game, or a wild animal could attack a unit as they get too close to its hidden lair.

Basically to coin a phrase used by a few others, it gives a cinematic style game. You feel a story unfolding as you play, rather than just rolling some dice and playing a battle for no reason.

I have developed a strange urge to start naming my characters and units, and writing little story's about them, rather than just placing them on the table and saying "they are rangers".

4 - What you Get for your Buck.

The basic rulebook costs around £24.00.

For this you get the Book, which has all the rules and the army lists for all of the armys.

You also get a pack of cards. You get all the cards required for running a game. You do not need extras.

There is a quick reference sheet you can copy in the back of the book, but this is also downloadable for free from the Studio Tomahawk forum -  LINK - Note you will need to log in to access this in the armoury section though.

There is also a nice army roster sheet available there that one of the wonderful players of the game designed too.

5 - Armys in Brief

A quick bit about the basic army lists that are available -

The basic Factions for the FIW are

British, may have Indian allies

French (also Canadians) may have Indian allies

Indians (pure Indian force)

The basic Factions for the AWI are

British, may have Indian allies, May have German allies

Germans - May be played as a stand alone faction

American - may have Indian allies, May have French allies

French - A limited list more in line with the Germans

Now These are not an in depth analysis of the lists by any means, but it does show some of the many variances that are available for those that like that sort of information.

Hope this is of interest to some of you. I have played two games of this so far, and am immensely enjoying the experience. The games are fun, the feeling is of a story told,and the rules are fairly straight forward.

I do not hesitate in recommending this to anyone to try out.

Cheers, John.

Not too much by way of reporting today, as I was out playing D&D this evening.

One more ranger has been completed, the leader figure, so that is two rangers finished and one Indian. Still a few more to go but they are coming along.

I also received one of the Perry Farmhouse kits in the post today, which I cheekily got my friend to spray brown for me whilst we were at his for the D&D, which will speed up my painting time no end once its assembled. I figure a light dry brush and then a nice wash to blend it all back will see it pretty much done once its assembled. The plan is for a more rustic look for this.

I also got notification my French are in the post, which if I am lucky means they will arrive tomorrow.

As I have my first game tomorrow this would be rather handy though it does mean I will be spending the early part of the evening sticking them to bases. Still I have some proxies to take their place if they do not arrive.

I am really looking forward to trying the game out. I shall endeavour to get photos and write some sort of report of course.

My blog for my Musket and Tomahawks adventures.

Just before Christmas in 2012 I picked these rules up.

As it is now 2013 I thought it was about time to start one of these here blogs about my experiences.

So far, no games played, but the rules have been read and digested.

I have ordered up from Front Rank my first army. British, the list is -

Regular Officer 25pts

10 x Regular Infantry 80pts

7 x Rangers 63pts

4 x Indians (with the Auxillery Trait) 32pts

Since I have ordered this however, I have had a couple of chats with a very nice american chap called Jay, who has helped with some advice. Namely, do not take little 4 man Indian units as they will run fast.

So when I order my French (working a list for this) I will add a couple of Indians to round up the force and provide some variation.

I have got a game booked for Wednesday the 9th January, so looking forward to that. I will try and get a solo game in before then to trial the rules out.