Games at the club

Here are some snapshots of recent games I played at the club.  

The boardgame No Retreat: the Russian Front, Longstreet with 15mm ACW and the ancients rules, To the Strongest in 15mm and Flames of War in 15mm. 

First, No Retreat. This is part of end of turn snapshots for when we next pick up the campaign.  This is the situation in September and October 1942 and the Axis have pushed well to the east.  This game is just superb. It's card supported and has less than 20 units on each side.  

The Axis have taken Stalingrad and are threatening the oilfields.  But winter is coming ( as they say ). 

These are two longshots from our Flames of War game. Late war Germans vs British. This was our second run-through with the version 4 rules and the unit cards. Just a lot of long range firing in this game.  It was OK, but with some many other games to play, this may not get played again for a while.  

This is a picture on my Longstreet game, pictures from my opponents side of the table. He's just launched a big charge by the chaps in blue.  The dice are the combat scores, pictures just before we resolved the situation. As you may see, I was resoundingly defeated overall, and my one victory did not compensate for losing three units, my army morale and the battle, all in that one turn. But a great game.

A long snapshot of two chaps playing Bolt Action. Americans vs Russians.  Sadly, I didn't have time to watch this game as I was engrossed in No Retreat that night.  

And finally, To the Strongest. Now, while our first game of TTS was good, this game saw very few casualties and a couple of anomalies with fighting in woods, so the initial favourable impression of TTS has dimmed a bit. Two of the chaps at the club were not impressed at all, so sadly TTS at the club may fade away. But here's a couple of pictures.

The armies were Polybian Roman vs Seleucid. Here the Roman right centre clashes with elephants and some phalanx.  

And the Roman left centre clashes the rest of the Seleucid centre.  The action is taking place on a mat that one of the chaps bought. The squares are 100mm.  

More later.

progress with plastics

I seem to have done little since the start of the year besides building plastic figures.  I have played a few games at the club, but painting seems to have slowed while I stick bits of plastic together.  It's not terribly exciting, but here's some progress.

With the dark ages chaps, I decided to go for 25mm round bases. And after further debate I decided to get Renedra plastic bases.  The scoring on the plastic is me providing a key for the filler which help to disguise the moulded base with the figure.  The four figures at the right have been done. 

A whole batch more.  

And some Victrix Napoleonics. There are some nice poses in the French infantry box.  But I'll be painting these as Italians, with white uniforms and red or green facings.  The standard line infantry and grenadier chaps are on 20mm round bases, the voltigeurs are on 25mm round bases. 

A box of Saxons ready for the next stage. 

And the next stages. The bases were 'painted' with a watered-down pva glue and then dunked in a tub of sand.  I cut strips of corrugated cardboard and stuck on strips of double sided sticky tape. The bases were then pressed on to the tape. The idea here is to provide a decent grip of the plastic figures while I spray undercoat them later.      

Shields, shields, shields and backpacks.  

A box of Vikings ready for a spray session.  

And a box of Napoleonics ready for a spray session. 

So, roll on the end of the week and hopefully with a decent dry day, I'll get this lot undercoated.  

I still have the plastic Normans and dark ages warriors to assemble, but for the moment I'm going to have a rest from sticking bits of plastic together. I want to get back to some painting before I forget what the brushes are for. 

I'll do a separate post with pictures of some club games.