A Visit to Ancient Greece and some 3D Prep Work

 Well, we played the new boardgame at Jules place last Friday and it was ......interesting! It was of course a "learning game" - none of us had any idea about the rules or tactics or.... anything, really!

As with most boardgames, not super photogenic - things happen but the look of the board doesn't change much

Typecast, MOI?  Julian assigned me a female character figure! Helen - but not of Troy, I don't believe.

There were three Monuments that we needed to build as part of the way to win the game - this one is Athena

I think this was Zeus

And this one is Hermes - like the aircraft carrier in the Falklands War!

The table laid out for the game

My "hoplites" - we each ahd a total of 15 to recruit

Various monsters that could appear and cause problems for the mortals

The Minotaur took on Chris's hero - and lost!

This one invaded my home territory of Crete but then sat there for most of the game, doing not a lot

I managed to recruit all 15 of the hoplites and looked to push John (green figures) out of his home territory. Chris (blue) to the north took on Julian (red)

My character card 

The turn sequence and how the combat works (below)

The table at the end (2240) I had my Hoplites surround the only completed monument - If I could hold it for three turns, I would be victorious - Chris said I had won - Julian pointed out Chris also had a potential route to victory, but after five hours we had all had enough so we stopped at this point!

I thought a few readers might be interested to see what the Battle Honours 3D figures look like with supports on .......... 

And a minute or so later, with the supports removed. It really was a pretty simple process, the figures more or less just "peeled" away from the supports.

I really like the way the mortar and crew are a single piece print

New 3D Arrivals

Within a few days of each other, two recent 3d printed orders arrived 

The first took just over a week from Temu in China - total cost of NZ$36 - two 28mm Lanchester armoured cars for use with my RCW/BoB collection 

The second took about three weeks from Battle Honors in the UK at a cost of about NZ$180, which included about $50 of postage for a parcel that weighs 284g - FFS!

Quite a large box and well packed and padded to be fair to them but 23 quid postage for 300g really is ridiculous!

One of the command groups purchased - very nice prints so I have no complaints about the cost of the figures - I just wish my mate in Wellington could print them for me!

And here are the armoured cars - again, can't complain about the packaging .... 

...  or the quality of the prints   .......

..... or the price per model ......

.... or, this time, the postage - free because I spent over NZ$35!

The Copplestone Bolshevik heroine gives an indication of scale

Very happy with the contents of both packages!

And to finish off, here are a couple more AI generated videos

It didn't get these ones quite right but they are not terrible for a first attempt. Unfortunately, as I am using free generation, I am limited to only 2 or 3 videos before they start offering me unappealing ways to pay them to continue! So this may be the end of my AI video experimentation.

Thanks for the visit. We are playing a board game based on Ancient Greek mythology at Julians tomorrow, it has some nice figures that Jules has painted up, so I will do a brief report over the weekend I expect.

Victory Day Parade - Part II

 With not a lot to do on Sunday 10 here in NZ - I pulled out the 15mm WW2 Soviets for their own parade. These are all the original, resin and metal models from the time the company was really just a cottage industry, run out of Marua Rodd in Auckland by Mark of "1866 and All That", with our gaming buddies Paul and Andrew working there at different times, and a couple of others also involved.

Assault guns and later war tanks at the rear, T34/76 and KV 1 at the front

I did have some KV 2 but back then, I did not like the disproportionately large square turret, and I sold them off to someone.

The aircraft are premade/pre painted 1:144 models I got for next to nothing out of a hobby store in Hong Kong - isn't the internet a wonderful tool?!

All stars, numbers and slogans were hand painted on - I must have been mad!

Goodness knows if they slogans are correct - in pre internet days, I got a Russian language dictionary from the library and just cobbled together phrases like "To Berlin" or "To The West" etc!

BUT wait ........ there's MORE!

I found a fourth box and decided for completeness, I needed to parade them as well!

Huge SU 152 assault guns at the rear then winter camo T34/85 and other assault guns, BT7 fast tanks and some transport for the infantry!

A lot of Lend Lease American transport - mainly because, at the time (early to mid 1990's) Battlefront did not do any Russian trucks etc.

Now that is definitely the last of the Russians and the conclusion of the Victory Day celebrations at my place!

9 May - Victory Day Parade.

 Victory Day is a holiday that commemorates the victory of the Soviet Union over Nazi Germany in 1945. It was first inaugurated in the 15 republics of the Soviet Union following the signing of the German Instrument of Surrender late in the evening on 8 May 1945 (9 May Moscow Time). The Soviet government announced the victory early on 9 May after the signing ceremony in Berlin

So, as promised, here is a quick parade of my 28mm Red Army armour 

In the front rank from L to R KV 1, 3 x early T34/76 and a T70

Row Two - a T34/85, 3 x mid war T34/76 and another KV 1

Row Three - 3 x resin T34/85, the resin SU100 Assault Gun and a Bolt Action plastic T34/85

Row Four - five plastic kits - 4 x IS 2 late war tanks and a T34/85

And the few supports ......

Gaz truck, BA10 (I think) armoured car and a Komsolets tractor

M30 122mm howitzer

2 x 45mm anti tank guns

85mm AA gun used in a ground support role (like the German 88!)

The B4 203mm howitzer

I did consider pulling out the 15mm collection too - but there are boxes and boxes of them and I couldn't face it!

Next is a quick report on our WW2 game at Julians place on Friday evening. Our host is keen on Crete, so that was where the fictional action was based. German FSJ and Kiwi infantry started on the table, with Gebirgsjaeger and Greek reinforcements respectively coming on when the appropriate card was turned.  I had the FSJ, Andrew would command the mountain troops and Julian was the Allies.

Julians nicely painted Perry metal WW2 Brits-as -Kiwis

Mixture of my 1st Corps and Julians Perry Fallschirmjaegers

A rather poor-quality image of the table. The Gebirgsjaegers would arrive on the top edge, the Greeks on the left edge. The small BUA/HQ was the focus of attackers and defenders alike.

The FSJ had a plus 1 for elite (thanks Jules!) so I got stuck into the Kiwis asap.

For the first few turns, the bulk of my force stayed in the woods, engaging in a firefight with the NZ infantry. 

We Germans certainly had all the luck with the cards - we had two Stuka attacks early on - this was a good one!

The FSJ put in another assault on the NZ infantry.

FSJ lurking in the woods, waiting for the right moment to attack....

On about turn 8 or 10, the Gebirgsjaegers turned up in the perfect position to sandwich the already depleted Kiwis

The situation when German reinforcements turned up in the top left corner - top centre - FSJ in the woods, having driven back two units of Kiwi infantry - adjacent woods, Kiwi infantry carrying quite a few hit markers.

The action in the woods - I think the FSJ might have lost one close combat in the whole game!

Top right - the Kiwis being driven from the woods by the FSJ also have Gebirgsjaegers in the woods to their rear. In the centre, the woods adjacent to the Kiwi HQ are full of Germans and in the woods to the top left, two of the NZ units are on 4 hits and retiring to the table edge - where is Zorba and his mates?!

You have to give it to the New Zealanders; they kept coming back for more!

Things are getting decidedly sticky for NZ infantry by the tents

And not a lot better for their HQ "bods"

Julian threw some very low dice while I did pretty well - Andrew I think was the only one probably rolling the statistical average - which was still way better than Jules was managing!

After just over an hour, the Germans captured the HQ and there was still no sign of any Greek reinforcements!

The few remaining Kiwis were hemmed into one wood with Germans on all sides - we decided to call it at this point, had dinner, a bit of a chat and an early trip home! Julian did check the card deck, but the Greek reinforcement were hours away from arriving, so we were right to stop when we did.

Good fun for Andrew and I but somewhat frustrating for Julian - he was, as ever, a jolly good sport about it!