Friday Night Game Report

 As readers of Marks "1866 and all That" Blog will know, we finally managed to get a face to face game in at Julian's on Friday evening. Well, kind of. In actual fact, we spent most of the five hours drinking, chatting and eating dinner - actual game time might have amounted to a couple of hours, if we were lucky. It was only a small scale Border Reivers affair, literally six figures each, three raiders - Mark, Julian and John - v's two defenders, Rick and me. It was definitely a win for the raiders but that was all good - Rick was wiped out to a man but I only lost one of my "Government" troops, so I was ok with the result!

Here are a few pics - not great quality and mostly similar to Marks as I was adjacent to where Mark was busy destroying Ricks force - I dont think I have any pics of Julian's force - he came on the far end, slipped into a field, drove off a herd of black cattle and exited without ever encountering a defender - a perfect raid really! (May not have been a lot of fun for Julian, I am not sure.....)

The table when we arrived

Rick added his HokaHey mdf Bastlehouse to one corner - its quite a beast!

Ricks dismounted figures defending against the raiders

A couple of Reivers under Marks command

One of the TAG Reivers under John's command (I think)

I was wrong, I DID take one image of Julian purloining our cattle!

A mounted raider takes on Ricks Heidman

A couple the defenders back up their gaffer

Two of my Government calivermen take pot shots at John's raiders

As another of John's team drives off a second herd of cattle

My last shot showing the total demise of Ricks force - the one on foot with a lance had been taken prisoner, whilst the dismounted figure on this side of the hedge is Marks Heidman

Good fun although a bit disjointed with all the chat and a 90 minute meal break in the middle of it - but great to see some of the guys again after several months. We may possibly have another this coming Friday although its looking like I may have a social engagement - fingers crossed not! :)

SCW Milicianas Completed

 Tonight I present the remaining figures from the Minairons SCW Militiawomen pack. It is quite a challenge painting 20mm as opposed to 28mm figures, I am not totally satisfied with my efforts, but I think they have come out OK and I am happy enough with how they look to the naked eye, which is after all, how we actually see them - click on these images and they appear as if they are badly painted 54mm models!

Apart from painting, I have also spent a lot of my recent spare time watching a couple of Russian language dramas via YouTube. The first one, in particular, I would thoroughly recommend - a 12 part serialisation of the life of the Soviet spy Richard Sorge, who I had vaguely heard of previously, but am now contemplating reading a bit more about, based on the TV series and the reviews I have read, which indicate that Sorge's real life was every bit as dramatic as the TV portrayal!

RICHARD SORGE. MASTER SPY. Episodes 1-3. Russian TV Series. Wartime Drama. English Subtitles

Following on from the Sorge drama, I have also watched two film length productions revolving around the recruitment, training and missions of Soviet intelligence operatives from 1941 onwards - see here 

SPIES | PART 1 | War Drama | Full Length War Movie | HD - YouTube

(there is also a Part 2, which I am halfway through watching now!)

And finally, miracle of miracles, we have an actual, genuine, live action, face to face wargame at Julian's place tomorrow evening - so a full AAR should follow over the weekend.

SCW Progress

 The Nationalist forces are more or less complete, for the moment - I just have an HMG to do to finish them off. Three more of the Milicianas have been completed too, and the remainder are about 80% done - then its a choice between either their male Militia counterparts, or the regular Republican infantry.

Various kneeling figures including a mortar (far right)

Four standing figures including two SMG armed NCO's

Three Milicianas 

No pasarán!

Standard bearer of the Rosa Luxemburg Battalion - one of three flags supplied with the figures

Rosa Luxemburg (5 March 1871 – 15 January 1919)  was a Polish and naturalised-German revolutionary socialist, Marxist philosopher and anti-war activist. Successively, she was a member of the Proletariat party, the Social Democracy of the Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania (SDKPiL), the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), the Independent Social Democratic Party (USPD), the Spartacus League (Spartakusbund), and the Communist Party of Germany (KPD). Born and raised in an assimilated Jewish family in Poland, she became a German citizen in 1897.

After the SPD supported German involvement in World War I in 1915, Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht co-founded the anti-war Spartacus League (Spartakusbund) which eventually became the KPD. During the November Revolution, she co-founded the newspaper Die Rote Fahne (The Red Flag), the central organ of the Spartacist movement. Luxemburg considered the Spartacist uprising of January 1919 a blunder, but supported the attempted overthrow of the government and rejected any attempt at a negotiated solution. Friedrich Ebert's majority SPD government crushed the revolt and the Spartakusbund by sending in the Freikorps, government-sponsored paramilitary groups consisting mostly of World War I veterans. Freikorps troops captured and summarily executed Luxemburg and Liebknecht during the rebellion

Female NCO armed with an SMG

Thanks for looking and hope you have time to leave a comment.

Soldiers, Toy Soldiers and Nothing But Toy Soldiers!

 Its official! No more holiday snaps from the S Island. The weather here has also been rather inclement the last couple of days, so weekend bush walks will be less frequent for the next few months, meaning this blog may be restricted to its original purpose of recording wargames (lets hope!) and the models used to play them!

The first batch of Spanish Nationalist troops are nearing completion, but having restrained myself for a fortnight, tonight I opened the third box (of six) that arrived here on 6 May - the Female Militia (or Milicianas) pack!

To be fair to myself, this was partly due to the fact that the painting guide book Rick leant me the other day only features one 20mm figure, and that is the Milicianas Officer. So, as a bit of an experiment, I have had a try at replicating the work of the very talented artist in the book - how successfully - well you can judge! I am happy with the results but I dont have the eyesight or talent to recreate exactly the example in the book

Front and rear view of the box the figures come in - as Lawrence (I think) remarked on the previous example, the art work is pretty dramatic!

The contents - above front is the officer figure I painted

As with the Nationalist command box, the Militia come complete with three handy dandy standards to choose from!

Relevant pages from the said painting guide

Stage one (after black undercoat) is chocolate brown base coat

English (sic) Uniform jacket and my version of Russian Uniform for breeches and puttees. Beret repainted matt black

Uniform highlighted and leather belt/holster repainted

Black edging added, brown leather highlighted and the flesh painted "tan"

Collar patches added and flesh highlighting done

The finished product from four different angles

Not quite up to the book example but looks ok to me and it will look about 50% better once based

Finally, I popped into a local (to work) hobby store yesterday to pick up some plastic cement (when did it get sooo expensive??!), and got chatting to the proprietor. Its mainly a fantasy/Warhammer/40K type store, but they have paint and basing products any gamer can use. They also have a large area at the rear set out with tables so I asked how that worked and the guy was happy to give me a little tour and explain how they operate. The upshot being, we (my group of gaming buddies) may have found an ideal location for week night games of up to six or even eight participants, all for a very reasonable financial arrangement - each player pays $10 for table hire but this translates into a store credit - so we really only have to buy something to the value of $10 to have access to several tables, neoprane gaming mats and a significant amount of mdf scenery - couple of images below give some idea of the facility

You hire the table "for the day" so in theory on a weekday, you could front up around 10-11am (opening time varies) and paly until 10pm! Weekends they close up at 6pm and they are shut all day Monday - but I dont think I have ever played a game on a Monday anyway!

Note a couple of mid week, mid day gamers in the top right - one appeared to be a middle aged woman although I could not swear to it!