Wednesday 30 May 2012

Dr Who - Invasion Earth Cybermen and Daleks



Earth Invasion Classic Cybermen


Black Tree Design Cybermen. Basic paintjobs as all these needed were a coat of Boltgun Metal, washed with Badab Black and then highlighted with Mithril Silver. I have a Cyber Controller to add to this squad. Also another Cybermen squad WIP but these are from the Earthshock period.

Invasion Daleks


A small collection of my Command Daleks. Black (Supreme Dalek) Gold (Dalek Leader) Blue (Dalek Squad Leader) and Red (Saucer Commander Dalek). More WIP include a squad a Imperial Daleks and Special Weapon Dalek, and squads of normal and engineer (Silver Mk3) Daleks.
Plus the odd suicide Dalek.

Other Dr Who in the lead pile consist of Sontarans, UNIT troops, Ice Warriors and the Dr in various incarnations plus various characters.

These will be posted as and when I get a chance from my various other projects - will it never end!!!(please dont hope for anything soon)



Friday 11 May 2012

Sindlesham SAGA

A SAGA day held at the home of the Wargames Association of Reading.

8 players (mostly called Richard or Rick!!) took part in 2 scenario games with 6pts Warbands and a final four way Feast of Crows with 4pts to decide who was the Warlord of the day.

The Warbands fighting it out where made up of: Normans, Bretons, Vikings, Welsh, Anglo Danes, Skraelings and Anglo Saxons.

Here is my brief SAGA report using Bretons.

Game 1 vs Richard Oates - Vikings (Theoden the Orange)
Clash of Warlords Scenario.

Morvan the Breton Warlord has arrived in the countyside surrounding the Welsh border, whilst patrolling from his Keep he and his band of warriors have come across a marauding band of desperate Vikings.
Viking Battle Line
Bretons deploy

Morvan and his retinue charge towards the advancing pagans and cause numerous casualties.
Bretons charge and Flank the Vikings

Theoden makes for the highground and his Berserkers charge into a hail of javelins, which wipe them out, but the Viking numbers force the Bretons backwards. The Breton Hearthguard charge into the Viking Levy on the flank and nearly destroy them to a man.
Theoden makes for the high ground

Morvans Warriors march backwards away from Theoden the Orange, enraged the Viking Warlord charges them with his Hirdmen. After a the clash of steel and the screams of the dying have faded, the Hirdmen have been decimated and Theoden is left stranded
Theoden attacks and wipes out some Breton Warriors

Even though stranded Theoden attacks the warriors causing much death and forcing the survivors to flee. Morvan and his mounted Hearthguard continue their ravaging flank attack,slamming into more Viking Levy and finally causing a massacre with the Bondi.
But succumbs to more warriors who seal his fate

In the final moves of the battle, massivly outnumbered, Theoden seeing his fate before him screams defiance and attacks the remaining Breton warriors. But falling in the mud, blood and mire of the previous charge he stumbles and is uncerimoniously dispatched. Leaving Morvan and his Bretons victors on the field.


Game 2 vs Jason - Welsh (Gryffd ap Morag)
Challenge Scenario.

Whilst patrolling the Malvern Hills from his Keep, Morvan has encountered a Welsh Raiding party. Riding out from his troops he issues a challenge which the leader of the Welsh Gryffd readily accepts.
Welsh Deploy
              Morvan           Warlords Challenge               Gryffd

Breton Battle line

Both Warlords face off across the Malvern Hills. Morvan gets his warband to move in all driections and hs mounted Hearthguard come storming to his aid. Gryffd is left stranded as his foot troops cant reach him in time. Morvan backed by his personal guard hammer into Gryffd causing him some serious wounds and forcing him to flee back to his lines.


Bretons right flank Welsh

Morvan leads his warband in a flanking manouver which Gryffd counters with some Welsh warriors. The Welsh unit is defeated but not destroyed. The whole of the Breton line smash into the survivors but could not wipe out the last remaining sneaky Welsh warrior.
Bretons attack from all directions
The Bretons attack from all directions, catching Welsh units in the flank and rear. Morvan charges straight up the hill towards Gryffd but more Welsh warriors block his path whilst Gryffd disengages and retreats back towards the border.

Finally the strength of the Bretons overwhelm the Welsh and their units are slaughtered one by one. The survivors retreat and sell their lives dearly so gryffd can escape into the gloom as darkness falls over the battlefield. Breton victory but the Welsh Warlord survives the encounter.

Game 3 vs Richard Oats (again) - Vikings (Theoden Vald) Rich J - Skraelings (Two dogs rutting) and Richard Smith - Anglo Danes (Eowics)
Feast of Crows 4 way Scenario.

Final game was a 4 way Feast of Crows, where everyone keeps the casulaties they caused to the other Warbands and victory points are added up at the end. Everyone rolled for depolyment and started off in opposing corners and then rolled to see who went first. This was done every turn and could lead to some interesting turns.
Viking Deployement
Skraeling Deployment

Anglo Dane Deployement
Breton Deployment
After deployment rolls were made for initiative and for the first three turns the Skraelings and Anglo Danes just continued to manouver, whilst my Bretons charged straight forward to contact Richard Oates Vikings (again) After a couple of very bad turns for the Vikings they where completely wiped out!


Whole Breton force against remaining Vikings

Theoden Vald meets his ancestors in Valhalla

Whilst the Bretons were merrily slaughtering the pagan invaders, Rich J's Skraelings finally made a move on the Anglo Danes, unfortunately after a minor success with their javelins the fragility of the Skraelings showed through and they started to crumble.


Skraelings War Party

Whilst Rich J was momentarily distracted by the Anglo Danes the Bretons sweeped into the woods and their rear, hoping to catch both warbands by suprise.
Bretons to the right, Bretons to the Rear!
A few more deadly turns and whilst Skraeling and Anglo Dane where hitting each other hard the Bretons stormed in and put Eowics the Anglo Dane Warlord to the sword!
Eowics Defeated

So after 3 superb games against some very sporting opponents the Bretons were undefeated on the field and came away as overall winners of the Sindlesham SAGA. I won a nice new copy of Northern Fury and it was a cracking day. Overall I was suitably happy with the Bretons and the character I had taken for the day. As a new faction that I had no experience with I was a bit apprehensive but I basically played them like fast armoured Welsh and that seemed to work.

Looking forward to the next SAGA day, wherever and yet again Ill take another faction.

Thursday 3 May 2012

GCT Studios - Bushido - Enter the Ito


Bushido has got to be one of my favourite small scale skirmish games.  Released last year by GCT Studios it has been a massive success and with a recent run out at Salute 2012 things look like getting even better for us who love Oriental Samurai Fantasy/Mythology.

GCT has just published information about the next faction (The Ito Clan) that they wish to release and below is the concept art for the starter set miniatures, utterly Awesome in my opinion.

Naga samurai
Priestess
Snake Demon Woman
Ito samurai

A campaign has been set up on Indiegogo with the goal of raising $5000 and each pledge will net you different rewards depending on ammount, very much like a Kickstarter campaign.

This is  the link to the campaign for anyone who is excited and interested in making this faction a major reality for the game http://www.indiegogo.com/bushido?c=home so far $875 has been raised and it still has 30 days to run.  Get PLEDGING. I have.

This has been the first Bushido post as I finally got to grips with this blog malarky and I will be posting up regular Bushido goodness in the shape of concept art, painted miniatures and general musings over the game and its constant success.

The fight for the Jwer isles has begun - will you be a part of it?