20mm Civilian emergency planners

Fresh from the painting bench is this collection of useful figures.

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They are from Elhiem miniatures and have been designed to go with the board game Pandemic but I’m always on the look out for useful civie figures. I had bought them before I got the Black Ops rules but they will be ideal for taking part in my future games. Standing in as scientist to be rescued/ abducted of innocent bystanders to be protected each one will be used at somepoint. I can see them also being used when we restart our Zombie games.

Enough waffle- more pics:

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The yellow suited hazmat figure is my personal favourite.

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Cheers,

Pete.

Black Ops rules review and playtest.

Whilst I attended the recent Fiasco show (great to meet up with a few people but the show wasn’t great- not a good look when a third of your demo/ participation tables are no shows…) I picked up a few bits including the new Black Ops rules from Osprey.

Written by Guy Bowers and subtitled ‘Tactical Espionage Wargaming’ it is in the common ‘Men at Arms’ sized format and is clearly designed to bring the feel and flavour or many FPS PC games to the table top.

By the Tuesday following the show I had read through the rules and decided to run a couple of quick games to test the rules.

I’m not a fan of points in games; there is nothing wrong with in principle but their mere inclusion in a set of rules brings out the worst in a significant minority of gamers who represent the antithesis of my preferred gaming style. Still I created two roughly equal sides from the extensive faction lists: One a conscript squad the other a 4 man SOF team and got the table set up.

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The first game was a quick encounter game to get the basics of activation, movement and firing worked out.

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The game is run using a deck of cards- much like the old Arc of Fire rules that I’ve played lots of but with types of figure activated on each card rather than discreet units. Movement and activations are simple and firing is just rolling over the required hit number.

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As a basic skirmish game the rules work well enough, not better or worse than other comparable sets really though I would have preferred a bit more friction in the activation system. However that is not the rule sets raison d’etre so I reset the table to run a stealth mission.

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Here the rules really came into their own with wandering guards and noise token which had to be minimised by the raiding player to avoid raising the alarm- though I’d like to see the noise list extended. This style of game is great fun and I can see it being played a lot in the coming months here, especially as I’ve plenty of figures and terrain that are suitable and ready to be used.

My only real criticism of the rules is that I thought the close combat system is a bit weak and breaks down quickly when you have a large melee. I will say however that I’ve yet to find a close combat system in any set of skirmish rules that I’ve really thought was good.

The rules seem to be marketed as a Science Fiction set but in reality they are really decent set of modern i.e. 21st century skirmish rules, the SF parts only really amount to one small table of extra equipment. Equipment that in the most part can be found in prototype form currently.

Cheers,

Pete.

Spanish Civil War- A new project

I’ve fancied a pre WW2 skirmish set up for a while now, something where the LMG and SMG don’t dominate so much and given my long standing interest in Civil Wars and political violence the Spanish Civil War (SCW) seems an obvious choice. Having a box full of mediterranean styled buildings is also a boon. A Very British Civil War could have been an option but I have some reservations about the idea, well less about the idea more about the way it seems to be commonly presented. On the topic of presentation of games I was at a well known midlands based wargames show a year or so back and was admiring a 28mm SCW set up. I got chatting the one of the guys manning the game and I commented on the increased popularity of the period, he said yes but “Don’t read the history; it’s too depressing”. At that point I made my excuses and left; each to their own but divorcing the game from the history is pretty much antithecal for me. See my earlier post which made reference to a game that dealt with the difficulties of the period in a responsible manner.

Anyway enough ramble form me on to the pics.

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A group shot of all the vehicles I have painted so far- all are 1/72nd models from Miniairons.

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A pair of Bilbao armoured cars.

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A large armourced car based on a truck chassis the Hispano Suiza MC-36.

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Finally an Ambulance- the shoddy build job is a reflection of an off day by me and my subsequent attempts to fix it rather than and fault with the kit. All off them are superb models. I look forward to getting and building more off them.

Next step is to start on the infantry, again from Miniairons.

http://www.minairons.eu/en/

Cheers,

Pete.

Yorkshire Air Show 2015.

Last weekend I went to this Air Show at the former RAF Church Fenton, setting off early with my Father meant that we managed to avoid most of the early queues and bag a decent spot for our chairs at the front. We both made the trip to have the chance to see theVulcan bomber one last time in the air. I visited a lot of airshows with my Dad when I was younger and the Vulcan was always a favourite, it was nice to be able to take a trip again with my Dad to see out the end of an era.

The Air Show was very well attended with plenty of ground exhibits to look at. The Old Air bases is looking a little run down but it is due a major facelift to bring it back as a commercial airport- that said they’ll need to improve its road links too.

The air displays were very good- expecially with regards to vinage jets and WW2 planes. A Meteor, Vampire, MiG15, Jet Provost and a pair of Gnats gave me my early Cold War fix. Staying with the Cold War era it was nice to see a display by two ‘Nam era helicopters – the Huey and Loach, both in civilian hands. Apparently they are looking to adda Cobra to their collection too. Also we saw no less than three marks of Spitfire, a Hurricane, a P51D (Cadillac of the Skies no less) and a P 40 Warhawk (the first time I had ever seen the latter in flight) from WW2 as well as a C47.

The Star of the show was the Vulcan of course, its distinctive shape and roar of engines was the reason 90%+ of the crowd attended probably. As a treat we saw it in formation with the pair of Gnats too (it was supposed to be a trio but a fatal crash in August meant it was not to be so- the formation gave a surprisingly moving ‘missing man’ tribute to their fallen friend).

As we are now in a post Shoreham world some of the displays were a little tamer compared to the remembered air shows of my youth. The Vulcan too suffered from over regulation, the roar of its engines never seemed to last as long as it used to. A few more modern fast jets to excite the crowd (and sate the Futurist in me) would be all I want to see added to the bill- they will be sorely needed now that XH558 is grounded.

Any way enough waffle I’ll get to the pictures- most are off the ground displays- a combination of poor skills and poor equipment meant my flying shots didn’t come out.

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Cheers,

Pete.

3rd 2015 Quater Progress.

It’s that time again for a progress update- I’m still finding it motivating so I will keep it going.

Pleased to say that my reading mojo (for want of a better term) has returned… it had wandered away for July and August.

This past quarter I painted 132 20mm figures, 25 1/72nd kits, 12 1/300th vehicles and read 24 books.

Cheers,

Pete.

Repainted Diecasts.

Some of the diecasts that I bought, and showed off in previous posts, weren’t in my first choice of colour scheme so I decided to do a quick repaint of them.

First up the WW2 SU76M- these went from a winter camo to a plain green. The crew figures are from Dixon and AB:

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Then the camo’d BMPs and the BTR60PB that was in a parade ground scheme:

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For both of these sets of models I applied two thinned coats of  Vallejo acryliic straight over the factory paint job then weathered as appropriate.

Then I decided to improved the BTR90s I bought:

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I was happy with the camo scheme that they came with so I decided to just enchance it to stop it looking too flat. These three were given a coat of gloss varnish from a spray can before an all over wash of Army Painter soft tone (from the dropper bottles not the big tin) before a few details were painted in and they were weathered.

Over all I’m happy with how quickly they came together and the final result.

Cheers,

Pete.