Devil's Run (1) Kickstarter Arrival

Had a red card from the post office at home last night when I got in, so went there this morning to collect the parcel ...

I was pleasantly surprised to find that it was my reward for backing the kickstarter project The Devil's Run: Route 666, "a 20mm-scale post-apocalyptic vehicular combat board game from Word Forge Games".

As I'm now at work [ :( ], I've not had a chance to unbox it and drool over the new toys, so will hopefully get to do that over the weekend & post some pic's if possible!

If this tickles your fancy, or scratches the 'new project' itch, you can download the rules from this page to see what it's like.

VBCW PAC (4)

I applied the dip to the VBCW PAC (People's Assault Column) last night as the game I had been going to play at the Winchester club was postponed until next week.

I did all the figures I've painted so far and there are a few photos of some of them below.  The standards all came from threads at the VBCW forum, where their creators had published them.

Standard Bearers

I applied the dip using a brush - it gives less wastage than actual dipping IMO - and painted the paper standards as well. I've not done this before and am pleased with how they've come out.

2 Sloopy Jalopy on the L, 2 Ironclad on the R

 My favourites I think are the Empress Miniatures "Miliciana Female militia including LMG team" pack from their Spanish Civil War Republican range (pack MIL9):

Yet to do a standard for the one on the R!

If I need any more infantry, I think I'll get some more from this range.

Next step is to decorate bases, then matt varnish spray. Then the vehicles and support teams ...

VBCW PAC (3)

I've managed quite a bit of painting since my post about motivation and the PAC (People's Assault Column) has now 37 figures past the first stage - next stage is applying the 'magic' dip.  The vehicle I'd been waiting for to use with them arrived at the weekend too, and I'm re-purposing a resin vehicle I've had for a while as well.

So, do I now keep going with the painted stuff to finish them, or start painting the Boyes team, HMG and vehicles?

Decisions, decisions ....

Motivation ...

I've been having real motivation issues this week :(  Where I should have been painting my VBCW figures - specifically the 20+ miners I have from Ironclad and Sloppy Jalopy, getting my brushes and paints out to start them just seems to have been too much ...

I have done some things though;

• a Warbases paint bottle rack for my growing assortment of Vallejo paints arrived yesterday and I assembled that
• I've put together some 'dispersed' movement trays for use with Back of Beyond
• I made a (small!) start on the roof tiles for one of my VBCW terraces

But what I should be doing is getting on with the VBCW figures. Hopefully, I'll make some progress on them over the next couple of evenings and the weekend.

In other news, I've discovered Michael Scott's 1809 blog about his 10mm Napoleonic project, which is inspiring, and I've been thinking a lot about Horizon Wars and how I'm hoping to use it for some figures that I've had for years and not found a set of rules for. What is it about wargamers that means as soon as we get a set of rules, we immediately want to change/adapt them?

New Rules

Another delivery arrived yesterday, this time though, it was new wargames rules - 'En Garde!' (EG) & 'Horizon Wars' (HW) both from Osprey.

To be honest, I'm not sure what I was expecting of them, but having flicked through EG & read HW I'm very pleased with both. 

I have some 28mm ECW from  a couple of years ago (another stalled project...) so a warband for EG should be easy enough, but is not a priority right now (that's the VBCW PAC, followed by the BoB White Russians).

As for HW ... I have stacks of 6mm SF and with the size of the game, I can do multiple forces - woo-hoo!! I like HW from the read through and looking forward to trying it.

Iron Stars

One game I've had for years - even painted the miniatures for! - but have still yet to play, is Iron Stars by Majestic 12 Games, a game of Edwardian space combat.

Brigade Models have a (small) range of ships for the game that covers British, Russian and Austro-Hungarian spaceships.  Ever since I first read the rules and saw Brigade's ships I've wanted to play this game, so I bought and painted some Austro-Hungarians:

and Russians:

I believe that these rules would be very good - with some tweaks, such as altitude rules - for use with Brigade's wonderful Aeronef range.

Hopefully I'll be able to (finally!) arrange a game at the Winchester club

Mbote Government Communique Released

In response to the blatantly false statement issued by the propaganda minister of Zubuto - Dr Spin Goballs - through the fiction of a 'home affairs correspondent', the Mbote government released the following statement.

"It was with incredulity that the 'story' created by Dr Goballs was received here in Daijones, the glorious capital of Mbote.

"Complete fiction from start to finish, this story omits the fact that the heroic Mbote Defence Force had been forced to stop the unprovoked invasion of sacred Mbote soil by the spineless minions of puppet dictator DuDu.

"Arriving first on the scene, the militia Layland Regiment was able to halt heavy armoured elements of the so-called "People's" Zubutu Army (PZA).  From this strong foundation, the armour of the Mbote Hoki-Koki Brigade drove back the vile invaders. Unfortunately, outclassed in equipment by PZA, the heroic Hoki-Koki suffered several setbacks in their efforts. However, the inspired leadership of tribal King Anndi, commander of the Hoki-Koki, drove the PZA butchers again and again off the sacred soil of Mbote.

destroyed ZPA armour

"On the very cusp of their victory, the vehicles of the Layland Regiment were destroyed in a dastardly ambush by Zubutoan attack helicopters supplied by DuDu's superpower puppet masters, proving once again that DuDu knows his minions are no match for the heroes of Mbote without outside help bought with the fruits of the Zubutoan people's labours.

"At this point it seemed that the Zubutoan criminals would be able to break through the glorious defence of the Hoki-Koki Brigade's armoured elements and pillage the valley of the river Urehavinalarf - home of the majestic spaghetti plantations of Mbote.

Mbote spaghetti harvest

"In a stroke of brilliance, King Anndi timed the arrival of the infantry component of the Hoki-Koki Brigade perfectly and their renowned anti-helicopter weaponry and training, led to the cowards in the ZPA helicopters to flee back to their homes.

ZPA helicopter that came too close to the Hoki-Koki

"With Mobote soil protected and the PZA armour all destroyed, victory for the Mbote people was assured.

"It is understood that the so-called victory parade in Mpangi was only possible because the PZA tanks wrecks were towed from the field in the dead of night, painted, and then towed through the streets of the den of iniquity that is Mpangi under the rule of the puppet dictator DuDu.

"We have learned from this unfortunate incident and will be upgrading the equipment of the Hoki-Koki heroes to dissuade the puppet DuDu and his minions from repeating their evil actions."

HAIL THE VICTORIOUS MDF!

VICTORY TO MBOTE!

Peter Pig's AK47 (1)

I played my first game of Peter Pig's AK47 Republic rules for fictional conflicts in post-colonial Africa last night.  It was put on by Jim of Jim's Wargames Workbench who provided all the figures and terrain, and he has put a short AAR with pictures in a post on his blog.

I've wanted to play AK47 for years (I bought the latest edition of the rules at Salute), but not had the opportunity to do so before last night, so many thanks to Jim!!

We didn't play the latest edition last night - we used the older edition available as a pdf, so what follows may not be relevant to the newer edition ...

The rules require you to provide 5 units in your force, but then randomise the number of them that arrive on the table. This is a 'nice' touch adding to the unpredictability of the game, but the chance of the rest of your force arriving seems, to me, to be too small. It meant that on our attacking side- the Mbote Defence Force (MDF), only 4 of our 5 units actually got on the table and 1 of them arrived on the last turn, while for Jim's defenders - the Zubuto Army of the People (ZAP) - only 3 turned up.

With the added complication of changes to your units being possible in the pre-game 'political' phase it seems that you have to prepare a lot of figures that potentially won't be used ...

Personally, I would like to see the chance of units arriving increasing as more turns pass; I'll try a bit of google-fu and see if there are some house rules about this somewhere.

Anyway, despite this whining, an AK47 force is definitely being added to the project list! I need to read the rules to work out what it might be though - recreating the charge of the light brigade in 'technicals' does have a certain appeal!

VBCW PAC (2)

Some reinforcements for my VBCW PAC (People's Assault Column) arrived over the weekend. Specifically, from Footsore Miniatures' 28mm Inter War Period 1918-1939 range, a  Militia Boys Anti-Tank Team:

and a Workers Militia HMG Team:

They should give my force some much needed punch!

I also got Footsore's 1930-40's Rural Types:

which will come in handy for some of the events on the Went the Day Well event card deck that I finished making at the weekend.

I painted the Firemen, Female Militia and made progress on the utility vehicle, but they aren't ready to show yet.

Finally, it needs to be pointed out that my PAC, contrary to fascist propaganda, are socialists and not communists!

All photos in this post are from Footsore Miniatures' website and used without permission

VBCW PAC (1)

It has been pointed out to me that my prospective opponent has a BUF (British Union of Fascists) force ready & waiting to take on my Socialist PAC (People's Assault Column).

For the basic background of the VBCW click on this link to go a post on the VBC Forum; similarly, click on this link to see a post with the list of factions.

So, with that in mind, time to stop progressing the buildings and begin on the troops. The majority of the figures I have so far, are from Ironclad Miniatures VBCW range, with most of them being Miners

Ironclad Mini's Miners

The pic above shows 2 packs of miners with rifles in the back row & in the front from left to right, the 2 miner bombers, the 2 miner command & the 2 man miner lewis team

I also have Sloppy Jalopy's pack "The Miners" which are the 11 figures in the pic below with white bases,  Most of the pack have separate heads - can't remember exactly how many though ...

Also in the pic are a pilot from the Back of Beyond pilot pack and the last figure from the Pulp Figures pack I used for my Back of Beyond White Russian command group; I may use them in the VBCW force - not sure at the moment though.

As well as the miners, I have some firemen & armed police from Ironclad, and a female militia pack from Empress Miniatures Spanish Civil War Republican range :

As you can see they have yet to be undercoated.

I've also got a couple of vehicles on the go; in the pic below, on the left is Reiver Castings' Tyneside Uitility [sic] Recce Vehicle (Tracked) and on the right is some of a partially assembled Croydon Crusher (the miner is there as a size guide)

So, painting these begins tonight!

New Toys

Some new toys have arrived in the last couple of days.

2 Deep-Cut Studio gaming mats arrived that I had ordered from Wayland Games. I went to them as, at the time, they had a 20% off sale. Anyway, both mats are their 'mousepad' format and the first is a 4 foot square cobblestone design:

Cobblestone mat, showing front & back of mat

 and the second is a 3 foot square grass design:

Grass mat, showing front & back again

I'm pleased with these mats, both the designs and the 'mousepad' format, which I admit, I was a little nervous about.  The pictures show the stripes on the backs of the mats like you find on the back of non-rigid mouse mats and, I believe, will prevent any slipping or moving of the mats when in use.

I chose the cobblestones for use with my VSF and urban VBCW games, and the grass mat for smaller skirmish games, specifically Song of Blade & Heroes using my Splintered Light 20mm fantasy mini's.

Another arrival was a couple of packs of Cossacks to bring my Back of Beyond White Russians upto 18 cavalry so I can field 2 units of 9 - I previously had 12 which would have been only 1 unit.

The final thing in this report is this (hopefully!) useful pack of weapons I found in the Pulp Figures range on North Star's site:

It has 2 models of each of the 4 weapons included; I stuck them together with blu-tac for this pic:

They will be useful for VBCW vehicles - I can already see my Fire Engine having a 37mm gun!

VBCW Buildings (3)

Got the photos this time, but made no progress on anything last night :( , so more on the VBCW buildings ...

Each side of the buildings has 2 'layers'. The 'inner layer' has the window frames and doors etched on them and the 'outer layer' has holes so that the windows & doors appear recessed when viewed from the outside (as they should be IMO). This pic shows the terrace front's 'inner layer' - as I have 2 of these, you can see the etched external & plain internal sides at the same time.  The inner has the painted window frames & undercoated doors, while the internal side has been sprayed white - I chose white as it will hopefully make things inside easier to see!

This next pic shows the undercoated 'outer layer' placed atop the 'inner layer' shown in the last pic. Once the doors have been painted I think it'll look quite good

And finally for this post, a pic of the assembled roof waiting for the tiles to be attached. The undercoated chimney is in place as you can see

VBCW Buildings (2)

I had intended to post some pics of my progress, but when I came to take them this morning I found I had no charge in the battery ... :(

So, this weekend I undercoated the Warbases' tiling sheets for my VBCW buildings and painted the window frames and doors where they show on the exteriors.

I am still undecided on what to do about the large window on the general store:

I don't think cutting it out is a solution really and I'm not convinced that a 1930s village shop would have such a large single pane window ... I'm currently thinking that I'll add a couple of vertical frames to divide the sheet into thirds which will look better IMO.  But that doesn't address the main issue - how do I finish it? what colour should I paint it?  requires further thought ...

I also have all the bits I need to make the event and unit cards for 'Went the Day Well?' rules and will be making a start on them today.