Season's Greetings!!!

Just a quick post to wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a happy, healthy and prosperous New Year!

In 2016 I will be playing much Dragon Rampant (finishing my High Elf war band at the moment and about to get stuck back into my Wood Elves plus my Mythical Greek and Egyptian Undead war bands.) I will also be playing more The Men Who Would Be Kings, plus rebooting the stalled Dux Britaniarum campaign with Mike 'Trouble at t' Mill" Whitaker. Add to that more War & Conquest (watch for news of another all dayer for that at Peterborough Wargames Club) and putting on another demo/participation game at the second Hereward wargame show, plus writing more W&C army lists and doing an article for Wargames Illustrated magazine and I'll be a very busy wargamer in 2016!!!

I do hope that you'll join me on my journey through my various projects in 2016 as I hope to blog more of it next year than I have in 2015, all being well!

Whatever you are doing over the festive season, enjoy yourselves...

British Fort for the NW Frontier

I picked up a superb little model fort from Colonel Bill's at the Hereward Wargame Show! I'd been looking for one for a while, kinda a bit like these...only smaller, obviously.

Luckily, Colonel Bill had one of the Unfeasibly French Foreign Legion desert forts left when I took a break from my demo game at the show and it was PERFECT for the job!!

Anyway, I've painted it up and aim to use it tomorrow in a TMWWBK participation game at the club.

Here's a few pics of the finished model, defended by The Guides Infantry...

The Men Who Would Be Kings at Peterborough's Hereward Wargame Show

Please forgive the lateness of this post - it's been a fortnight since the show!!

Here are some pictures from the demo/participation game that Andy MacTaggart and I put on at the first ever Hereward Wargame Show in Peterborough on 1st November.

The scenario involved a standard 24pt field force of British infantry having just burned a rebellious Jalfrezi Pathan tribal village (sorry...very carry On Up The Khyber, I know!!), withdrawing back to their camp while being assailed by a 24pt Pathan force, supported by about 20 pts of reinforcements that entered the table in random places. To help the British, a 20pt relief force left the camp as soon as firing broke out or the 'hills came alive' with tribesmen. We played the game twice on the day with one British and one Pathan victory.

We took great care over the table set up, using new gaming mats from Deep Cut Studios, as sold by Bigredbat Simon Miller in his online store. We were very pleased with both the layout and the scenario and most of the players who joined us on the day were full of praise for the rules and indeed seemed to thoroughly enjoy the games.

Anyway, on to the pictures...

Am just putting some paint on a lovely desert fort I bought at the show for my NW Frontier games. It's meant to be a French Foreign Legion fort, but it'll be great for my games! After that, it's more painting for Dragon Rampant...

Hereward Wargame Show, Sunday 1st November at The Cresset in Peterborough, UK

Just a final reminder that Hereward Wargame show is at the Cresset in Peterborough, UK on Sunday 1st November and that Andy MacTaggart and I will be putting on a demo-participation game of The Men Who Would Be Kings. We'll run at least two games on the day and can take 4 players each time for derring-do on the Northwest Frontier. We still hope that author Dan Mersey may be able to join us and we hope that Osprey will send us a few pics of the official cover. What you'll definitely see is over a hundred and twenty Pathan and about 60 Anglo-Indian models (including a mountain gun and Bengal Lancers...oh yes!!) and some cool looking scenery (including the lovely Pathan watchtower that James from Oshiro Model Terrain made for me) in a challenging and fun scenario loosely based on an incident from the relief of Chitral.

We [i]really[/i] hope to see some of you there! If you are a follower of this blog, do make yourself known to us if you pop over to play or to watch... :D

The Men Who Would Be Kings at Hereward Wargame Show, 1.11.15

Peterborough Wargames Club are pleased to announce that we will be running a demo/participation game of the upcoming Osprey Publications Colonial Ruleset 'The Men Who Would be Kings', by Dan Mersey at the first ever Hereward Wargame Show at The Cresset in Peterborough on Sunday 1st November.

This game is fully endorsed by Osprey and as far as we know is the first public outing for the rules anywhere. We are also very much hoping that author Dan Mersey will join us for the day!

The game is set on the NW Frontier and pits and Anglo-Indian field force against a large Pathan force. It's a tricky scenario for both sides!

We will be able to accommodate up to 6 players on the day and people are welcome to pop in and out of the games as they want, so there's no commitment to playing the game all the way to conclusion if you don't want to.

We very much hope that some of the readers of this blog will be able to pop over and see us. Andy MacTaggart and I will be running the game and we can promise a good game! We ran our first play test tonight at my house and will be running another at the club on Monday. The first test game went really well, which is a good omen!

Here's a pic to whet the appetite... Apologies for poor lighting and for some unfinished models, but we are still finishing a few bits and pieces off!!

Early Dark Ages War & Conquest Gaming Day in Peterborough (UK) on Sunday 13th September

Just a quick message to publicise a small War and Conquest event that Rob Broom (author of rules and ex-WAB head honcho) and I are running on Sunday 13th September.

It's a very low-key (i.e. not overly competitive) type of day and we are hoping to use it to showcase some new army lists for the very late Roman/Arthurian period that I have been working on with Rob, although I believe there will be options for Classical era games if people don't have Late Roman/Arthurian/late Barbarian armies.

It'll be held at our regular venue which is the St John's Ambulance HQ in the town centre. Dedicated free parking and central city location so loads of food vendors nearby, plus space for up to 24 players on 6x4 tables.

We are hoping that we can encourage experienced and newbie War and Conquest players to come along and enjoy a relaxed day of gaming.

For further details of armies, event costs, etc, please reply to this thread or drop me an email if you have my address.

Hope to see some of you there!

More for Dragon Rampant - Elite Wood Elf Foot...

Here's a unit of 'Elite Foot' for my Dragon Rampant Wood Elves. The unit was painted differently to the knights, as I undercoated white. The mail was then painted black and dry brushed with whatever GW currently call the old Boltgun Metal and Chainmail. I then base coated everything else with mid-tone colours before brushing on Army Painter Strong Tone dip. I left this 48 hours before dullcoting the models. I then highlighted up using the base coat colour plus an extra lighter highlight on everything. This is slightly different to my usual dip and highlight approach, which base coats with the lightest shade and only highlights once with that same shade. However, I think this new method looks closer to my old Dallimore-esque technique - not quite as good, but much closer! The shields were layer painted - never use dip on shields!!

The models have mostly been converted with wire spear shafts and spearheads from the current High Elf spearmen, or similar...I got them from one of the online 'bits' people... I bought a couple of the spearmen damaged off EBAY with knackered swords so decided to buy and convert...

In game terms they function just like Foot Men-at-Arms in Lion Rampant and can be used to represent a prince and his bodyguard, either as a unit of 6 like this or as a unit of 3 with each counting as having 2 wounds. I think I'll field them in a unit of 6 as they look better that way.