Fred’s 2023 Painting and Gaming Diary

[fred.]

Progressing nicely

As the Speedy one says, work outside in

Thanks both.

I'll give the outside in approach a go. Seems a pretty small place to try to get 3 colours on. But now I've spotted it need to give it a go!

[fred.]

Been a bit busy with work, cycling and rugby over the last week or so but have made progress with the Seebattalion



I think these chaps are now finished (bar a spray of matt varnish but that will have to wait for better weather.

When I was basing these up, I forgot to finish off the Dragon!

This adds 15 more infantry to the totals - which are a bit bigger than the ones painted earlier.

Painted totals for 2023 184 figures : 39 cavalry : 6 vehicles : 2 guns
(28mm: 15 figures)

[paulr]

    

[Steve J]

They look very good Fred .

[fred.]

Thanks both!

[Duke Speedy of Leighton]

Superb Forbes

[Ithoriel]

Very characterful minis very nicely painted!

[fred.]

Thanks chaps

Very characterful minis...

They are, I've really enjoyed painting these, and I'm sure will add some more Copplestone figures before too long (and I do have the second half of the order to paint)

[fred.]

Fistful of Lead - Boxer Rebellion

We had another game of FFoL this week - but switched to the Boxer Rebellion to allow the newly painted Seebattalion to take to the table!

The scenario featured 3 players, the Boxers who where holed up in the centre of the able trying to 'rescue' some culturally important treasure, opposed by two foreign powers, Japanese Marines, and the German Seebattalion. 

I'd tried to mix the styles and stats of the forces up a bit. The Boxers had a few shooters, and a lot of close combat troops. The Japanese Marines where a very typical force of regulars with a couple of leaders. The Seebattalion where rather unusual with having lots of low level troopers, and a few leaders. 



Start of the game - right flank. The Seebattalion advance from the far right corner (black arrows). The Boxers are holed up in the central building extracting the treasure. They have taken advantage of their speed and rushed the first troop of the Seebattalion to advance (blue arrows), and managed to cut down 2 out of 3 of this troop. But this rather left them exposed to their comrades to pour in fire! The Boxers did reinforce here with their close combat specialist. Who did rather poorly in combat, then weathered a hail of fire - stacking up 8 shock markers! This left him rather vulnerable to being finished off in close combat by the German Leutnant. 




Start of the game left flank - the Japanese Marines have rather cautiously advanced (red arrows). They attempted to get a sniper up onto the second floor, but he critical failed his climb attempt and fell off. They got a Marine round to the building on the far left - but he was picked off by a Boxer rifleman! Then the ones hiding behind the building were charged by 3 Boxers - and despite the Marine officer having rather good close combat training the Boxers managed to win. From a rules perspective this was somewhat unlikely as the Boxers were rolling d8s and the Marines d10s, but the Boxer's +2 for weapons and skills, and the Marines suffering minus for wounds or shock or outnumbering, told agains the Marines. 



Towards the end of the game - the Boxer leader has unearthed the treasure, and managed to sprint across the table unscathed! His minions finish off the Japanese, whilst the Germans advance on the central building, but rather too late to do anything other than mop-up the remaining Boxers. 

End Result
Boxers, escaped with the treasure. But only with their Leader and 2 Minions left
German Seebattalion - 4 Troopers out of action, left holding the table
Japanese Marines - all Out of Action

Another fun game of FFoL - for a scenario made up as I setup the terrain, it worked pretty well. 

Does anyone have recommendations for 28mm scale trees? I feel these are missing from my terrain setup. 

[Duke Speedy of Leighton]

Great report, love the dragon!

[Ithoriel]

Does anyone have recommendations for 28mm scale trees? I feel these are missing from my terrain setup. 

I tend to go to Ebay and buy bags of railway modeller's trees from China.


Cheap, obviously a tree .... rarely one an arboriculturalist would recognise though, I fear.

To wit: 28mm scale chibi ninja with Ebay cherry trees

[fred.]

Well, it seems a couple of months have passed with very little in the way of painting. Nothing dramatic has got in the way but between being busy with work and therefore being tired in the evenings and getting out cycling at the weekends painting hasn't had much of a look in. 

Assorted 28mm

I have managed to get these figures finished though. 



5 cowboys from the great Escape Games plastic set
4 Victorian Explorers 
4 assorted cowboy / steam punk figs
1 reaper bones dragon
3 mounted 7th cavalry - painted a while ago based up today

28mm :: 13 foot, 3 cavalry, 1 monster

[Duke Speedy of Leighton]

My money is on the dragon!

Great work Forbes.

[fred.]

My money is on the dragon!

Great work Forbes.

Thanks

Shades of "He's behind you!"

[paulr]

Wot they sed

    

[Steve J]

Great work there Fred, but not sure how effective the guns will be against dragon fire   .

[mmcv]

They just have to find that one weak spot in the underbelly that all dragons have. Or the old "blow them up from the inside" trick.

[fred.]

Thanks chaps

Great work there Fred, but not sure how effective the guns will be against dragon fire   .

When a chap has an elephant gun, he will be sure it works against any foe, and just think how good a dragon head will look on the wall as a trophy 

[fred.]

Warmaster XL - Lizardmen vs Nippon

Got the 10mm fantasy on to the table last Friday, for the first time in a while. Lizardmen vs Nippon - not a classic match-up, but it's what I wanted to use. Virtually all the figures are Pendraken save for the various demon type creatures in the Nippon force. 



Start of the battle, Lizardmen on the left, Nippon on the right. The far end of the Lizardmen line as started its steady advance. Nearer the camera my troops have decided that they will wait behind the hill for now. The scenario was simple the two hills (this one nearest the camera, and the one far right) are the objectives - each side starts holding one. 

A defining feature of the Nippon army is that their break point isn't 50% of their units like most WM armies, its 50% of their Samurai units (just 3 of them in this game). My opponent deployed his Samurai cavalry quite early (on the far hill) which allowed me to deploy some of my better troops opposite them to try to take them out. 



The left flank after a couple of turns. My Saurus warriors have been fairly ineffective at charging up the hill - but have pulled one unit of Samurai cavalry out, and caused them to loose a stand. The other unit of Saurus warriors has been pretty ineffectual at charging the Teppo in the village - this ended up being a staring contest for most of the game - probably a positive for me as I had 1 unit tying down 3 enemy. 



A couple of turns later - the Cold One Riders have charged in and cleared the hill, other than a damaged unit of Samurai cavalry who are engaged in combat. And are about to be engulfed. The Samurai fought well and it took a turn longer to wipe them out. 



The right flank was rather neglected for photos. This is towards the end, my Kroxigor (think Ogre sized lizardmen) have charged forward, they have destroyed a unit of Temple Dogs but are now engaged by Oni and Ashigaru. But this kept the fight away from my missile units on the hill. 

The Stegadon in the middle did very little all game - but I suppose kept the enemy in the village penned in. 

All in all a good game, flowed along pretty well once we remembered how to play!

Was a convincing win for the Lizardmen, broke the enemy (by killing 2 Samurai units) held both objectives, and were well ahead on unit kill count (1 to 5 ish). 

[Techno 3]