Home Guard 1941: Odds and Ends

 Here are a few more of the odds and ends I have been finishing off for my Home Guard platoon for Bolt Action.
 First up, a couple of stretcher bearers for my medic. These don't really work in the rules as they havn't got rifles and their are two bearers together on the base, but they are such cool figures I just had to do them. I am just going to count them as a single rifleman accompanying my medic.

 They are from Black Tree Designs. I want to get some more and convert them to Chindits for my Burma army.




Next up, a Royal Artillery Forward Observing Officer. He is issued with a Sten Gun, which has just been introduced to the British army ahead of the German invasion and is still something of a novelty. It is much lighter (and more unreliable) than a Thompson SMG, which is why this FOO had picked it.

The Royal Artillery will be back behind the lines, and the FOO will be hopefully guiding accurate artillery fire onto the German positions while the Home Guard attempt to fend off the Huns.

British defensive doctrine in 1941 was to use the Home Guard to stall the German blitzkrieg at stop lines and anti-tank islands long enough for the Regular army to assemble and counter attack. There is no doubt that the volunteers in the Home Guard would be facing a terrible onslaught for the first few hours of any invasion, and I am sure they would be glad of the Royal Artillery 25 pounders while they wait for reinforcements.


Home Front 1941: Royal Enginieers



  The relentless slog to get some nearly finished projects finally laid to bed has seen me finishing off some of the Home Guard units I have had hanging about for a while.
  These guys are a small section from the Royal Engineers who happen to be in town building some beach defences when the Germans invade in 1941. This means they are Regular Army, as opposed to Home Guard, but as they are lead by an NCO they have been attached to my Home Guard Platoon.

First up, a flamethrower section. Useful for rooting Fallschirmjager out of hedgerows, but perhaps more useful (although very risky) as an anti-tank weapon, if they can get close enough.




Next up is a sapper team- for building and blowing. One with wire cutters, one setting a demo charge and one with a mine sweeper- there aren't any rules in Bolt Action for this kind of unit (even though these are form the Bolt Action range) so I will be building them up to a unit of 5 with some of the plastic Bolt Action figures, sticking them in a Bren Carrier and using them as a Regular Bren team.

Victorian SciFi: Wild West Zombies

As part of my new policy of trying to complete a number of small projects I have on the go I have painted four of my Victorian Zombies from West Wind. I bought these from Salute three years ago and thought I better do something with them. My Idea is to use In Her Majesties Name to do a Cowboys vs. Zombies game.

Frech and Indian Wars- Concerned Citizens

While looking through the lead mountain for something to paint I found a few French and Indian Wars figures I had al ready based and sprayed- so I thought why not slap some paint on them...here is the result.

First up- some French militias- I already have quite a few of these, but I thought I would add a few more. Although the French militias are irregulars they are better trained and drilled than their English counterparts. 

Next up, some English settlers, ready to defend their homes from the French and their Indian allies. nice figures to paint. 

I think these figures are all from redoubt, but I might be wrong because I bought them a while ago- if they are not then they are probably from Galloping Major. 

AtDE: Solly Hell Savages

I have had a go at working out a gang for Across the Dead Earth. I am still looking forward to my ATDE figures from the Kick Starter, but in the mean time I thought I would dust of a few bad guys I painted for my SciFi collection (entitled Scum and Villainy) and work out some stats for the Solly Hell Savages.

The figures lack a lot of fire power, so my gang is quite large (there are two more figures I haven't finished painting yet, making it seven in total- big for a AtDE gang. that said, they are probably going to get shot to pieces by anyone else.  

They are bandits who dwell in the ruins of a town to the south east of the Rag Market and prey on anyone foolish enough to stray to close. The Guild has placed a bounty on them after they attacked a trade caravan. 

Casey (Leader)

Toughness, 3 actions, walky talky, 

pistol, punch dagger (counts as short sword), dagger

Brutal (scrapper)

Broard Sword, Dagger

Link (scrapper)

Chain, Dagger

Scratch (Sharp Shooter)

Combat Shotgun, Dagger

Vile (Scrapper)

Scimitar, Dagger

The gang will also feature Scratch's Brother, Sniff- who is an Assault Specialist with an Assault rifle and an axe, and a yuff armed with a pistol and a knife (cannon fodder?). Hopefully I will get them finished soon. 

Peninsular War: Drums and Shakos Battle Report

My son Charlie and I managed to get a game in last week. We played Songs of Drums and Shakos, a game from Ganesha Games. Based on the same mechanics as Songs of Blades and Heroes and Fist Full of Kung Fu. As you might have guessed Drums and Shakos is set in the Napoleonic wars and introduces rules for muskets, rifles, cannons etc. It has two advantages (as far as I am concerned) over Sharp Practice: you only need 10-20 figures a side, which makes it much easier to get a game together, and it is a really simple mechanic, which makes it great for Charlie to learn. In fact Charlie said that this, and Blades and Heroes, are his favourite games, even better that Lord of the Rings!

The game was based on a shore party from the HMS Endurance, attempting to find a well or spring where they can replenish their ships depleted water reserve (following an unfortunate accident involving a rat and a cabin boy). Lieutenant Ragley was in charge of the party, which consisted of 13 sailors.

Lt Ragley (Q4+ C2, Leader, Pistol, Sword)

Able Seaman Stumpy (Q4, C2, Sword)

4 Big Lads (Q4, C2, Strong, Sword, Pistol)

4 Salty Seamen (Q4, C2, Muskets and Swords)

4 Jack Tars (Q4, C2, Muskets)

Unfortunately for Lt Ragley and the crew of the HMS Endurance, the area of coast line they had landed on, was being paroled by Jean Bonnet, a lieutenant in a French imperial line infantry regiment. He was accompanied by 9 grenadiers and 2 fusiliers.

Lt Bonnet, (Q4 C2, Leader, Pistol, Sword)

Grenadier (Q4, C2, Strong, Muskets)

Fusiliers (Q4, C2 Muskets)

Lt bonnet lead his grenadiers to the orange grove, where they formed up a firing line, ready to repel the sailors. The grenadiers were all big, strong soldiers, and didn't think much of the sea rats they were to fight- they hardly compared to a red-jacket!

The Battle began with the crack of musketry as the grenadiers and the jack tars exchanged ineffectual fire at long range. The big lads, armed for boarding actions and close quarters battle took advantage of the French reloading to sprint forwards, vaulting over a rickety fence and closing to within range of their pistols. 

 The Salty Seamen moved up, fired a volley with their muskets, before drawing their cutlass's and charging in. The Grenadiers shot one of then as they advanced- killing him, and knocked down one of the Big Lads, but nothing was going to stop the cutlass armed sailors closing to melee.

The two fusiliers moved up one flank to snipe at the RN officer, but their fire wasn't terribly accurate, and all they succeeded in doing was driving him into cover. 

The encounter ended with a sprawling melee. The French grenadiers found the cutlass armed sailors to be quite a lot tougher in melee that they had expected, and gradually their numbers were whittled down until the sailors started to get the upper hand. Lt Bonnet was frantically running between his troops, barking out orders, when a lucky long range shot from one of the Jack Tars caught him under his knee and sent him down in the dust. His men, seeing him fall, broke and fled the battlefield, and the French officer was captured, and taken to the HMS Endurance, for the expert ministration of Mr Cutter, the ships surgeon. 

It was quite a coup for Lieutenant Ragley (RN). He lost only one sailor, but captured a French officer.  Who knows what intelligence the navy will be able to learn from the prisoner. As for Bonnet, well it is likely the Frenchman will spend the rest of the war as a prisoner-of-war, or else be ransomed back to the French in exchange for some British prisoners. 

As for the game, both Charlie and I thought that Songs of Drums and Shakos was a great system, full of fast pace action, and very easy to learn. The sizes of the forces involved were ideal for my mini table and for my collection. Personally I get bored if I have to paint 20-30 minis of the same type, but these sizes of engagements are ideal. 

New Terrain Board

Here is a neat little gaming table I have been working on, principally for my peninsular war campaign, but it should also be useful for small games of Force on Force or wild west games (or in fact any game involving a dry dusty landscape).

The idea for this came form a tread on Lead Adventure Forum, and it is basically a decorating table (normally a long thin table used for applying wallpaper paste to wallpaper). This was £12.99 in B&Q. By removing the legs, then taking of the hinges and repositioning them on the sides, I was able to turn it from a long thin table into a roughly 4 foot by 3 foot table- ideal for small skirmish games. The hollow inside was then filled with foam card, cut to the contours of the land, then covered in sand. I had some problems with warping, especially on the biggest piece of foam card, but generally it went well. I painted it with an emulation paint that was similar in colour to the way I paint my desert bases. The river was painted with acrylics and then given a coat of clear gloss varnish. 

  I then used woodland scenic scatter to add a bit of colour to some of the areas, and GW grass tufts for add vegetation.

the whole thing is very light weight and conveniently folds up into a 3 foot by 2 foot case with a carrying handle!

I would consider this a success, and a cost effective way of making a small board. I intend to do the same for Across the Dead Earth and possible a pirate board too... at some point in the future. The use of foam card might have been cheep but blue foam might be better as it is less prone to warping (although it is more expensive).

ECW: Club Men

And now for something completely different!

English Civil War is not really my bag...I have never really been that interested in it as a period for wargaming or reading about, but I understand that it has its followers. When I joined the Earlswood Wargaming group I found out that they do a fair amount of ECW, and that Keith, the club's treasurer has even wrote a set of rules he is due to publish in the autumn of this year. 

Despite assurances that I didn't need to paint any figures as between them the Earlswood group have more that enough, I thought I would show some commitment and paint something to plonk on the table. But which side? Not being a fan of the period I had no particular favourite: I admire the politics of the round heads, but am equally seduced by the floppy hair and style of the cavaliers. 

The answer was the Club Men, by Warlord Games. Club men are so called, not because they wield clubs (although some of them do) but rather because they are local militias formed from mutual protection clubs. They don't really care about the politics of the war- they just want the soldiers off their land. This had the advantage that I could use them on which ever side I was due to be fighting on...brilliant. The fact that they are really characterful and fun figures helped too. 

I don't imagine that I am going to be tempted to paint a huge army of ECW figures, but I quite enjoyed painting these. I am a bit tempted to paint some artillery as Keith says that are short of that...but apart from that I think my ECW project is now complete (as far as any wargaming project can be called complete).

Squire Toby Fitzgerald, local landed gentleman and sponsor of the club men

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AtDE: Wrecked London Bus

Another bit of scenery for Across the Dead Earth- a London bus. This is a repainted die-cast I have had in my cupboard for a couple of years (I got it from the entertainer). It might be a tad under scale for 28mm, but I think it will work OK as a bit of scenery. I really enjoyed going overboard on the weathering and rust effects. 

The only other problem is that these sort of red buses are not really found in Birmingham ( or the Rag Market as it is known in AtDE) and I was really planning oln setting my games in and around Birmingham. However, saying that, the thing that makes AtDE stand out (for me at least) is that it is a post-apoc game set in Britain, and what could be more ironically British than a red bus?

Also kudos to Brummie for his outdoor photography techniques- it saved me having to get the scenery out of the attic. 

The inspiration for this piece came form several cool bits of post apoc art like this one...

Fist Full of Kung Fu: Yakuza

I am sorry that I haven't posted much recently but I have been a bit under the weather. I am on the mend now and I wanted to kick off with these- Dixon Miniatures Yakuza gangsters I painted up principally to play Fist Full of Kung Fu, but I can see these bad guys getting a lot of use for many settings, such as hired thugs for the Jade Oni in Pulp City or battling suave British intelligence officers in SpyFi 7TV.

I bought these cheep in a bargain bucket at the Wolverhampton wargaming show...£6 for all 8! It would have been rude not to buy them. They are fairly simple 'old fashioned' sculpts compared to the new ones by North Star (the official ones for Fist Full of Kung Fu) but then again they are £17.50 for 7, so I got a bargain. Wargames Foundry makes some nice ones too, but they are £12 for 6, so I still got a good deal- but I do like their sumo wrestler body guard!

My Yakuza are a bit more colourful than the traditional black suited bad guy, but that's because sometimes I like to go a bit bright to jolly my mood up a bit. I think the will look smart with my Kiss Kiss Bang Bang figures, and if I do any more I will use some of the Foundry or North star guys and do those in the sharp suits, and use these Dixon ones as street level thugs.

Gang Boss (Oyabun)

Couple of bad guys

Serious bad guy who likes knives. A lot.

Who brings a sword to a gun fight? These Guys.