The Irregular Update

      Well it's been a while since I have written a general hobby update as opposed to the more specific ones that I had written of late; end of last year to be accurate, and in that time I have managed to do a fair bit and that needs blogging. 

Painting the Web Red, Calling Mulder and Scully and Building Up My Dashed Hopes

     Obviously there's stuff that I have blogged about already such as the Sharp Practice event in Bristol, games of Bolt Action and In Her Majesty's Name but I have also been beavering away at the painting desk in the McCubbyhole (I say that like there is more than one desk in the McCubbyhole; there is, of course, only one...apart from the front desk where the receptionist sits...and of course the news desk where the blog posts are written up for my army of eager readers....but I digress...) on stuff other than my Redcoats that I had painted up for A Most Despicable Place.

    I should like to add that one of those Redcoats ended up as the subject of a "how to" tutorial on the Paint All The Minis website after Travis Hiett of Tabletop CP fame suggested to Dan Adams, main man at Paint All The Minis, that some of my efforts might be worthwhile adding to the site. 

     Paint All The Minis site isn't like Cool Mini Or What; it's not about the very best painters in the hobby, it's more about the everyman painter, you and me (unless your name is Sasha Herm, Kev Dallimore or Dave Imrie to name but a few of those chaps who's painting causes your jaw to regularly drop open in wonder...but I am digressing yet again). But even at that I was flattered to be asked to contribute and plan on adding more, hopefully, useful tutorials. I heartily recommend checking it out for all the other content in there as it's a really good source of advice and inspiration. The Paint All The Minis podcast is very good too.

      Now as you may be aware my gaming chum, Richie and I are battling through the Bolt Action Campaign Market Garden supplement and we are currently fighting the battles along Hells Highway at the moment. The next scenario we were due to play, after the attempt to break out from the Neerpelt Bridgehead (see my batrep elsewhere on the blog) offered the chance of playing a mixed force consisting of British armour, British Line Of Communication troops and US Airborne; not your usual BA force and so to that end, over that last four weeks or so I have been painting up a platoons worth of 101st Airborne amongst all my other projects.

     I used the new-ish Warlord Games plastic figures from their Band of Brothers starter set that Rich had given me an age ago. These had been gathering dust in one of my many bits boxes. I must admit I was not a huge fan of these figures; I don't like their musette bag/web gear combos or the fact that you can't leave the musette bag off and just have the guys wearing their belt gear and web braces as they don't have that detail sculpted on them. Also the heads don't sit quite right on the torsos either; the socket for them is too deep for their necks, if you catch my drift, and I had to do some filling with green stuff to get the heads sitting right.

     But that being said I am actually pleased with them. 

     I had an X Files moment whilst putting the platoon together though. In the Band of Brothers set you get four sprues which equals 24 figures. Realising that I would need more figures....okay, wanted more figures I bought another sprue of them from eBay and awaited it's arrival. 

     Now over the weeks I also ordered a few other bits and bobs online and as these arrived in due course I sort of lost track of what I had ordered and what had arrived and what hadn't.

     As it was getting near to the day of battle I began organising the platoon list and I found myself wondering where that spare sprue had gotten too as I didn't appear to have the amount of figures that I needed

     I couldn't recall whether it had arrived or not and, in checking my figures I found that I had 25 plastic figures so I reasoned that it had arrived and that I had built one figure from it and put it aside whist I was working on another project and had forgotten it. However, despite having a thorough rummage through my bits boxes I couldn't find that spare sprue..flummoxed wasn't the word.

     So imagine my surprise when it was delivered the other day along with some other mail that had been misdirected. I was glad that it had turned up but, and here's where Mulder and Scully would get called in; where did that 25th plastic figure come from? No one I know uses the same figures and I know I haven't bough a spare one so...as the kids say these days....WTF? Spooky eh?

     So, anyway, spooky 25th figure aside, the platoon has been augmented by an MMG and a platoon command group by Black Tree Designs as I only had enough figures from to make three under strength squads once I had put together a bazooka team. No doubt, I will be adding to this ginger haired baby of a project; medium mortar, light howitzer etc because why not; a few support units and it's a complete new force; a new arrow in my quiver, if you will. 

     And speaking of the Market Garden campaign I also put this beast together. Allow me to give you some advice so that you might benefit from my hard earned experience; if you are constructing one of these; read the construction leaflet.....thoroughly. Then read it again.  Damn near broke my heart putting this together. I paid scant attention to the construction leaflet and had to revisit it with a knife and super glue. It is a whopper though and I am looking forward to getting it painted up and on the table.

Gaming

      Asides from playing Sharp Practice, Bolt Action and In Her Majesty's Name; I have also been playing Lion Rampant. My other long suffering gaming chum, Danny, has finally put together a force of medieval Scandinavian types for Lion Rampant so I took all my medieval figures over to Dannigrad for some Lion Rampant action. 

     We managed two games; one at 24 points and the second somewhere around the 38 points level and played two different scenarios; The Messenger and Bloodbath, and excellent fun they were too. They certainly got both of us frothing over more medieval stuff and we are planning to get more games played based on the Baltic Crusades era (hence the Scandinavian types); Teutonic Knights anybody? 

      After these games and whilst the froth was still hot upon me (that doesn't sound quite right but hey ho, back to my frothing) I had another rummage through my bits boxes on my return home and I found that have enough figures for a few more Lion Rampant sized units so some even bugger games beckon. Who knows, with a bit more effort in the unit constructing and painting department we could actually be playing medieval Hail Caesar soon....one of our wargaming Holy Grails!! Gasp!

     In the meantime, here are some photos from our games.

     Lastly, for this post at least, we; Danny, Richie and I, all have, to a greater or lesser degree, succumbed to Fortress Budapest fever. This is the new Bolt Action campaign book that is due to drop next month and we're all excited about having a dedicated Germans v Russians campaign book to work our way through. And as it was fought over the winter of 1944-45 that means winter themed forces and winter terrain!! 

     Having been wowed by Pat Smith's winter terrain guide, Setting The Scene, after seeing Richie's copy, I had bought my own copy a good while back but not with any real intent to start on winter terrain as we were busy playing games that didn't require it. However, a combination of the imminent release of the Fortress Budapest book and a renewed interest in playing some of the scenarios from the Battle Of The Bulge campaign book as well as Stalingrad etc on the Eastern Front, having winter terrain suddenly became a very desirable thing for the three of us.

     (Hang in there folks, we're nearly there ) To that end I have dug out a few spare terrain pieces that I plan to winter-ize for our collective gaming. Danny and Richie, having actual gaming spaces worth talking about at the bottom of their respective gardens, are purchasing winter gaming mats, trees etc so I plan to contribute by chipping in some buildings and ruins; these ones in fact

Hornby battlefield terrain piece

Ruined Russian houses by Hovels Ltd

GW gothic looking church ruin

Resin farmstead from whom I know not...

     These will get the winter treatment over the next few weeks and I'll blog the results along with an update as to how far we are along the road to getting not one but two winter tables worth of terrian together.

     As for the forces for the Fortress Budapest campaign. I intend on playing my Germans and have bought various winter figures as well as armour kits for this era and, likewise, I will blog about these in the very near future.

     For the moment though, it's 6am and I'm just about finished my night cap courtesy of those master distillers at the Laphroaig (I have suffered from a head cold over this weekend and it's thrown my body clock out something chronic; thank goodness it's my weekend off )...not that they sent me it or poured it for me, just that they distilled it and for that I am truly grateful. So on that happy if slightly confusing note I'll say pip pip for the mo'...

pip pip

The General