They Don't like it up em! - Part 2

Welcome back!
Here are a few more shots of the main scenario of the Dad's Army game we put on in 2008 in Wellington. 

The idea was that a German Infantry force would hit the Pier ahead of the main armoured strike force which was due to arrive a few moves later. The Infantry duly landed but couldn't get beyond the esplinade before getting pinned down by the local trawler men. unfortunately (for the Germans that is) the Brits rolled some very tasty dice for reinforcements and conjoured up a matilda which, true to form, proved impervious to everything the germans could throw at it. We discivered that 38T's really can't scratch the paint on a Matilda! The situation was made worse that the Germans couldn't manage to get the PzV or Char B1 on which would have given the matilda a run for it's money.
Despite this frustration, the game was a real success.

Charge! German infantry capture the Novelty Rock Emporium.

General view of the beach head.. Unfortunately for the Gerries, that was a far as they got!

Our heroes issue forth from the Church Hall.  Don't Panic!!

Infantry and tanks hit the beaches

Sharp Practice - Fondler's Pirate.

I bought a copy of 'Sharp Practice (SP)a while ago along with 'Troops Weapons and Tactics'. Both are immensely playable and great fun, as long as you don't take the hobby too seriously. with characters like Dick Fondler, Daniel Laroux and Fellatio Lawnmower, it doesn't take a genius to work out that rules are a little tongue in cheek. Both are published by 'Too Fat Lardies' and I can heartily recommend them to anyone looking for a few hours of hilarity.
Anyway, having played a few games of SP with my mate Dan we decided that it would be a good idea to do one of the more unusual scenarios as a demo game at the main wargaming show in Wellington, 'Call to Arms'.
The scenario (for those of you not familiar with the rules) pits our hero, Fondler and his trusty Sgt, Mick Paisley against a bunch of tough Barbary Pirates led by 'The Vaz' along with his sidekicks, The Hinjudda Brothers (Davedee and Dozi), Asheet Mahdraaz and Yupiss Yussulf. (I just love these names). we changed the scenario slightly from the book, mainly because we don't have any British sailors or Marines painted yet. So instead we brought in Captain Francesco Del Monte, the captain of the Spanish Frigate 'Madre de Dios' and his motley collection of Spanish soldiers. Myself and another mate (Brent) played Fondler and Del Monte, while Dan and my son Michael played the part of the Vaz and his gang of cut throats.

Here are a few shots of the table. I'll let you know how the scenario played out later. Suffice to say we had a real hoot for two days. So much so that we plan to keep the scenario going, but more on that later

 The water front at Keiff al Salaam. Soon to be scene of some acts of real derring do''

General shot of the Fort - built by Dan. He assures me he'll work for commissions :)

Captain Del Monte gallantly leads his men in a forlorn attempt to storm the Vaz's stronghold. Fondler and his men are bringing up the rear, happy to let their allies do all the fighting at this stage

Napoleonics - Spain 1809

Napoleonics

Like many other wargamers, I've been bitten by the Napoleonic bug. The arrival of cheap plastic figures is, I reckon, the best thing to happen to the hobby for many many years, all of a sudden large armies no longer require you to take out a second mortgage. I've always been fascinated by the Peninsular War so I decided that I would build a French force along with an Anglo Spanish army to give them some opposition. 

Now I've bought both Victrix and Perry plastics and both have some admirable qualities: Victrix give you so many different possible combinations it's boggling! On the other hand, with so many bits and pieces to stick on, they aren't exactly quick to put together.  Perry figures are quite exquisite. I've been a big fan of their metals for ages and their plastics have proved to be every bit as good. While you don't get the same level of individuality that you can achieve with Victrix, they are much faster to assemble and paint up really well.

My French infantry are all Victrix while my British are a mixture of both. I shamelessly decided to shamelessly copy Clarence Harrison's idea of using the Victrix early French infantry as Spanish. While they aren't bang on, uniform wise,  they're good enough for my wargames table.

These are some of my first efforts;

French 32 Legere - Victrix Old Guard with spare line infantry heads

More French Infantry

French 36 Ligne - 1st Battalion

They Don't Like it up Em! (Part 1)

OK. Another year on and another attempt to do something a little out of the ordinary.  My mate Dan came up with the idea of putting on a game based around the Classic British Sitcom "Dad's Army".

As I'm sure everyone is aware, Foundry make an excellent range of Home Guard figures which provided the hero's for our game. most of the other figures came from existing supplies so we didn't have to spend heaps on new figures. The buildings were mostly made from Cork tiles again and Dan scratch built the Pier and waterfront jetty.

We fought three scenarios out over the weekend. The first one being an attempt by a bailed out German aircrew to escape to the beach where they were to be picked up by a friendly vessel. The German's almost made it, having successfully evaded our brave (if a little incompetent) heros. They managed to steal Jones's van from under his nose and were only brought to an abrupt halt when Pikey shot up the van with his trusty Tommy gun.. That particular game ended with the Germans cornered, agonisingly close to the beach but with no chance of getting any further.

Walmington on Sea

Those sneaky Gerries,Aided by a 5th Columnist "Nun"

manage to break into Jones's van and make a run for the beach

The German gunboat waits patiently for its passengers who (unfortunately) never arrived.

The second scenario involved a group of German paras who had landed behind Walmington and were trying to infiltrate the town and carry out a number of tasks. They managed to achieve most of their objectives but were ultimately thwarted by the Home Guard heros. 

The Fallschirmjaeger infiltrate Walmington on Sea

Fallschirmjaeger LMG team watching the crossraods

Stalingrad - 2007

"Call to Arms" is the annual wargaming bash run by the Wellington Warlords. It's a great excuse to spend the day with your mates and have loads of fun.

Over the last few years myself and a few friends have put on various display games at CtA. Here's a few snaps of a Stalingrad game that we did in 2007.

This was done in 28mm using the excellent Platoon Commander rules on a table roughly 15' x  6'.  The buildings were all scratch built using Cork floor tiles. I might do a quick tutorial on how to build these at some point down the line as they are remarkably easy to produce and the finished product looks great.

The game itself was a real hoot with the Germans doing there very best to dislodge some very stubborn Reds from the various buildings before Soviet reinforcements overwhelmed them. Highlights for me were the struggle for the factory complex (expertly built by Dan Wade) and the panic when the Russians deployed a couple of bomb dogs to try and disrupt the German advance. The Dogs were ccompletely useless but tied up heaps of Germans desperately trying to gun them down before they blew something up.

Hello All.

This is a first for me. I have never regarded myself as a child of the computer age. Creating email and surfing the web is about as techno savvy as I get, so if this Blog gets a little dis-jointed and odd looking then please accept my apologies. I need to stick to wragming and leave the technical stuff to my kids!

There, apologies over, now on with the show. I wanted to do this to allow people to see what I have been up to over the past few years, wargaming wise that is. Over the next few weeks I'll post some piccies on what I'm currently doing and ,hopefully, what I've been up to in the last couple of years. Any comments and constructive criticism is welcomed!

To give you a little bit of a background. I'm a Scot (from Edinburgh), but now living in New Zealand and very happy here. In saying that I still miss my gaming mates back home. But in all honesty, there isn't much else about living in the UK that appeals to me. NZ is such  agreat place to raise a family! Anyway, here's a link to the South East Scotland Wargames Club that I was a member of and where most of my old mates still game: http://seswc.co.uk/