Battleground 2017

Photo 'borrowed' from Battleground's FB page - taken very early

Being too ill to travel far or wide in the last five or so years has prevented me from attending any of the Battleground shows, but with the help of a friend offering transport, I was finally able to attend this excellent show.
The venue itself I thought was a bit out of the way, but didn't see to affect the numbers attending from what I could tell. We arrived sometime between 10.30am and 11am and left around 1.00pm, with the flow of people seemingly constant. The traders were all busy, but not so much that there were huge queues and there were also adequate spaces between the many games so that it never felt too crowded,

Stafford and District 19mm "Oudenard"

Super detail on such small figures

Huge 'poster' - those 28mm's are about 6" tall!

Fictional action somewhere in the Low countries

Beautifully painted 28mms throughout

Imperial v Hungarians 1848

 Sadly I only these two photographs of the Durham  Battle of Schwechat 1848 game - toy soldiers at their best !

 A Durham Wargames Group 40mms game

These huge 'placeholders' were an excellent addition and a great help

Overall view of the table

Intriguing game, but did seem a bit like re-inventing the wheel

General & Kings AWI Battle of Brandywine 1777

Great looking game superbly painted minis and...

...the game seemed to flow very fast too

Tyneside Wargames Group "Fall of Troy" (15mm I think)

Bells of St. Maria - Italian Wars Participation Game

 Those brave enough to have participation games on-going never seemed to get a break long enough for me to chat to, with a few noticeable exceptions from those games that had extra manpower.
The games overall were of a very high standard (unlike my photography) and I seemed to take hundreds of photos of which about half were 'OK' enough to use - I did have problems with my camera all day that didn't help with my usual camera-related incompetence.

Stunning 28mm figures and terrain

Lancaster Cellermen 17th C, siege using Spencer Smith figures

Gaming as I remember it - a very nostalgic game for me

View of the siege lines

I couldn't have said it any better...

Andre Wiley's new take on an old theme

New flat-pack houses he transported in a large envelope!

Redcar Ironsides WW2 -part 2 Yanks v Ruskies

I missed what this was all about - unfortunately didn't do anything for me

Independent Wargames Group ACW, using "Picket's Charge Rules

Great looking terrain, figures and vignettes all in 28mm

Durham Wargames Group ACW Battle of Port Republic in 28mm

Great terrain...

...at both ends of the table

Matt Crump's Assualt on Coastal Battery338 Folkestone

A busy participation game, using Bolt Action rules in 28mm

Brompton Bankers "Ronin" playtest, using 28mm figures, terrain etc.

Great looking game, in all respects

Iacta Alea Est "Battle of the Denmark Straits 1941 - the ships

The table - all very confusing to us landlubbers

Kriegspiel WW1

2mm "Irregular" figures

Scarbourgh WW2 participation game

Westerhope Wargames group's "Wellington in India"

Greta terrain and figures, all in 28mm

Great fortress too - I want one!

Nate Zettle's Blood and Plunder participation game

Great Schooner

Old Guard Wargmaes' 10mm ACW

So that was the 'eye candy' (- or at least what passes for it with my skills). I have photo-shopped the occasional bit in photos to eliminate the usual table clutter (dice, coffee cups, tapes,rules etc,) and in a few instances I've also added more 'table' to fill in otherwise unsightly bits of sports hall!
I'm also sorry that I'm sure that I've  missed a few games (the cup-cake game for one!) and there are  are no photographs of any traders either, but we all know what the latter look like right ?
I did have a rather modest haul of 10 figures, for Jimland,  three buildings for modern games (read Zombie) and a pot of flesh paint, for painting flesh.
To bore you even further here's their photographs:

Five explorer types and five Oryx - pretty boring huh ?

Two 'Shotgun' houses and a Diner (& spot the paint pot)

 Sorry for the long photograph heavy post, but you've probably looked through it all in less than five minutes and if you get anything from it, then it's been well worth the four hours or so that it's taken me to put it all together - my longest post ever!

That's it for this week, I've been pretty busy doing a lot of other stuff, so plenty to fill future posts with;  thanks once more for taking the time to look and as always your comments are both welcomed and appreciated.

Bugs and Bearers

Colouring from a Poison Dart frog

For once the tile doesn't refer to any bugs I may still have, but rather to the bugs and other beasties I've been working on for the last week or so.
I've had a pretty busy week by my standards, slowly building up from an hour's hobby related things to several hours over the week-end (something I rarely do!).
In addition to the five finished bugs, snakes and the frog (shown right) I've started other animals too.  The frog model is probably twice the size of its real-life counterpart!

Obligatory boring picture

As I said I started the week very slowly, cutting up plastic cards (the credit sized ones), kindly donated by friends and family. Gunge was added after the creatures were glued in place and undercoated with a cheap grey spray primer. I did notice that in my Halloween pack of bugs there were two distinct species of snake present, one obviously a hooded cobra and the other goodness knows - but it was different!

Another frog view

The only creepy-crawlie things I didn't get finished were a couple of spiders, due to time restricitions.
I also have found that I need the few daylight hours we currently have for painting and once t gets near twilight, I have to resign myself to either gunging, cutting, gluing etc.
Whilst stuff was drying I was also painting a little on the explorer figures, still on my paint-tray, but I;m getting there.
Here's some more pics (that's what most folk want - right ?)

The lesser-known blurry red Mexican Scorpion

Which loses its blurriness when scuttling away

Giant red ant, that turned out more brown than expected.

Also known for being blurry when running away.

One of the two finished snaked -  painted as a Gaboon Viper

Nile Cobra

Nile Cobra rear (safe view)

Four more bearers

I almost finished these four bearers, but ran out of daylight hours, there's not much left to do on them, just some detailing.
I thought I'd post them to just show I was still doing some figure painting.

Rear view to prove I don't just paint the front of figures.

Here's a photographs to show the comparable sizes of all this week's offerings:

The snakes are not far off from being a realistic scale for the figures

 And a photograph of the original critters and their painted counterparts:

I have about five of each of the above - not bad for £2 imo

Finally here's a photo of my paint-tray, showing it to be slowly emptying.

Yup it's a boring mess!

This week then has been one in which I've been getting progressively better and working on hobby-related things as and when I can - only interrupted by a single hospital visit! My  enthusiasm for this project is still unbounded as I work on getting more animals together; currently a Hippo, a Croc, a bear (yeah, I know) and another lion. I'm hoping to make Battleground this week-end and maybe pick up yet more animals.

That's it then, sorry for the poor quality photographs, but my photographer has been ill and as always your comments are both welcomed and appreciated.

Progress 0 - 1 Illness

Two f the many unpainted, having strayed from the paint tray.

In the last three weeks I have managed to accomplish almost nothing towards hobby related things.
The most I have been able to accomplish in my better moments has been to keep up with the blogs I follow and like to comment upon, though even this has been a struggle at times.
I can keep from throwing up, coughing or spraying phlegm everywhere for a good ten minutes or so and sometimes for longer.
Needless to say I'm very frustrated and every time I think I'm getting a little better it lasts until I awaken the next morning.
The last time I can remember doing anything hobby-related was before I posted about my first Adventure in Jimland and of course hasn't yet been posted about, so here it is!

Paint tray from above

The majority of the figures I've recently purchased had all been  based and undercoated, using a new input of credit-card sized plastic cards from friends and relatives (great basing material imo).
I had managed to finish off the native bowmen, the four bearers, sans their loads, and even managed to finish the basing on everything that was undercoated.

Natives: with guns (10), with Hand to hand weapons (10) and bows (9)

Newly base Native guns and spears

The Natives I'd used in my first Venture were only noticeable for the fact that their bases weren't  finished, so they had become priority number 1 (back row of photograph above) all twenty of them ! (Though I really should have done the entire force of 150 Zulus they had come from, because I know I'll live to regret it!)

The new nine Native bows - I like these a lot.

The new 9 bowmen had been finished quite quickly too, lots of skin few clothes and simple bows - so not  a lot to paint.





I also cut down the longer South American style bows to the more compact African style. All of the bow-armed figures are excellent sculpts, but I really don't like bowmen standing shooting, it's such a small part of their overall range of actions/inactions.

Plastic Nail Varnish Tray.

Just in case you were wondering what the plasticky tray things are, here's a closer look:
They're for Nail Varnish, contain 12 compartments , each approx 25mm square (I don't use 25mm bases so can't check), I'd initially bought two to test if they'd work as paint trays, but only the few Vallejo paint pots I had fitted, so I quickly abandoned the idea. They do however make excellent carrying trays or temporary storage areas for figures - I use them to store casualties in my zed games until figures can be returned to their permanent storage. 

So this quick post has taken about three - four  hours, so I'll be finishing off now.
Thanks for taking the time to read and as always your comments are gboth welcomed and appreciated, my next post will probably be all about what I haven't managed to do this week!

1st Adventure in Jimland (Part Two)

The expedition initial set-up.

Last week saw me abruptly ending day five's events so I'll start this week by giving a blow-by-blow account of the 'action'
My plan as the explorers was to fall back into a skirmish line  whilst the  bearers would fall back out of range of any native assault.
A quick mention of the way the rules work are in order. Firstly you can move or shoot  but not both.
The explorers have 23 points (the leader has 28) to initially spread amongst three characteristics, namely Save, Shoot and Fight (the save ability probably being the most important).

The opposition with the explorers in the distance.

Our Stats lined up thus:
Sir Charles          :Save 15, Shoot 8, Fight 5
Henry Wharton   : Save 14, Shoot 6, Fight 3
Fred Carrington  : Save 14, Shoot 6, Fight 3
Joe Bolinbroke   : Save 13, Shoot 6, Fight 4
Unboko (Askari) : Save: 5, Shoot 4, Fight 3

The Natives opposition (Tribals) have no save and as they have only Hand to Hand weapons they only have a fight skill 4 though these skills do vary slightly.-

Turn 1 of the combat - the Natives are on the edge of the jungle.

The natives moved up to their 'real starting position (I use a bigger table than the 30" square
suggested so that figures are not "off-table" to begin with. and the explorers moved into their skirmish line.
As the Natives player I had picked the very narrow piece of terrain (approx 4" wide) with the purpose of a getting through it in one turn.
As the explorers I backed off to enable me to get two shots off (one with the opposition in cover, the second when they broke cover); I knew that I wouldn't be able to shoot through the cover and took the opportunity to back off.

Turn two with the Natives hugging the tree line

The natives as I had intended as the Native player and had anticipated as the Explorers  (- talk about split personalities!)
As intended the bearers moved away from the "bad things" (a game term) whilst everyone with a gun took a shot at the enemy.
5 Shots  and 5 misses later I realised how pathetic our gunfire was.
The next turn though the Natives would be in the open!

Turn 3, the Natives rush the firing line all of whom shoot.

As the Native player I would line up two attack on a single Explorer and one on each of the others.
The Shooting this time,  got off to a great start Henry bagged the one on the extreme right of the Native line (throwing a '3' on a D2) and similarly Sir Charles scored exactly the same, clipping the second one in the line.
Unfortunately all the  other three shots missed!
It was now 5 v 4 though in our favour.
 

Outcome of the  shooting.

The remaining Natives closed with us and I realised just how vulnerable we all were as we lined up the four melees:
First into action, Henry (Fight 3) v a Native (Fight 4) ! Gulp! Result of their D20 throws 3 v 11 - Native drops !
Charles (8) v Native (4) result 3 v 6 - another Native drops with yet another '3'.
Fred (3!) v Native (4) - 1 v 17 another Native bites the dust!
Joe (4) v Native (4) - 12 v 18 - no result.
This left the Natives with just a single man left.
The rules dictate two things of interest, one is that the combat lasts just four turns or until the Natives lose 50% or more of their force. I've already decided to only use the latter condition in future actions.
Luckily in the both the combats and the shooting no '20's were scored as this triggers an animal!

The aftermath !

Situation at the end of day 5

Day Six
We have rested well from our action of the day before and head South, discovering a deserted village and a strange creature that none of us recognised.

We posted guards around the village but the huts proved very comforting.
Our food situation, whilst not critical is causing a little concern and I have decided to return to Jim's Landing in the morning.

 The expedition has three day's worth of food left
and I probably could have pushed on another day, but hesitated in doing so.

The deserted village

End of day 6

Another  bearer bites the dust!

 Day Seven
We awoke to find hailstones crashing though the flimsy roofs of the huts and even though it was allover in seconds we still managed to lose one of our bearers and his valuable load of food.
This certainly made up my mind to head for 'home' and we thus proceeded North then Northwest over familiar territory.
We did 'bump' into a large group of Natives who thankfully ignored us.

Nine Neutral Natives

(There were nine Natives, 4 with guns and 5 spear armed, their reaction though was 'Neutral')
It was here that I diverged from the normal rules, allowing the expedition to move at two hexes a turn through already discovered terrain. In doing so they would also make a clear trail which would allow future expeditions to move at four hexes a turn. In turn I would ditch the rule that allows another expedition from any hex they had already explored.

End of day 7

Luckily, we didn't have any!

Day 8
After an uneasy night's sleep we awoke to find our belongings had been rummaged through though nothing had been taken. I suspect the nine Natives we had see the day before were the culprits!
The journey to Jimland was uneventful as we headed Northeast then Southeast arriving at twilight without further loss.

The "mighty" expedition returns triumphant!

Situation at end of game

Well, it's time to cash-in on the success(or otherwise) of the expedition.
So what now?
I had one food left, which I could have cashed in for $2 - making a loss of $3, so decided not to!
I had won one combat getting $10 and $1 for each Native - $16 total
For each new non-mountain square , without a river I get $5 +1D20 for each - total I got was $40.
For each village discovered I got $10 + 1D20 for a grand total of $52 .
Discovering a new species gave me an additional $20 +1D20 for an additional $30.
This gave me grand total of $138 + $2 (I had on hand) and a food ration worth $5.
It seems that I have made a loss though the good thing is that I needn't 'buy' new explorers, they're a one-off purchase and 'free if I choose to take them along again , Bearers and Askaris though have to be paid for each expedition.
One last 'reward' is the total of the cash-in divided by 100 (ignoring fractions) gives the explorers additional experience points. - max one per explorer in any of their abilities or characteristics.
So $138/100 gave me 1 point  to expend on one lucky explorer! (Whoop-de-doo!)
The map at least has been expanded a little

The world of Jimland has expanded - a little 

The trail created means I can get my next expedition to the last hex I visited in one day!

So overall my first adventure in to Jimland was a resounding success as far as I was concerned, exciting at times and things could turn on the draw of a card or the throw of a die.
I hope those of you that have had the endurance to follow this enjoyed it, as it'll be the mainstay of a few future posts.

In other news, I'm as ill as ever, following my bout of man-flu I've gone down with bronchitis - I'm very susceptible to things like that; I am still ingood spirits and almost back to doing some hobby-related things (this post was a real test of my endurance). I'm also trying desperately to keep up with all the blogs I regularly follow and comment upon.
Apologies once more for the poor photographs

As always, thanks for visiting and your comments, as always,  are truly welcomed and appreciated.