Andreivian Air Defence

Some time ago I acquired from a friend a half-built Airfix SAM-2 Guideline missile kit. The missile and launcher trailer I completed some time ago and they appeared in the Spetsnaz at Tcherbevan game. Now I've put together the ZIL-157 tractor-trailer unit and painted and based the bogie wheels from the launch trailer.

This is the only one of these I'm ever likely to own as the original moulds have apparently been lost so this kit is something of a collector's item. A few parts were missing but I've managed to put together enough to make a reasonable model.

It's painted in Vallejo Reflective Green, my usual colour for Soviet kit.  I've dry-brushed Grey-Green and Iraqi Sand over the top.

The models will doubtless see action somehow at Crisis Point III.

Vapnartak 2014

We went up to York today with Jamie and I going to Vapnartak whilst the rest of the family had a stroll around the city centre.

Vapnartak is a shopping-oriented show but I did manage to get a picture of this rather silly but well-modelled 28mm scale Battle of Trafalgar Square 1984 by the Border Reivers club.

I didn't buy much but what I did buy illustrates my complete inability to focus:

Top left is a blister pack of four Olmec statues from Ral Partha Europe.  My Pulp Alley collection is heading towards a Mexican setting so these may be useful.  

Bottom left are some Wars of the Roses banners from Freezywater Productions.  Henry Holland, duke of Exeter is in there and his retinue is my next unit in the project to focus on the Barnet-Tewkesbury campaign.

Bottom right is a 1/72nd scale plastic kit of a goods shed that should be useful for Tcherbevan.

Top right is something I bought from those nice guys at Grubby Tanks.  It was unmarked in their rummage box and they thought it was a gallows which I thought might have Andreivian or Pulpish uses.  On further inspection I suspect it may be some kind of medieval siege engine.  Further examination is called for.

Joy Unconfined!

After about seven years of struggling with a "broadband" internet connection that rarely made it to 1Mbps we've now got a 4G wireless system from Everything Everywhere that is getting us 20Mbps download and 10Mbps upload!

By way of celebration, here's a (rapidly uploaded) random photograph:

It's the command element from Gregory Privat's Sun Dome Templars, photographed at a Glory Geeks event a few years ago.

Bargain Buildings

For just £4 from the local flea market I picked up four rather splendid middle eastern buildings:

Three of them are marked with the logo of the Yemeni national airline and the gateway on the right is marked Bab-al-Yemen (approx scale 1/200th).  I guess they are all famous buildings in Yemen.  Sheffield has a large Yemeni community so it's not that odd a find.

I reckon these buildings could work in either 1/300th or 6mm scales.  I'll have to do some Google image searches of Sanaa.

On the Workbench - Atlantean Guards

This year’s record of “stuff bought and painted” shows that I’m currently (remember my year runs from September) ahead of the game in every category except 25/28mm miniatures.  So I’m trying to make some progress by finishing off these figures bought at the Penkridge sale (click to enlarge).

They are from Artizan Designs and they are listed as “Sharkmen” but I plan to use them as Atlanteans in some Pulp Alley games.  I have some vague ideas for the plot of a multi-game campaign that may involve lost pirate treasure and undersea kingdoms.

These guys are more or less finished apart from a protective coat of varnish and final spray of matt coat.  Oh and I want to have another go at the muzzles of the missile weapons; I was going for a cool pallet of colours apart from the hot inner workings of the flame guns.

I have another, older figure that I think will blend in reasonable with these figures.  The league will then be a single Atlantean leader with a large number of relatively poor-quality guards.  This should require an interesting change in style of play from the usual small group of more-or-less competent characters.

Who Won the Wars of the Roses?

It's a question my kids have asked a couple of times this weekend and the correct answer is of course, "Neither York nor Lancaster".  It was appropriate, then, that yesterday's large Basic Impetus game ended with a similar result.  Both sides lost!

I'd planned a four-handed game set in no particular phase of the wars (having units in an odd mix of liveries) with Richard of Gloucester and Richard Neville, earl of Warwick for the Yorkists taking on the duke of Somerset and the earl of Northumberland.  Each player was to handle a command roughly the size of a standard Basic Impetus army.

Unfortunately, one of our expected players had to cancel but we went ahead drawing lots for sides and Andy copped for running a double-sized Yorkist force against Jamie and me as the swinish Lancastrians.

The battlefield was fairly open.  The only significant terrain features were a wood if front of the Yorkist left and a cabbage field in front of the Lancastrian left.

The position at set-up; Lancastrian right wing in the foreground.

As Somerset I deployed on the Lancastrian right with a battle that was strong in archers and contained the only unit of mounted knights in the game.

Jamie, as Northumberland, took the Lancastrian left and centre.  He had a few borderers stiffened by a contingent of dismounted men-at-arms, a few retinue bills and bows and an organ gun, which in true medieval fashion never moved and never got into action!

A view from behind Jamie's battle.

Andy lined up a strong right and centre opposite Jamie and pushed forward some light horse, backed by Richard of Gloucester on foot against me.

A clump of Yorkist scurriers enter the woods (and pick up a
disorder marker - the shield on their base)

The Yorkists reach the woods.  That's the future
Richard III in leading the unit closest to the camera! 

Just before the main battle lines clash!

A couple of interesting rules questions came up during the fight around the woods.  Firstly, Andy ended up with a unit of archers astride the road flanked by a unit of my crossbow-armed, French mercenary skirmishers among the trees.  Andy’s troops also had a unit of Borderers to their front.  At whom should they shoot?  The skirmishers (represented here by a few singly based figures) who were closest and just edged into their firing arc or the Borderers who were the closest unit directly in front of Andy’s archers.  We decided on the latter.

Jamie rolls a 6 at the wrong time.  Andy's archers (red banner with white
diagonal cross) rout Jamie's borderers (to their front) just before they can
make contact.  The annoying Frenchies are in the trees at the bottom. 

The second incident occurred after Andy’s bowmen had driven off the Borderers.  They now found themselves disordered and sitting in the zone of control of the French skirmishers in the woods.  

The Yorkist bows were unable to move towards the skirmishers as the skirmishers weren’t in to their front.  They were unable to engage them effectively by shooting as they were at -5 dice (disordered, shooting at skirmishers, shooting a troops in a wood). And they were unable to move backwards as a rearward move isn’t possible for disordered troops.  All he could do was stand, rally away the disorder and hope that my shooting was ineffective and didn’t immediately disorder them again.

This seemed a bit hard on Andy but we justified it by saying that the archers were busy trying to sort out their formation whilst engaging the skirmishers with a little ineffective shooting.

Anyway, back to the battle.  The mounted Lancastrian knights drove off the Yorkist light horse and hit Richard Crouchback's men-at-arms as they pursued.  After a prolonged and bitter melee Richard and his men were routed and it seemed that Richard would be cut down but a fresh unit of Warwick's billmen intervened and chased off the exhausted Lancastrian knights. 

Casualties were mounting on both sides as the Borderers advanced into the teeth of a gale of clothyard arrows and several Yorkist units were routed from the confused fight around the treeline.

At around half past four the crisis was reached.  In a single game turn first the Yorkists and then the Lancastrians reached their breaking point.  We decided that in the confusion, both sides, fearing that the day was lost, had determined to pull their troops out of the battle.

Andy removes the final Yorkist casualties.

The game was great fun and I'm pleased with how impressive the figures look en masse with the Impetus basing scheme.

Wars of the Roses Foot

I’ve just completed a couple of new units for today’s Wars of the Roses game.  Based for Impetus, they are a unit of fairly generic men-at-arms or dismounted nobles, and a unit of bowmen in the livery of Lord Fitzwater.

The longbowmen were an attempt to apply the approach set out by my friend Simon Miller in a recent article.  I’ve used old figures acquired from a variety of sources.  They’ve had a partial repaint to make them look a bit more like a coherent unit.

I chose Lord Fitzwater because, although he doesn’t fit with my current plan to focus further acquisitions on the Barnet-Tewkesbury period, I do have some livery badge transfers for his men.  

Unfortunately the transfers, from CitadelSix Custom Design (I won them in a raffle) proved rather difficult to use and I ended up with only one of them in place on a figure.

The men-at-arms are deliberately left rather anonymous though there is a member of the Harrington family in the rear rank.  They are mostly a mixture of metal and plastic figures from Perry Miniatures.

Next up, I’ll probably do either earl of Oxford’s or the duke of Exeter’s men.