2021 Roundup and Future

 

Another fairly productive year for me, lets have a look at the round up of 2021. 

Firs of all - what did I paint. The answer is:

376 Minis of all sizes and scales. So overall, down on 2020 by just over 50 minis. That I think is due to two things - there was a lot of 10mm in 2020 (quicker to paint) and my usual summer hobby slump was very bad this year. Still, that's over a mini a day so I can't complain.

Hobby Bingo wise, that gave me:

30 boxes complete - 300 points

5 lines compete - 250 points

For a grand total of 550 points. Sadly, I didn't complete the grid but that was never very likely due to the fact it contained kitbashed minis and scenery - not something I do very much of. 

Where do we go from here? Well, first off here is the traditional update on the Christmas Haul:

Gives you a very clear idea of what I want to get into next year. I have always wanted to do Lord of the Rings, though these will be for the mass battle "War of the Ring" rather than the skirmish game. I also want to start work on a personal Napoleonic big battle project. The main choice on that will be scale - 10m, 18mm or 28mm? I suspect, in true wargamer style, the answer will end up being all three!

I am terrible at keeping to targets and plans but here is my rough guide to 2022:

- Complete 600 minis (aim high!) 

- Do more of my personal stuff (of last years 376 minis, only 75 were for me)

- Get a games table sorted out finally.

- Buy less than I paint (even if the pile of shame only goes down by a few models, I'll call that a win!)

- Continue with two blog posts a month. 

Not grand ambitions for some, but for me, that's a good guide to work to. We shall see how long it lasts into 2022.

To all my readers - thanks for tagging along on my sometimes sporadic blogging. I hope you all had a good Christmas and a Happy New Year to you all. 

New White Dwarf Review

It seems that Games Workshop have been changing lately, what with a return of the specialist game department and their return to facebook. Another seeingly retrograde step is to move back to a monthly White Dwarf magazine. 

Quick reminder: A few years ago they moved to a weekly format for White Dwarf. Up to this point, it had been monthly and I had loyally bought every issue since 130, way back in October 1990. I used to love it, but towards the end it had deteriorated badly. I never got into the weekly format, mainly because it was the time I was losing interest in GW and also it was hard to get hold of unless you were quick! 

So when I found out that GW were moving back to a monthly format I decided to check it out. I duly went down on release day and picked this up:

First impressions were good. It came in at £5.99 against say Wargames Illustrated at £4.95, so it's normal magazine price. It seems heavy and good quality, clocking in at 148 pages. It comes with a free mini - useless to me as I never liked Chaos even in my GW days, but free toys are never a bad thing. So far, so good. 

Into the magazine the first two pages are the editorial and staff photos, followed by two whole pages just for the contents list. 

After this there are 16 whole pages of whats new. It's all very glossy, goes to great lengths to point put how awesome everything is, and covers the whole GW universe - miniatures, books, terrain and computer games. What I then have a small problem with is after 16 pages of this, we then go into two pages of adverts. It reminds you we still have in our hands a GW catalogue and promotional magazine. 

After that there are two pages of readers letters. Sounds great, but a lot of these letters seem along the lines of "wow, you guys are doing a great job," without any real fan engagement. It left me a little cold. The next two pages are "Eavy metal" spotlight, and are photos of new minis. 

It is only at this point that we reach the first real article - The Tale of Four Gamers. A style of article used in the old White Dwarf, four gamers collect armies over several months, and document it. I like that idea, but each collector only writes two paragraphs, so it likes a real in depth analysis. 

The next chunk I really did like:

This is a readers army section. It features great photos of the army and plenty of text from the owner describing how he collected it. Also, a four page pullout of the army all nicely laid out.

We then have a large chunk of extra, and to my understanding, new, rules for several of GW's games. Thumbs up for this - it's far more like supporting the hobby. For me personally I can't use this but if you play these games, you're in!

I won't bore you with the rest in any great details. We have a very flashy battle report, some backgroud for Imperial Knights, a feature on terrain at Warhammer World and Blanchitsu. There is an article on various staff members Kill Teams for 40k, and a converting article (all GW pieces only of course), along with a painting guide. It finishes with some really nice photos of readers models, along with a side box contianing tips on photographing mini's. 

Let's boil this down. I am not unbiased - I fell out of love with GW a few years ago. I like the direction the magazine is going, and I imagine if you do all or most of your wargaming in the GW unuivese, there is plenty of stuff for you here, the  extra rules being a good example. 

But I can't help feeling it's a tired and souless effort in some ways. Monthly battle reports SOUND good but I feel its too much of a good thing. Back in the day they were once or twice a year and eagerly anticipated, and came with tactical maps etc. Now, they are every single issue, so the magic is gone. I also think Tale of Four gamers need more substance but has been done before and one bug bear for more is Blanchitsu. I know John Blanche is a hobby god and has some serious skills, but do we really need a regular monthly article showing yet more of his drab and dirty style miniautres, nice as they are? Not really. 

 

I found myself wanting more words. A quick flick thorough and I can't find a single page of just writing, or even mostly writing. The most you get is two thirds of writing and the vast, vast majority of pages are half or less. It's very clear that this is desgined to further GW's mini sales, and the abundance of flashy photos support this. 

I would also have really have liked to see some sneak peeks, and maybe at least a very small mention of Lord of the Rings and the other games, but the magazine exsists in a GW only, 40k/Age of Sigmar bubble, which I think is a shame. GW is a massive part of the wargaming hobby (like it or not), if only as a gateway, and it's a shame GW doesn't capitalise on this. 

Final verdict: Good, but could do better. I will only buy this again if there is an issue with something for me in it, such as the upcoming return of Blood Bowl, but I will not be resubscribing as it stands. But, if you live and breath the GW universe, it's worth cover price. 

Review: First To Fight Polish Wz.34 Armoured Car

One of the few 20mm purchases I managed to get hold of at Salute was the Wz.34 Armoured car for my 1939 Polish Force. I decided to review it as it is from what I think is a fairly new company called First to Fight.

First to Fight are a Polish company and they seem to be concentrating on the 1939 Polish invasion in 20mm scale at the moment. A bit of research on the web shows they do both German and Polish kits, across infantry, vehicles and guns.

Now this pack was a single vehicle, in 1/72 of the WZ.34 armoured car. It came with two options to have a machince gun or a 47mm gun. I wanted it for the bigger gun.

First impressions were good. The box comes cellophaned together with a small A4 magazine. Sadly, this was all in Polish, so what looked like lots of text and background info was lost to me. The only real translation was the painting guide, where the Vallejo paints were named with their English names, so easy to follow:

Having finished looking at the pretty pictures in the magazine and lamented my lack of Polish, I cracked open the box. The kit was split over two sprues, and the instructions were fairly clear on the back of the box - there was no seperate leaflet on how to build it:

I found that the kit went together fairly quickly. It is somewhere between a gaming kit and a model kit it terms of detail. It has some things you don't need on a gaming model - such as suspension modelled underneath etc but goes together easily enough so that you aren't wasting a lot of time building something you want to use.

Once it was done, I was surprised at how tiny it was! Here is a shot next to some 20mm infantry and it's a tiny little vehicle. Still, it was only a two person armoured car, and a lot of ealy war stuff for all nations was tiny compared to what came later, so I won't labour on the scale issue. It will do for my purposes.

Overall, I think this kit is half decent. At £7.50 for a single vehicle it was perhaps a little more expensive than I would like. However, this is balanced with the fact that the company seem to be covering a lot of stuff you can't find elsehwere. There also is never going to be as much competition in this period as say 1944, so perhaps that's a factor. I also found the model a llittle bit flimsy in places, mainly where the wheels attached. I snapped two off during assembly, and whilst this is not a problem as it's a simple fix, it's a tad irrating and something I'll have to try to remember when moving the model around on the table top.

I would certainly consider getting other kits from First to Fight, but I suspect it may be the more obsucre vehicles. The TKS Tankette's for example I shall be looking around for, as at £7.50 each from these guys, and the fact I want four or five, make's those a tad expensive. But it's a company worth looking out for.

The model should be quick and easy to paint - I suspect it's too small to warrant even breaking out the airbrush, but that will be another blog post. 

Early War Miniatures Polish - Review

As alluded to in previous posts, I am getting quite keen on 20mm world war 2, specifically using the Battlegroup rules that have sprung from the Battlegroup Kursk book (and Kampfgruppe Normandy if you go back far enough).

I decided to start with an early way Polish force. Casting around on the web and Early War Miniatures seemed to have a comprehensive range so I ordered a test purchase of one infantry squad, one cavalry squad and a heavy machine gun.

So, first off, what did I get? The infantry squad was a pack of infantry about 10 strong. I was disappointed to find that two of the riflemen and worse, the light machine gun/BAR man all came in the prone position. Now this first point is not a criticism of Early War Miniatures, but is a matter of personal taste. For weapons teams I have no problem with prone models (there is one in the HMG team). However, I don't like putting them into normal sqauds. Don't ask me why, it's probably something to do with the look of the squad being ruined by having one or two members on different sized bases. So I won't be using those guys, which means I shall be needing to source my BAR's from somewhere else.

Pose wise they are ok models. The cavalry don't suffer as badly due to being cavalry, but some of the infantry are a little bit wooden. The grenade throwing guy in particular was so bad he won't be getting used either. He's the only one I won't be using, the rest make it into the squad.

Now I've rewrote this last part of the review because originally I was quite unkind. However, having now painted a few of the infantry (blog coming soon on that), and started on the cavalry, I think these are decent miniatures for gaming. They do have enough detail to paint up very quickly, which is always a positive, without being too fiddly. I also can only really compare them to 28mm as that is what I am most familiar with, and I think that is why I was initally a bit down on them.

Overall, I will be ordering more of these. The posing issue is a minor one, and since you can order individual poses it's a simple work around. I've also received some polish infantry from Capitan games and think they will be a good mix. And with a single Polish platoon coming in at about 60 men, before support options, I'm going to need quite a few. I'm currently working on some of the cavalry, which are coming along nicely and will feature soon.

2015 Review, A Look Ahead to 2016

The last year has been quite a good one for me. I'll come to the hobby side in a minute, but generally; my daughter has started school and is thriving, I passed a promotion exam at work, and of course, I have a new son! All good.

Hobby wise has also been very good to me. I end the year with two Bolt Action armies on the go (one a pretty decent size), and dents made in several other projects. I have also started to try different games, made some good friends and got started in some other projects.

Painting wise, I decided to score myself using the Analogue Hobbbys scoring system. Because I am quite sad, I track what I paint and here is what I managed over the year:

28mm Infantry: 113 @ 5 pts each
28mm Vehicles: 4 @ 15pts each
6mm Infantry: 30 @ 0.5 pts each.

Grand total:
640pts

I like to think that is not too bad a year for me. As a slow painter, I think that is quite good. Certainly, it took me nearly 6 years to paint 200 Imperial Guard, so having done over 100 28mm minis this year is quite a feat. Overall I am pleased with progress made. 

So what will 2016 bring?

Too many projects no doubt! Here are a list of things I have been thinking about in the past few days to aim for. Some are quite specific, some more general:


- In terms of points using the above scoring system, I am going to aim for over 1000 points of painted minis.

- To complete at least two full 28mm Napoleonic battalions (so that's 48 miniatures done.)

- I have my shelves of doom (full of unpainted minis, mainly dead projects that I refuse to sell) in my painting, taunting me from the corner. The total currently stands at 93 minis, so I shall aim to reduce this to under 60 miniatures by years end.

- General 28mm wise, I want to progress my two Bolt Actions armies, and move into at least one Ancients force alongside my napoleonics. I'd like at least two complete units for this ancients project.

- I want to start to gather 20mm forces for battlegroup games. No real targets on this, just want to see me making siginificant progress here.

- 6mm wise I have two rough targets. In Epic terms, to buy no more until what I have outstanding is small enough to fit in to one box. Second, to move into historical 6mm. I know it's not for everyone, but it's a scale I have always had a soft spot for. It should also be fairly quick and easy to get armies together.

- Finally, bring my gaming table into action that I have in the garage. I've had this a few years and still not used it.


You can see I have set myself very few "hard targets" as I find these demotivating and unrealistic. I shall review where I am at the halfway point in the year, but I think it's a good framework to work to. In all honesty I will get distracted by something soon and it will all fall apart.

So here's to a great 2016. May your dice roll 6's and your painting hand be steady.

Empress Miniatures Taliban Review and WiP

I picked up several packs of stuff from Empresss Miniatures at Partizan the other month, and finally found the time to open up the Taliban packs. 

So first impressions. Lovely models. Mostly one part (only two came with loose arms). They are your usual white metal models, very solid with just enough give in them to bend back the odd warped weapon. The worst in this kit was the RPG guy, and that was nothing at all to worry about. 

Clean up wise, they had very little flash or mould lines. The biggest problem was on a couple of models the mould lines ran straight down the middle of the face. Not a big deal with a bit of patience but it's never the best place to have a mould line. They all cleaned up fine in the end. 

The poses are all fairly decent, you have your standard runners and firers, although there is nothing overly dramamtic or ridiculous. I like this, as I feel that it is generally more realistic for stuff routed in the real world. 

I have managed to get mine based and ready for painting, as you can see below. The only reason I have done these before the modern British troops I picked up at the same time is that these will be loads simpler to paint than a ton of camo:

I would certainly recommend Empress Mini's so far. Looking forward to getting these done and on the table. I shall be using them with the Force on Force rule set and shall, of course, let you all know how that works out. 

As always, drop by the facebook page: The Cardboard Fortress

Partizan Show Report and Review

Today was Partizan day! I have never been a massive show goer, but have been to a few recently and I am getting the taste for them. You get to see what's out there, because I imagine quite a lot of people don't have all these companies in their database so it's a nice reminder to see that pretty much what ever you want in the wargaming world someone is likely to be making. The down side of course is that you mentally find yourself starting about a dozen new projects. 

So first off, lets look at the swag:

This guy is the obligatory free mini you seem to get at every show these days. This is apparently some famous local actor as he appeared when he starred as Lawrence of Arabia. He's dressed in some kind of British uniform so I think with a half decent paint job I can use him as a an objective marker for Bolt Action - perhaps an aging British officer trapped behind enenmy lines.

One of the major purchases of the day was this book, for another forthcoming project, 20mm WW2. Should be an interesting read and give me some ideas to pick a force. 

Now these next two I've been considering for some time:

These are Empress Miniatures modern British (i.e Afghanistan) at the top and Taliban at the bottom. These are lovely sculpts, and I have wanted some for an age to try out the Force on Force ruleset I've had a few years. The only downside was nowhere today was selling the rules so I couldn't pick up the Afghan supplement for this game. Soon though. 

And that was it. Aside from a few paints and bases and I didn't get much else. I wanted lots more but managed to resist adding to the painting pile. Special mention to my mate I went with, if he had caved at the Baccus stand I would have too, resulting in me being the owner of several hundred 6mm Napoloenics. I suspect though, that neither of us can resist for too long and this will be another project.

Some pics of some games now:

These are from an excellent Indiana Jones themed game, complete with a giant flying wing:

Next up a rather awesome recreation of the battle of Salamanca in 6mm. I have to say I am not a fan of the hex based terrain (bit boardgamey for me), but 6mm is a big favourite of mine, so I was really impressed by this layout:

I really liked this large scale game as well, using a cold war gone hot theme. There were a lot of tanks on this:

And finally, the battle of Yellow Ford from the "Like a Stone Wall" wargames group. They certainly upped their normal high standards with this board, was really nice to look at. Based around a fight in a bog, the terrain was wonderful. I was offered a chance to play in this game but circumstance conspired against me, however, I managed to drop by and say hello.

So that was Partizan. Another good show. Whilst it's on the smaller side of shows, everyone is very friendly. The only real criticism is the venue, it's a little dark and crowded but I understand they are moving next year. But as a local, twice yearly show, for me, it's perfect. 

As always, my facebook page is here: A Cardboard Fortress

Review: Warlord German Grenadiers

For my first review, I have chosen the much anticipated Warlord German Grenadiers. I imagine a lot of Bolt Action players were waiting for these - I managed to obtain my for free through a cracking offer to subscribe to Wargames Illustrated.

So first of all, value for money. You get enough parts to make 30 figures in box set that Warlord sells for £27. I imagine if you shop around you can get that down to under £25, if not further. So at well under a pound a model, I don't think you can grumble. 

In the box you get five of the above sprues. As you can see, there are 6 bodies on each sprue. Two of these are wearing the Zeltbahn ponchos. Used as tents they also provided valuable camo to wear in combat and are a distinctive feature of the late war. Weapons wise you get rifles, MG42's, plenty of panzerfausts and also several options for loaders. This is nice because the other late war German box set misses these extras so you can struggle to make good loaders of of it. There are of course loads of other extras, from heads all the way down to an Iron Cross. 

Of course the one thing everyone was waiting for is the assault rifles! Not overly common in real life but a staple of many a Bolt Action army, you get 15 in total, three on each sprue. Two are built onto arms and there is one free one to use as you please. 

Assembly wise they are fairly straight forward. I did find the ones with Zeltbahn were the hardest to attach the arms too, as the ponchos seem to push them forward a bit. The bodies also attach to the sprue by the collar so you have to cut carefully. I also found heads struggled to stay on (more than normal), but that could be me. 

Overall I woud give this kit a solid thumbs up. I was disappointed at the ratio of Zeltbahn as I think I would have liked half and half, and the posing can be a tad awkward. That being said the value of this box set I is awesome. You could easily buy just this box and squeeze a 500pt force out of it. 

I have so far put together one of them, but in the near future there will be two squads of five vets with assault rifles joining my little version of the Heer, and I hope to have them done in a couple of weeks. In the mean time, here is the one I have put together. 

In other news, please like my face book page for more frequent updates. If I can ever figure out how, I shall link the blog to the page! But for now, here you go:

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