20mm Polish Army So Far

I recently finished up the last five of my Polish infantry out of the initial orders I had placed. I figured that rather than show you another 5 Polish infantry, I'd do some group shots of what I have so far. Because everyone loves an army shot right?

It's not a large force yet, maybe a third of a platoon, but its got a good cohesive look and sets a good ground work for whats to come. I intend to make this force my focus over the summer, to try to get it playable. To that end, I've got enough stuff either on the pile or on order to complete a HQ element and everything else I need to make a full infantry platoon along with all the support options. Cavalry, vehicles and other stuff will all come later.

45th (1st Nottinghamshire) Foot Complete

It's been a while coming, what with my hobby butterfly approach, and working on them in batches of 8 models at a time, but my very first 28mm scale Napoleonic battalion is complete! I am very happy about this as Napoleonics has always been near the top of my wish list of things to do, so to finally be making a bit of progress is great.

First up, here a couple of photos of the two command stands:

I think these came out pretty well, the drummer was quite tricky as he has his colours reversed and the flags are my first attempt ever at flags. I had ordered flags from Flags of War but I got impatient and usd the ones that came with the Warlord Games boxed set. I think they came out alright in the end.

On to the main event, heres the whole battalion:

I think they look pretty impressive en-masse. I have gone for a 6 base layout, meaning 24 men per battalion. This is the bottom end of a normal size battalion for black powder but it keeps it more realistic for me in terms of what I can achieve. If it was 9 bases per battation (36 men), I'd never get them done. I can always add more bases at a later date.

Things I have learned from doing these: Napoloenics are daunting at first but once you have a paint scheme down and if you concentrate, you can do them quite quickly. Each pair of bases took on average 8-10 hours, spread out over three or four evenings, and with life distractions. I imagine if left alone, I could knock this out in a week. Just need to quit work and evict the wife and children....

Where will I take this project? I have got a box of Perry British Line, and with the leftovers from the Warlord Games box, I think I can stretch another two battalions just by buying another command set. The Perry set also has four riflemen for a small 95th Rifles detachment. Painting wise I shall be altering things a little bit, mainly by incorporating different trouser colours for a more on campaign feel.

The only bad news is I wouldn't expect to get around to these next few units for a while - too much else on the go. I've got a few more projects to clear off the desk, then I'm going to tackle my 20mm Poles over the summer.

As always, all feedback is appreciated!

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. 

Polish Footsloggers

I have recently finished up a couple of sqauds of Polish infantry. I have enjoyed painting these, mainly because of the progress I have made. I very quickly realised that I can finish them in one evening if I work on batches of 5 or 6, and being able to see them done so quickly gave me the impetus to keep going.

The squads are configured for Battlegroup Blitzkrieg rules. A Polish platoon in this rule set is 3 squads of ten riflemen along with another 3 squads of 9 containing an LMG (a polish produced copy of the American BAR I believe). There is also the HQ sqaud and the support options.

Here are the pictures of the squads:

The models are a mixture of Capitan Games and Early War Miniatures. Close up the Early War are larger but at gaming distances, they all blend together ok. I will be buying from both companies to have plenty of variety.

For this project, I still have a long way to go. There are a few more infantry to paint, then the armoured car I got from salute but that is all. I do have a shopping list of stuff I need to complete the infantry platoon in full, which will be the next step once funds allow.  I've got plenty of other things to be getting on with in the mean time.

NetEpic Battle Report Guard-v-Space Wolves

As part of my ongoing effort to use my games table more I finally managed to pin down my friend Rich for a game of NetEpic - it's only taken about 4 years since our last one.

Back in the 90's, Epic was my favourite game of all the GW systems. At the time it was one of the main systems they supported with releases every couple of months. It was a good time. Of course, eventually they canned the line but Epic left me with a lingering love of mass battles and 6mm games. I always think it is a brilliant scale for large scale warfare, allowing hundereds of infantry and dozens of tanks on a normal table - all at a reasonable cost.

Back to Epic. NetEpic is a fan based spin off of my beloved 2nd Edition Epic. I've only played it once before and enjoyed it and always wanted to play more.

My army is Imperial Guard. In epic, you choose your troops using company cards as the main formation, each one of which allows you to take 5 support cards. So I chose a mechanised infantry company, a Leman Russ company and an artillery company. I added a detachment of heavy infantry to screen the artillery company, a thunderbolt squadron, a hellhound squadron, two sentinel squadrons and a shadowsword super heavy tank.

Rich ran a Landraider company, a grey hunter company, a thunderhawk, some attack bikes and a squadron of Thunderbolts as well. 

Here is a picture of the board layout:

I would be deploying to the right of this picture, Rich to the left. We each put down three objectives and off we went. Deployment was alternated unit by unit. This was my left flank, where I planned for the main punch to come. The idea was for the Russ company with air support to move forward and push through whilst the artillery company cleared the way.

 I deployed my mech company in the centre to push on the town and my two sentinel squadrons on the right as a delaying force.

In the first turn, things went slowly. As we gradually wrestled with the rules, it took a while to achieve anything. From a game perspective, my thunderbolts proved themselves by flying forward and strafing a few landraiders out of exisistence, something the artillery had failed to do.

In the centre we both sent mechanised forces forward and occupied buildings. The exchange of fire was fairly non commital, and the left flank was also fairly quiet.

In turn 2, things certainly heated up. The Russ company took loses from advancing Land Raiders, but more worrying Rich's Thunderhawk dropped a detachment of grey hunters in the middle of my artillery company:

In the centre there was more jostling for space and exchanges of fire, with both sides taking losses, though I had the worse of it. Over on the right there was more moving around, with the sentinels being engaged by the attack bikes, but holding their own.

The fight amongst the artillery company was short, brutual and one sided, with all three bombards falling. However, my screening platoon of heavy infantry did their intended job, about facing and destroying the attacking marines.

As a final note, I was realising how effective Thunderbolts could be so I managed to take out all three of Richs:

Turn 3 was all we managed to complete for this game, and we didn't quite finish this either. By the end of the turn, my Russ company was really suffering and not making ground, the situation in the middle was not much changed and the right my Sentinels were all but wiped out.

The left flank, where my Russ company is noticable by its absent. The ray of hope was was that Rich's infantry was running away from the hellhound squadron and its flamers:

The centre, I held two buildings and Rich only one, but his was the objective and in the top right you can see a landraider detachment advacing to cause issues:

Thr right flank. The only ray of hope here was my thunderbolts shooting accross the table and about to engage the Landraiders. Sadly, we had to pack up before they got to fine:

And that is how it was left. Rich held more objectives then me so was the nominal winner. Had the game continued, I suspect Rich had more heavy units than me and would have used them to push forward. However, he thought my superior numbers would overwhelm him, especially because he thought my Thunderbolts would wizz about taking out a detachment per turn, which they had done so far in the game to be fair.

Overall a great game. I need to get some anti air painted up to free my Thunderbolts up for ground attack - they were my stars. Also, my screening force for the artillery company worked well. Sure, they took losses but witout the them the marines would have rampaged through the artillery company with ease - wiping it out.

Both Rich and I are hoping to get a game a month in, and not just in Epic. We are both 6mm fans, and there is talk of Napoleonics, modern and WW2, so who knows! 

Salute 2016 Swag

As I mentioned in my previous blog, I had saved some spending money for salute. Without further delay, here is my swag from the day.

Couple of Osprey books, hopefully going to provide some guidance and inspriation for my current early war focus:

 Bit of a spontaneous purchase, some of the new Late Romans from Gripping Beast. Looks like Late Romans will be my second Hail Ceaser army, not that I have started the first yet:

Halftrack mortar carrier for my Bolt Action Germans. I'll be honest, I bougth this more for the model than anything else. 

Footsore Miniatures Late Romans. I bought these just to paint as they look like lovely models, but I guess they'll go with the Gripping Beast stuff:

I've been eyeing up Baccus stuff for years and finally took the plunge. 6mm has a special place in my heart, and here we have 288 British Napoleonic Infantry and around 150 WW2 Germans. All very small and hopefully very quick to paint. 

A 20mm trench system from Ironclad Minatures. Another spontaneous purchse, but lovely terrain and all three feet of very detailed trenchline in solid resin for less than £30. Bargain.

 An armoured car for my 20mm Poles from First to Fight:

Another cheap, random purchase, some 15mm goblins. Bought because I though they looked cool and no other reason. 

A purchse from the excellent Empress Miniatures. Some more Taliban and Insurgents for modern gaming. 

Trees! A little purchase from S&A Scenics to jazz up the gaming table. Hopefully the start of some terrain for the table. 

A far haul over all and will keep me busy for a while. My unpainted mini count has taken a massive hammering, with this pushing me up to +588 unpainted mini's. I best get busy!

Salute 2016

For a change this year, the biggest wargames show of the year fell on a rest day for me. A rare occurence, I took full advantage and after recruting a friend for some company, we set of for a day's shopping, browsing and driving (366 miles in one day in the end).

I've been to Salute once before, about 3 or 4 years ago, and based on that I was excited and looking forward to this. I had saved up a decent shopping budget and just stealed myself for a tiring but fun day.

And how did I find it? Well, to be fair, I realised how much my gaming habits had changed. The last time I went I was a sci-fi/fantasy gamer and found myself spending time at all these types of traders. This time, I found myself walking past them. It really re-affirmed that I am now a pretty much a fully fledged historical gamer with at best a side line in sci-fi. I suspect this is in the most part due to my falling out of love with 40k and it's arms race style approach.

Aside from that, I noticed a few other trends. 28mm and 15mm dominated, with the other scales not really that strongly represented. I found this disappointing as I was hoping to get a lot of 20mm stuff but there was not that much choice in the end, though there were a few smaller companies offering nice stuff. I certainly found the smaller stores interesting as they offered something different. I lost count of how many stores were selling historical that was just Warlord/Rubicon and a few others. There was also a strong trend for licencsed games - I saw Marvel, Aliens-v-Predator, Terminator and Halo.

Overall, I did enjoy it. It didn't feel as cramped as last time I went and I didn't feel rushed to get around. There were queues at some stores, for example the scrum at Prodos games was the only thing that stopped me buying some Colonial Marines. Ok, I know they are sci-fi but they were stunning sculpts and I was going to get some just for painting. A few of the bargain bin stores were also swamped.

In the end, it took us until late afternoon to wonder around and do our shopping so I never really looked at all the games properly, though I was surprised at the lack of effort of some (I saw one demo game of Zombicide for example using unpainted mini's - a poor effort for a big show I thought). I suspect Salute is so big you either shop or game and which ever one you choose means the other will suffer.

Would I go again? Yes, I think I might, but it would depend a lot on how many other shows I could get to. The two Partisans and Hammerhead are a short drive for me so if one year I could get to them, I think Salute would not get a look in. This year, I would need to use leave to get to them, so Salute got a look in.

I will get a blog post up with my swag in a few days, but here are the few pics I snappen on the day. Strangely mostly sci-fi! I think mainly because they are more eye-catching and out there.

Battlestar Galactica. No idea where they got the minis but they were awesome, each Battlestar was about a foot long. 

Tasy looking game of Team Yankee. 

Some spaceships for Shattered Void, a game I believe is being play tested locally. I wasn't that fussed about the game but these figures were very pretty.

The giant drop zone commander ship. Huge, and just worth a picture, even though, again, the game doesn't interest me. 

Some of the upcoming Clockwork Goblin stuff for Konflict '47, a Bolt Action add on. Bolt Action remains a game I like when I want a Hollywood blockbuster style game - brainless but fun! So these I think could find there way into my collection. 

The most impressive game I thought. 40mm napoleonics with hundreds of figures. I really should have taken more photos of this - I believe it won best in show. 

A 6mm modern game. Looked better than it photographed, but I have a soft spot for 6mm I just can't shake. 

Some ships for the upcoming Dropzone Commander fleet action game. Again, not sure I will ever play this game but these mini's were probably the best spaceship mini's I have ever seen. 

So there are my thoughts on the day at large. Good day out, and plenty of stuff bought to be getting on with. Keep an eye out for my next post, where you get to see what I bought.