Tuesday 31 March 2015

DMH - A Three Way Draw

At the Battleground Livingston club last Saturday I had a very enjoyable three-way game of Dead Man's Hand. As you may be able to tell from the silence, I've been struggling to reach the blog keyboard over the last few days, but fortunately MacSver was one of the players and has chronicled his version of events on his blog. So I'll gratefully (and lazily) pass you over to him....(click on the link or picture)

Wednesday 25 March 2015

PSC 15mm Cromwell IV

As part of my new found "tank mania" (as MacSver likes to call it!) I picked up a trio of Plastic Soldier Company Cromwell tanks from Ebay to give me the options on the "Hell Hath No Fury" reinforcement table.

This is the first time I've come across that much (and rightly) maligned practice of printing the instructions on the inside of the box. In this case there weren't even instructions, just a picture of a the sprue with the gun options highlighted. Despite what PSC think, the construction wasn't as obvious as they think, to me.

Handily though I was sitting next to my PC, and a quick google gave me the PSC construction video! I'll refrain from making general comment but it was useful for me, so may be useful for any other folk planning to make the purchase.

The kit's are nice, by the way, just lacking in instruction.

 

Monday 23 March 2015

DMH - Shootout at the Old Mine

MacSver was down again again this week for the first game of Dead Man's Hand at the hobby shed. He has corners the Western Town with his "Obsession" town board, my shoot-outs are in the mountains when the gold is in "them thar hills!".

As we've not played for quite few months, the scenario was a straight forward gun fight with REP 15 gangs. MacSver went for quality with his familiar Lawmen : Sheriff, Marshal and 2 Deputies(1 shotgun, 1 repeater), where as I decided to test out the effect of more quantity with the Outlaws: Boss, 4 Dudes (3 pistols, 1 repeater), 1 Varmint (shotgun).

With the mine set up as above, the Outlaws cam in from the bottom left corner, an the Lawman moved in to handle them form the top right.

Thursday 19 March 2015

Post #500 - Some 80's Metal (part 1)

Not this type of 80's metal.
First things first, a milestone that snuck up on me when I wasn't looking - my 500th published post on this blog! Who'd have thought? I'll resist the nostalgic look back over the (erratic) posting over the last years and strive to look forward instead. And what better way to look forward than to showcase some metal figures from the 1980s?

Monday 16 March 2015

Another Sherman Painting Tutorial

I'll be painting my British Shermans soon. I did link to a great tutorial way back in January 2013 just after I'd bought the Open Fire boxset, but today I'm going to put up one from Battlefront themselves. Why? I suppose it deals with the actual kits and nationality I'll be painting and also it's a quicker, simpler technique that I know I'll be able to replicated across the 16 tanks that I have set up to paint. I 'm realistic enough to know that if it starts to become too much of a chore I'll struggle to maintain the interest to bash through them!

Friday 13 March 2015

SoBH - Fightin' Fungi Playtest #2

After a couple of weeks of no dice rolling, MacSver tripped down to the hobby shed to put some of these draft SoBH Fightin Fungi rules to the test. Again it should be noted that some of these rules are in flux, in fact since playing the game I've got access to the playtest forum and a few of the crucial rules regarding armour\shields and reactions will be slightly different. Just something to bear in mind when reading this report.

Monday 9 March 2015

Panzers Ready

Finished painting up my German armour (at least what I have so far). The camouflage pattern is more inspired by than authentic I feel, but as it's my first bash at it and I am shy of the proper paint colours I'm quite happy with the way they've turned out.

They could really do with some decals to finish off, but I'll probably look for some advice and supplies at my next wargame show attendance.

Friday 6 March 2015

2HDC - Test Setup

As I am running through this myself, thought I'd be as well to echo my test party generation process here as well for any curious gamers. These steps are in the "Stop" sections of the rule book as you work through it, but sometimes it's handy to have an example the process all together to get the idea. No matter how many THW rules I pick up the random game generation of a new game always seems hard work at the start.

Tuesday 3 March 2015

Solo Fantasy Games

MacSver has been away on business for the last couple of weeks, and although I've been busy with my Panzer painting I've been feeling the lack of games. Naturally thoughts turn to solo games and using those pieces that haven't seen the light of day they deserve.

Solo for me means Two Hour Wargames and as I've been neglecting my Pendraken 10mm Dungeon I've finally found a good excuse to buy their (relatively) new Two Hour Dungeon Crawl Rules.

I've been fancying running an "endless dungeon" campaign for a long time now (I know I'm not alone there) but have found settling on a good solo\co-op ruleset difficult. I have big expectations for this one. Time to roll up some adventurers...