Zombie Hunter Ashlee & Fantasy Cultist

Thought I'd get these two quickies cataloged before the turn of the year:

Hasslefree Miniatures "Ashlee Campbell". This figure now seems to be a standard "must have" for any zombie gamer and its easy to see why. I'm not entirely happy with some of the finish of my painting here close up. She's a lovely simple model to paint and I think there-in lies the problem for me. But all said and done she'll still look great on the table.

This young lady has been sitting on the paint table in various states of (un)paint for literally years. She comes from Alternative Armies fantasy range but no longer seems to appear on their website so I can't tell you exactly which range. The sculpt is a bit old school (with strange bulging eyes) but it's such a nice scenario model (there's bound to be an altar near when she's put on the table) that I've never put her back in the unpainted tin.

Gladiators - Month 1 (part 2)

A slight festive season induced delay to the write-up - apologies.

Balbillus (Rep 4 Retiarus) vs Rep 3 Murmillo

Turn 1: Dice Pool: Retiarus(20), Murmillo(15), Init Murmillo

• All advance full movement

Turn 2: Dice Pool: Retiarus(20), Murmillo(15), Init Retiarus

• Retiarus advance to 7" distance between fighters
• Murmillo advances 3" (gap now 4")

Turn 3: Dice Pool: Retiarus(20), Murmillo(15), Init Murmillo

• Murmillo advances 3" - gap now 1"
• Retiarus retreats 2" and makes a net attack
• The Murmillo is ensnared and pulled to the ground face-down.
• The retiarus makes an immediate follow-up attack and wounds the murmillo in the back
• the murmillo manages to roll face-up

Turn 4: Dice Pool: Retiarus(12), Murmillo(19), Init Murmillo

• The murmillo stands up and attempts to break melee
• But in the initial melee the retiarus makes a hit in the belly. Not wounding but enough to knock the murmillo back down to the ground, face up.
• The retiarus makes an immediate follow up attack, hitting in the chest, not wounding but allowing a draining follow up attack.
• The retiarus hits, wounding the murmillo in the chest. This second wound to the upper torso proves fatal, and Balbillus is victor.(+3AP, +3 Fame)

Caecilianus (Rep 3 Dwarf Hoplomachus) vs Rep 4 Provocator

Turns 1&2: Dice Pool: Hoplomachus(15), Provocator(20)

•  both advance towards each other

Turn 3: Dice Pool: Hoplomachus(15), Provocator(20), Init Provocator

• Provocator advances 3"
• Hoplomachus advances to a 1" gap and attacks with his spear
• The attack hits the Provocator in the upper left leg, not wounding but knocking him to the ground (face up)
• The Hoplomachus follows up with an immediate attack, but with not effect.

Turn 4: Dice Pool: Hoplomachus(8), Provocator(13), Init Hoplomachus

• Hoplomachus attack hits in the belly, not wounding but causing the Provocator to roll to the right half an inch.
• The Provocator now stands and attacks
• but is himself wounded in the upper left leg and knocked to the ground
• The Hoplomachus makes a quick follow-up attack which makes no strike but exhausts the Provocator - Caecilianus is declared victor (+8 AP, +8 Fame)

Dacien (Rep 4 Thraex) vs Rep 3 Murmillo

Turn 1: Thraex(20), Murmillo(15), Init Murmillo

• Both gladiators moves towards each other full movement.

 Turn 2: Thraex(20), Murmillo(15), Init Murmillo

•  Murmillo advances full distance
• Thraex holds his ground.

Turn 3: Thraex(20), Murmillo(15), Init Murmillo

•  Murmillo moves forward full movement
• Thraex moves forward and engages, hitting him in the lower left leg with no wound, but knocking him to the ground (face up)
• The Thraex makes an immediate follow-up attack, but it has not effect.

Turn 4: Thraex(13), Murmillo(9), Init Thraex

• The Thraex attacks, wounding in the left arm, with the Murmillo rolling  1" to the left
• The Murmillo stands and attacks, but is himself hit in the head. There is no wound but he is knocked to the ground and surrenders spent.
• Dacien is declared winner (+3AP, +3 Fame)

Eborius (Rep 4 Provocator) vs Rep 3 Hoplomachus

Turns 1&2: Provocator(20), Hoplomachus(15)

• Both moved towards each other full allowance finishing 7" apart.

Turn 3: Provocator(20), Hoplomachus(15), Init Provocator

• Provacator cautiously moved forward 2"
• Hoplomachus moves a full 3" but is still 2" away.

Turn 4: Provocator(20), Hoplomachus(15), Init Provocator

• The Provocator moves forward and attacks
• The Hoplomachus is hit and wounded in the lower left leg and falls to the ground (face up)
• The Provocator immediately makes a follow-up attack, hitting in the well helmeted head so not wounding, but enough to allow another attack
• This attack results in a wound to the felled Provocator in the left arm - the provocator collapses spent
• Eborius is declared winner (+3AP, +3 Fame)

Caius says: "A good first foray into the arena. The highlight was of course my vertically challenged Hoplomachus winning well and nearly earning a lucrative laurel wreath - something to keep in mind in future battles. Most of the battles hinged on an all out attack knocking the opponent to the ground, resulting in the other side having a energy (dice pool) sapping fight from the ground. Also with no wounds received all five gladiators are fit to fight next month. We'll see how they fair against their next opponents."

(Total cash : 2960 aurei)

Gladiators - Month 1 Fight 1: Secutor vs Retiarus

And so the Road back to Rome begins with Abercius the Rep 4 Secutor vs Rep 3 NPC Retiarus

I'll note this fight down in a more cold, mechanics demo fashion to show what is rolled, but in future I'll be more narrative in the fight summary.
Turn 1: Dice Pool: Secutor(20),Retiarus(15), Init Retiarus

• All Move towards each other full move

Turn 2: Dice Pool: Secutor(20),Retiarius(15), Init Retiarus

• Retiarus move to max net range (6") 
• Secutor closes in to 3"

Turn 3: Dice Pool: Secutor(20),Retiarus(15), Init Secutor

• Secutor moves in to engage Retiarus in HtH.
• Dice Allocation (DA): Secutor(4), Retiarus(2)
• Secutor Pass 2, Retiarus 0
• Hit scored on chest with a wound (and burn 3 DA) and Retiarus knocked down (burn 1 DA)
• Secutor immediate follow-up attack for a knockdown.
• DA: Secutor(4), Retiarus(2) (Retiarius on ground so burns double, DA = 4)
• Secutor Pass 1, Retiarus 0
• Hit scored on left arm for a wound (and burn 2 DA) and Retiarus rolls 1" to the left (burn 1 DA)
• Retiarus stands (Cost 2" movemnet) and retreats 3"

Turn 4: Dice Pool: Secutor(12),Retiarus(2), Init Secutor

• Secutor advances 3"
• Retiarus - Catch Breath roll Fail, Net Attack roll Fail, Move away 5"

Turn 5: Dice Pool: Secutor(12),Retiarus(2), Init Secutor

• Secutor advances 3"
• Retiarus Catch Breath

Turn 6: Dice Pool: Secutor(20),Retiarus(3), Init Retiarus

• Retiarius Catch Breath
• Secutor advance and engage
• DA: Secutor(4), Retiarus(2)
• Secutor Pass 0, Retiarus 1
• Hit scored on Belly but no wound and Secutor gives ground by 1"

Turn 7: Dice Pool: Secutor(7),Retiarus(2), Init Retiarus

• Retiarus Net attack
• DA: Secutor(3), Retiarus(2)
• Secutor pass 3, Retiarus 1
• Secutor cuts net rope tether & Retiarus surrenders spent

As this is in the Empire outer reaches the Retiarus has no survival vote to go through and lives to fight another day. Secutor gains 3AP & 3 Fame points. Caius gets the 100 aurei winners purse.

Looking back at the action notes I can see that I may have messed up the NPC movement in turns 3 & 4 as he would have been retreating at double movement allocation or would have left himself facing away from his opponent in turn 6. Also I don't think the NPC should have caught his breath on Turn 6. Don't think it made any difference to the outcome after the brutal Turn 3 combat which wounded the NPC and burned nearly all his Dice.

Gladiator School Campaign

I've had Two Hour Wargames Red Sand Blue Sky Gladitorial ruleset for a few years now but despite having some figures painted up and even an arena to fight in I never seem to get round to playing any games of it, despite the fact I've enjoyed it couple of trial games I've played. So I've decided to start a solo campaign. Most RSBS campaigns I see on the web follow a single character through their career, so I thought I'd try the alternative campaign and run a school of gladiators. This'll give me several different styles of combatant to use as well as prolong the campaign in the case of some heinous injury. To keep this realistically running as well I'm going to pledge to run at least a month a month, meaning that each real month I'll do at least one round of contests.

I shall play the part of Caius Fatuous . After having rowed Ekonomikrisis's galley round half the Roman Empire I have disembarked to set up a school at the newly constructed arena in Londinium in the outer reaches of the known world - Britannia.

Following the rulebook I start with 5000 aurei. My gladiator stock is limited to Rep 3 & 4 and I've picked a random cross-section of styles to go with a random rep and random rolls for parts of the body where armour can vary. Size was also rolled according to the rulebook. My initial gladiator school thus consists of:

• Abercius: Secutor, Rep 4, Normal Sized, AV 40 - Cost 480   
• Balbillus: Retiarus, Rep 4, Normal Sized, AV 38 - Cost 460   
• Caecilianus: Hoplomachus, Rep 3, Small Sized, AV 46 - Cost 520  
• Dacien: Thraex, Rep 4, Large Sized, AV 47 - Cost 550  
• Eborius: Provoctor, Rep 4, Normal Sized,AV 45 - Cost 530

Total Spend 2540 aurei

As you can see I've only spent half my budget. I need 100 aurei to put into the prize purse per fight and I've left enough to purchase a couple more gladiators should by initial training sessions give unfortunate results. With a bit of luck I'll soon be moving away from these squallid outreaches back towards the glory of Rome.

Street Militia

The modern/horror figure painting continues with a set of 3 organised street militia (Wargames Foundry Mercenary Fire Team).
I had a bash at some Urban Camo for the trousers here for the first time. Had a peek round the web to try and find a nice tutorial but couldn't find any past colour choices and blobbing on a grey base coat. My attempt came out OK, although for future attempts I'll try and leave a bit more white visible.

Dungeons & Dragons the boardgame

With the cold weather outside, and being up in the loft anyway, I thought I'd bring down my copy of the Dungeons And Dragons boardgame to try with Arabiansquire.

At first glance it looks very similar to one of his favourites - HeroQuest, which is a hook right there. As expected though there are a few more progressions from the simple HQ gameplay towards a D&D dungeon crawl. Picking up new items (weapons, artifacts, spells or potions) is one, although I know that in some HeroQuest levels there are new items to pick up, but not many! There is also a strange nod towards to old RPG call of "Roll for initiative" where the initiative order changes every time someone opens a door. Also there are specialised dice for different functions such as fighting, looking for traps, dis-arming traps, etc. Having different dice is a bit clumsy, but I suppose removes the need for looking up target values for a d20.

One the "advanced" side there is a bit of item management, with each character only being able to hold a small number of items and carry a couple of others in a knapsack. Also there is a nice bit of spell point management, meaning the magic users won't be standing at the back blasting away with magic missile all game. The character types are more defined in a D&D style as well with a Warrior, Cleric, Wizard and Thief.

On the down side (for the adventurers) in the game itself there seem to be considerably more traps to be caught up in (and they are auto-hit) and the monsters can not only do damage (Arabiansquire lost 2 of his party on the first game) but they also have multiple hit points, giving them a bit of resilience.

The sections of dungeon have a similar set-up to the HeroQuest book, but the board tiles give a greater flexibility in the dungeon layout. The dungeons also have a level attributed to them, so that the character starting statistics and equipment change as the dungeon is set at a higher level, so in theory you can play the more difficult levels without having had to play through the whole campaign adventure, which is quite nice.

Overall the game was enjoyable, given that it was a first trial play with a new set of rules. The wee lad was a bit luke warm at the end, but I think that was probably due to half his party being beaten and missing out on a room full of treasure chests. He enjoyed the variety of weapons in the same level, the unusual dice and the more defined roles of the party.

Zombie Hunter Ray

It seems like an age since I last posted. Blog update wise it's only been a week but that's mainly due to the scheduling function of Blogger. With the weather hitting central Scotland hard in the fortnight so much my time has been spent clearing snow, worrying about travel,etc that there has been no time for gaming. You'd think being stuck indoors would have the opposite effect, but no. Actually I've not been stuck indoors - I've been shoveling!

Right enough weather whinging.

With the completion of my Cryx Bile Thralls I needed a break from Warmachine, and set upon this excellent mini - Ray from Hasslefree Miniatures. A really joy to paint, not only because I was concentrating on only one figure for a change!

More modern figures are lined up on the painting table as I type...

Warmachine - Cryx Bile Thralls

These were fun to paint...initially. but the number of them meant that progress was slow and they seemed to sit on the worktop nagging me, so I was sick of their sight by the time I'd finished.

 Coming back to them once all the desperation/frustration had abated though, and I'm pretty happy with the outcome. They bring a nice lighter unit to the table, as most my Cryx force is dark. I had originally aimed for a more greener or putrid hint to the skin, but the pale pasty look works as well.

It'll be a while until I try an paint a larger unit though! I don't know how you massed army types do it!

Pod Racers - WIP

A quick Work-In-Progress post. I had the notion the other week about doing some sort of racing game after seeing some rather nice hover bike miniatures on the interweb somewhere. After a bit of a search for miniatures and rules I found a fun looking ruleset for Star Wars style pod racing from the "NOVOCASTRIAN BATTLEGAMERS" via Free Wargames Rules.

These rules seem simple racing-wise and there enough outside factors (pod damage, player intenvention via cards) to make sure it isn't just a fancy game of pure dice rolling. It reads a bit like "The really nasty Racing Game" in some respects - which I like - already owning the game.

Anyway, onto miniatures. A rake round Ebay saw me good for a lot of 10 Micromachine pod racers. I purchased a couple of packs of 60mm round mdf bases from www.warbases.co.uk/ (which arrived very promptly) have started to mount the racers to the bases.

The original pod racers come with a wheeled base which is easily unsrewed from the model itself. On some models there is a cut-away to accomodate the base, but once based, and considering they'll be mostly viewed from above, this isn't really visible. The wheels have been kept to be painted and used for game/effect markers. The pods have been pinned and glued to the bases. I've tried to position them with the actual pods hanging over the back of the bases to give that floating/trailing behind illusion.

More later when I've finished mounting the rest and getting the bases textured/painted.

Warmachine - Cryx Bloat Thrall

This seems to have taken an age to get this finished, mainly as I was painting it in parallel to a 10 strong squad of Bile Thralls (coming soon), given the similar pallet used. I've always felt that the key to this model was to make the stitching/implants look painfully raw. I don't think I've fully managed it, but the rusty cannon and the prominent tubing colour draw the eye quite a bit so the stitches aren't as much a focus as I'd initially thought.


Don't know how to effectively use this beast yet. He's so slow that in the 25pt games I usually play he barely makes it into a good position. Still a nice big chunk of mini to put on the table though!

A Lesson in Warmachine

Cryx advance downhill
towards the invading Cygnar

Today Arabiansquire and myself headed to the Battleground Livingston gaming club. The wee lad has been quite taken by the miniatures of Warmachine and has was very keen to learn how to play. He had an introductory few turns last weekend in the Arabian Towers hobbyshed, but this was the first time he's controlled his own force. We went with the Cygnar and Cryx battlegroups for simplicity.

I don't know how much more we'll play this at the moment. At still under 9 years old he's already been playing tabletop games with me for over a couple of years so he's used to learning turn phases, numbers of dice to roll, etc but the beauty of Warmachine is his downfall. Even with the few number of models in the basic battlegroup box, the amount of options and tactics are a bit beyond him for the moment. The game does have a recommended age group 12+ so it's not that surprising. I'm sure we'll have the odd game in the future as the whim take us/him, but with so many other games I think we can have more enjoyment playing something that doesn't demand so much advance and complex planning. There's plenty of time...

The Cygnar Charger brings the Cryx Defiler
underfire.

The Proxy Vote

No, not a mid-term election article, but an age old frugal debate.

First a bit of background. I generally play generic rulesets. I loath being tied into one particular range of minitures when there are so many lovely sculpts not attached to any game. Yes, yes I know that they tie in with the background fluff of the game and provide (can) provide a continuous feel across the army, but sometimes it feels that these factors are used to "extract the michael" somewhat whan it comes to pricing.

The past 6 months has seen me take up Warmachine, a game very much with it's own style. I've been happily collecting a small Cryx (undead) force, but for a few reasons have decided to expand to a small second force, Cygnar (tech humans). Now my main army is the Cryx force, which have very distinct figures, but the human Cygnar are slightly more generic. So to keep costs down I am going to find and use proxy miniatures in this army where possible.

This opens up the whole proxy debate:
PROS: Cost, choice, fun research
CONS: irregular force theme, wrong miniatures, difficult/irritating for some opponents, illegal for tournament play, in some cases quality of sculpt is worse.

As far as I'm concerned in this instance, as long as the replacement miniatures are reasonable representations of the official figures I'm good with it. As such, I don't plan to proxy the warjacks (robots) as they are very distinctive. I've bought some appropriate bases as well, as base size and position is important in Warmachine. I've already bought the Cygnar mkII Stat card pack.

Another good frugal reason to use proxies is that I already have some suitable minis waiting to be used. A few years ago I took advantage of a free postage offer from Prince August for their bag of 80 plastic Warzone figures - 40 Imperial, 40 Bauhaus. The Imperial Trenchers are WWI theme based and, to my eyes, ideal to replace the Cygnar Trenchers. I also have a load of them pose and customise, as the Cygnar forces have quite a few varying Trencher based troop types.

We'll start with the basic Cygnar Trencher. 5 Grunts and a squad Leader. I've snipped the gun slightly to make it less M16-esque and given a squad leader the head from the Warzone trencher heavy machine gunner to help him stand out. Cost per figure (inc full base cost) 41 pence - squad cost £2.46. Official squad RRP ~ £18.

Next is a proxy for the HMG wielding Captain Maxwell Finn. All I've done is take the Warzone HMG trencher and replaced the head (which is now on the Trencher squad leader) with a spare from an old, partially used GamesWorkshop Fantasy Empire militia boxset I had lying around. Figure cost 41 pence, Official figure RRP ~ £9.

Next is a Journeyman Warcaster. He is armed with a pistol and a sword, so I've given my Imperial Trencher Officer a spare GW sword and a spare GW head (both from the same box set as the Cpt Finn figure). Total figure cost 41p (can you see a pattern developing?), Official figure RRP ~ £6.

And Lastly I have clipped the weapons off of an unused Mage Knight Steam Golum to proxy as Squire. No idea what I paid for this (it was in a job lot years ago). Official RRP ~ £6.

Next proxies? Well it doesn't take a great deal of imagination to see that the a carefully place bead or putty blob on the end of a rifle will make a Grenadier, and if I can find something to use as a sniper scope I'll have an officer/sniper Unit attachment (the peaked cap of the Warzone officer will come into play here), and perhaps even I'll manage a blunderbuss/sword conversion to make a Trencher Master Gunner. Moving away from the plastic trenchers, Void Viridian snipers could make a slightly cheaper alternative to Cygnar Rangers, and I'm toying with the idea of using ACW troops with their long muskets as Cygnar Long Gunners.

Any other suggestions are warmly accepted.

XCrawling to Fame and Fortune

My RPG group finished our XCrawl level (and trial game) last night, leaving the game with a selection of cash, vials and dungeon sponsor's credit notes for golf equipment - I kid you not. The final room was a labyrinth test whilst avoiding an aging, chain smoking Medusa in an over sized hamster ball. The dungeons were an entertaining mix of classic dungeon crawl and sponsor saturated game show. In which other game can you open a treasure chest and find pouch of gold coins, an enchanted baseball bat, and a six pack of Friki-Choo Cola? We all agreed that our GM, Azhdeen, had done a great job merging the two strange ideas and that in the future it would be fun to run a longer campaign, so cheers buddy.

It would be interesting to do a bit of roleplaying outside the dungeon/gameshow - meeting the public, effects on the group as different characters become more famous/vilified/rewarded than others - even "crawl fixing" anyone? These external factors could even be done out of game in secret GM emails to the players or given to the whole group as press releases. I don't know if that's already in the game (not having read the book), but it would certainly be interesting.

Flying Lead - First Game

"These Government cutbacks will be the death of me!" thought PC James as his backup arrived. HQ could only afford to send out 2 SWAT members, which seemed woefully little. He almost wished he'd never called in his sighting to Capri Bonnetti and her 4 henchmen entering the old industrial area!

Having a couple of hours "free", I thought I'd trial run my recent purchase of Ganesha Games "Flying Lead" ruleset. With their "Songs Of Blades..." (SoBH) rules being the one I play with the Arabiansquire for Fantasy skirmishes and having also MDRG, the changes hopefully wouldn't be too brutal but different enough to capture the flavour of the action.

Anyway, thoughts after the report.

Forces were kept small to around 250pts.

Cops:

Beat Cop: 26pts Q4+ C2 - Pistol, Handcuffs

SWAT Member: 80pts Q3+ C2 - Flash Bang Grenade, Pistol, Shotgun, Body Armour, Handcuffs, Personnal Comms

SWAT Sniper: 134pts Q3+ C3 - Semi-auto Rifle with Scope, Body armour, Marksman, Sniper, Personnal comms

 

Villians:

Capri: 112pts Q3+ C3 - Large Cal. Pistol, Leader, NCO, Steady Under Fire

Mafia type (x2): 56pts Q4+ C2 - Large Cal Pistol, Sawn Off Shotgun, Mook

Street Thug: 15pts Q4+ C2 Strong, Mook

The Cops entered the industrial area from the South Eastern corner. The Villains could be set up anywhere on the board.

Cautiously the law officers made their way up the eastern side of the site, looking for some of the gang.

They soon found a thug waiting in ambush behind a wall and started to encircle him.

The tough realised and made an escape up a ramp into a nearby building

Meanwhile one of the shotgun welding ganger members tried to move round behind the cops, but the SWAT sniper saw him and gunned him down.

With the police officers stalling or being drawn out in the centre of the site, Capri and an enforcer moved in from the northern edge where they'd been hiding.

Meanwhile PC James spotted a second thug lurking in the eastern building shadows and brought him down with a single cap from his pistol.

With the SWAT member giving chase into the building and no ambushing companion now available, the escaping thug droped down prone behind a crate and crawled for a back ladder.

Meanwhile the sniper had manouvered into a position to take a shot, but missed.

With this threat exposed, the mafia man stepped out of cover to bring the SWAT man into range of his Sawn Off shotgun and blew the sniper away, before running into cover of the crumbling wall.

The remaining cops manouvered themselves round to make a co-ordinated flanking move on the criminal.

Realising this, the crim stepped out of cover to remove the softest target, poor PC James. Miraculously the Mook missed, as did Capri, who moved up to take a shot, as victory presented itself.

With lead flying round his ears, PC James steadied himself and squeezed off a shot at the shotgun wealding goon, taking him out. Capri, finding herself now in sights surrendered, and the remaining thug ran off.

------------------------------------

Thoughts:

On reading, Flying Lead doesn't seem that different to SoBH. There are different special rules to take into consideration, but basically SoBH with everyone having bows.

WRONG!

Guns are dangerous, kids! It's been commented on that in SoBH that an extra combat stat can make a heck of a difference. Well in Flying Lead (FL) all gun attacks carry an added C bonus - a pistol is C+1 whilst a Sawn-off shotgun carried a whopping C+3 at medium range. Gun ranges are usually double that of SoBH ranged attacks, so the standard medium range weapon has a full strength attack at 2xMedium range. Also the SoBH "knocked back" combat result has been replaced, for ranged attacks, with a duck back/go prone result. Our lack of modern (ie gun) gaming experience showed with this latter one, as we could have been taking shots to keep the enemy down or ducking for cover. Especially as you can now move and shoot in one action for a only a C-1 penalty.

There are obviously loads of rules we never touched on - vehicles for one, overwatch for another, but this was a first trial game and I wanted it to stay within the boundries of SoBH (ie 2 small groups).

Still great fun and recommended.

Skirmish 2010

Saturday saw myself and Arabiansquire go over the Livingston Battleground wargames club's Skirmish event.

This was actually the second Skirmish, the inaugural event happening in 2006.

This time round the focus was on two things. Firstly, and most commendably, the all proceeds were going to the Erskine Charity, who provide nursing and medical care for members of the armed forces, so hats off there.




Secondly the main event was a staged modern warfare game under the moniker "Battle for Erskine" using their own quick learn rules. Unusually (I don't know enough about the whole scene to say uniquely) players start on different tables, and fight across them to progress to the next stage (another table) which, depending on numbers, hopefully all culminates in a grand final battle in a central table. It's probably easier to look at the mission briefing (diagram pg 5&6) than explain. I've not played the game myself yet (being an irregular attendee at the club) but I've heard good things about the system, so am looking forward to a game sometime soon. I wasn't around to see the final push but got a couple of pictures in.

Aside from the traders the was also a grand sale of military gaming models & books generously donated by a couple of families of veterans, with everything from larger scale figures, models to 6mm Napoleonic and ACW armies.

A couple of clubs were also showing nice tables with Independent Wargames Brigade doing a 20mm WWII Russian Front demonstration game called "Another Desperate Day" using their own ruleset.

Bathgate Wargames Club had an all day conflict demonstration and participation game called The Forgotten Iraq War (1941) - Clearing Ashar, Iraq again using their own ruleset.

We had a nice look round and leasurely chat with some folks, but numbers were a bit low whilst we were there (late morning). Hopefully there will be another event next year with more numbers, as the main format of "The Battle of Erskine" is different from the usual calendar events and is all in the name of a good cause.