Fred’s 2023 Painting and Gaming Diary

[Techno 3]

Good stuff ! 

[Steve J]

Great work Forbes !

[fred.]

Thanks chaps

[mmcv]

These are coming along great, much better progress than I've made on my WW1 stuff! I love the mud bases look on the Germans, might have to steal that for any mid-war forces I do. What's your technique for the mud effect?

[fred.]

These are coming along great, much better progress than I've made on my WW1 stuff! I love the mud bases look on the Germans, might have to steal that for any mid-war forces I do. What's your technique for the mud effect?

Thanks - I'm really pleased with the progress of the Russians - I only got the first of them in early July (an army pack and some extras) and painted those up so ordered more cavalry of which these are the first third done. 


The mud basing is Ronseal wood filler, it comes in a couple of handy dark brown shades which works great for mud. If you let it dry a little then you can texture it nicely. I then add a bit of dry brushed lighter browns to give some variance, and like to use water effects for a small puddles / filled shell craters. 

[paulr]

Belated      for the Russians

[fred.]

A War Transformed

We tried a new rule set this week - A War Transformed by Osprey. It is Weird WWI, small battle scale, with a 8-20 units a side. It is nominally 28mm, but of course we played in 10mm! 

The core twist to the setting is that in 1916 an asteroid crashed into the moon, causing the sea levels to change, leaving the doggerland (eg the English Channel) dry, and causing the old gods to awaken. The game takes place a year or so later, with the WWI fighting continuing, but more as large skirmishes and fortified zones, rather than the typical trenches of the western front. 

Played RaW for unit sizes and ranges, with one exception of making infantry sections 4 30x30mm bases of 3 figures, rather than 8x individually based 28mm figures. 

We got the hang of the core mechanics fairly quickly, the magic and vehicle rules took a bit more flicking through the rule book, but I think we got those too. 

As a first game there wasn't too much going on tactically, we more wanted to get a feel for how units work. 



The British Empire forces nearest the camera / left hand side. I had a smallish force with 4 infantry sections (each of 4 bases), a Mark IV tank and an 18pdr field gun, along with a Captain and a Witch. 

The Germans on the far side, had a bigger and more diverse force. 4 infantry sections, HMG, Lancers, Flammenwerfer, 3.7cm AT Gun, T-Gewher AT Rifle, Sniper, Captain and Witch. 

These were both fairly small 19pt forces - but seemed a good size for getting started. 

Terrain wise I idea was the revealed sea bed - where some areas of greenery have sprung up, perhaps fed by the blood of fallen troops... There were a couple of areas of water, and several areas of mire. There is a large hill nearest the camera, which isn't very obvious on the photo.



The left flank, the British 18pdr behind a hill, with a couple of infantry sections supporting, along wiht the Captain who has issued an Order to the gun to make its shooting a little more effective. Each turn your force generates command tokens, which can be used for a number of things, Orders from your officer, rituals from your witch and abilities by those units which have them. 


The German forces undertake a general advance. The Britsh hold at the far end, and advance nearest the camera. 

The British have already caused a couple of casualties on the German Lancers knocking them to half-strength which inflicts a Combat Stress Maker (CSM) on them. The 18pdr had hit an infantry section, causing casualties and pinning them.



Both sides push forward, engaging each other. The British infantry in the wood where under sustained fire from the German HMG, which pinned them frequently (the pinning mechanism feels pretty good). The Tank trundle to the crest of the hill, where its MGs proved very effective, as it could fire the ones on different facings each turn. It was hit by the 3.7cm AT gun, but this only caused a single wound - and really wasn't that concerning to me. The German Lancers have been shot off by the infantry - only having 4 wounds and not being in cover makes them pretty vulnerable - and given their speed they were a priority target. 



Getting towards the end. The Geman HMG and Flammenwerfer were taken out by 18pdr fire. The FW felt very useless in this game - it costs more points than the HMG, only has 10" range (compared to 25" for rifles, and 36" for the HMGs). Perhaps in an game with heavier terrain it would have been more useful. 

The Tank was very effective with its MG fire taking out a number of German units. The German section charged into melee with one of my infantry units, and this turned into a protracted fight, with the slight numerical advantage for the British being telling in the end.

My Witch had been unsuccessful in the various rituals he attempted - but these rituals generate manifestion dice, which can also be generated by winning in close combats. I had the maximum of 6 manifestion dice, so went for the 2nd most powerful summoning, Trolls. Which was succesful, they appear on a board edge, so I choose near the 3.7cm gun - this lead to a very one-sided melee! The German witch only had 3 manifestion dice, and when attempting their summoning failed, and rolled doubles, meaning he was stunned for the rest of the turn!

All in all a fun game - the rules are pretty dense and have certiainly taken some digesting over the last couple of weeks - but once on the table we got the flow of the core mechanisms pretty quickly. 

[Duke Speedy of Leighton]

Interesting! 

[fred.]

WWI Russians

Got a few more of these figures painted up - an impending game always accelerates the painting!



2x Tachanka and 2x Limbers

This adds 12 horses, 4 vehicles and 4 figures' to the totals.

Painted totals for 2023 to  562 figures : 114 cavalry : 14 vehicles : 10 guns

[paulr]

    

[Duke Speedy of Leighton]

Beautiful

[Steve J]

Not heard of these rules, but certainly a different take on WWI!

[fred.]

Thanks chaps

Not heard of these rules, but certainly a different take on WWI!

AWT is a very new set (end of Sept) from Osprey, has been quite heavily promoted by Northstar. 


We've had a couple of fun games so far. So far Tanks and Armoured Cars are seeming very good, the supernatural elements add a nice level of flavour without being over powering. 

We played Russians vs Germans on Friday night - I'll get some photos posted shortly

[fred.]

A War Transformed - Russians vs Germans

Second game of AWT - going for the newly painted Russians so moving away from the newly drained English Channel to somewhere in Eastern Europe. In the game timeline there has been no Russian Revolution and the Russian Imperial forces have pushed west. 

Overview of the battle - my Russians nearest the camera. 



The 3 white obelisks on top of the hills are the objectives



Armoured cars engage enemy troops on the right flank - the HMGs on these were very effective. The German A/C destroyed my foot HMG with one burst, and my A/C was shooting up the German cavalry. 



My A/C has moved more towards the right flank, but this allowed it to be charge by the German cavalry - whilst the cavalry would struggle to damage it, it does pin the A/C in melee. My conscript infantry have joined the scrap. Whilst our infantry keep the bulk of the hill between them on the left.



On the far side of the table the Germans manifested a unit of Prowlers (yellow foo dogs - still painting up some more credible models!) which went on the Rampage. This proved pretty useful for the Germans as it was behind the Russian lines. 

On the far side of the table, I have manifested some Brownies (blue fairies - see note above!) these are the weakest manifestation - and I didn't keep enough Command Tokens to be able to trigger their abilities - so they just charged, which was a bit ineffective!



The ongoing scrap between the A/C and German cavalry. 

A good fun game. A/C do seem very good value, at 3pts so just 1 more than a foot HMG team, when they have the same weapon, can move quickly, can shoot after moving, and their armour makes them pretty invulnerable to most units (other than in melee).

Toying with just how big a game we could go with. We are still having to check a lot of rules (well mainly keywords) each game.

[Duke Speedy of Leighton]

Fab report, looks great!