Hex North Africa

Last weekend Archduke Picollo and I met for a game of Hexblitz as get ready for some North African re-fights.

This game was a set piece action where would could get used to the rules again, as well as the moficiations that Archduke had made.

Archduke shall write one of his excellent reports, so I shall just show off some photos(and use it as an excuse to play around with my blog layout).

The obligatory setup picture with rulebook included. The action saw the Italians defending the North African Coast while awaiting German reinforcements.

My SHQ Tropical Italians defend For Cappuzzo.

German and Italian units defend Halfaya Pass while awaiting the Allied attacks.

21st Panzer defend Hafia Ridge while elements flank the approaching Allies.

The game as I left it. The Germans still hold the ridge but have lost Halfaya and point 206 (Bottom left)

Exciting stuff!

Back into it

Recently, for light entertainment, I purchased two computer games from matrix games

Scourge of War - Waterloo

Fighting the Waterloo campaign at Battalion Level.

An online review of this game was quite right. Graphics are crap, the terrain is crap but this game is epic if you want to refight huge Napoleonic battles.

So far I have taken some smaller games (Attacking Hougonmont and Holding the line (as Brunswickers) and I hope to attempt a divisional game soon before ultimately fighting Ligny, Wavre and Waterloo.

Strategic Command -  WWII - War In Europe

Fighting WW2 European\Africa theatre - This is a bit like Hearts of Iron but not as granular (You command Corps\Armies with some basic research) not the full divisional\political micromanagement level HOI was.

In my game, Poland fell easily, as did the low countries and I managed to just knock out France. Do I take on Russia as historically expected or push through the Balkans and head to the middle east?

I know one thing for sure, the Italians cannot hold North Africa at all.


The WW2 game was picked up after Archduke Picillo and myself played a hex-based Desert War game last weekend (Update to come). I have some travel coming up so it will be a good activity to fill time on the boring business trips I do.

Command Decision - North African Progress

Hi,

I have returned from the usual winter doldrums where no time and motivation are lacking.  In the last month or so I have achieved a fair amount, but did not record any progress on the camera.

There are 4 projects ongoing at the moment, all targetted as Command Decision WW2.

• North Africa - DAK
• North Africa Italian
• North Africa 8th Army
• Normandy British.

The Italians are 99% complete and ready to roll onto the Archduke Piccolo's table. Afterwards, I decided to complete one of the Panzer Grenadier\Schutzen Regiments as I had all my desert pains handy.

First I needed to make up for some missing vehicles and lucky the local swap meet solved some of those requirements.

 But another area I was lacking was trucks (I had 2). So I have discovered a source of Opel Blitz trucks from China, not for the detail-oriented mind you but they look pretty good and suit my needs.

 A few other trucks picked up from  Mr Shields has met my quota as now I have 20 trucks

Over the next week, I shall load some more progress on the DAK, as well as get the Italians ready for a parade.

Hexblitz Italian North Africa

A short post.

After a very long hiatus, Archduke Piccolo has tempted me to get back into the "game". He cunningly lured me into several games of Memoir 44 only to then present me with Hexblitz.  Some time ago I also managed to snapup a copy of Megablitz.

So after a long time, the production line kicked into action last night !

Second Hand Books

I have hit a patch of lethargy, where I cannot be bothered doing any painting. Busy at work, home and general life leaves my fairly tired at the end of the day.

 During this time I did manage to pick up some second-hand books from an estate sale. A collection of Wargaming Books - one in particular "The War Game" was worth the purchase alone. others are a mix of useful books (I now have two copies of "Napoleonic Wargaming" though)

 And a collection of Uniform Books which are very interesting, one of which has the old "plates" in it from drawings. 

So some useful resources. One of the books is in French and has some excellent 70's style drawing in it of Uniforms from 1700 - 1970). I also received some 20mm Italian ww2 support weapons in the post so I suspect this will finally get me off my backside.

Desert War Progress

Full steam ahead on the Desert War Italian and British Armour. All that is required now is to paint the bases and flock them in a desert style mix of sand and light colours.

Stuarts,A-tanks and Portee are Frontline War gaming 20mm, Matilda is matchbox I recall(20 years old at least), Crusaders are Airfix or matchbox (20 years at least), Valentines are PSC and CV33's are S-Model.

 Below all the axis infantry is on the paint tray ready for basing. (While I did not need D.A.K I did them anyway (3 Battalions Worth)). The stands in green are my original Esci figures from 1994 😁.

 

 The Blackshirt stands for some of the better quality Italian units. (Caesar figures of which I have another box to complete)

 The Italeri Italian 120mm Howitzer, this thing is massive.

Hopefully tomorrow I can start basing them and get them done and then move onto finishing the DAK and British.

Channel Islands Invasion

Being an avid WW2 gamer (well actually playing seems to be a mission) I have always wanted to have some solo actions of  a larger campaign. The Channel Islands always took my interest as they are both small, and allow for European forces to battle it out in small scale.

I was lucky enough to visit the Channel islands almost twenty years ago for work when an unnamed

pension fund was looking into Tax Havens.I also grew up with Thomas the Tank Engine so after finding some interesting maps of Sodor I have been tempted to combine the two together and make it a new channel island.

I would at some stage like to have some type of Invasion campaign using this map as it is filled with objectives (mines, ports, airfields etc) however I shall start off by simply getting use to smaller actions solo  (Small Commando raids, patrol actions) so that I can get used to the FightYourOwnbattle Mechanics and also streamline what I want to achieve.

Solo WW2 Campaigns

While I am extremely busy in life and work, I have at least tried to do some "wargaming" tasks per night. The above WW2 drive also had me thinking about other ideas and scenarios I wish to pursue.

But first some pictures ....German Paras (Italeri, Revell and Orion) and Infantry (Airfix and some Esci) and British Infantry (Esci) in the box of "glued".

 Airfix also released a new infantry kit for British - I rather like these.

As a fan of Command Decision I have always wanted to get back into some small games, I have also used Rapid Fire before so I've been thinking about small campaigns I can play at night. Nothing more than a Battalion or two in size but enough to satisfy my urge - I have always wanted to do the Pacific (Kokoda or other small actions) and an invasion of a Channel Island.

I picked up a set of the Solo WW2 Battle and Campaign Rules "Fight Your Own Battles" and "Fight Your Own Wars"  (http://www.fightyourownbattles.co.uk/). A very interesting read and more to come on this subject.

The motivation for this are simply classic movies

"The Eagle has Landed" and "Too Late the Hero", both Micheal Caine movies that would suit small scale actions.

Command Decision WW2 and Napoleonic Update

It's been along hot summer. I have done a lot and have a series of blog posts ready but I never seem to finish anything to post. Luckily the weather turned here as a cyclone came and it was nice and cool - perfect painting weather.

Archduke Piccilo and myself have been getting ready for a Desert War game using the operational rules. My Italians have needed to be finished, but that has now expanded into the 8th Army vehicles.

I have been quite industrious here. I based all the infantry and tanks, and then spray painted them  (Desert Primer for the Italians and Light Sand for the British).

 The vehicles were then given a dose of Army Painter Quick Shade, and I am really please with how they came out. I am currently painting the infantry equipment and then they will be quicktoned too and I'll finish the bases.

And I am slowly basing my 1/72 British for my Grande Armee refights

Painting Options

As I have recently returned to 1/72 scale for armies in a number of solo periods the issue of painting them has come up again. While I paint 15mm and 28mm in a certain why, the beauty and attraction of 1/72 is being able to create and paint largish armies quite simply and quickly.

While my Napoleonic figures can be painted to some degree of detail my WW2, ACW, Fantasy and other armies don't need as much so I am going to experiment on them by using Army painter Quickshade.It has mixed reviews but recently I have seen several posts regarding it and the results look quite good.

After reading a few posts on blogs and forums I followed the recommended technique and applied it using a brush, dried and followed with a Matt Varnish. I then wanted to see what they looked like to decide if I need to highlight any colours.

I was suprised how shiny the quicktone made the figure but with varnish (applied properly) they looked quite good. So I tried a number of different periods and figures to see Quickshade fared.

 1. Italeri CSA Infantry (Good result)

 2. Esci Union Infantry (50/50 Result - Something about them nags at me)

 3. Esci Soviet Infantry (Good result)

 4. HAT\Airfix Napoloenic (Good result though I may highlight lighter colours as I like bright figures)

 5. A Italeri CSA cavalryman. (Great result).

 6. An Italeri Prussian Infantryman (Good result for an awful figure).

 So, I am quite pleased with the process. I was able to paint the these figures very quickly whcih was great, quicktone dry (1 day) and varnish dry (1 day). I am pretty confident I can finish the rest of the Napoleonic and ACW armies very quickly.

Then I can get back into my 300 or so 28mm Prussians I need to start.

Paper Terrain

Given my recent burst of motivation I have continued my painting and terrain building. I was pointed to Cardboard-Warriors, which is an excellent source of knowledge and resources as I still need to complete a few items I purchased.

So in order to practice and not make the same mistakes encountered in making the Waterloo kits I decided to practice on some designs by "grendelsmother64" of the Laketown Village.

These were printed on 100 gsm as its the only card my printer can support and I made them rather quickly (my biggest fault). But not bad for some quick themed terrain at short notice.