Yet More Fireforge Knights

Phew! Finally finished painting the three boxes of Fireforge Knights that I prepped just after Christmas. Here's the last batch of 12. I still have to do their banners and gonfanons, but I need a breather from the 13th Century.



The bishop on the right is the only figure not from Fireforge. I think he's from Gripping Beast? In any case, I've done him up as the Archbishop of Trier.



Well there we are. Don't forget my prize giveaway. Entries close Friday.





And in other news, I may have bought a copy of X-Wing (shhh!)

Competition Time!

Having passed the significant milestone of 200,000 page views, it's time to return some love to all you fine people who visit my blog.

So, I have three prizes up for grabs.

PRIZE 1:
I'll paint something for you. I'm open to negotiation on this, but you might like something such as a SAGA warlord based up along with one of the Fenris Games Runestones I referred to here. Or maybe a unit of Swords for Hire for SAGA. Or maybe a small squad (up to 10 or so 28mm figures) of sci-fi, pulp figures, whatever really. Oh, and I'll supply the figures.

PRIZE 2:
A while back I made an impulse purchase of some 18mm Eureka/AB figures for Lasalle. I've since decided to stick with 1/72 figures when the Napoleonic bug bites again. So, prize 2 consists of 2 Lasalle packs of unpainted figures from Eureka Miniatures (codes LAS F-04 and LAS F-18). When based for Lasalle these will give you a battalion of French line infantry for the Hundred Days and a Regiment of Chasseurs a Cheval. For a detailed description of what's in each pack, see here. Lovely figures.

PRIZE 3:
A copy of the rulebook 'Disposable Heroes and Coffin for Seven Brothers', which you can read about here.

To enter, just post a comment saying which prize(s) you want to go in the draw for. You need to be a follower of the blog. Put in for all 3 if you want. Entries close at noon (Australian Eastern Standard Time), Friday 8 March, after which I'll draw the winners out of a stylish hat.

Good luck!

Oooohhhhh Shiny!

I made a couple of purchases this week of things that caught my eye and compelled me to pull out my wallet.

First up, I got hold of a box of the new Eisenern Stormtroopers from Dreamforge. When these went up for preorder on the War and Peace Games website a couple of weeks ago they took my breath away. Sci-fi really isn't my thing, but I thought these figures looked sensational. They have really nailed the aesthetic of WWII German meets Star Wars, and I'm impressed by the way they are simultaneously releasing heavy weapons, an accessories set and infantry in 10- or 20- man boxes. On the way are other goodies like female stormtroopers and APCs. Also out from Dreamforge are of course their massive Leviathan walkers, which will have all sorts of people frothing. They do look fantastic, but not quite my thing.

I picked up a box of Stormtroopers from Ian at War and Peace, and am really impressed by the quality of the figures. There are loads of options for different poses and weapons, even without the accessories set, and even the box and artwork reeks of quality. I stuck one together and primed it just to see what it looked like, and was very happy with how well everything fitted together.



As to what I'm going to do with them, I don't know. This is a rare purchase for me based entirely on having an 'ooh shiny!' reaction to some figures, rather than having a game in mind. Tomorrow's War appeals to me a bit, from what I've heard. I have to think about how to paint the Stormtroopers as well. I'm thinking a sort of dot camo, but using black, greys and white for an urban environment. Any suggestions?

My other purchase this week was much more sensible. After seeing one of the resin runestones from Fenris Games on the SAGA forum, I ordered the three packs they make (with two runestaones in each pack). I've already given one away, but here are the five remaining. These are great little castings, and should look pretty impressive on a SAGA warlord's base or just in a terrain features. The customer service from Fenris was very good as well, with the pack on its way from the UK the day after I ordered it.

Crossing the 200,000 Mark!

It has been very busy at school over the past couple of weeks, and hobby output has been suffering. However, this week my humble blog passed a significant milestone with 200,000 page views. Thanks so much to everyone who visits and comments on the blog - it means a lot to me.



This week also saw the first experiment at the school club with Battle Group Kursk. Basically we just chucked some units on the table to start getting a hang of the turn sequence and how combat works. It is initially a bit confusing remembering the sequence for different types of fire (area fire, AP etc), especially when excited 13 year olds are queued up to ask me arcane questions about SAGA. We started getting the hang of it though, and I can see that this is going to be one of my favourite games. We have a SAGA tournament coming up in a couple of weeks, but for next term the focus will shift a bit to Project Kursk, with plans afoot for making terrain boards and some communal assembly line painting sessions.

School Team on Tour

On Sunday I took five boys from the school club out to The Hall of Heroes at Campbelltown, on the fringes of Sydney's urban sprawl, to take part in a SAGA tournament. The risk assessment forms were enormous fun to fill out, as always. I refer to this group as the school Representative Historical Wargaming Club, and am working on being able to present reports in assembly based on the sort of cliches that rugby reports are noted for.

There were 12 competitors in the tournament in total, so we made up half the field. I brought along my Welsh. We played three scenarios using 6 point warbands - Clash of Warlords, Sacred Ground and the Escort. Fortune did not shine on me, being destroyed in the first game by one of the boys from school with his damn unstoppable 12 figure unit of Breton hearthguard.

Round 1 with those damn Bretons
In the second game I fought Normans, and if the scenario had gone for the proper 8 turns I reckon I would have pulled off a win, but when the time ran out I was well behind on points.
Steve the Norman plots my doom
Round three found me attacking an Anglo-Saxon convoy of sheep, women and beer. I was all over this one, using my mounted hearthguard with effect to get in amongst his baggage and capture the sheep. The beer proved a tough nut to crack, and proved my undoing (as so often in life). The beer fought me off for a couple of turns and then we were out of time, so a draw. The beer prevented me getting hold of the women, which is something of a life lesson.

Despite my lacklustre performance, the School Representative Team crushed all opposition, with boys from the club coming first, second, fourth and fifth! Quite a brilliant achievement, especially since they were playing against much more experienced adults. The winner found himself the proud owner of a new Strathclyde Welsh starter warband to paint up, along with a handsome trophy.

The boys were great throughout the day, the competition as always was good spirited and friendly, and I have nothing but praise for the chaps at Hall of Heroes.

Battle approaches...

On Sunday I'm off to a SAGA tournament at the Hall of Heroes in Sydney's west, and I've even managed to turn it into an excursion for the school wargaming club, with five vicious young warlords joining me for the day (my comitatus? retinue?) Sunday is also the Duchess' birthday, which shows what a magnificent, understanding and supportive woman she is.

I'm going to use my Welsh for the Tournament, and painted up an extra figure this week to act as a mounted standard bearer, in case I feel like adding a war banner to one of my units, using hte special rules introduced in the Raven's Shadow Saga supplement. The figure is from Westwind, with a LBMS banner and handpainted shield.



I must admit that my morale is not high as I approach this Tournament, largely because I have either offended the dice gods or perhaps more likely have played a couple of games recently with cursed dice. To demonstrate:

The week before last I had a game of Saga at school with one of the boys. I launched a cunning attack on one of his units in which I only needed to roll 3s to hit, and was rolling 10 dice. This is what I rolled.

In response, my opponent was rolling 9 dice and needed 6s to hit, Here's his roll:

I played another game this week using the same dice with a similar result. I will never use those dice again, and if they didn't belong to one of the boys would introduce them to an angle grinder. Tomorrow night, I plan to give my own dice a stern talking to, offering them a bath in a bowl of beer if they at least obey the laws of probability on Sunday, which doesn't honestly seem too much to ask, and reminding of them of the meanings of the verbs 'to die' and 'to dice' should they betray me. So my morale is not high, but I take some comfort in my performance using the rifle simulator at Cadets this afternoon. A single shot, standing, and here's the result:

Heh heh heh. The old Dux has still got it.

Project Kursk Part 9: Soviet Artillery

The latest minis to roll off the assembly line for the Battlegroup Kursk Project are 8 Soviet guns. These are all from Plastic Soldier Company, made from one box each of their 45mm AT guns and ZiS 2/3 guns. All up, we have here three ZiS 3 76mm field guns, a 57mm ZiS 2 anti tank gun, three 45mm M1942 AT guns and a 76mm infantry gun.

I've also finished three prepared positions that can accommodate any of the guns. I wrote up a work-in-progress post about these bases here.