Battling Tanks.-A new level?

Is this taking Wargaming to a new level,or just plain silly?
I have been toying(excuse the pun!) with buying these Battling Tanks,for a few months now,since seeing them in a catalogue,but the price of £50 plus £5 p&p put me off-I'm a P.O.P.(poor old pensioner) you know! However my lovely wife went onto "Amazon" and found the very same Tanks for £32 including p&p!!-so I bought them,and will have to live on bread and jam for the next few weeks!!

The Battling Tanks,c/w controllers-they operate on an infra-red system and radio control-as I'm not a WW2 buff I don't know what type of tanks they're supposed to be,but as they are very well detailed,I assume they are taken from historical types.

After I had deciphered the Chinese version of English(see above!) the instructions were simple,and once the batteries had been fully charged,I was ready to go!!

This shows both tanks on my 10x6 table-loads of room to move about-I put a couple of obstacles on the table to see if I could manoeuvre around them-and with a bit of practice I did-however to turn right you use the left hand lever,and vice versa(very confusing for a man of my age!!)

Both tanks are about 11inches long including the gun barrel-the large red light on top of the tank is your aiming point,and the smaller red light are your "life" indicators,which automatically go out if you're hit-clever these Chinese!!

The tanks in action!-because Paul couldn't make it last night,I had to control both ,but I defy anyone not to enjoy this type of action.When the gun fires it makes a realistic noise,and when the "cannon" fire the noise is a comforting "ratatat" noise-hilarious!!-even more hilarious is the "Ahhhhh!! noise made by the tank that is hit-I was bad laughing by the time I had finished.

These are the "life" indicators-once three lives are lost you can't fire the gun,but the turret still revolves and you can fire the cannon.After four lives are lost the tank is "dead.-great fun.

With forward and reverse,360 degree rotating turret,gun and cannon fire,with sound effects-these are worth the money.I can't see me switching to Battling Tanks full time,but for a good,fun evening on a long winter night,I can see great potential-all I have to do now is convince the rest of the club!!
So I'm off to "super enjoy the emulational fight of the tanks!"

A Plastic Battle

Paul has returned from Crete,bringing with him some wargaming "goodies"..........

He is so enamoured with the Greek style that he has re-decorated his front room to look like this!!!!

This is Paul and his wife,Janet,outside their new- look house,I can only say what a lovely pair.(of statues that is!!)-Paul also provided the "Gods"-Zeus and Aphrodite(??)I'm sure that this temple and Gods will appear in many wargames to come-a big thanks to Paul,and of course,welcome home!

Well now,onto last night's battle,using plastic figures for all of the infantry,and gunners,but metal for the cavalry.

Scenario and initial dispositions-I was British,Paul was Danish-this was,as can be seen,a very small game for us,but I had to "ease" Paul back into the wargaming scene,very gently after his Cretan adventure!

On move number one I put my right hand brigade into column as a feint,hoping that Paul would move troops to his left to counter them,I would then turn them back into line and "sweep" across the stream,thus winning the game!!-no bloody chance!!

While his gunners were doing untold damage to my troops,Paul,sneakily,moved some infantry across the bridge and assaulted my left hand brigade-the swine!!

Meanwhile,a cavalry battle was developing on my far right flank,which,after a long hard -fought struggle,I won(this was my only success of the night!)

Take that!!(not the boy band!!) a well aimed shot at Paul's out-flanking infantry,gave them a bit of a shock,but his dice throwing saved them and they fought on-will I never learn?

On my left flank,the "brigade" of 3 is now down to 1!!-thanks to great artillery and volley fire-looks like the end of my "Army".

With gaps appearing along my whole line,and troops "retiring"(running away!!) the British were declared the losers and to cries of...........

I had to admit defeat(of course I deliberately let Paul win because it was his first game back after his holiday!!!!!!!!)

I put my defeat down to being exhausted,having been walking in the Cheviot Hills all day-it's good being retired you know!!
Roll on Sunday,hopefully it will be full house-and probably an Ancients game(but will it include a Greek Temple?)

Pyrrhus vs Rome 280BC

Brian is back-with a vengeance!!!-to say I got beaten last night is a massive understatement!!
Paul is still on holiday,but somehow he has managed to pass his "demon dice throwing skills" onto Brian!

Top photo shows the scenario-I was Quintus Aemelius commanding the Romans,Brian was Pyrrhus.
Second photo is my line-up,third photo is Brian's line-up.
We both wrote similar battle plans,ie pin each other on the flanks whilst the "heavies" in the centre smashed their opposition-simple!!

While Brian is calmly writing his next orders,his Elephants are making a right mess of my front line Hastati,who,despite inflicting massive casualties with their Pila,can not stop the charge of a three ton "beastie" and Brian's wonderful dice throwing!!-they were decimated on the first contact!!!!

Our light troops are contesting the "broken ground" in this shot-this was a more even contest,with both sides having equal numbers and types of troops.

The bloody audacity of the man!!-his "beasties" have contacted my second line of Princepes,and although I did manage to deal with them,eventually, the damage had been done and my battle plan was already in dis-array-woe is me!!!

This is the far left of my position,being hard fought against Brian's Illyrians-this tussle went on for the whole of the game,along with the battle for the gap between the "mountains"..........

This is it,my Triarii vs the troops from Tarrentum(they started the whole business by inviting Pyrrhus to help them!)

The Elephants are now just a distant memory(all that is left of them are steaming piles of dung,and Roman bodies!!) so my Princepes are reformed,and are advancing on to the Phalanx-surely Brian's dice throwing antics won't be repeated against them(?)

CRASH!! the two sides meet in a headlong charge-having expended their pila against the bloody Elephants,a couple of my units were at a big dis-advantage against the pikes of the Phalanx,and boy did Brian take advantage of that!-his dice throwing was a little short of "scary"

I can't bear to look! with my centre beaten,my right flank lost and my left flank just about holding,I did what every good wargamer should do-I asked for a draw!!! this of course was refused,and I tried to fall on my sword,but missed!!!!!
This was a great game,played with good humour,but I'm sending the dice away for forensic tests!!
Paul should be back for Thursday's game,so roll on then.
Good to see you back,Brian-don't give us any more scares,other than your dice throwing!

Battle of Wolf Creek 1863

Last night I got my "little one's" out and Dave and I played with them!!-I am of course talking about my 15mm American Civil War figures!!

The scenario and table before any movement-I was Lee,Dave was Meade-the objectives were to capture the supply dump or to stop the supply dump from being captured!

The Cofederate guns open up-I had to try and break up the Union attacks before they got to my lines-this didn't quite work out as I had anticipated(gunners should have gone to Spec Savers!!)

Even under intense artillery fire,the Union troops kept advancing towards their objective!

In this shot the "Rebs" are waiting patiently,however,I had ordered two brigades to march to the left,and that is where I was going to make my big push-will it work?

Hmm,Dave had anticipated that move and countered it with Infantry and guns-this was turning into a "cracker" of a game........

The race is on for the field-Dave,always the tactician,sent his cavalry brigade to stop me,he dis-mounted them behind the wall and shot the hell out of me before I could even get into a firing line-the swine!!!

The Union artillery now opened up on my lines,causing havoc-was this the prelude to an all out attack?-surely not(wishful thinking)

I have been driven back,from the walled field,with tremendous losses,and now Dave's main attack is developing in the centre!!

Here it comes!!-the supply dump is being attacked,and my right hand Zouave brigade is being taught a lesson in how to shoot straight-HELP!!

That's the end! Dave has penetrated my centre,defeated both flanks,and has massed his artillery just in case I put in a counter attack(with what??)-I did ask for a draw,but he refused!!
This turned out to be a very lively game,considering the number of figures used and the cut-down table size(6x6)-great stuff.
All of the figures are from Warrior Miniatures.
Some good news,just in ,Brian feels well enough to join us on Sunday,so looking forward to seeing him then-don't know what sort of game yet.

Spanish Galleon Project-completion

Back in October 2014,I bought,at auction,a most wonderful model of a Spanish Galleon.I have tried,without success,to find out a bit of history of this model,because there are others like it around the country.Anyway I have finished "restoring" it to its former glory,and thought I might just post some photographs of the completed model.

This is how it looked when I bought it.

And this is how it looks now!

Then...and........

Now!!
I found the project interesting and very challenging-the sails had paintings on them of a crucifix and scroll, however my painting and artistic abilities would not allow me to even attempt copying them,so the sails are just plain canvas!!

My wife has suggested that I buy some Pirate-type figures(Warrior and Irregular make some) and put them on board-hmmmm,another project??

All this talk of sea-faring things reminds me that I haven't had my daily "tot" of Rum yet!!