Ambush! 15mm Roman Campaign.

As Crustinuts marches slowly Southwards,he orders a foraging party to go and find food etc. Decus,the 24th's Auxiliary commander puts himself forward to lead the party,mainly because he is "itching" for some action!! As the party heads back to the main column,having done their dastardly deeds of stealing and pillaging the local countryside ,they are confronted by a large body of Iceni warriors-the Romans must fight to get back to their mates!

Top shows the terrain map,bottom shows the troops in position before any movement.

Decus places his troops in a "bow-shape" with cavalry on the flanks and the wagons behind as a last stand defensive position-meanwhile the Iceni advance at a rate of knots!!

Both infantry and cavalry clash,swings and roundabouts for a while,but the Roman LF cavalry are not doing too well!!

The infantry melee continues,but both sides are losing significant casualties,and the order is given to fall back on the wagon line,by Decus-the LF Roman cav. is lost,but the RF cavalry are doing well.

Both sides take the opportunity to reform and replace worn out units with comparatively fresh ones-bottom photo,on right edge, shows the Roman RF cavalry,having dealt with the Iceni cavalry,harassing the Iceni infantry's flank!!-Decus looks very near to the fighting(white horse!)

Top photo shows the Iceni attacking again-bottom shows a breach in the wagon line,forcing Decus to get stuck in and winning a spectacular round of melee!!-my hero. Most of the warriors are suffering too many casualties to carry on,and with the Roman RF cavalry dealing death left,right and centre,all looked to be over for the Iceni..........................

Top is a victorious Decus,bottom is the same gentleman leading his depleted foraging party back to the main column-hurrah!

One final shot showing Decus(on white horse) directing his auxiliaries at the start of the battle.Crustinuts was not pleased that a "friendly" tribe like the Iceni,would attack his troops,and orders an advance on their towns and villages-this will be the next battle.

 

Hello Sailor! 25mm Viking Campaign.

Bloodnok and his Viking fleet have been spotted by El Murtada,the Moorish commander of the Balearic Islands, and are about to engage in a bout of watery fisticuffs.To say that this game was entertaining is the under-statement of the year-it was wonderful,and shows the diversity of wargaming!! 

This is the situation before any movement-best laid plans and all that!!

Both fleets sail towards each other-the Moors slower than the Vikings-the "Fort" had archers in it,and they had the option to shoot "fire arrows" or normal arrows-so the Moors plan was to lure the Vikings to within bow shot!!

Both sides still manoeuvering for position-how I've got the nerve to put those Moorish ships onto the board I just don't know!!!!(if you hadn't guessed,they are hand made!)

Contact is made!-I made both sides equal,so it was just a simple dice throw to decide the melee winner,the loser getting a "red pom-pom" onto its base-three pom-poms made that ship at minus one from the dice,and four pom-poms meant the ship was captured/sunk-too simple??

Eric the idle's ship beat the Moorish Guard ship,which broke off the melee,inviting Eric's ship to follow it-right into bowshot,resulting in fire arrows hitting the ship,resulting in this dramatic photograph!!(well,it's not that dramatic but effective!)

After along hard struggle,the Moorish fleet was almost wiped out,apart from the Guard ship! The Vikings then attacked the fort,resulting in El Murtarda having to flee........................

There he goes!-a beautifully painted vignette by Dave,the master painter-should have painted "water wings" on him!!!

The fort is stormed and captured-hurrah!

Bloodnok supervises the rescue of Eric's men from their burning ship-he's a Gent!!!

Back on dry land,El Murtada is heard shouting "May the Prophet protect us from the Northmen!"-Well, that's another story!

Let's see what Bloodnok can do Mallorca! this was a fascinating game,thoroughly enjoyable,and different.

I received yesterday,some modelling pliers and snips-on the back of their container was this gem of Chinese interpretation................................

Can anyone spot a spelling mistake?-oh to have a laugh in these depressing times!!!

Barcelona etc.25mm Viking Campaign.

When is a siege not a siege?-well as part of my Viking campaign,Barcelona has been betrayed by none other than King Rodrigo of Leon(whose kids Bloodnok had kidnapped!) who has shown the Vikings a old drainage system leading to the centre of Barcelona,for the release of the said kiddywinks!-Bloodnok's troops are attacking the town walls as a "feint" whilst other warriors are entering the town,thus minimising casualties,but still gaining plunder!!-sneaky!!!!

The "feint" siege in progress!

Lord protect us from the Northmen!!

With Barcelona captured,Bloodnok orders a special ship to be built to carry all of the "Loot" he has amassed on his Spanish campaign,before venturing into the Mediterranean sea and starting a new campaign against the Moors! As the Viking fleet approaches the largest of the Balearic islands (Mallorca) they spot a fleet of strange craft approaching them-this is the next battle,a sea battle!!

My concept of the forthcoming sea battle(for which the Vikings were famed!) and a view from the Mooorish side of the table.

Both fleets arranged at the start of what I hope will be a different and entertaining game-I haven't quite worked out yet how I will determine casualties etc. -not wanting to "scupper" the Viking's chances before the campaign gets under way,but not to give them too great an advantage over the Moors.

The "fort" and detail of the Guards ship-a beautifully crafted vessel,correct in every detail,as per historical records-NOT!!!!!

Detail of Magnus' ship with newly painted "crew"-all the Viking ships have 4 crew members now. I am hoping for big things from this game,probably to be played this weekend.The Moorish army I have(El Cid types) have more archer units than the Vikings,so I sent for 24 Viking archers from Warrior Miniatures-they arrived in record time again!...............................

All 24 based and ready to be undercoated.

Standing figure-good detail and animation.

Kneeling figure,again with good detail and animation-probably get them finished by early next week.

T

 

3D Printing

 Hi I’m Chris, a Westerhope Wargame Group gamer in exile (only in North Yorkshire). Paul has asked me to pop a post on the blog about my new toy a 3D printer!

When my friend said he was selling his old 3D printer I jumped at the chance.

The technology is amazing and fascinating. The first thing I printed was a pirate penguin. I chose this as it was a free file on a Kickstarter and it was small.

The print quality wasn’t top notch but it had been a good experiment. I adjusted the settings and discovered that there’s a whole world of 3D files on the internet. Most of them free!

I tried a few small pieces. Boxes and the like. Then progressed to a 17 hour print...

An Imperial Dalek shuttle!

I wargame a variety of ‘periods’. Doctor Who is one of my prized collections. It might not look much, but by BBC prop department standards it’s a thing of beauty lol!

This is the finished model on the print bed. I did pay for the file for this model. £7!

You need slicing software to ready whatever 3D file you have to something the printer will understand. I use Cura slicing software. This is free to download. As you might understand from ‘slicing’ the printer needs to know what the model looks like horizontal slice by slice. 

Manipulating a 3D file in Cura soon becomes easy. 

I then found a model I liked that was too big for my printer. The print bed is about 200mm x 200mm. 

Hmmm...

So I had to learn some more software! This one is called Meshlab and allows you to do a lot more with the 3D files than the slicer software. It was also free to download. I simply cut up the file into 4 separate models. I’m still working on this model. At the moment I have the main parts of the armoured train printed. Together the 4 vehicles are over 2’ long! I’ve made them undersized rather than true 28mm 1/56th scale which would have looked far too big on the tabletop 

Each of these parts took about 6 hours to print. 

The Orlik being prepared in Meshlab free of the other three parts of the train. 

I’ve printed a few other odds and sods. It’s quite addictive and continues to fascinate. As I’m writing this I can just hear the printer upstairs creating some more dragons teeth anti-tank defences. I feel a bit less of a dinosaur!