Let’s start this Wargaming Week, covering the 9th through to the 15th of July.
Blog Stuff
This week’s post was another Range Impression, taking a look at the Empress SAS in Afghanistan. Despite this being some of the oldest sculpts I own, you can tell I really like them. Expect to keep seeing them in battle reports for as long as I need some scrappy contractors.
So I’m coming off a short break away, lets talk about how the blog is going – think of this as a mid year catch up.
First up, things have slowed down a bit as you may have noticed. I like to keep blaming this on work but it’s not entirely the reason. I think I’ve been a bit bogged down in trying to get big chunks of my collection painted and so the motivation has just dried up. This hasn’t been helped by the fact I haven’t been down to the club to play for a while so the cycle of “painting to be ready to play a scenario” has been broken some what. It’s probably going to get worse before it gets better.
Second, I’m thinking of diversifying a little bit. Remember back when I’d post stuff on Wednesdays? Well, I think I’m going to return to the occasional post as part of running some side projects . I can already think of three little projects that will let me vary up what games I play (and figures I get to paint and assemble) in addition to the moderns that dominate the blog.
- Fantasy Mercenary Bands (using Open Combat): I like my fantasy on the more realistic side, dirty peasants fighting horrible monsters with the occasional magical lunatic when things go horribly wrong. Open Combat is also a ruleset I’ve been really interested in playing, especially after talking to the writer at Chillcon. I’m also looking for a wargame that I can put together and [lay in a lunchbreak. Combing these elements together and I think it’s time for some dungeon crawling. There may even be some written material coming out of this
- British Airborne at Arnhem (for Chain of Command): My holiday read has been Anthony Beevor’s Arnhem book. Aside from getting massively annoyed with the blunders of high command, it re-awakened my desire to get a platoon of Red Devils in my collection. I’m also thinking of using this as an excuse to improve my green stuffing and conversion work – the plan is to make a few of the troops look a bit more battleworn while also assembling patrol markers and jumping off points. My target is to get this ready by September 2019, in time for the 75th Anniversary
- Deathwatch Kill Team: KILL TEAM IS COMING BACK. As someone who blames the original KIll team for my love of small scale tactics games, the idea of new version fills me with joy. I’ve wanted to pick up some of the new Primaris Marines for a while and a game that only needs a few is perfect. This will probably be the shortest project, as I’ll be picking up a single box and rulebook to get ready for it
Don’t worry! This blog is still going to focus on Modern Wargaming – it remains my main love for wargaming and so the Monday and Friday posts will remain the same. The change is that every once in a while you’ll get something a little bit different.
News
So the news! I may have been away enjoying some time off in Yorkshire venturing outside, but this didn’t stop exciting things happening in the modern wargaming world.
Phalanx Consortium and Radio Dishdash have been showing off some more shots of their figures for their upcoming Kickstarter! I’m really liking the look of these guys – I’ve had some misgivings about the Day of the Rangers figures but these look improved.
Spectre have also been showing off some upcoming terrain detailing products. These are some air conditioning units and TV aerials, a good shorthand for making many terrain items suitable for the modern day. EDIT: These are now out and available on the Spectre site!
I’m going to be buying a lot of them for my Bazi City project.
Also OPSEC at Spectre HQ seems to have dropped, those greens look pretty exciting.
Under Fire Miniatures have some brand new releases. As well as 20mm sets, the first of the RhSAS are now out. Pack one includes two RPDs, an AK and a FAL. The pack also comes with small packs and bergens, letting you set these guys up for either long range patrolling or close in fire fights. I’m looking forward to seeing what other figures are coming soon.
In a follow up to last week’s post, White Dragon Miniatures have shown off the detailed version of their Hesco combinations. As you can see, they’ve added some sand to make these look used and ready for combat. I love the single Hescos and these walls should help make some really cool battlefields.
I’ll be keeping an eye on these, and maybe I’ll be building that FOB sooner than I originally planned.
Purchases
As part of diversifying, I picked up the Frostgrave Soldiers box for my Open Combat project. I’ve kept my eye on this since I first started investigating the idea of wargaming something other than moderns. Expect a post coming soon looking at the box and describing my plans for the project. It’s gonna feature sewers.
I bought some bases. I still hadn’t got round to basing many of the figures I bought at Salute (those donkeys need ). They are MDF bases. There is nothing exciting about them.
EDIT: With Spectre releasing their terrain items yesterday, I picked up multiples of the Air Con and Satellite Dishes to get to work on my Sarissa North Africa Buildings. I also, after checking through my collection, realised I was actually missing two of the Russian Breachers with half height shields and so added them to my order, all ready for when I get round to covering the Spetsnaz range.
That’s it for this update, expect more updates next week!