Painting for March to May

Just keeping abreast of my painting so far this year, March was quite productive  but things ground to a halt after that. Not due to lack of interest, but rather lack of time, two trips abroad in April and a week in Devon at the beginning of May didn't leave me a lot of painting opportunities!

A pair of barbarians from the Wildspire set.

A pair of lizardmen from the same set.

Also from Wildspire, a group of dwarves.

Then various sci-fi scatter pieces, from a batch of 3d prints I picked up. All ready for Scrapjacks.

 Then a return to Jotunheim in may

A resin armoured bear from TT Combat's Max Mini range. This is a test paint for a unit for Midgard.

Happy with that, I've now finished the unit.

A Yeti/Snow Demon, another from the Wildspire set.

A Frost Giant from the Wildspire set.

A Ghost Warg, I'm not sure how to class this yet, an undead/spirit creature or just a large beastie. The model is a 3d print Dire Wolf from Headbunny Games.

First Game with Torpedoes and Tides

 When Cruel Seas first came out we played it a lot and Colin and myself invested heavily in additional boats. But after a while the rules became more complicated and less fun, so we stopped playing. My little ships have sat on the self for a few years and every now and then I've thought about getting them out, but never bothered.

So, I got very exited about Torpedoes and Tides, the new WW2 costal forces wargame by Thomas Brandstetter (published by Ganesha Games). The rules use the same mechanisms as Galleys and Galleons, which in turn is built on A Song of Blades and Heroes (both also published by Ganesha Games). This makes the game somewhat more abstract than other rules systems, but also provides for a truly fast-play rule set. Reading through we both liked the very clever way that spotting and the strength and position of the moon played important roles, after all, the majority of small boat encounters took place at night.

Colin came over the other day, so that we could try the game out with my old Cruel Seas boats.

We started off with a historical scenario from the book, Making a Beginning, which the author suggests as a good place for players to familiarise themselves with the basic rules.

It's a simple scenario, 2 S Boats are returning to port and ambushed by 3 RN gunboats.

Nothing much happened for the first move, the Germans ran for home and the British closed in. In turn two one of the British boats revealed itself and fired a star shell, which made spotting the S boats easier. Boats cannot fire, or be targeted, whilst they are moving on a blind.

Here is the situation at the end of turn 2, one S boat has been spotted, the blue splash marker represents the star shell (getting to reuse some of the Cruel Seas gubbins!).

                                               

In turn 3 all of the gunboats pounded the closest S Boat, which took heavy damage and had a gun knocked out. With 3 hits it was now battered and now activated with 3 red dice (or in our case black dice). I rolled two 6s and a 1. Rolling a 1 on a red die means taking an All At Sea test (a sort of panic test). My result was to fire blindly at the closest target. 

Fortunately I had already moved my other S Boat out of the way, so I blasted the closest British gunboat, not causing any damage but suppressing it.

In turn 4 my damaged S Boat took more hits and exploded! The other S Boat managed to slink off table, unharmed. An easy win for the RN, but fun to play and it gave us an understanding of the rules.

Our second game was a convey mission. The Germans had two freighters escorted by a Vorpstenboot and 2 Kriegfischkutters pounced on by 2 RN MTBs and 2 RN MGBs.

Turn 1 didn't start well for the British, the first blind rolled one activation and 2 fails, so moved forward alone and passed the turn over to the Germans. For activations, players roll 1 to 3 d6s per boat/blind, if they roll 2 or more fails its a turnover and the initiative passes to the other player.

I had the British so, once I got going, I threw the MGBs forward to engage the escorts and try and spot the freighters, whilst the MTBs hung back, waiting for targets!

This tactic worked brilliantly as the German escorts broke formation to engage the MGBs and Colin moved one of his little Kriegfischkutters (I need to find an abbreviation for that!) into the path of his Vorpostenboot! Both boats took damage from the collision, combined with the gunfire from the MGBs the Kriegfischkutter was now battered (3 hits) and the Vorpostenboot not much better (2 hits).

I saw a gap and one of my MTBs sped forward and launched 2 torpedoes....which both missed! The rules say that torpedoes that miss the target are taken off, but we decided to let them run after missing the target. We marked the launch point and the full extent of the torpedo's run, if anything crossed the line until the next British turn, we would roll for another torpedo attack on that target. This is something the author originally thought of including, laying a stick on the table to mark the torpedo's run, but decided to reject in the end.

Colin now failed his first activation in two consecutive turns (he started with a freighter both times which are difficult to activate). This did mean that the first freighter crawled forward (an activated ship must move, if a player doesn't use any actions to move it, it makes a compulsory short move straight ahead). This allowed my boats to swing around the convoy like Comanche around a wagon train! As the MTB pulled itself around to make a second pass it blasted the other Kreigfischkutter, scoring a lucky hit and setting it on fire!

The second MTB launched two more torpedoes, also missing the freighter! The MGBs were now the other side of the freighters, blasting them with all they had. the light weaponry on the small boats meant that I needed lucky dice to effect the bigger ships, but it was worth a chance and I did some damage! The MGBs were safe from the torpedoes, as their shallow draft meant that the fish just passed underneath them. The battered Kreigfischkutter now rolled a 1 for one of it's activations and the skipper panicked and fled. The boat must now use at least two of it's activations to leave the table.

The first MTB had now moved around to make a second run, launching it's last 2 torpedoes, missing again!

Fortunately for me, the second freighter ten moved into the path of the torpedoes and I rolled a hit, at last!

I rolled well on the effects chart and the freighter was wrecked!

At this point the remaining German vessels moved off the table edge, so it was game over. I has battered all three escorts, sunk one freighter and badly damaged the other with gunfire, for just some scratched paintwork on the MGBs. However my Victory Conditions were 3VPs for a sunk freighter and VP for a battered one. Colin got 3 VPs for each escaped freighter, so it was a draw!

We loved the rules, each game was under an hour and really was fast play. the simplicity of the basic mechanisms allowed tactics to be more important, rather than the minutia of  different weapons charts and whether a particular boat travels at 30 knots or 35.

First impressions are a well thought-out set of rules that get a superb and fun game. I'm looking forward to trying the rules out with larger forces and more players.

BuckMoot - A Midgard Heroic Battles Gaming Day in Aylesbury - Update 1

 CALLING ALL MIDGARD PLAYERS

We are still open to further games for Buckmoot. To host a game you do not need to be an  umpire, just bring the armies along and join in the fun and play it. Or even leave the players to get on with it, while you join in another game you fancy. 

If you have written a scenario you want to test out, or created a couple of army lists and would like other players’ feedback, this would be an opportunity to get it on the table and try it out! 

The game selection is not finalised, but far we have:

Bronze Age Historical - recreate the epics of Homer on the plain before the walls of Troy

Chronopia Fantasy - battle in the hot sands of the Land of Two Rivers

Italian Wars Historical - Lead the chivalry of France to glory against the League of Venice

BUCKMOOT: A fun day of Midgard Heroic Battles games in mid-Buckinghamshire

When: 19th September 2026 10am - 4pm

Where: Walton Parish Hall, Walton Street, Aylesbury, HP21 7QX

Cost: £11 including tea, coffee and biscuits

Anyone interested in hosting a game, or just attending as a player, please contact me on BuckMoot@gmail.com

Herts of Lard 2026

 On Saturday Mark and I trekked to Rickmansworth (well drove 45 minutes actually!) for Herts of Lard 2026. This is a day of Two Fat Lardies games and great fun. This year there were 15 different games and about 78 participants.

In the morning I played an Aliens scenario, using a variant of What a Cowboy. I'd never player these rules before, but (as with many lardie rules) they were fun to play and easy to pick up the basics. I got to play with the heroes of the film, Ripley and Hicks.

We got lucky a few times, but managed to kill the Alien Queen. We ran out of time to finish the game, but we had a clear escape route, so the umpire gave us a win. the only player killed was Burke, the Weyland-Yutani Corporation lacky, so no one was sorry about that!

Sucess, Ripley finds Newt!

My afternoon game was a Dark Age base using Midgard. This was a superb scenario, based on the Battle of Cynuit from Bernard Cornwell's novel The Last Kingdom. Despite being slaughtered as the Saxons, I had so much fun I forgot to take any pictures! So here is a shot of the morning game by the scenario's creator, Simon Stokes.

Here is a few shots of the other games.

 

A rather superb 28mm Chain of Command game set in 1940. I loved this railway station, it reminded my of a couple of stops on the heritage railway we visited in Alsace last year.

Another WW2 game, this might have been I Ain't Bin Shot Mum!

Another 28mm Chain of Command bash, again nice buildings.

A snowy Battle of the Bulge game, again Chain of Command.

What a Commando, a WW2 special forces dust up using a variant of What a Cowboy.

Napoleonic ships, not sure what rules, I don't think this was Kiss me Hardy..

A really nice Shape Practice! again based on an incident from a Bernard Cornwell novel.

A Chain of command game set in Normandy.

Another Sharpe Practice! game, no prizes for guessing where this is set.

And one more WW2 game, set in the North Africa. Not sure, but I suspect this was also a Chain of Command game.

There was also Sink the Scharnhorst, a Bag the Hun aerial game, but when I passed by the table there was nothing to see, except an expanse of sea!

This year I arranged things to stay on and join the evening gathering at the pub for a very nice meal and a few beers. I spent a very pleasant evening with a bunch of gamers who had travelled down from Yorkshire, then staggered off to the station and got the train home. A fantastic day and I'm looking forward to next year!