Dispatches from the front V

It's been a busy couple of weeks since the last dispatch from the front, unfortunately painting to a ground to a halt due to real life distractions and a lack of pikes, but more on that later. 

Over at the wyverns we have been bolstered by a couple of new club members, the club always struggles in the winter months with membership dropping to around break even point and just as you begin to question the commercial sense in running in it's present form we seem to get extra's to bolster our number.

Step up not one but two new members both with an interest in Napoleonic's amongst other things. So we thought we would ease them in with a run through of Sharp Practice and very close it was to, a classic game where the turn of a card or pull of chit made all the difference, the French had been on a foraging mission, the British were slow to react and watched as the French grabbed their loot and ran before they could get their charge in.

A close run thing and everyone had a great time.

Elsewhere Battlestar Galactica was given a run out - very nice.

If anyone fancies coming along on a club night we are based just outside Worcester and meet on the 1st and 3rd Sunday of the month you can find the club site here.

As a Christmas present I was signed up for the Worcester ghost walk, It amazed what you can learn about your own city, from the tunnels that shipped the defeated army of Charles II to the river after the battle of Worcester, to the Ghost of King John's dancing bears.

One of the most interesting stories was the head of Oliver Cromwell on the Guildhall complete with devil horns. The suggestion was that he sold his soul to the devil for victory at the Battle of Worcester and 7 years good fortune.

He died on the 3rd Sept 1658 - 7 years to the day of the Battle of Worcester.
I had heard the story before but did not know we went as far as adding him to a civic building,  I am definitely pinching that story for the Elizabethan Zombie Campaigns.

V is back...

Ok it's a re-run of the follow up TV series which was seriously short of budget and used much of the stock footage of the original mini-series but hey it's a good watch although it does tend to drive everyone else out of the room when it's on.

You can catch it on Forces TV if you have satellite or free view.

We also gave Zombicide Invaders a run out, some interesting mechanics beyond Black Plague. Iam not sure it moves the gaming experience on much. In it's desire to shorten the game play it seems to have lost something along the way, you are straight into super weapons and a serious number of infected... the beauty of the earlier editions was the build up of tension as you went and the need to build up your armoury... still it was good to give it a try...

The pikes from Foundry finally turned up yesterday I ordered them in their New Year sale but there was a stock issue. I can now crack on with the pike units for February's painting challenge, but what's with the packaging?

Surely an envelope would have been enough?

Right back to the brushes....

Two new games in a week...

Try as I might I am a sucker for something new and shiny, despite my best efforts I find my head being turned by two new games. 

I have always had a hankering for the cold war and modern games ever since reading Larry Bond's Red Phoenix back in the early 80's in which North Korea launches a lightning invasion of the South backed by heavy soviet support. 

I have tucked away in a box a reasonable North Korean and South Korean force that has not seen the light of day for over a decade waiting for rules that would give me the right feel for encounters in Korea.

I might just have found them with Great Escape Games latest offering. - Seven Days to the River Rhine. 

Designed to be a fast play set of rules which caters for company plus sized encounters, where one model represents one vehicle, Infantry are based on stands which contains small arms and a supporting AT weapons. Good because I can hardly see the things these days in 6mm.
However ATGW such as Milan's are separate.

The rules are well laid out with a nice touch providing you with QR codes to watch a video explaining the rules in more detail. You will need your own counters to mark your units, these also serve as your number of available orders who you issue to units over a turn and serve to flag who have activated.

The rule book covers a number of NATO and WARPAC army lists. But once again I have chosen less popular forces for the Korean peninsula, but the vehicle specs are pretty much covered across all the lists if you dig into the specifics - my older Korean stuff is largely T55's vs M48's.

In our run through we pitched a West German Mechanised Infantry formation vs the massed ranks of Soviet Armour. A fun affair giving a tense encounter as players whip out their laser pens looking for that dead ground, from the top down the playing area looks flat, but ask the German commander who deployed in a wood only to realise that the rise in front of him gave him no field of fire. 

A small hamlet in a valley awaits the rumble of soviet armour. The table can look quite bland in this scale but add some pylons and telegraph poles and suddenly the table comes alive. 

Recon units creep forwards through the pine trees, you need to make sure you get your kill shot in as the reaction fire can be deadly as my BRDM's and BMP's found out sitting on a hill top only to be thumped by West German Milan teams.

Rushing down into the village was no better especially as the wire guided AT weapons needed to be stationary to fire, definitely a one time only weapon. 

Meanwhile the Russian Armour rumbles on to the board, the platoon order gives me the ability to move 3 vehicles at once but you burn through your order chits pretty quick. 

The open valley proved to be step to far for both of us, whilst the German Infantry was slowly whittled down. The Russian Armour was picking up wounds and a steady steam of knock outs and we called it a draw.

But a good nights gaming and the encounter had the sort of feel that I was looking for with my Korean forces, looks like they my well see daylight in the weeks ahead.

If one new game was not enough mid week saw a run through of Battlestar Galactica Starship Battles by Ares Games the guys who brought you Wings of Glory. Being child of the 70's how could I resist. 

The detail on the ships is brilliant, if you look closely enough you can even see Starbucks name on the side of the cockpit, the first release is based on the reboot but their are plans for the original Cylon Raiders. 

Plotting of movement similar in style to the WW1 & 2 rules but with the ability to increase speed and height a lot quicker, good because you don't last long in a dog fight, two rounds of fire and the toasters are pretty much toast. 

The Vipers are nimble but the Raiders can take slightly more damage. If you are used to wide sweeping turns in WW1, be warned there the colonies can turn very tightly very often getting on the tail of the Cylon who had to take a wider arc.

The starter set includes 4 ships, Control Panels and movement decks for each together with pilot cards and bonuses as you become more experience, poor pilots being nuggets and more experienced pilots being experts aces. 

A really fun evening or was it just because I secured 4 kills :-)
Sorry gents I promised I would not brag.......