Salute 2011 Limited Edition model painted

As some of you might know, I`m building the Irish Brigade for games in the American Civil War. Not just the famous `Fighting 69s`, but also all the sister regiments, the irish zouave regiments, and even the 1861 NYSM regiment in militia uniform.

To lead this green bunch, my commander would have to be no-one other then Thomas Francis Meagher himself.

The problem was alone to find a suitable model, and then this years Salute provided the answer, so here he is, my ACW commander in all his painted glory...

Hamburgers and Spaghetti

Yesterday, I played my first game of Blitzkrieg Commander vs Mr Scratch (who`s blog can be found in the Tin Soldiers of Antwerp blogroll on the left), a veteran of BKC I and owner of a large late war US army.
The setting was the Invasion of Sicily as this is the only `overlapping` US / Italy army list, the gamesize 1000 points without the random modifiers.

The sun rose in the small village of Licata. American forces of Patton`s 7th army advanced through the streets of the small village. But units of the Italian XVI army corps under general Guzzoni decided to launch a counterattack and push the yankees back to the beaches...



The calm village of Licata

The american force consisted of the CO, an HQ and a Recce car. Supported by two anti tank trucks and two mortar half tracks, the heavy punchers where three Lee tanks (not the heaviest of american tanks, but compared to an M13/40...)



Facing them, the italians had a CO, an HQ, an AB41 recce car, 4 regular infantry units of which two had Solothurms all mounted in trucks, two 47mm AT guns with trucks, an `armoured` arm consisting of two M13/40 and three L3/35 tank(ette)s and a tank hunter contignent consisting of a small Semovente 47 and the impressive Semovente 90.



The italians deployed their infantry and guns all in the orchard, together with the L3s, as the only thing they could actually hurt where the AT trucks of the americans. Teh armoured wing deployed on the main road in a try to circle, or at least preventing them from doing so themselves, the Lee`s opposing them.



The italians commenced with a slow but steady advance over this road, but poor command (I had 3 out of 8 turns that I managed to fail to give an order to any unit, and a total of 9 blunders...) made this a rather ramshackle advance. In the meantime, the L3s started a dash forward in a desperate attempt to take out the AT trucks.
The americans from their side obliterated the 47mm guns with the mortar halftracks, guided by their recce troop.




The americans, refusing to take on the flank with the Semovente 90, started to pile their forces towards the centre, and using an awful lot of firepower before finally taking out the AB 41...




The L3s, despite losing one of their number, had managed to destroy both american AT trucks, and fell back into the orchard in an attempt to play cat and mouse with the Lee`s that where drawn there. The mortars bombed a fucilieri unit to pieces, casuing them to fall back through their troops and scattering them to the four points of the compass...




The americans started to enter the orchard at the start of turn 8, but we decided to call it quits here, the italian slow armour not being able to catch up, and the L3s and infantry being able to play cat and mouse in the field would result in the americans not being able to reach my breakpoint before the 10 turn limit would run out...



The counterattack had failed abmissally, and Patton`s forces pulled through the village into the soft underbelly of the axis...

American Losses: 200 points, 2 away from their BP of 4

2x SPAT 75mm GMC

Italian Losses: 340 points, 2 away from their BP of 7

2x 47mm AT gun
1x M13/40 Medium tank
1x L3/35 tankette
1x Regular infantry unit with solothurm upgrade
1x AB41

All in all a game I highly enjoyed. You just know playing italians that victories really have to be celebrated as they are quite rare (historically: none at all), but if I draw the comparison with Future War Commander, this system makes for a far more `thinking man`s game` then it`s scifi equivallent, due to:
* the split weapon stats making some weapons useless against certain types of troops (no infantry kills all for example or uber tankness of 350 points that nukes everything)
* The restrictions on troops due to the historical match up table. This of course provided if people stick by them...
* The basic unbalanced-ness of army materielle as it was
* The general lack of saving throws or very low values of them and the lack of stabilizers, making you, unlike in FWC think twice before rushing armour forwards and blast away.

Ciao ciao...

Comic Life test

Tried out the little software program I stumbled across on through the LAF, using some old pictures.



I like it, I`m going to upgrade from the trial to the full version.

A Regiment A Month

The bane of almost every wargamer I know... focussed attention

So I launched an idea at my local games club group, the Far Side of the Galaxy @ Tin Soldiers of Antwerp, to run a variety of the infamous Tale of Four Gamers froms days past.

The set-up? Starting from May 1st untill October 31st, all participants take a `vow` to try and paint a FULL FIGHTING REGIMENT a month. But being a complete megalomaniac, I am opening this `mutual painting motivation` to other people as well (for the megalomania part, see my 10k visits post).

Now what are the things we will roughly describe as rules?

1. Every player participating has to run a blogspot blog. This isn`t for any commercial reasons or so, but this came from trying to get my clique into the 21st century.

2. Every player vows to try and paint a full regiment each month. Though it isn`t obliged to, it would be preferred that you take 28mm (or whomever size they are these days, you know what models I mean) as scale. The reason? Because those make impressive looking units all uniformed and ready for battle.

3. Though no minimum or maximum size of regiments are stated, it is the intention to paint actually fighting regiments. No-one can comment if you only do a 5 man skirmisher unit, but you know what we mean with regiments, wether they be Dacian spearmen, Chaos Knights, British Light Companies or a brood of Genestealers...

4. All participants need to post their entry on the LAST WEEKEND of each month. That way, it pops up on all participating blogs around the same time...

And that are like, all the rules...

Cool Idea, how do I get in?

Just leave a message down here as a reply, with your blogspot url, so I can link you in the list of participants which is following at the bottom of this post.

Okay, so I`m doing this, can I win something?

You betcha! You can win the satisfaction of having 6 fully regiments of your lead / metal / resin / plastic mountain painted up in only half a year. And isn`t that the greatest reward we all strife for, to have our models painted up?

The Participants aka The Heroes of the Brush

Società di archeologia e cimeli
Nelson`s Revenge
Mechaniak
Creepy Corridor
The Amazing Adventures of Basileus Skratch
The Young Guns
Wargame News and Terrain

Ciao Ciao!

OHMYGOSH 10k visits...

... and thank you all who have been visiting and following my little place bent on total, ulitarian World Domination!!!



I never expected to even reach this milestone when slightly under a year ago i started this blogspot for two reasons:

1. Because `Creepy Corridor` Andy told me it is fun to do and
2. Because it would make life easier to share things like battlereports on other sites, as my `home` forum of TSA has certain non-accessible to Guests sections.

So with zip knowledge and only my world domination beginners kit



I started out to try and make this place at least sometimes intresting, now and then funny, occassionally making sense and most of the time rubbish rambling of a wargamer!

Now onto the next milestone, the 25000 visits mark, and from thereafter, the ultimate goal



Ciao ciao all and thanks again for making me feel loved teeheeheeee mwuahahahaha... roight, whers me pillz

Salute 2011 - The Aftermath

And so another Salute has passed. Hands where shaken, words where spoken, pictures where taken and (lots of ) money was spend. Though I admit, at around 500 pounds I kept it quite decent this year, and I have already decided that it won`t get painted for the next decenium or so hehehe.





Sorry though for lack of names / organisers... I`m like really bad with that stuff and I didn`t take notes, to much to see, to much to buy, to little time...

So, with the theme of Salute this year being the American Civil War (HURRAH!), quite a few games featured the setting:















But that was not all for me personally, as another of my favorites was also well presented and imho contained some of the best eye candy around, the ECW (you know fellow clubbers, that war you seemingly never heard about).








Of course, there was much, much more to see, and here is a selcetion of pics I took during the day full of eye candy:







































But of course, Salute is also the Painting Competition:



and `industry celebrities`



of course the re-enactors:





And unfortunatly also some fairly odd people...



And so we conclude another pilgrimage to London (well, tomorrow morning for me at least, I got a date with the pub here).
What I like about Salute above other shows?

* First of all, the venue. Lot of people complain about it being a big hangar. I like it A LOT. It`s airy, and it is well illuminated.

* The fact that some `heavy weights` and their designers are around, companies like Privateer Press, Warlord, Battlefront, etc etc. I don`t really play their games (anymore), but that doesn`t mean I don`t like their models. And I find a special appeal in `promo tables` of beautiful models company sponsored. Not meaning I don`t like club games, but a certain `product placement` once in a while gives mucho eyecandy.

* London gals, the most extravert in the world.

All in all, I can`t really put my finger on it `why` I like the show so much. It isn`t as `cosy` as a lot of shows out there, it lacks the familiarity of knowing almost everyone, it has a certain traderwise `professional cool` (well, there are of course the people you know, like Dave T. who probably has a TSA sponsored villa with pool and carpark at home) and the BnB is a struggle for survival, yet for no money in the world I`m gonna miss that show ever again.


BUT, SAVING THE BEST FOR LAST




`nuff said teeheee

Ciao peeps, and till laters