Upcoming Big Battles at TSA: May update

The benefit of having your won clubhouse, is that you can use it to play some really large games that take whole days or even weekends.

And in the nearby future, we have quite a few of those lined up, so let's have a little oversight of what to expect the coming months, and which you can expect to see here on the blog by then!

The first of the mega games coming up is the Warhammer 40k battle, organised by Jo.  This game, taking place the 27th of May, will see 2 dozen players put down their forces in a 60k points slugfest.  You will find me on the side of Chaos with my pink phalanx, led by Lucius, as each player can bring along a maximum of 3000 points for the battle.

In june we will the ACW big battle ran by Glenn, using the TSA houserules developped by Rudi.  An estimated 85 regiments of 20 strong each, plus all the necessary generals and camp aids, will take to the field of battle.  Me and my Irish Brigade will fight on the Union side.  That day, the club will also host a bring and sell for wargamers to go along with it.

Jumping forward to august, the 19th will see the annual megabattle of Age of Sigmar.  This date has only recently been added to the calendar by Jo, so no numbers of players or total forces can be given for the moment.  I will be on bar duty that day, as I gave up on playing AoS myself, but as a club board member gladly help out with those sorts of things.

The next big game takes place the 12th of october, as the Vikings will invade England, organised by Glenn.  Using the Dux Britanniarum rules, my Irish will join the viking side (god bless multi functional plastic Gripping Beast models) and a real life Viking encampment will be present on the fields outside the clubhouse.

The most recent addition to the calendar is one for the cycling fans, as a whole saturday on the 20th of october will be dedicated to riding the classics!  Rules are those written and published by our own Ludo, and Andre is the organiser of the event, so feel free to give him a poke for more information!

So that's the big battles planned in for now, of course, there are still a lot of weekends in the year, so many more can be organised if you feel the calling!

Relentless Pursuit - Alexander Kent

I always loved this book series by Alexander Kent, set in the Napoleonic era that followed the adventures and rise through the ranks of Richard Bolitho.

But this fictional character fell at the end of the defeat of Napoleon, and now the books follow his nephew Adam, captain of the frigate Unrivalled.

Plot

It is December 1815 and Adam Bolitho's orders are unequivocal.  As captain of His Majesty's frigate Unrivalled of forty-six guns, he is required to 'repair in the first instance to Freetown, Sierra Leone, and reasonably assist the senior officer of the patrolling squadron'.
But all efforts of the British anti-slavery patrols to curb a flourishing trade in human life are hampered by unsuitable ships, by the indefference of a government more concerned with old enemies made distrustfull allies, and by the continuing belligerence of the Dey of Algiers, which threatens to ignite a full-scale war.

For Adam, also, there is no peace.  Lost in grief and loneliness, his uncle's death still unavenged, he is uncertain of all but his identity as a man of war.  The sea is his element, the ship his only home, and a reckless, perhaps doomed attack on an impregnable stronghold his only hope of settling the bitterest of debts.

What I liked about it

* The tale continuing with the appearance of Bolitho`s old shipmates like Allday and Herrick, to learn how they went on.
* The story is taking you along in an age post Napoleon and a changing world.

What I didn`t like about it

* While still early in his story career, at the moment Adam isn`t a Richard though...

Never the less, this was another joy to read, as I`m really a fan of Kent's style and storytelling.

The Fighting 69

The most recent ACW unit I finished for my Fredericksburg ORBAT, the most famous regiment of the Irish Brigade is now done and ready for the big battle the 9th of June.

The 69th New York, better known as the Fighting 69, are mustered and ready.

Numbering 20 models, the size we usually use with our homemade club rules (though over time, I`m expanding all my regiments to 24 size) the smoothbore armed regiment follows the same colourschemes as the rest of my force so far.

Flags by Flags of War, and the models are Perry plastic troopers.

This now means I need to finish one last 20 man strong regiment for the big battle, something I`m going to be pushing forward on in the next few weeks, and while I might be cutting it close in the end, I`m not going to have to pull all nighters it seems to get it done.

Faugh A Ballagh!

Marine Corps vs Pax Arcadia 500 points Future War Commander batrep

Past friday I went back to the lovely world of 6mm sci-fi battling with the Future War Commander ruleset, a game I hadn't played since januari 2012.

My opponent was the same: Nemesis, and the goal of the game was to freshen up the rules.  It had been so long that I even doubted wether it was played with d6 or d10's... (d6's by the way).

So we both had small forces, my Marine Corps fielding an HQ (we agreed on these small points values to not bring CO's if we wanted), 4 stands of regular Marines, 2 Grav Bikes and a Rhino (Bad Dawg), of course all painted in the colours of the Emperor's Children.

Guy brought along 2 HQ's, 2 Light Tanks, a heavier tank, a Scout and 4 stands of Infantry.  Those Pax really are a heap cheaper then my Marines... and outnumbering me, but not enough to raise his breakpoint, with his being at 4 and mine at 3 as we had 9 vs 7 "combat units" in the game.

I deployed in a sink on the left side of my deployment area, with two squads of Marines inside the Rhino.  Guy split his forces in two, on the one side the light tanks with some infantry support opposing my force, on the other the heavier tank with foot support.

The table was fully drawn from our collections, houses I made ages ago for a small part, together with a lovely heap of forests and a river Nemesis made himself.

I grabbed the first turn... and with a roll of 11 on the first command check my turn was already over.  Nemesis advanced his forces for a pincer movement.

The second turn didn't went much better, as my forces moved fowards with the Rhino deploying the marines aboard... and a second roll of 11 left me out in the open...

His advancing force opened fire, and both the grav bikes where shot down, ouch.  First blood to the Pax and with both our break points at 4, this was already halfway now.

But then the battle turned as my forces suddely started activating 3 - 4 times per turn and the marines and rhino started opening fire.  Supressing fire made his flank mostly ineffective, as slowly and surely his light tanks and infantry where whittled away over two turns of firing, even with two units advancing to reinforce his line.  Suppression was leaving him helpless in the open.

The other infantry squads moved to the side to face the upcoming flank of Nemesis, even with a command blunder in which my HQ retreated 9 cm towards my own table-edge.

His scout tried to flee the battle, but was blasted apart from opportunity fire by the two marines and the rhino on that flank.

In the meantime, the infantry kept supressing the infantry, who even retreated while the tank blew apart in a ball of bolter induced fire.  Nemesis had been taking botched tests and passing, so the marines advanced on the final infantry stand.

They where gunned down in true firesquad fashion, and the battle was over.  Nemesis only had two HQ's left on the table, while I didn't lose anymore stands after the grav bikes at the beginning.

The big difference in the battle was that Nemesis only once managed to supress one squad of mine once, as he tried to interrupt a  lot but always ended being suppressed before he could react.  Those 4 dice on shooting for basic marines are a heavy advantage in those small battles it seemed, as well as the 5 save compared to the 6 he had even on his light tanks.

But the rules are freshened up now, and in two weeks we will be doing a 'serious' sized game of 1500 points...

The Haul Report 132

Geek stuff galore this week, and mostly of the reading kind

The first thing I obtained was the new Codex T'au. 

Now I can happily build my gundam battlesuit force further, while delving into their new fluff, something I always like in Codex books, GW does a nice job fleshing out the backstory of their armies after all.

I also picked up some wargame magazines this week.

The final aquisition is a parcel from Black Hat.  This contained three pots of Tank Green, of which i had ran out and needed to base the Union forces.  On top of that, I also grabbed 30 replacement lids for my Coat D`Arms paints.  I love the paints to death, but with the years some of the lids had dwindled and cracked, and it never hurts to have a few dozen in reserve...

Jo also brought along my limited edition dice from The Puppeteers, another club I'm a member from but don't get round to play at to much since joining unfortunatly.  I'll change this soonish I hope.
But the colour of the dice alone meant I just needed to have these dice!

The final haul this week is this old magazine.  They where for sale to sponsor the club a bit, at 50 cents for a magazine, and this old 'catalogue magazine' from 1997 had some nice articles on first glance, so I snatched it along.

A good haul this week!

TSA Clubevening of the 4th of may 2018

Apart from the FWC game I played with Nemesis (the batrep coming soon), there was a lot of other games going on at the club again.

Variation a plenty this time round again, so let's have a look at the things going on yesterday...

The cyclist lovers where pedalling at full speed tonight once again.

Two tables of boardgames in full swing, as many a daring adventure was undertaken.

Patrick and Ignace where playing Matic's Clash of Kings.

World War 2 was played in 28mm scale.

In the Wild West, shots where heard as two posses clashed in Dead Man's.

Dark ages galore, as vikings went to battle...

... while a few tables further Ruben and Tonny played a Dux campaign game.

The Eldar and the Space Wolves engaged each other on the field of battle...

... as did the Tyranids and the Orks.

As you can see, a wide range of era's and games once again, so if you're intrested in popping by, you can do so every friday night of the year!

On the Painting Desk 45

Another week gone by, and I made good use of Noshi`s series of worknights.

While not having finished any models the past week, there are a lot of them now only awaiting basing varnishing and basing.

So now to push onwards for that last unit of Union troops for the big battle in June...

Children of the Whales

While strolling through Netflix's anime catalogue, Noshi and me bumped into this series.

We liked the look of the animation in the trailer, and sat down to watch this 12 episode series... going through it in 3 sessions.

Plot

In a world covered by an endless sea of sand, there sails an island known as the Mud Whale. In its interior lies an ancient town, where the majority of its inhabitants are said to be "Marked," a double-edged trait that grants them supernatural abilities at the cost of an untimely death. Chakuro is the village archivist; young and curious, he spends his time documenting the discovery of newfound islands. But each one is like the rest—abandoned save for the remnants of those who lived there long ago.

For the first time in six months, another island crosses the horizon, so Chakuro and his friends join the scouting group. During the expedition, they find vestiges of an archaic civilization. And inside one of its crumbling remains, Chakuro discovers a girl who will change his destiny and the world inside the Mud Whale as he knows it.

What I liked about It


* the animation is drop dead gorgeous
* the storyline catches you from the very beginning, as does your love and hate for certain main and side-characters.
* the dramatic first episodes event involving Sami... that was highly unexpected.


What I didn`t like about it


* that season 2 is apparently still half a year away...


A good looking, well told series of the desperate struggle of an unknowing people against the bigger world they neither know nor care about.

Wargames Illustrated 366

The april issue of the magazine, I only just got round to decently read it, and let's have a look at what was in it with some blahblah to go along.

I must confess, WI was the first non-GW magazine I ever started buying, and I still love it's slick look the most of the three main magazines out there at the moment.

So without further ado, let's go over this issue... with in bold the things that particularly intrested me.

From The Editor

Wargaming News - not much here, just a small piece on the new Outremer rules by Osprey

Observation Post - a look at some more new releases, spotted at the Vapnartak gameshow in York

On the Shelf - books that might intrest the wargamer

Armies of the Thirty Years War - now here it begins for me as an intresting topic, as this war and it's contemporary ECW are where my main historical intrest begins.  The article takes a look at the european forces of the era.

Aircraft and Ground Support in the Great War - an article on the first form of aerial combat

Wargaming the Battle of Rocroi - continuing the TYW articles, this refight put the French against the Spanish

Raid on Kensington - having a look at the Blood Red Skies expansion with Andy Chambers

Going Plastic in the TYW - having a look at 1/72 and 1/32 scale plastics for the period, which tbh neither catches my fancy as a scale.

Take to the Skies with Johnny Red! - a look at using the british comic book hero

Just another April Fool... - Things that sound like jokes, but might be actually true... and yes, my pet peeve the Emu War is in there as well...

Route Pack 6 - Vietnam War arial combat

Bootneck Air Assault - a battle for the Suez canal in 1956

Battle of the Battlemats - an intresting look at various mats, which is handy to me as I`m looking into getting one for homegames of DBA

Going Large in the Great War - 54mm world war 1 gaming

Hail The Dark Ages - a look at the new Hail Ceasar expansion Shieldwall

Druid Table - a look at Wargames Illustrated Salute 2018 participation game

Tactica 2018 - show report on the Hamburger event

And that`s it for this issue.  Now, with 7 "boldies" in the issue, this is a rather fine magazine for my liking and intrests.