wargaming is everything from gaming on the table top with dice, painting figures, reading history, collecting figures, scenery and rules through to geography, politics, art, crafts and imaginative writing……..
I had good fortune to see this box in a charity shop window. There is something satisfying about just walking into a shop and picking up a bargain. I did optimistically ask if there were others, to no avail.
The box was sealed with what looked like proper tape. But I seem to recall that was not the norm back when this model first found itself on a shelf.
Suffice to say the kit had been started although it is a complete set of parts including transfers.
A previous owner has started to gloss figures and parts. Unlike metals you can’t put this lot in a slime bath to lift off the paint – and scratching it without of mark suggests this a baked on humbrol gloss paint.
I guess it’s a case of sanding before applying acrylic primer unless anyone has a better suggestion? Blue is not my colour of choice here either as my Fauxterre 1930 forces tend to be in black, beige, khaki, green or brown …..
Other than that it’s a snip at a tenner for two very detailed vehicles. I see 3d prints inevitably climbing in price so airfix injection moulding kits remain an option if you don’t mind building them.
On that last point the history blurb ends with comments that these two chassis make great conversion opportunities by dumping the tanks and post factory doing your own fit outs….
Gripping beast appeared around the time my interest in wargames was reawakened
Back in the 1990’s my wargaming interest was limited to occasionally buying a magazine plus perusing (not buying) 15mm figures in a real model soldier shop. That was it plus I read military history books – a lot.
Then I went to the York wargames show – I can’t remember whether it was the de grey rooms or the merchant adventurers hall where I started to reconnect with the wider hobby but I do remember one show in the merchant adventurers hall where gripping beast were displaying their wares. I remember them being big on dark ages and I reckon they still strongly represented that ancient/medieval bias which is maybe why they picked up front rank miniatures to balance the offering? Yet it was the howling and hilarity I heard from people crowded round small gaming tables that I remember most. They were playing DBA – what appeared at the time to be a brutal, fast and undignified game. Crucially people were having fun. Eventually I bought the book, figures and had fun too.
I am sure many people had equally as much fun with gripping beast over the years while I took the 15mm route instead of the 28mm route.
Its always sad to see a company decide the end of the road is nigh although it is quite possible someone else will run with the gripping beast business into the future.
York is losing it city centre post office and the rest of its big old TGJones store
The same can’t be said for TGJones who are the high street remnants of WHSmith, once a household name in mainstream retail before the internet, mobiles and white vans became de rigeur.
Actually two city based smaller sub post offices will be promoted instead, however, there is no replacement for TGJones and their magazine hub which is definitely an overdue sign of the times. In fact it’s a wonder stores like these have managed to survive the enduring online sunami for so long.
As I mentioned in my last fragment I had deliberately bought magazines on the hoof allowing me to select any or none from miniature wargames, wargames, soldiers and strategy or wargames illustrated.
MW usually carry the most diverse offering of the three uk popular Wargame print magazine offerings
So this was probably my last visit – miniature wargames won out on this occasion simply for variety of content!
Although my book buying has petered out in terms of charity shops or secondhand online wants, the occasional new publication catches my eye – in this case it’s later Romans with Osprey kindly issuing their eastern complimentary edition of 4/5th century provincial units book. I already have the western units book. Raffaele D’Amato brings new material to a popular story. I already had the late Roman infantry and cavalry books by Osprey not to mention the early Byzantine book too. Yet the books are additive in my view based on the western version. A quick flick through suggests I will not be disappointed by the eastern edition.
It remains to be seen if this translates into more painted figures….
De Gaulle focuses on the man and the FrenchRick Atkinson is all about the US Army story
In my last post about the film de Gaulle (which I very much enjoyed) I omitted mentioning Rick Atkinson’s book – An Army at Dawn, being his take on the US Army’s first western theatre operations especially amphibious landings. I really enjoyed Rick Atkinson – he gives sufficient colour to the preparations for operation torch – and I went onto enjoy the second part of the story in the Italian peninsula. Again, I can’t emphasise enough how much I have benefited from reading around this (operation torch) often neglected part of the world war two history.
So this is more an ideas in progress rather than even a work in progress post.
Packaging Polystyrene blocks kicked this idea off
Having just been on a late Roman figure painting jaunt this summer and despite having numerous castles yet to be built I somehow returned to a theme of Roman city walls “would be nice”. I think it was propelled by the guardsmen diorama where I made a card backdrop.
All sorts of ideas have led to experiments The internet has plenty of gatehouses Colchester’s almost unique 4 arch gateway – I do like the red brick courses……And at the east coast end of Hadrian’s wall but on the south side of the Tyne river is Arbeia
So plenty to inspire and cajole me into trying out some homespun walls. Of course I could just buy off the shelf or made to print ones but it is of course the creativity element that’s being sought here.
I have opted for some crenellations and a ready supply of thick corrugated cardboard is the experiment hereDove grey dry brushed over a light grey and then a very light dusting of dry white on top. The roughness comes from the polystyrene plus some indenting with a cuticle manicure pusher! Then tissue paper glued over with pva followed by the paint regime.
And those brick courses which it turns out were most definitely a later Roman idea which among other things could sustain the wall better during earthquakes!
I decided I would experiment with discrete strips of coursing made from cornflake card
So here is some wall testing for the look of the thing.
First up when I visit York I often liberate a magazine or two from TGJones in Coney street (formerly WHSmith). Now it is also soon to be formerly TGJones as the company has got permission to shut what was York’s main post office which currently relocated, sits inside this store. The rest of the shop sales I am sure relied on post office footfall for a now faded business model. Of course the original grand Edwardian? general post office building is now a giant steakhouse restaurant…..
Anyway it looks like my “walk up and look before buying” days are over and I might need to subscribe. Hmmmm or maybe not?
I did like the fact they carried three magazines and I could just pick the one I liked the most that month. With subscription, which is cheaper, you are locked in for good or ill and three subscriptions of course makes no sense at all.
I might revert to buying up old magazines instead.
Farewell dear friend
“magister militum” Tiny (was a giant of a cat at 6kg!) looks away in disgust as he gets some bad rolling of the dice while reluctantly playing modern stuff.
My favourite cat Tiny (he was the runt of a litter where we got three including the ginger alpha male) sadly died in a road accident. Given he was a big rat hunter and crossed a busy road to his hunting grounds he had used up his nine lives – in his case by the age of nine.
As my constant companion during lockdown and then home working not to mention wargaming, he will be greatly missed. From a Wargames perspective he was the “Magister Militum” to the ginger alpha males “Emperor” as our ginger cat rarely bothered to leave the house let alone the garden or street! Tiny on the other hand was a fighter, kept the street clear and was often reported beating the bounds over a kilometre away by dog walkers and runners I knew.
Farewell to an ever cheerful cat.
Pro cycling still just about delivers
Pro cycling has pretty much blown out its commercial popularity on media, with the demise of the GCN app showing the sports world has moved on.
The days of 100% coverage of the big three tours – de France , Giro and la Vuelta are gone. In their place a lot more studio chat and analysis while focus on geography and historical views from the helicopter are now often faded out in favour of yet another meaningless opinion interview. And the coverage of races is now shrunken even for live showings.
Still I have picked up a few good castles this season while Spanish soil offers the gamer absolutely anything to justify any colour or grass you could want!
Plenty of soil variation A bit like spurn head with nicer climate!Plenty of castles Yep that’s a drawing pin!
A recent trip to Newby Hall, Ripon, North Yorkshire brought me into the world of dolls houses, very much expensive museum pieces these models are quite stunning pieces of work.
Did you spot the castle and boxed soldiers? Much of what was on show was scratch made.
Yep I strolled into my favourite hobby shop on a trip into York to discover they had not only stocked the said new products but even had the original General Lee version of the famous British Grant M3 and in 1:72.
Nowadays M3’s are a rare beast even in the ubiquitous world of 3D prints. Let’s face it who wants an already outdated quirky tank of 1942 when you can have the elegant simplicity of the Sherman in all its variants running through to ‘45 and beyond.
An excellent walk out price with no waiting nor postage but included friendly chat with store guy and some exercise in my part.
Well given my preference is anything up to and including Operation Torch and maybe a bit of Italian toe, then some M3’s are worth a punt.
See the cupolas tower and blob nosed gun
The US original comes with the impossible multi stack turreting (great for looking over hedges) and a chunky balancing weight on the 75mm gun. Talk about ugly.
Ok so the lead photo is actually the British “Lee” with tapered barrel and flexible sponson but you can also do a US troop of Lee’s and Russian lend lease versions. I guess the Russian ones might have been lend only?
And that’s not all, Monkbar Models are stocking some classic vintage airfix figures as well.
1960’s Airfix vintage rub shoulders with more recent ? lines from the seventies and eighties !!!A convertors classicI have rediscovered this great range in recent times – I converted a couple stephensons rockets for AHPC16 this year- that was fun if a little tortuous at times.
I also picked up a dapol 1/72 water tank – always needed….. I am thinking of Fauxterre 1930 here. A utilitarian design that still has some character.
So well into first month of scenery season and yep – zero progress….
However my late Romans are moving along nicely and not only have I started rereading some great books but I have added to the book mountain.
Heathers better book – the other one is technically fascinating but hard work. JJ’s trilogy remains my all time Byzantine favourite and of these the first book is brilliant. Hearder’s Italian sprint is just simply an enjoyable read.
I already have some useful material for later Roman armies.
My Byzantine leanings have always caused a problem
However I happened to search for 4/5th century eastern Roman books and lo and behold there was an osprey on provincial forces and specifically units.
The book I found was only available to order……
I took a punt on the western publication instead that came out in 2024.
Initially I was dissatisfied as a quick flick through showed no shield detail discussion in the text or contents.
A second detailed read revealed a more interesting approach in this MAA. The book illustrations are composites of western empire wide discoveries carefully matched to recreate a likely dressed soldier. And the image notes are brief because the whole book is dedicated to the illustrations with its content referenced to the illustrations.
So no generalised text padding – it’s straight in and descriptive. In fact Latin terms are only partially explained with no appendix so you need to get online if they are not tripping off your tongue already.
So I actually like this offering – maybe not for all subjects but it (they) will complement my other books.
2024 publication whose Eastern compliment is due out in August It’s always good to buy loads of flat pack furniture for the season of scenery challenge…….
Trouble is what do you do with the furniture left over……..
I do hope to get going on my scenery but before embarking on scratch build items I think this small bridge might be in order.
My beloved first small stone bridge by Bellona has long gone to scenery heaven along with its larger sibling. So this EWM item caught my eye when I was shopping for Fauxterre 1930 kit.
Right now I am meant to be in scenery mode – it’s summer and Dave stones season of scenery has monopolised summer wargaming in recent years.
However the late late very very late Late Roman show landed and so I am painting forces for Rome and Sassanid Empires instead.
This project started a long time ago which of course is another story.
Yet my recent excursion into medieval May painting did drag me off the 19/20th century theme that has dominated my gaming since Norman’s in the south collided with Covid and the Schleswig Holstein Wars about five years ago.
The net result is I have been drifting back in wargames time and that’s why I read up a bit more on various blogs about dominion of the spear rules.
The author has referenced quite a few other rules authors – notably bob corderoy of portable wargame fame not to mention lots of army lists.
Essentially the ruleset is what I would describe as a stripped down version of DBA which I think if it had been offered in the nineties would have been ridiculed given DBA was the stripped down rules of the day.
I was sceptical about these rules but the various comments and blog posts were well reasoned and so I had a bit more of a dig and then took the plunge.
Wargames Vault is the online shop to get them from.
In fact I went for two of the pdf’s – the core rules and the 36 ancient battles set. With the former you can play anything historical or fantasy etc. with the latter the author presents structured refights from history as scenarios.
On the face of it if you like campaigning (tick) solo wargaming (tick) quick narrative gaming (tick) then these rules might just be worth a look.
My own reference point for these rules is kingmaker which I played back in the late seventies and early eighties. The advanced rules included a three “battles” (left, right and centre) a side option to replace the simple card turn battle result of the basic rules.
Over the years I used it with various simple rules in my solo ancient and medieval campaigns.
Then it got dumped in favour of DBA either using 15mm figures or card token armies on a 60cm square board.
The requirement was a quick game to add some flavour and inform the narrative – usually around character development.
It was always intended to keep the campaign at a certain pace which made bigger wargames impractical.
These rules absolutely fit that bill. Perhaps better than DBA.
What’s interesting is that they’re so stripped down you would think there is limited opportunity other than repetition of outcomes and that vanilla is the only constant flavour.
Now I have yet to play them but the read through is encouraging. They look to contain sufficient detail/variety whilst absolutely delivering a fast game.
Suffice to say I have the itch to campaign which is a very dangerous distraction from painting late Romans or creating 1/72 scenery.
Well ok, I am an occasional sci fi gamer – I own five parsecs from home solo rules – have some figures – even scratch built space ships courtesy of AHPC. However it is very hit and miss.
Alas I have few sci fi heroes as such unlike all those American comic characters. In fact this sends me back to my childhood. You will need a cup of tea…….
Back well before Wargames entered my brain (courtesy of my local library), my mum not only made me airfix kits – biplanes and railway wagons on her ironing board!! But she bought my Ranger magazine which very quickly got absorbed by look and learn. You can still get the old annuals but they are full of serious kids learning stuff.
It was fun to learn through these magazines all sorts of stuff – even historical battles which did have a big impact on me, but every week there was one half page that got all my attention.
A real mix of sci fi and ancient/medievals
It was all about the Trigan Empire. And it was fantasy history told in a comic strip style with a literal colour bomb compared to most of the magazines black and white text, illustrations and photos. Later on colour invaded most of look and learns column inches, indeed it’s massive archive is still well used popping up all over the place on the net.
So what did trigan land do to me? Well it meant my giant plastic castle for 54mm – plastics, in my case, saw ancient Romans, Greeks, knights in armour fighting acw and ww2 soldiers. I never had any pike and shot or napoleonic or seven years wars 54mm toys – and they were toys some with ring hands so the ancients could be armed with guns just like in the comic strip.
Mixed up history telling set me up for a life of imaginations narrative Wargames. Either absolutely no regrets.
I had no paints at this time so figures came as they were.
I had a lot of fun and as it happened even though my American relatives and my sisters pen friend sent marvel comics I was unshaken except for those 1 dollar giant 20mm plastic armies advertised on the back pages. I think I asked my ever helpful mum to buy me some but to no avail: Airfix kits were liberally bought and I then got a secondhand model railway … …..Wargames would have to wait.
And all those now rare comics were just binned…
What a carve up – of genres?
I distinctly remember the lokans who were the nasty guys always fighting the trigans who were really Romans armed with ray guns but usually preferred cold steel. Mind you everyone seemed to prefer cold steel if they got in a close fight – Ray guns for distance only of course – no cheating!
Anyway although I eventually discovered wargames and straight up historicals at that, I retained this rather period feel sci fi memory even through all the Star Wars, aliens and other film eras as well as my copious reading of sci fi books in the seventies – Asimov etc. I even read all 27? books of the Perry Rhodan series…in which the global stock markets were manipulated using clever computers, there was the space station in orbit of course – more like a space airport and agriculture comprising automated harvesters working across land untouched by humans – all proper early seventies make believe founded on real science of the time – algorithms and heuristics and robotics were just getting going back then.
Anyway unlike Roger I rarely modify let alone build figures so lacking a Trigan hero (yes I know I could hunt down a Roman but…) I have opted to celebrate their existence by a paint mod using some modern toys for those anti heroes – the lokans.
I tried to emulate the colour palette if nothing else…
These were 100 for a fiver type of sell if I remember from the bovington tank museum online of all places – never been though.
My nasty lokans posing in front of my sci fi AHPC scratchbuilds – how many discarded household items can you spot? Of course you know one is a Klim class space trader ship….
One thing you get from sci fi plus challenges is the freedom to play around with colours and paint types. I feel obligated to paint historical figures based on all that flimsy yet absolutely accurate historical evidence to be found in books and online.
Not so my sci fi guys but of course I needed to use the comic strip as it was my jumping off point. So these guys got some contrast paint treatment alongside the usual Vallejo and citadel colours.
So there you have it a few bad lokans 2026 style to celebrate the heroically forgotten trigans.
You can buy bound books of the comic strips for what it’s worth.
Back in the nineties? I picked up this selected compilation book. Not necessarily my favourite remembered stories but the artwork is from the early days pre 1975 which is the best. It’s the artwork that makes the comic strip work of course.
After several painting challenges where I intended to illustrate Flora Sandes things combined to make it happen.
First I joined Forgotten Heroes for a June painting challenge. I intended to paint some ACW figures.
Then I happened upon some freebie Russians in 28mm and I suddenly remembered my much failed 1:72 ideas about a Flora Sandes figure.
The result is basically a build from the multipart sprue which have some female head options.
The basing grit material is from an old pot from games workshop which seems to be lasting forever as you can see
Ok so this is all Russian World War Two kit while Flora Sandes is a heroine from World War One where she uniquely served in the armed forces of Serbia.
I say unique because she was the ONLY British woman commissioned to serve as a soldier in the whole war.
Born in Poppleton near York, Yorkshire, Flora volunteered as a Red Cross medical orderly in the Royal Serbian Army fighting the Austrian Empire.
She transferred into the military arm and eventually achieved the rank of sergeant major and then after the war ended senior captain.
She died in 1956 having lived in Suffolk after the end of World War Two.
Her Wikipedia page reveals an amazing story – wounded in action, decorated with the highest Serbian military award, marrying a White Russian general, detained by the Germans in WW2, global speaker between the wars……go read it.
For this figure I chose to go with white primer
Painting wise I used Vallejo yellow green for the uniform with a wash using citadel contrast plaguebearer flesh.
Usual Vallejo colours for boots and belts etc. although I used 021 dark flesh tone for once instead of 018 flat flesh. Seraphim sepia goes on top.
