Thinking inside the box - Neat storage solutions (Battlefleet Gothic Part 4)

In addition to various other projects I've been working on my wargame storage solutions to get things more compact, secure and lighter. I'm pretty happy with these two new additions.

Fleet in a Box

The entire Falcon Guard Space Marines fleet for Battlefleet Gothic fits into one medium-sized plastic container, with the addition of trays I made from Weetbix boxes, paper and masking tape, and cut sections of foam.

Deluxe Accommodation for Refined Elven Types

Big, fancy 28mm elves need more space so they can stand tall and not chip into each other. This very blue gift box with the addition of paper-covered metal plate, combined with magnetising the elves' bases, provided this solution. It's way to expensive and elaborate though, and honestly Paper, tape, cardboard and foam are the way to go from here on.

Still just enough room for a unit of rangers and maybe a few other things.

Rare earth magnets are too expensive for using like this, but anyway. They're there, embedded in Selleys if ever I need them for something else.

High Elves in the Age of Magic Part III - Ranger and Halfling Auxiliary

I picked up a few fantasy 28mm 'samples' at a games convention over a year ago now and finished painting the first of them recently. If I ever get to the rest of them, they will be a group of ten Elven rangers suitable for SAGA - Age of Magic, Mordheim or maybe the Warhammer Fantasy reboot, and about seven or eight halfling fighters with various equipment, no doubt raised to anger (fear more likely) in defence of their village, and capable of acting as scouts for the High Elf forces.

The Elf Ranger is a really nicely made and affordable plastic multi-part kit by North Star figures (meant for Oathmark).

The halfling fighter is a 'Shortling' from Australia's own company Goblin Factor, sold exclusively by Slave2Gaming. These are great little models and the range even includes shortling cavalry riding tiny ponies.

I made this cloak from Games Workshop Green Stuff, to test my modelling ability on something simple, and to cover up the weird way I glued the quiver on this guy.

The base needs another bit of brown paint to cover up the magnetic P-Plate I added.

Wasn't really happy with how this hand-painted tree turned out but I'm not game to try again.

The usual 28mm lazy eye effect is ... well, it will have to do. He looks determined enough (this guy will probably be the officer in charge of the rangers). I wish I'd fixed the mould line.

Halfling fighter with (short) bow, short (it goes without saying) sword and shield (buckler).

A simpler shield design. This buckler is probably good enough for fighting goblins.

The Liveries of Others II - German Section for Chain of Command

Edit: I painted a second section of a mate's 15mm Germans for Chain of Command, so I've added these at the bottom of the post for completeness.

In the second instalment of The Liveries of Others, this time I painted a section of German infantry (who will be either Aufklarungs troops or Schutzen) for a mate to use in our upcoming Chain of Command campaign to be set around the town of Montmedy in 1940.

These miniatures are, I believe, older Battlefront metals. One guy seems to be wearing a camouflage smock but as these will be depicting early war Germans I decided not to paint the camo and just consider it a field jacket that's a bit too big for him. (I will have to ignore that the guy in the hat is carrying an MG42 rather than an MG34 - at this scale, who will notice, right?) The corporal is missing the barrel of his submachinegun but that can't be helped (anything I add will just snap off again).

All bases are magnetised (cut-up P-Plates), and these guys are ready to race ahead of the Panzer columns to find and fix the undaunted Derwent Light Infantry.

Many weeks later, I painted the below, second section of Chain of Command Germans. These older Flames of War metal miniatures do have a good mix of poses that makes them fairly engaging to paint.

Pretty Rad! - Fallout: Wasteland Warfare

Had a quick skirmish game of Fallout: Wasteland Warfare at the game store the other day with one of my regular gaming mates and his friend. I know next to nothing about the Fallout setting but it was plenty of fun with the 32mm figures and excellent terrain my mate had painted.

I played a recently reactivated Protectron (a 'Lost In Space'-looking robot) following the sound of gunfire, which was my mate's friend's survivor and her robot attempting to rescue two captives from a band of mutants. The Protectron got mauled by a mutated guard dog before eventually dispatching the animal with a laser. The survivor managed to shoot several mutants and a second hound, however her floating robot (which looked like a D&D beholder) was shot down. She wouldn't leave it behind to be scrapped by the mutants, so kept fighting hard.

Meanwhile, the Protectron robot had taken many hits (there were torn conduits and wires ripped out, dog bite marks on the paint, bullet holes everywhere ...) and began looking for self-repair items in nearby caches. He wandered into proximity of the captives and, upon taking further hits from a mutant's gun, commenced an audible countdown to self-destruct sequence.

With mere seconds to spare, the survivor managed to kill the last mutant with her hunting rifle and with the danger gone, the Protectron stopped counting, and sought repair assistance from the survivor.

A fun and very easy-to-learn game with a clever dice system for combat and plenty of RPG-style and development elements (including a base-building system apparently).

My only pic from the game was this one of the Protectron looking for useful parts in a vending machine. Apparently there is a dangerous 'Sheepsquatch' about.

The loot obtained: nothing a robot with low Intelligence can use.

Pride of the Slovetzian Peoples Air Force - 1/144 MiG-29

One of the the squares on my Hobby Bingo card for 2023 was to complete a plastic scale model kit. Fortunately I had an unbuilt Academy 1/144 scale MiG-29. While I have no compatible scaled gaming miniatures, it will probably do as a piece of terrain for 15mm (1/100 scale) Force on Force (or similar) gaming in the People's Republic of Slovetzia (they will absolutely need state-of-the-art fighter aircraft to deter any interference from America or NATO.

The pride of the Slovetzian Peoples' Air Force, a 1/144 scale MiG-29, with Battlefront Miniatures 1/100 scale infantry. (The scale difference probably won't be as jarring in tabletop battles with distance between figures and everyone focusing on the action).

NATO intelligence reports that they doubt the air-to-air missiles are fully functional.

National markings were hand-painted and turned out ok, if a bit rough. Unfortunately I had to re-do the area around the canopy due to a mistake with blu-tack while trying to protect it from Dullcote frosting (don't put blu-tack on painted minis, and seal plastic model kits before adding the clear parts).

British Army Loyalists counterattack SWoM 1 March 1938 - A Very British Civil War, Chain of Command

This battle was quite a while ago (last year), and was sitting in draft. Here it is, finally:

One of my usual gaming mates had not really played Chain of Command before (maybe once long ago). I kept going on and on and on about how good the ruleset is, so we finally decided to have a game. We played a scenario that would feed into my Very British Civil War campaign setting.

King Edward VIII's men get involved

My opponent took command of a force of British Regulars fighting for King Edward's Royalists, specifically a rifle platoon with some armoured support scraped together from local depots. I took command of an infantry column of the Sheffield Workers Militia (SWoM) with an FT-17 and a field medic.

SWoM riflemen exchanging fire with British Army regulars across the Salteye Brook (all human figures: Peter Pig Miniatures).

Counterattack at Peel Green

As the Manchester Commune's offensive to cut the Mersey Corridor has now commenced in earnest, Royalist regular army forces have moved to counterattack, striking at a gap in the leftists lines near the Peel Green cemetery just outside of the Manchester urban area. The Army unit was able to enter the Eccles neighbourhood and get in behind a SWoM column, which then had to send a reserve platoon back to remove the threat.

The fighting commenced when a section of SWoM riflemen opened effective fire on Army troops who had moved up to a tall garden hedge. Several men on both sides were hit. Taking the initiative, the Corporal of the Army rifle section took three men and attempted to cross the bridge to gain a better position, while the platoon's 2" mortar team attempted to cover the movement with smoke.

At that exact moment, a SWoM tank appeared, heading down the road towards them. ... And the 2" mortar smoke rounds landed off the mark.

(Battlefront miniatures FT-17).

Within seconds it had loosed a 37mm shell which flew directly into the unfortunate soldiers, killing both the lead man and the one behind him, stopping the crossing attempt as soon as it started.

(Paper buildings from Dave Graffam, Microtactix and Wargame Print - all through Wargames Vault).

Seeing a direct attack across the bridge presently unviable, the Army platoon commander instead brought the two other rifle sections and a Matilda I tank across Salteye Brook further downstream and moved these up to attack the SWoM left flank, which was held by more militia riflemen behind a wall.

SWoM militia hold the cemetery wall.

Spotting this movement, the SWoM section leader (who had a submachinegun and was keen on using it!) took one of his nine-man sub-sections and broke from the cover of the cemetery wall to attack the Army troops before they had a chance to emerge from the treeline.

SWoM rashly attempt an assault.

While the SWoM militiamen had the advantage of their leader's submachinegun, the Army troops had a Bren as a counter. In a hard-fought assault about five were killed and wounded on each side, and both section leaders were wounded. The Army were pushed back, but they had blunted the SWoM assault, and had another section plus a tank backing them up.

Badly beaten up in the assault: the British Army lead left flank section.

The remaining SWoM fighters pulled back to the cemetery wall, though in doing so they were fired upon and broken! As they ran back through the gate, they panicked the men of their other half-section, who started to believe they were about to be attacked by an overwhelming Army force. The SWoM section leader was too busy trying to bandage himself and run away at the same time to try to boost their confidence.

SWoM militiamen and their wounded commander flee through the cemetery gate, panicking their comrades.

Regular Army Matilda I (Zvezda miniatures) approaches from the west.

At the same time, an Army Vickers Medium II tank moved through the centre of the town to protect the first Army section and counter the SWoM FT-17. These two tanks met about 70 metres apart and commenced a duel during which they both sustained damage. (I can't remember what happened, but I think the Vickers Medium took a crew casualty but managed to drive off the FT-17).

Regular Army Vickers Medium II (QRF Miniatures) heads through the town to counter the SWoM tank.

A SWoM medic rushed through the gravestones to tend to the wounded left-flank section leader (he had just ran across from the right-flank section where he was providing first aid to that section's leader who'd also been wounded).

Medic Lionel runs through the gravestones, hoping to save his section leader from ending up beneath one (converted Peter Pig Home Guard officer and scratch-built gravestones).

It was too late though - the British Army infantry and Matilda I were able to inflict heavy casualties on the SWoM left flank section and they ran from their position as the little British Army tank crashed over and through the (obviously very lightly constructed) cemetery wall in pursuit.

"Time to get goin' lads!! Get up Jimmy! What'r ye doin'?"

British Army Victory

Somehow (due to very lucky rolls on the Bad Things Happen table) the badly-shot-up SWoM remnants on the right flank were able to hang on for quite some time after the collapse of their left flank, but they were inevitably going to lose, so we called it after a few more Phases.

The SWoM offensive on this part of the Mersey Corridor front is definitely in trouble now, with skilled and armour-equipped Royalist units in their rear. What are they going to do about that?

This was a fun and educational game (educational for me as it turned out), and really showed the impact of wounded leaders, the risks of advancing in the open without smoke cover, and the riskiness of assaulting undamaged sections which still have their section automatic weapons fully operational.

Sponks (what the?) - Horrifying Crab Monsters for sci-fi, fantasy

I have an assortment of odd and cool miniatures from various manufacturers and sculptors picked up over the years that I paint from time to time for a bit of a change from major campaigns.

This week's odd items are the sponks - basically very large crabs that present a danger to anyone operating in sci-fi or fantasy mangrove swamps, tidal lagoons and other coastal areas characterised by mud and shallow, murky waters. These things are extremely resilient and stealthy ambush predators, with powerful claws and an armoured exoskeleton. I got these from Khurasan Miniatures in the USA a long time ago. I coated them in gloss varnish to give them the wet look.

The Sponks from Khurasan Miniatures. With basing tufts from Woodland Scenics.

*clicking and chewing noises*

Sponks attacking a sci-fi Wehrmacht soldier (from Eureka Miniatures).

Your weapons will have no effect.

The Sponks are probably best for 15mm games, but they could potentially work in 28mm games - not as imposingly huge, but still terrifyingly dangerous enough. They could easily take your leg off. (with Militiawoman from Ex Manus miniatures).