Big Bang Burger Bar

Introduction


Has been coming on for some time no doubt bought on by my following far too many wargaming related blogs and not getting enough actual wargaming done

I am I have to admit it an inveterate  gammer I have been into wargaming & roleplaying since a very early age and was interested in things military even before that and thanks to Phil I am now also a board gamer and after long years of not playing have been drawn back into Magic and other card games.

I game now entirely for social reasons its fun & I get to chat with and on occasion beat like minded people in the past I was more competitive but I found early that most really competitive people where very annoying and ended up on my cull list so stayed away since the law still wrongly sees this as murder and not evolution in action. Don't get me wrong I still like to win but I don't need to do so, the games the thing and a good game really does it with winning the icing on the cake.

At this point I am sure you are thinking I should just get to the point and I refer you to the title of this thread which should have given you fair warning I feel

Wargaming that's what this was supposed to be about before I rambled off at a tangent. I don't get enough wargaming I can get my board gaming fix in any number of ways locally  same goes with my card gaming and the Thursday night role-playing session scratches that itch very nicely. I just don't get to wargame - granted there are a couple of very good clubs locally but they are not that easy for me just to pop into and I dont go half as often as I really should. So my wargaming itch has gone rather unscratched since Beer & Lard 2012 and this is not good at all. I have been building terrain as I am having trouble painting figures at the moment not sure why partly old age has changed my eyesight partly I work silly hours and an pretty much always knackered and I just cant motivate myself in that direction. I have plenty to paint as well as some shamefully late commissions form the time when I had the time to do that sort of thing .

Getting back on topic which is to remind myself my not getting enough wargaming, well I have a plan which will deal with that it involves many things but is in essence to move my finished wargaming stuff to the shop cellar and once its there use it to run wargames Sundays or other days at the shop so it gets used.  Also in the tradition of Spirit Games and given that I have both sides for any game want to run you can just turn up and play whatever is on offer.

what do you think? not that I wont go ahead with my plan any way its mine & I will stick to it

>:DGinger

Wargaming

What do I have to hand well firstly I have Dux Brittanarium all ready to run I just need to get the scenery and armies I have for it down to the shop but I could easily run the game tomorrow as it where. On a similar vein I could also run a play test DUX Fantasica at quite short notice as it can use the same scenery as the Dux Brittanarium game with a few extras & I have the Orcs and goblins assembled if not painted as I mentioned I am having problems painting at the moment there opponents would be the Romano British I already have for Dux Brittanarium as when building a new faction it is I feel good to test them against a known quantity. I intend to add more factions to the game as things progress, my tentative thoughts are Dwarves at least two kinds Wood Elves, Hobgoblins Rat kin Centaurs & several sorts of human.

The Liberi centaurs really need a good set of rules to play them with see what I mean.

(http://www.spiritgames.co.uk/image/figs/14273.jpg)

Getting back to finished rules sets I have sufficient forces to do fairly large eastern front games with IABSM but I need to assemble some of the armour and get back to painting before they are finished I also have very small amounts of suitable scenery. I could also do Western front from D-Day on games but the same applies  but I have less to paint & build. I have rather more western front scenery & its easier to acquire or build more


 >:DGinger

Had a mad building fit on tank yesterday and managed to assemble all of the tanks which have been sitting around in boxes at home for ages so I am significantly further advanced with building forces for the East & west front from 1943 on than I was when I wrote the previous post. I just have a lot of infantry & support weapons to assemble & paint up which may be a problem as I really am having trouble painting of late.

Still work calls so more developments latter

 >:DGinger

Mud and the Blood I have the forces to run this in 15mm a platoon  of British with three German Platoons (Zugs) two of trench infantry one one of counter attack troops (storm troopers) I also have partly painted two platoons of Senegalese with company command. The main problem is the scenery which whilst it works is mostly not good enough & I want to build some scenic boards after the fashion of Sid's but in I5mm & of course better as I will be doing it  ;)

Sharp practice
I don't have the forces to run this or any of its spin off's TSS (ACW) & a Hundred years before (NYW & WSS)  though I have the start on them and should I be able to sort out my painting problem I could run up as small force quite quickly as I have figures for all three in the lead and plastic pile.

Beneath the lilly banners
I would love to run this but I am trying to work out how as I really don't have any where near enough troops for this in any scale.

 >:DGinger

And now for a digression - shocked this is me you are reading so you should really know what to expect by now.

Making Hills.

To cut a long story short I decided to build some actual hills rather than use the for me traditional method of books or crude step hills under a blanket. The first of these was designed to support the Warbases watch tower for Dux but to be honest the idea would work with any period and most scales.


I had Warbases cut a shape in 3mm MDF to act as the base, I could & indeed may in the future cut my own out of MDF with a fret saw but since I was ordering stuff from Warbases it made it easier to get them to do it for me.

On top of this I built a contour hill of corrugated cardboard recovered from Esdevium boxes but any thick corrugated cardboard box will do until it was of a satisfactory height and steepness.  Its important to keep an eye on this at this point as once the next stage begins it not going to b possible to go back & change this. It is also important to remember that wargames figures have to stand on the slopes so its probably going to be a fairly gentle hill unless you want to model a cliff or impassable slope on it. Over doing either would rather defeat the object witch is to get a realistic hill not one of the flat topped Messa's common on the wargames table.

Once the contour hill is completed satisfactorily you can move on to the stage of actually covering the contours to form the slopes, unless you are after a wooded hill (see latter).

To cover the hill I used torn newspaper of which I happen to have some about oddly enough. It is important to note that this is not Papermache but individual strips. each strip was painted with PvA white glue & stuck to the contour hill, repeat this painting the paper to be applied and that already in situ and continue  until a solid slope was formed this will take several layers and in the case of a large hill it is a good idea to do it over the period of a couple of days allowing the glue sodden paper to dry out.

Once the whole thing has dried out I painted it with Earth brown acrylic paint followed by white glue sprinkled it with sharp sand allowed to dry & then painted that earth brown & applied flock static grass and foam foliage to make the hill fir in with the rest of  the scenery it was meant to go with in this case my DUX set.

 >:DGinger

I should I suppose be finishing off the post on how to make free-standing hills I began above, however this is me we are talking about & I ramble as we know so I am going to do something completely different.

I am going to talk about CoC the new Lardie Cardless world war two rules which you may have seen me re post a lot about from the play testers blogs. I am not a play tester I am currently trying to help play test Algernon Pulls it off Again (Algy2) but I haven't had much luck with that & even I need to sleep some times  +:coffee=+::coffee:.

What most impressed me was the latest post on Lard Island news which featured an attack over effectively no terrain  which was even more remarkably successfully conducted. I have a soft spot for WWII on the Eastern front  mostly because I was involved as a junior commander in a WWII Eastern front campaign at a very young age. There is a lot of this sort of terrain on the steppe lands of the eastern front.

I can't wait & I am going to try to get my WWII stuff ready for its release.



 >:DGinger

I have also gone back and finished my hill post


& whilst doing so it occurred to me I could also make a number of wooded hills in a similar way & when I have given this a try I will describe how I did it. I hope to  post pictures as well as it makes it so much easier to understand what the hell I am up to.


 >:DGinger

still thinking about wooded hills, & trying to work out where I can get brass or better aluminium tube locally, but I will need to order some stuff from Warbases as I need a couple more dark age buildings & several building bases and miscellaneous bits and pieces.

in the mean while I will try to finish off what I have and get it to the Shop so I can have a game or few

 >:DGinger

Changing the subject I started to put together one of the newish 1/72 German antitank guns from Plastic soldier company for IABSM /TW&T/CoC  and have not yet managed it as its a bit fiddly considering it is supposed to be a easy assembly model. I do have  four to do so should know how by the time its done.

(http://theplasticsoldiercompany.co.uk/images/PSC_1-72nd%20Pak38.jpg)

One other obeseravtion is tha the instructions in the box are rather unclear & printed rather small which doesn't help either still in the  PSC tradition they are lovely models

 >:DGinger

Today the master plan is to finish all the unfinished buildings for Dux & to do a bit more painting on the Orcs for Dux Fantasticua....

This was not achieved but progress was made with rendering & painting the buildings but nothing got done to the Orcs indeed by the time I got back & got down to work I had forgotten about the Orcs - sorry lads

 >:DGinger

I have since done a bit of work on the orcs & they are coming together if slowly & started to organise some building  & hill bases for which I intend to borrow Phils saw to cut up 3mm MDF myself rather than going to Warbases this time. I am doing this mostly because I am still working on what to get form Warbases & I have another potential project flapping about in the wings - Q13 in 28mm no less I reaaly don't need another project  +:bandhead=+::banghead: but I started following the Mantic blog so I may well be doomed there. I am also a bit apprehensive about using power tools again as I dont have a very good record with the dratted things

I also fiddled about & did a bit more painting on the Buildings I made the other week & continued to thatch them but I seem to have run out of Milliput again which is annoying as I could have got some more yesterday at Spirit Games, I did not as I was sure I had another pack some where.

The hills have now been base coated & will be plastered with sand & painted again on Sunday I hope.

 >:DGinger

Lots of Plans for the morning after the round shall we see how they turn out.....

 >:DGinger

I was too tired and it was too hot to drag myself out to the shop to game & I felt like an early night noe the less whilst listening to England win the cricket by the skin of their teeth I had a rather productive day.

The hills are done as is the goblin starter warband - Painted - varnished based and every thing  :o & so ready to go. It did help that Mantic figures respond very well to the block paint wash and dry brush method which is good as they other wise appear to have lots of rather overlapping detail on them which at first sight is rather confusing.

I also did a lot more finishing on my buildings collection such that most of them are also finished or very nearly so & I did a bit more work on the rules for the Goblins so I can begin to actually play test them.


 >:DGinger

Laid hands on a pack of Gripping beasts new Plastic "Dark age warriors" which I hope to be assembling over the week end & I will post a review here. However they look rather good just out of the box so far....


 >:DGinger

Have come up with a plan folks I will be doing only the support forces, Singers & Javelins for two early mid Saxon forces with these but I will be getting a pack of theigns & a second pack of dark age warriors to do a pair of armies from the late 6th -7th century as Northumbria vrs Mercia

 >:DGinger

Ok the plan described above is in abeyance as spurred by there being a Fantasy Dux Play test on Tuesday I am working on finishing as much of my Dux scenery as possible & further spurred by the forthcoming release of Chain of command I am working on WWII 20mm models so I can demo it at Spirit Games as soon as I lay my hands on the rules....

all of the above will be in the shop soon.


 >:DGinger

I now have a company of Russian T34's which I can run as either 76's or 85's to paint possible because PSC provides both turrets in there kit & they share no parts. Three Stug III assault guns which is an understrength platoon to go with my painted but not quite finished Panzer IV's ( they need numbers & other markings) also an understrength platoon. Two Panzer grenadier platoons with a company command element  & plenty of support weapons, but now transport yet. Some of these are painted but some only assembled. I also have a couple of platoons of Soviet infantry with support to assemble & some Shermans & Firefly's for the British. I will it seems have a flying start to my gaming with CoC if I keep this up.

 >:DGinger

Bumped into a young chap in the shop this morning with a keen interest in Napoleonic gaming so I have offered to run him up a quick Sharpe Practice Scenario at some point soon. I must be daft, but youthful enthusiasm is  a good thing & to be encouraged....

 >:DGinger

I have also obtained one of the Panzer March army lists for the Soviet Union  Eastern front Mid to late war ( R3 24/7/1942-31/10/1943) & I am building a Motorised infantry Platoon to go with the Soviet Tank Company I already have. Annoyingly  have discovered that I am one tank short of the company having remembered it as three Platoons of three tanks with the company commander leading the first platoon when he is in a separate one tank HQ element. The PSC tanks I am using come in threes so I can see me going for a second tank company. Still I should have mastered the tracks on the T34 by then & you always need more tanks if you are going to do Russians properly.



 >:DGinger

After having dropped all my DUx figures at the shop and having to repair many of them I have completed part on of the cunning rouse to avoid this by building a full DUX starter out of Plastic, intend to speed paint this over the week so its ready for next week end.

 >:DGinger

At the moment the plan outlined above is being implemented & seems to be working out I even started block painting the humans yesterday & would have done more but the combination of Piriton (antihistamine tablets) & running out of  +:coffee=+::coffee: sent me to bed a bit earlier.

All this does mean that my preradiation for the arrival of CoC has taken a back seat but with the temporary suspension of Spirit games Figure gaming Night I have a whole extra night to catch up or do more stuff which may even include work :o

Liked the idea of wargaming a visit to Disney world Florida as mentioned in the trouble at mill blog, I will have to think about the invasion of Burton Scenario again as well.

 >:DGinger

Chain of Command is here in e-form any way I will be having a good read of it this evening but I can understand what all the fuss was about just form having skimmed through it.

I will do a review when I have had a chance to play it


 >:DGinger

I did a bit more work on my soviet tank riders platoon last night & plan to try to finish them on Sunday.

 >:DGinger

Half my reinforcements for Fantasy Dux have arrived in the shop & I will pick them up in morning however at least for now my thoughts have turned to Sharp Practice & Chain of Command. I will see what the week end brings as to what I actually manage to get done.

I also saw the New starter force for Muskets and tomahawks - Scots highlanders arrive form Northstar at Spirit Games  yesterday & my thoughts based on an attack of "Shinny" to be sure turn to using them for  sharp practice.


(http://www.northstarfigures.com/images/2/img5602.jpg)



 >:DGinger

Lots of useful stuff has been uploaded to the Laride Group for CoC however I have downloaded most of it & I am more than happy to mail it to any interested parties who are not members.

Message me here with your E-mail

My copy has been printed out & will be laminated just as soon as I find out what I have done with the A4 pouches....


 >:DGinger

I am painting for chain of command at the moment finishing off a platoon of Soviet tank riders & a Platoon of German Panzer Grenadiers & I am posting this whilst waiting for the paint to dry and I find nowadays  I paint better in short bursts and come back to it after doing something else for a while. Here the something else has been doing the four weekly invoices & catching up on my blog reading.

 >:DGinger

The Soviets are more or less done so I need to make a start on the extra figures I need for the Germans I have the better part of two platoons done but had not painted any of the support weapons so need to do those from scratch more or less. I should have enough to do a demo at spirit the week after next at this rate,

 >:DGinger

The Tank rider platoon is finished but I am unable to do the Soviet support weapons as I seem to have lost the instruction sheet for the Soviet heavy weapons & the thing is essential to putting them together. So I decided to start work on the rest of the Germans only to find that I cant locate the OOB I was using for them. Particularly annoying as I bought a copy of it again recently, having mioslaid the origional one as is my way. So Having the Soviet one to hand I sorted out the non tank rider infantry & found that I had just short of a company being short of riflemen for the third platoon in the organization. So I need a fourth box of Plastic solder infantry, but appart form that I now have a sizeable Soviet force more than enough for CoC & at an infantry company with support company, an armoured company(t34/76/85) & a platoon of recon tanks (t70's) quite a formidable one for IABSM as well.

I need a bit more variety in vehicles as all I have are three types of tank.

 >:DGinger

Had all sorts of plans for continuing work on the Soviets & Germans  for chain of command but I was thwarted by the antics of my suppliers which meant I had to spend most of the day dealing with work not my hobbies  +:bandhead=+::banghead:

I am still planing to get something done for next week end.

 >:DGinger