Of Superquick and Metcalfe...

Fairly recently, my Dad and I engaged in a spot of WW2 gaming (as is our wont) with a Fallschirmjager assault on the sleepy village of Lower Bimble, defended by a company of Home Guard. A report from the jackboot side of things can be found here on the Gentleman's Wargames Parlour. I will be putting in a report as soon as I can get a replacement power cable...!

Anyway, what I was really going to be talking about was Superquick and Metcalfe. For the uninitiated, they are two companies that make cardboard kits of houses, factories, pubs and so on for model railways and, yes, wargamers, in 1/72 scale. We used their stuff for Lower Bimble. It works remarkably well with 28mm, and perfectly with 20-25mm too.

The amount of kits they do is incredible - between the two of them there's enough stuff to produce a whole town with industrial estate, railway station(s) by the dozen and an airfield. And I've got a load of them at work. They look at me, tempting me to get them and make them so that, next time, we can have urban warfare in the streets of Upper Bimble as the Field Army and its Home Guard comrades try to fend off the fanatical Nazi paratroops and their Whermacht chums.

Should I give in, or stay firm? Help!

Disasters

Well, I'm excusing my lack of photo-updates and two missing battle reports with the following joyous bit of info:

My multi-adaptor which powers my laptops has died, spectacularly. So now I can't use either of them! Arrrgh!

On top of that, I have discovered the hard way that my shed (garage) leaks. I lost three books to water damage on Friday. One is easily replaced, one can be either picked up 2nd hand as a book or printed off as a PDF...

...and one is now only availiable second hand for upwards of £100!

For the interested, they are Codex: Space Marines (5th Edition), Mordheim: Empire in Flames, and Tactica Imperialis: A History of the Later Imperial Crusades.

So, in all, woe and misery. Expect reguar updates to begin again once I can reliably power my laptops. Bloody hell! What a saga!

Lego and Other, Stranger Things

A quick post - almost a placeholder for another one tonight.

Lego is a good thing to use for wargaming, particularly skirmishes. SF and F are very easy to do, while my introduction to wargaming came in the form of Lego ironclads battling it out on a carpet Potomac...!

I am also going to plunge back into the Guard and Dark Eldar armies that have been simmering for some time; with the upcoming release of things like the Venom, Talos, Cronos

JOOLS HOLLAND IS IN THE SHOP RIGHT NOW whee

My First Army List

Having yesterday completed the task (well, almost) of moving my stuff from my parent's house to my own, a mere six years after leaving there, I was rummaging through papers and found a small notebook marked 'IMPERIAL CODEX' in my own handwriting. Intrigued, I flipped it open and found an army list dated 15/12/97 (for the hard of counting, that's over 13 years ago) and entitled ULTRAMARINES Army List. It laid out, in my then 11 year-old self's childish handwriting, my ideal 2nd Edition Warhammer 40,000 Ultramarine army. I will reproduce it here for your delight, complete with spellnig erors.

1 squad of terminators. (seargent is V. and has 'Photon Searchlight') trooper 2 has 'Auto Launcher with Frag G.' and 'Plasma Blaster') P.T.S. Value: (inc wargear): 356

1 close combat tactical squad in rhino (saergent is V.) P.T.S Value (inc Rhino and V.S.): 355

1 Techmarine. ('Servo Arm') P.T.S. Value (inc. servo arm): 43

1 Tactical squad (1 trooper is a dev., other is spec.) P.T.S. Value: 300

1 Scout Squad (S. is vetran + infiltrate rules) PT.S. value (inc. V.S): 105

1 Captain (second co., Army Commander) P.T.S. Value: 96

1 Landspeeder. P.T.S. Value: 145

1 Bike Squad (S. is V. + 1 Attack Bike) P.T.S. Value (inc. V.S. + Attack Bike): 298

TOTAL P.T.S. Value: 1698

This is followed by a more detailed and expanded army list for the same lot, this time with names and extra characters, dated 26/12/97. It is this force that I am currently replicating with modern models painted in the style of 2nd Edition and, in keeping with the way I painted back then, to the best of my ability. At the moment I have the Captain, 2 of the 5 Terminators, the Scout Squad, and a Tac Squad. I still need a Rhino, Bike Squad, another Tac Squad, a Landspeeder, Command Squad, Librarian... a few figures!

Right, now I'm off to paint Romans by the dozen for money. Ta-ra for now, chaps and chapettes!

Victory At Last

Last night I engaged my friend A in a 1,500 point 'Prepared Assault' mission from the 40K Battle Missions book. I took my heroic bad guys, the Karaboudjani Kataphraktoi, in a manner that I've never taken a Guard-based army before. He took his Blood Angel Successors (with some proxies) in a list designed to kill horde armies.

Good job I had a few tanks then!

My list looked like this:

Lord Commissar with Carapace Armour and power sword in Chimera
Primaris Psyker
Priest with Eviscerator

Platoon 1:
Lt with Power Sword and Plasma Pistol
4 Veterans with Flamers

Sgt with Bolt Pistol, Grenade Launcher, Heavy Bolter team, Commissar with power sword
Sgt with Plasma Pistol, Grenade Launcher, Heavy Bolter team
Sgt with Laspistol, Grenade Launcher, Heavy Bolter team

Platoon 2:
Lt with Power fist and laspistol
4 Veterans with Meltas

Sgt with Bolt Pistol, Plasma Gun, Lascannon team, Commissar with Power Sword
Sgt with Power Sword, Plasma Gun, Lascannon team
Sgt with Laspistol, Plasma Gun, Lascannon team

Armoured Sentinel with Autocannon and Smoke
Armoured Sentinel with Autocannon, Smoke and Searchlight

Devil Dog with hull Multi-Melta, turret Melta Cannon and pintle Heavy Stubber

Demolisher with Plasma Cannons, Lascannon and Storm Bolter

He took:

Reclusiarch
5 Assault Terminators with twin lightning claws
10 Assault Marines with twin lightning claws, flamer, plasma pistol
10 Tac Marines with Heavy Bolter and flamer in a Rhino
10 Devastators with Signum, 2 plasma cannon, multi-melta, rocket launcher
2 Baal Predators with Inferno Cannons and hull Heavy Flamers
Furioso Dreadnought with Blood Talons and Magna-Grapple

I went first, and had a dismal round of shooting. But, despite the fact that he caused 23 casualties on 1 Platoon in his Turn One AND destroyed my Demolisher... I still won! Mainly because his teleporting Terminators scattered onto his Dreadnought, suffered a mishap, and died in the warp. I ended the game with all three objectives in my possession and only one Space Marine left on the table - a Devastator with Rocket Launcher.

A had some bad luck - for example, at least one Plasma Cannon 'Got Hot' every turn (although he did pass every save) - and I had some good luck; particularly the tank commander of the Devil Dog who, with his heavy stubber, headshotted a Devastator Marine through a wall, and killed the Reclusiarch. His crew, on the other hand, were utterly dismal, hitting only once and killing a mere three marines from five hits.

All in all, a great game and one from which I have taken a lot - namely, playing Guard in accordance with the background means YOU LOSE. Time to ditch most of my fetish regarding the background and start playing to win a bit more... but not at all costs.

Pictures, by the way, will come when I get my other laptop back from the repair shop this coming week. This one is too unreliable to use for picture uploads &c &c.