Litus Saxonicum...

...or the Saxon Shore.

In between painting High Elves (those Silver Helms are such a pain in the bum!), I have been helping out my old pater, Al Front, with some of his backlog:

15mm DBA Saxons to fight the Romano-British.

I've really enjoyed painting these little fellows; they're so simple - flat colours, Agrax Earthshade, shields, matt varnish, base, done. I am trying to paint the shields so that everyone has a different design. I don't know how that will end up but it's jolly fun. So far I have finished three stands of 'Warband', one stand of 'Skirmishers' and have eight stands of 'Spearmen' to go.

As well as that, on Tuesday I went to my friend J's flat along with J2, K, Dr D, and A to play some more Starfinder.

The gang. L-R: A (dwarf wizard), Dr D (space lizard medic), J2 (not-a-Jedi), me (Katakayo Face-eater, angry space lizard), K (four-armed mechanic).

The Bandit Queen space bar, owned by some naughty bunch of criminal types. Scenery by K.

"Can we come in?"
"No."
"FIGHTING IT IS THEN" (and, reader, Katakayo killed both and ate their faces)

"And there is a door marked 'NO ENTRY - STAFF ONLY'."
"Can I hack it? Can we bribe the barman? Is there another way in?"
"I try to open the door" says me, "while they are talking."
"It, uh, it opens."

After dispatching the goons playing poker, Katakayo opens the next door, revealing the gang leader and her bodyguard, another angry space lizard.

"A worthy opponent!"
We leveled up, when all was said and done, and Katakayo's personal tally now stands at 6 kills and 4 faces eaten.

This, by the way, is what Katakayo Face-Eater actually looks like, courtesy of my partner S, who takes commissions!

Painting Points:
Today: 7 (2 15mm figs = 1 points)

This Week: 7
2019: 38

Cara Al Sol...

...Los Camisas Neuvas!

Today I started building my Division Azul platoon for Chain of Command. The figures are the Warlord Games' plastic 'Blitzkrieg' German infantry 1939-42, and are pretty characterful. Reasonably easy to build, and ingenious touches like the one-piece pouches are great. I'm splitting them into three squads, each with a different set of poses - one standing firing, one charging (with grenade-throwing and bayonet) and one prone and kneeling, firing. So far I've made up a mere handful of men, but here they are on my painting table:

Yesterday evening I went with JY to a wargames and games club based in Coventry, where I played a very nice chap called Kevin at X-Wing. His tactics weren't brilliant, and I beat him 100-59 with my TIE swarm, and then we swapped sides and I beat him 100-0 with his X-Wing/Y-Wing flight. Here's the turn-by-turn pics from the first game:

 Setup - Obsidian Sqn in their usual two flight groups side-by-side. Note the Y-Wings in the Rebel centre and the X-Wings off to starboard.

 End Turn One: Obsidian Sqn and the Rebels move in, no-one in range. Asteroids ahoy; time to move.

 End Turn Two: I made a serious error here. 'B' Flight moved 2 Forwards rather than 3 Forwards, which meant that 'A' Flight ran into them. D'oh! However the Rebels were not in a position to capitalise on this; ion turrets hit O5 but Obsidian Sqn firing knocked an ion turret off one of the Grey Squadron ships.

 End Turn Three: The furball begins! TIEs manouvering as best they could; O5 causing some problems as it drifts under the effects of the Ion blast.

 End Turn Four: O5 goes west, but so has one of Grey Squadron and now I outnumber them 2:1 and have concentration of firepower too.

 End Turn Five: The Rebels break, my TIEs strip them of their shields as they lose formation.

 End Turn Six: Howlrunner down! But so is the second Y-Wing, and the X-Wings are separated.

 End Turn Seven: O2 has managed to K-Turn himself in front of one of the X-Wings - an error of judgement on my part. Miraculously he only took two damage rather than go BOOM.

 End Turn Eight: One X-Wing down, one to go, but O2 has gone. I now have a 4:1 advantage, but not for long...

 End Turn Nine: Another TIE breaks up under the punishing firepower of the X-Wing, in return for a point of hull damage.

End Turn Ten: And that's all she wrote. Outnumbered 3:1, the last X-Wing is shot down and the day belongs to the Empire. Score: 100 points to 59.

In the rematch I flew the Rebels as a single flight, splitting into two elements each of a Y-Wing and X-Wing about half-way through. Kevin's lack of experience with a TIE swarm told; he flew them in a ragged line which meant O2 and O3 (both PS5) were on their own and dispatched by turn three, followed shortly thereafter by Howlrunner (PS8) which then meant the PS4 Rebels were shooting first and able to concentrate their fire on a small number of fragile TIEs, often at ranges 1-2, maximising their shooting potential and minimising the TIE's agility advantage. The result there was a whitewash; I destroyed Obsidian Squadron for no losses (although I was down to one hull point on one of the Y-Wings)! I think Kevin may be a tougher opponent next time; he certainly had a pretty solid list!

The club were a friendly bunch and I took some photos of the other wargames going on in the same room:

 The "two Petes" and their Romans-versus-Britons DBA game in 15mm! I think the Romans won but I'm not certain.

 Simon and John setting up for their second X-Wing game. Interceptors versus B- and Y-Wings.

Gary and Tony, playing Pulp Alley! - a race against time to stop the Dastardly Nazis getting away with a Death Ray! No idea who won but lovely terrain, nice models and by the sound of it a jolly fun game.

Oh, and tonight I introduced SB to X-Wing and had a couple of games of Magic: The Gathering. Tomorrow, more Division Azul and probably a bit more X-Wing, because why not!

Vorwarts!

Today was an interesting day. First of all, I'd barely been in work half an hour when the shopping centre's alarm sounded (AWOOOGAH, AWOOOGAH, in best Calvin & Hobbes tradition) followed shortly after by our own fire alarm system. So off we all trotted into the glorious early April sunshine, while I fretted about the very hard to replace stuff in my paint-kit that I take to work each day! It turned out to be a duff sprinkler unit, but the excitement didn't wear off for a few hours so that was good.

Then, when I was sat down at lunch happily painting my Darendaran command squad (Yellow Company, Black Battalion, Darendaran X Mech. if you must know), the area manager came in and looked at me somewhat askance. Ah well. It keeps me sane and harms no-one; although he seemed surprised to find me still painting the same figures when he came back 40 minutes later. Well... yes?

Anyway, on my way home, I nipped into the Leamington Games Club to try and pick up the turret heavy flamer that's missing from Blue Platoon Squad 4's Chimera, only to discover that the fellow I was swapping bits with had forgotten it! Ah well. I stopped to chat to Rob, who is one of the glorious lunatics behind Prodos Games, and Will, the manager of GW Leamington Spa. They were about to be engaged in a game of Flames of War, the GW-esque 15mm approach to WW2. I was quite taken by their forces, and when Rob said he wanted to play early war games, I - perhaps foolishly - volunteered to raise a German force to fight his Poles.

I've got time to kill, and I'm quite looking forwards to the idea of a unit of 1939 German Whermacht, with their Pz. Is and IIs, not to mention their 35t and 38t Czechoslovak tanks and other weird and wonderful bits of kit. Peter Pig will, I think, be my first port of call as the prices that Battlefront charge are a bit much in my opinion.

So, today, I discussed Men of Company B, Slaughterloo, Flames of War, and Warhammer 40,000. Today was a good day.

Oh, and here are those Chimeras:

A terrible photo (I really must take more care in future). I'll take a better one tomorrow.

And, just for fun...

...a comparison between an original Darendaran X trooper (left) and one with the newer uniform (right).

Part of my unpainted mountain:

On the left is the full-strength Red Platoon (plus company Commissar); on the right is the under-strength Blue Platoon (still awaiting three rocket launcher teams. Yellow Company Command and most of Red (Weapons) Squad #4 are currently either being painted or undercoated.

All told the Darendaran Tenth number some 90 figures supported by 11 AIFVs, three Sentinel walkers, two Demolisher infantry support tanks, and a Hellhound flame-tank. I'm hoping to get the whole lot painted, based and finished this year. If I only finish one army this year I want it to be the Tenth Mechanised.

Oh, and just for Al Front:

Undercoated!

With AK-47 To Africa

Many years ago, when I were a lad, a schoolfriend and I decided to get into the modern imagi-nation period of post-Colonial Africa. We were devout followers of Peter Pig, who remains one of the finest 15mm manufacturers in the world, and so it was quite soon thereafter that I bought the first edition of that wonderful rule-set 'AK-47 Republic', and put my school number and name on it, to ensure that the cads and bounders of St George's School, Windsor Castle didn't steal it during prep. This was quickly followed by several purchases of little metal figures to build the armies of my fictional African statelet, Gshandemala. This country actually had some 'history', for a few months before getting the 15mm bug, the Darkest Africa craze was in full swing, and the aforementioned friend and I had bought a handful of Wargames Foundry Africans to try and do some 19th Century African skirmishing.

Neither project ever came to fruition back then. However, while the Darkest Africa figures were abandoned in a box and are yet to see the light of day, my AK47 force slowly grew over the years, and I have now three reasonable forces for a Dictatorship (Gshandemala), a Superpower Backed Client Force, and a White Settler/Colonial Power. There are plenty of stands left to paint, and I will crack on with them over the next few weeks with the aim being to get them finished so that I can start adding to them again.

Here are some pictures of some of them. Featured here are forces from the People's Republic of Mbantuland (Soviet-backed) and the Gshandemalan Armed Forces (dictatorship).

Above: Mbantuland Army. On the left are five infantry platoons, a weapons platoon, and a HQ platoon making up the 'uWele' Company of the 7th Regiment. On the right rear are a BMP and BRDM from the 19th Armoured, right middle are a T-55 and a T-34/85 from the 1st Armoured, and at right front two UNIMOGS with their AAA guns from the 329th Artillery Regiment. At the extreme right can be glimpsed a Gshandemalan BRDM.

Above: Some of my Gshandemalans. In front is a reinforced platoon of Civil Defence Force militia with their Land Rover 'technical', and behind them are a platoon of the feared Internal Guard security troops with their trademark black berets. The BRDM is an Internal Guard vehicle.

Above: Finally back to Mbantuland, and the shameful unpainted. These are an understrength company of Mbantuland People's Militia - a part-time territorial force that is of better quality than many militias, but still less reliable than a regular unit. They are, however, well equipped, with each platoon having a DSHK 12.7mm HMG and a stand of RPGs... not to mention the recoilless rifle with the HQ!

Tomorrow I will post the rest of my Gshandemalans, and show off my white colonial force (which is, of course, mostly black Africans) together with some of the (in)famous 5 Commando!