PSC The Great War - Trial Solo Game

Having finally finished painting all the figures from the basic game + the guns and Generals from the Kickstarter package it was time to start to learn the game mechanisms.

I thought I'd start with the first scenario at the back of the rule book. Laying out the way German trenches first, I experienced the frustration I've read about when trying to locate trench junction hexes. Because the hexes are printed on both sides, you've got to keep turning them over to find what you want. Careful storage will solve this one, keep all the junctions together.

Having laid out both front lines, I deployed the units as recommended in the scenario.

Next I dealt five command cards a piece and two combat cards. Each side started with six HQ tokens as well.

The British command cards presented them with three cards to order the left hand section of the board, one for the centre and one that allowed units to be ordered in the left and right sections.

I thought I'd get straight into it to see what the mechanism should do. I advanced out of the trench one hex and tried a ranged attack at maximum range. A single dice role, but I got a burst symbol - one hit!

Next move the Germans got their opportunity to pay me back. Two hits and a retreat one hex. Back where I started and two lives down. Well ranged combat is simple enough!

Next let's try ranged attacks by the reserve artillery. They need to be ordered to do so, just like the infantry units. Both sides had strength 4 artillery, meaning they roll four D6 to find out what they've hit.

Artillery template placed on target hex with the 6 facing their base edge. Four dice rolled.

The barrage landed in hexes 2, 4 & 5. The double four means one barrage landed on target. This was rolled first and gave me an HQ token. The others had no effect as no one was in the hexes.

The German barrage next move was equally ineffective.

Time to try the close combat mechanisms. An order four random units and add an extra dice to their combat phase command card allowed me to advance to contact in two places. The combat dice were rolled and the reductions for being in a trench were applied. Both combats resulted in the enemy units taking two hits -a good start.

The following turn, the Germans were unable to order a counter attack, so once it was my turn once more the British capitalised on the situation, caused two more hits on one unit -destroying it. The British unit could now follow up and occupy the hex and take a victory medal counter.

All in all quite easy to learn......difficult to master! I think you need to build up the pressure (artillery, mg and mortar fire) before you can launch a breakthrough attack. More practice definitely needed, but a good start. I think I'm going to like the Great War.

PSC The Great War - all figures based and painted

It's been a while I know, but I've been rather busy etc. Etc.

Anyway, here's a picture of my finished Great War figures on their mdf bases with Minibits/Pendraken dice frames and mini dice to log how many lives each vase has left (or in the car of the artillery how many dice they roll)

Some have 7mm dice whereas the majority are the tiny 5mm version. This came about due to my wife getting my order mixed up and buying three bags of 5mm frames with no dice instead of the 7mm dice and frames combined that I wanted.

I'll have to see how these are in play.....they may be too fiddly for old fat fingers?

They all fit in two really useful hobby trays which is good. I'm looking forwards to the tank expansion that's been recently announced.

6mm mdf Napoleonic Figures

I've been toying with ideas of what figures to use to replace the playing cards in Blucher games. While researching on line I found the wonderful new mdf 6mm figures from Commission Figurines being used for just the purpose. These little chaps are really quite interesting. Whilst they remind you of miniature wooden toy soldiers from yesteryear, they have a really surprising amount of detail. I decided the only way to find out was to order some.

I bought a mix of infantry and cavalry, French and British and a pack of Artillery, in all six packs for £13 delivered. Packs of infantry are 96 strong (inc command), cavalry 36 figures and Artillery 4guns with crews and horse teams.

I painted a few British up to try them out and include some pictures here so you can make your own minds up.

I started with a (uncharacteristic for me) black spray undercoat. First step was to dry brush the trousers light grey. I also painted the rolled greatcoats on top of the rucksacks in the same colour.

Next step was the red tunics. Look closely and you can see the engraved cross-straps.

The muskets were picked out in bestial brown.

The cross straps and helmet plumes were picked out in white.

A small dab of flesh picked out the faces and two smaller blobs, the hands.

On the backs of the figures the water bottle was picked out in grey-blue.

The packs include several tiny mdf drums ready to attach! The flag poles (florist wire) were superglued on at the same time.

A blob of gold paint suffices for the cap badge.  You can see that the fine parts are a little delicate....broken plumes for example. The strip the figures come attached to was painted a light brown ready for the basing stage.

Then I started to base them roughly 20 figure to a stand. After much deliberation I decided on 60x30mm as this matches my Baccus figures (based for Polemos)  and this size laid on top of the Blucher card, looks good and you can still see the status details.

I textured the bases with PVA coated in sand. When dry I gave this a coat of sepia wash before spraying in Matt varnish. With hindsight this was unnecessary as in future I'll cover the bases with brown railway ballast that will save me the sepia wash stage!

Finally, after the varnish was dry, I coated the bases once again in PVA and sprinkled on a rather dried out, grass coloured static grass.

I'll add some flags later, when I've found some on the Internet to print out. All in all I'm really rather pleased with these little chaps. Very effective they look en masse. Very good value too at less than 50p per stand. Very quick and easy to paint up well. I'm not sure how robust they'll be in use, but even if they break, they'll be easy enough to glue together with PVA.

Highly recommended.

WW1 28mm - Black Adder Goes Forth

I've finished my Black Adder Scarab Miniature Figures. What fun they were to paint and I really like the finished article.

Edmund himself with Balders in the background.

Baldrick complete with dead rat!

George with cricket bat.

General Melchett in typical pose.

Captain Darling.

General Melchett's Drinks cabinet (so you can move it closer to Berlin, I guess!).

Driver "Bob".

And last but by no means least, Lord Flasheart. Actually their "Downed Pilot" figure with the addition of a putty moustache.

The sculpting was such that the figures were simplicity itself to paint well. There was so much exaggerated detail for the sepia wash to settle in and for highlights to be picked out, that you can't go wrong.

Whilst looking for reference/inspiration pictures on the Internet, I stumbled upon Battle Flag's 28mm vignette capturing that immortal moment when Edmund, George, Darling and Baldrick finally "Go over the top". This is a lovely little piece for £15.95 (£1 going to an armed forces charity) comprising of a three tier mdf plinth, cast resin trench top/no-mans land base (with cut outs for figures) a length of shell damaged barbed wire and four figures in white metal. Needless to say this will be my next distraction......

PSC -The Great War - Kickstarter Metal 15mm General Figures

Finally finished the Kickstarter General Figures today. Pictures aren't the best (iPhone) but they should help as a painting guide with colours.

The source material I used was all from the Internet.

A variety of sources, all cut and pasted into PowerPoint and printed off.

Starting from top left, the British General in service dress.

Next the German Field Marshall.

The French General in Horizon Blue.

The U.S. General in his overcoat/raincoat.

The Russian General with red striped blue trousers.

Austrian General in a more blue uniform rather than field grey.

Italian Gereralisimo in field grey.

And last but no means least, the Turkish General with his grey furry fez!

So there you go. These were a nice distraction from the usual stuff. I guess as time goes on and the supplements for the game start to appear, there may be a role for these figures. But for now they're just nice to haves.

IPMS Avon

I've been to this primarily modelling show the last two years. Each year there was a small wargaming representation but nothing to really write home about.

This year I swore I wouldn't bother, but as Colette and I were at a loose end and looking for a day out we decided to head down to Bristol and I'd take a look around whilst she raided IKEA.

This year I was pleasantly surprised. There were a good few demo/participation games, a bring and buy and a good mix of wargame traders amongst the kit vendors.

Another Waterloo re fight amongst others.

On Rob Broom's Scarab Miniatures stall I found these little beauties and couldnt resist them.

Black Adder Goes Forth in 28mm; Edmund himself, George, Baldrick, Darling, Melchett, Lord Flash and "Bob"! There's even Melchy's drinks cabinet for good measure. What fun!

What did I say about getting diverted?

Attack! - Devizes

Went to this show on a lovely sunny day in early July.

Split between four different blocks of the same school. It had a mixture of demo games, traders and competitions on the go. There was a lovely Waterloo re fight demo which was nice to keep popping back to every so often.

Some very nice terrain for what I think was a pulp type game.

And some 28mm WW1 terrain with nicely painted figures.

Personally I thought the mix of traders was a bit weak. There was nothing really new on sales and many were trying to sell the same things (4Ground, Perry and a Warlord plastics etc)

The bring and buy was large and we'll run, but I think people's expectations of their 2nd hand stuff's value is too high. Very few bargains to be had. Not too bad a show, probably won't go again as it was a good 1:50hr from where we live.

The one thing I came away with was a box of old Prince August 25mm Napoleonic figures.

When I got home I gave them a go. Took all Saturday evening, this is very addictive. I I've started painting the samples I cast from each mould and I'm quite pleased. They're not too bad!

Could really do with some artillery crew figures and some more cavalry, then I could cast up some armies!!

PSC The Great War - Enter the Guns!

After much humming and hahing I finally decided it would be better to base my Great War Figures.

My thinking behind this was twofold.

1. The based figures are better protected in storage

2. The figures are quicker to move around the board.

The bases are 40x30 2mm mdf from Minibits as are the  dice frames and die which will keep track of the casualties and to make the bombardier stand out, I mounted him on a 2mm mdf base too. The bases were textured with sand before painting Vallejo Camoflague Green. Then to tone them down slightly, they had random patches of brown model railway ballast added to represent mud.

I took the same approach with my artillery pieces. In this case the die can be used to indicate the barrage strength. Much nicer than the cards, and will be useful if I ever do WW1 in 15mm!

The Germans got the same treatment. Nice models, simple to make though you need to take care as both have one or two delicate pieces.

Finally, I've nearly finished my metal general figures. Very nice detail in the sculpting, they paint up well. Not sure how useful the more obscure army's figures will be, but nice to have all the same.

Just four sprues to finish now. Two of each side......hopefully I'll find the time before I get diverted on to something else....