"French Suffer Humiliating Defeat" in a Black Powder game..

"Almost accurate of this battle.  Not enough French casualties though.."

Well, here we are again, Scott's basement, the waning days of 2015, and we have a nice game of Napoleonics using the Black Powder rules.   Mark and Scott will be using the British, whilst I use the French in a meeting engagement to control a farmhouse during the Peninsular Wars.   Our lists are from the Albion Triumphant supplement for Black Powder, and we are using a 8 foot by 6 foot table

Using Alternate Brigade deployment, the French are at Left, British at Right.

As usual, massive dump (pictures that is) and video follows after the break

Team Yankee: 1 vs 1, 68 pts then 2 vs 2, 170 pts.

Not a European-Theatre M557.... but would make a kickass objective!

Howdy everyone, now that the Team Yankee books and the box sets are out, Kevin aka Glitch and I decided to head to the FLGS across the border to Quebec and play some kickoff Team Yankee.   Store owner Seb and Robert were already underway.  Robert built and spray-painted 22 T-72's in 2 days!

Robert's T-72 platoon

M557 "Queen Mary" Command objective, from the Bannon's boys boxset.

 Cdn and British soldiers dubbed the M557 "The Queen Mary" as in the cruise ship.. as it was the only vehicle that had enough room to stand up in.  Some other Brit command one is dubbed "The Gin Palace" after the HMS Agincourt, again, had a gigantic ballroom on board for the officers mess.   <end Cliff Clavin voice>

Seb had some Cobras out as well.

Robert's flock of Hind-D's.   Couldnt hit those M1s with ATGMs at all!

Enough of that other table's pictures, lets get to our game.   Kevin was running 2 platoons of 2 M1s, with two command M1s, a Mech Platoon, a VADS section, an ITV section, and 2 Cobras for 68 points.  I ran 9 T-72s, 2 Shilkas, and a minimum Motor Rifle Coy, in 4 BTR-80s which were subbing as BMP-1s.   Pics below:

Napoleonics: British vs Natives South Africa 1819

Here we go again, another game using the Black Powder ruleset to play Napoleonics.. this time with a Colonial flavour:  British vs the restless natives in South Africa in 1819.   The british must prevent the Natives from reaching the town and putting it to the torch.

I have a video bat rep at the end, but took a tonne of pics also, enjoy!   

38th Foot march out of Grahamstown to meet the natives on the field of battle..

I had an inept C/O whilst one brigade commander was 'great' and the other also inept and non aggressive.   I reckon the two were related and got their commissions just to get them out of the family business.   I had a unit of Brit line infantry, Brit Dragoons and British rifles (in the forward outpost) and 1 cannon.  Mark had 5 warbands of natives, some with shields, some with spears, some with decent leadership and the 'bloodthirsty' rule..

Team Yankee Test Game

Deleted 'Red Dawn' scene...

Despite us not having the Team Yankee book yet, as it is November 27th, Keven (Desert Rat) and I decided to try it out with what we know.   The Breakthrough Assault guys have tonnes of army cards up, plus I took a few screengrabs of the demo book at the LW FoW tourney a few weeks ago.    So Kevin is running Proxy USA and I will rock the Reds (a few proxies as well)   I took video as well, but here are the pics and the video is at the end.   It was great fun though we for sure botched a few rules!!

100pts a side.  I have 18 tanks and Motor Rifles, he has 10 M1s plus support.  The Sturmovik is an A10.

Napoleonics: Portuguese and British vs French, using Black Powder ruleset

Scott's French Command.. incredible work..

Well well, here we go again.   Last time we checked in on my French it was to paint them to be used in Kings of War, a Mantic game of ranked infantry in a fantasy setting.   We had an event at this year's local Con, and whilst my french did badly (Who knew a goblin Warlord was better at shooting than a whole unit of Fusilliers?) it was nice to see familiar faces from the old local Warhammer scene.  But I had based my guys singly on 20mm bases in case Mark and I ever got around to playing Colonials. Instead, we met up with Scott and Rob, and played the excellent Black Powder ruleset in 28mm.  Scott had chatted me up at the Late War Flames tourney about dusting off the old 28mm models for a test game in his war-room basement..

"So an Aussie, a Frenchman and 2 Canadians walk into a bar.."

Tonnes of pics after the break

Tanksgiving Tournament #2! (Canadian Edition)

10 October marks Thanksgiving weekend here in Canada, what better way to celebrate than having a tournament over the long weekend. A few last minute drops left us at ten players, but it's all we needed to have a great time at Perkins Hobbies in Petawawa.

Friday Night Xwing (Co-op)

So with a night to try and roll some dice, while playing the same game. Five of us took on the Empire in an attempt to disable a shuttle and capture an Imperial Officer. It's all part of a Co-operative campaign called 'Heroes of the Aturi Cluster'. It's becoming very popular, and the two best parts are that it's free and it's designed by Canadians. You can download it at DockingBay14 Campaign It plays with the X-Wing Miniatures game by Fantasy Flight Games.

Nyet This Time!

There's nothing like blowing up Russian tanks on a weekend. This past Sunday, we had a great but quick game of Flames of War. We rolled up 'Hasty Attack', and taking the opportunity to teach a new player the ropes, Patrick and I took my Schwere Panzerjagerkompanie list from 'Fortress Italy' and battled it out against 30 Soviet tanks!!

Not Enough or Too Much? (Table Terrain Setup)

Most games that require terrain such as Flames of War require enough to fill a 6'x4' table. Setting up the table so that it is 'fair' to both the attacker and the defender is key.

Today I offer some tips in setting up tables for Flames of War, but this can be used for any other tabletop wargame. Make do with what you have and use some of the pictures as guidelines.

Flames of War Canadian Nationals 2015

Once again Ottawa played host to the Canadian Nationals during the long weekend in September. it's the end of summer and kids are headed back to school, but it didn't stop 38 players from entering the biggest tournament that this country has to offer.

New Podcast Posted

 Irrelevant Elefant

Schedules have been crazy, but there has been a TON of stuff going on with Dice Devils and all the games we're playing! Sit back and listen to myself and Dennis talk about Flames of War, Kings of War, Canadian Nationals, painting and more! As usual, leave any comments below or anything you'd like to hear about on the show.
Use the Podcast link in the index tab or click here. You can also download and take it on the go. Enjoy.

Tanks-Giving Tournament

 
With the dust settling from Canadian Nationals here in Ottawa, there will be another event right around the corner as the summer season comes to an end. Dust off your armor and shelf your infantry.

On Saturday 10 October 2015, there will be a tournament held at Perkins Hobbies in Petawawa. The event will be 1750 points and a LW event, more info to follow and check out the poster on our events page! Please register through Gary at the store if you are in the Petawawa area or email me directly.

phantomrescue@gmail.com

In November, Petawawa Miniature Soldiers will be hosting their annual LW event as well, you can find all the info for that November event right here. Thanks to Bob McBride and Gary Perkins for all their help.
That event will use the Battlefront Limit of 1900 points and is always a good time whenever we get up there to play from Ottawa.

Won't be needing these guys for this event....

Kings of War: Napoleonic French Fusiliers Tabletop Ready

I quickly painted a regiment  for Kings of War.. I am using Kingdom of Man list so these are Arquebusiers.  They are just Perry Miniatures plastic French Line Infantry.   I will ink and detail them later, but I have only a few weeks to get colour on models before the first tournament of Kings of War.. early October!

Command models and casualty figure.. the casualty has been inked and detailed, the regular guys just basecoated.   "Good from Far, but Far from Good" :)

Another shot of the backpacks, where 90% of the detail is.... Next up Cannons.  Then I have to figure out a QUICK way to paint 25 horses ....

Vive La France! (Kings of War army.. French Napoleonics...)

Yes, so the lads locally have been getting into Kings of War.. and while I was going to paint up my dwarves, (on the civic holiday I started) I had to stop.  Why?  This would be the 3rd dwarf army I would paint.  My first was converted 40k Dwarves, aka Squats.. and the second was my Chaos Dwarves, again converted.   Just couldn't do it!!  So I gave away the models to my buddy Matt, and Rob has the other half.   Therefore I am left with nothing that is not historical.. so ofc why not do Napoleonics?  Haha.  I ordered Perry Miniatures plastics from Sentry Box in Calgary, in order to not get hosed in the atrocious Cdn Dollar right now on UK or US orders, and got my metals from the Warstore.  Both orders came in within hours of each other, and here is what I got:

I've G'ot Tha Beast In M'y Sights

The fact I have an entire new army to paint for a game I never expected to play or really have any interest in, comes as a surprise to myself. In starting to figure out how to even paint my new Dwarves is a little outside of my 'element'.

So, in looking for ideas and suggestions, it looks as though I'll be using the color scheme of one of my favorite Hearthstone cards.
Hearthstone is an online card game that is easy and fun to play, created by Blizzard Entertainment. They're responsible for Warcraft, Starcraft and of course World of Warcraft.

I plan on using blue for the trim around the armor of my Dwarf army. It's outside the norm and will look great once they are all on the table together.

Mixed Drinks Anyone?

DAKKA!!! DAKKA!!! DAKKA!!! Take that, Jerry!!

So with another Friday Night Fights in the books, we had a little bit of everything on the table. I hosted and was able to setup a Flames of War table and an area for me to try out Kings Of War. It's a 28mm fantasy battle game where it is fast, easy to learn and actually fun to play. Yes, I said fun. I am a huge skeptic when it comes to playing anything 'fantasy' related. I never got into the Warhammer or the 40K of many years ago. I think I wanted to, but likely couldn't afford the models. I played Battletech, a ton of other RPG type games and of course military strategy games like 'Escape From Colditz', 'Axis and Allies', 'Shogun' and of course 'RISK'.

This particular video was from last week, when Dennis and I had a night to practice our Flames of War Mid-War lists for Canadian Nationals, coming up in September. Normally we have been playing elsewhere, but with not a lot going on due to scheduling conflicts and summer holidays winding down, I decided to setup a desert table in the 'War Room'. Duane had a pretty decent German list to take on Den and his Brits (New Zealand from N. Africa).

 Duane looks on and plans his next move. They rolled up 'Encounter' and it was a lot of back and forth in the opening turns.

Duane was not able to save his Tiger from being assaulted in the middle of town. He did manage to kill a few stands in Defensive Fire, but ultimately failed a check to stay in the fight, the crew ultimately fled the Kiwi onslaught.

Carriers move in to try and secure the objective from the grip of a few lone stands of Infantry. Duane would come out of this a little better. The Sturmgeschütz III platoon in the top left of the frame came to the aide of their comrades and destroyed the Recce platoon. This, after a mistake was made in not being able to come into base contact for assaults. This error would cost Dennis the game and more victory points for the Allies.

German Infantry leave their foxholes after a carefully executed assault on a British position. A Crusader platoon lays destroyed and burning in the center of the battlefield.

With prior commitments, I won't have the chance to play very many games in the coming weeks. I'm looking forward to painting and getting my army setup for Canadian Nationals, I have a few ideas on how to base and paint the Dwarves I got free in order to play Kings of War. The rulebook should be out in the coming weeks and I look forward to it's release. As does most of our group, it's nice to have something new on the table. I think it'll be a fun game to pick up and get into a little more. My focus though will always be Flames of War, despite the perceived LW 'creep', I will keep an open mind and continue to play that system and it's expansions. MW will no doubt get some more re-writes and with some new models on the horizon, give me something to paint.

Just a friendly face to remind me I have a lot of Vietnam stuff to assemble and paint up. Really need to get a game of that in soon!

I think this may become a thing....

The games of Kings of War are fast and furious. This past Friday I played a game against a new comer to 28mm - our own Phantom Rescue. He was given (yes - free!) a whole fantasy dwarf army on one condition - he paint it! So with this newly acquired horde, we faced off with 750pts a side.

This time out I brought Kingdoms of Men - using old Warhammer Fantasy Empire models. Where did those come from you ask? I picked up just over 2000points, about half painted, for $40!

Enjoy the mayhem that ensues:

Part 1



Part 2!


This game was a blast, and it has spurred a few others in the group to start ordering models and pulling out old gear from the "good 'ol days" of GW gaming.

Expect more to come!

Cheers,

The Kings keep coming

Here is the last video from the past Friday Night Fights.

750pts of proxied Abyssal Dwarves against Goblins :

Enjoy!

MOAR! King of War?

Back at it Friday with test games of Kings of War. Apologies for the proxies, but a few of us are working out what faction we are going to commit to before buying the Mantic figures, so we are testing using what we have.

Abyssal Dwarves VS Dwarves @ 750pts.

Enjoy, I have 2 more battle reports coming tomorrow!

As promised - here is a second test battle between Twinlinked and Joyous_Oblivion:

Summer is OVER!

Flames of War games in the summer months generally indicate an upcoming event. In this case, Canadian Nationals are right around the corner. 05-06 Sep 2015, players from all over the country and the US will be in attendance.

 

Messing around with lists in Mid-War has always been difficult for me to get my head wrapped around. I don't have a ton of Mid-War period armor, so I often find myself going with German Pioneers or Infantry. I chose to go a different direction in playing Dennis' Brits on Wednesday night. My list was a Panzerkompanie out of 'Eastern Front'. Four simple platoons, a little on the expensive side for some of the units as far as the 1710 pts level is concerned.

And now for something totally different - Kings of War!

What? Seriously? RANKED fantasy mass battle? Is it 2001 or something?

No, but what a fun game! Most of here at DD have old Warhammer Fantasy armies, and with all the news of the game being killed off, conversations were had.

Now, most of us haven't played fantasy in years - and I mean YEARS! I pulled out my dwarf army, and it hadn't been on the table since ~2002...

So why Kings of War? Well, I did try 3 small Age of Sigmar games, and I hesitate to call it a game really. As an ex-GW staffer (circa 1990's) I can tell you that whatever Age of Sigmar is, it is NOT a well made "game". The models are stunning, especially the Chaos ones, but as a game, it functionally no better than the old "Mega Battles" on Sundays at the GW stores. All the kiddies bring in whatever they have, and a large game ensues, minus the "rules". But enough about Age of Sigmar, this is about Kings of War http://www.manticgames.com/

We mushed together 750pt armies, using the free rules and army PDFs from the Mantic site - and we have been playing quite a bit of it. Here is a small battle from this past Friday:

Stay tuned, I think I will be playing this more....

Kings of War test game, plus some painting (Bishops)

Full Bishop platoon with all the fixings, incl command vehicles.

 Quick update, I was pretty sick as a dog the past few days, Wife is out of town, so I got some painting done.. Bishop 4 gun battery.. I put stowage and lazy crew on the rear decks of the Bishops too. (see below)

I love the guy sitting down watching a guy do all the work.. "Good show, old boy!"

Lastly, we were talking about what to do with all our WHFB stuff from back in the day.  I had been waiting for GW to make a decent edition, and Age of Sigmar is skirmish.  So we tried Kings of War, written by some old ex GW guys.  See video below

Modelling Monday

I'll take "What are the three most useless Mid-War platoons" for 600, Alex

So real quick, this is what I need to paint in one month.  Totally doable.  The Bishops are 75% done already, same with the Crusaders.

While I paint these tonite, I should probably listen to something old, and something British....

https://youtu.be/9TtuOoPutCg    Not bad for 1979...

I'll update later in the week my progress...

Battle of Two Armies (Dwarves)

AH Hahaha, He has to paint all of us!

Real Quick, I have been AFK with some real life stuff (Which caused me to miss Historicon 2015), but am back in action, and have even started my EW ? MW British for Flames of War.    But this has NOTHING to do with that, no with Games Workshop on the way back burner, I was able to pick up a Dwarf army for extremely cheap.   SO with some talk about how boned the new edition of WHFB might become and to maybe run Kings of War, I decided to bust out the Dwarves and see what I have.  I have enough for two armies.   Which means I will give one to someone has always disdained everything GW.   Here you go Matt:

20 GreatAxe guys, 20 HW & Shield guys, 2 cannons (there is a third if he wants), a catapult, named character Thorek Ironbrow, 2 units of Riflemen, unit of 20 Miners with 2H Pickaxes.

Our House (....in the middle of our street)

Table layout plays an important part of any game. Whether you are playing an old school game of Monopoly where the bank has to be laid out just right, or Flames of War, it all comes down to planning. Preparing a table layout with very little terrain isn't much fun and the same goes for having too much. How can you move around the board and find the enemy or have any fun? The answer is simple, balance. It's a fine line you need to learn, whether you are having friends over for a weekend gaming session, or you are setting up tournament tables, balancing terrain over a 6'x4' surface takes time.

Open sides with a little bit of everything in the center makes for a balanced table where there is something in every table quarter for either player. It also helps focus the action, as both commanders will be vying for territory. The biggest issue with setting up a gaming table is terrain, the simple fact is whether or not you have enough to make up a full table or even two without spending a lot of money. You may have a ton of buildings, but no roads, mountains/hills or any type of trees. What then? Being creative in your setup with a few buildings can make for an excellent table.

X-Wing picture dump (Pew Pew Lasers)

Test game of X Wing.. I was running Imps

Daa daa daa da da daa da da daa

Imperials take turn one with 3 wins, Rebels get 1 win and Scum get 0

Turn one of the campaign has come to a close thought i'd post up here for anyone who comes to this page and not the forums and are interested to follow the campaign, we'll be posting here pics of our games as well. Full details can be found here each turn http://dicedevils.canadian-forum.com/t943-x-wing-campaign-map


The teams are
Imperials: Lothlann, Wildcard, Pripyat, SirRandMcNally
Rebels: Diragi, Joyous Oblivion, Twinlinked, PhantomRescue
Scum and Villainy: Ca$h, Matt Varnish

Mid-War Tourney @ Perkins (1710)

It's been awhile all, but the Dice Devils are back in action! 4 of the Dice Devils made the trek north to attend a 1710 point mid war tourney hosted by Gary Perkins of Perkins Hobby in Petawawa Ontario. 

It was a great tourney and a bunch of wonderful looking armies on display. 

 

Same Time, Same...Space?

With so much going on the last few months, it's been near impossible to get any gaming done and the other major contributor to the DD blog has been busy getting ready to move house! Needless to say, sometimes life really does make it tough to play some games. In my case, I've been busy with a new boat, a new tree fort and generally being busy at work!

It's the 6th of June today, so with this update. We remember D-Day, the day in history where those brave men hit various beaches in France to put an end to the madness that enveloped the world.

We're Still Here!!

There has not been a lot of gaming news to report over the last few weeks. We've missed the month of April and I am personally working on a few things to brighten up the front page with some new and exciting content!

There will be an upcoming article on what's new for Mid-War and where the rest of the new Flames of War rulesets are headed. The weather is getting nice out, but I'm sure there will be a few rainy days to dust off the armies and paintbrushes. I've got a ton of Vietnam stuff to go through and will be unboxing the Panzer IV box I have lying around very shortly!! Thanks for your continued support and look forward to a new podcast in the coming weeks!

EW tournament Petawawa Picture Dump

クローサー

Translation: "Drive Closer, I want to hit them with my Sword!!"

Last weekend, the Pet Shop Boys (Petawawa) held the annual Early War tournament.. 1550 points.  I took the Italians I've been working on, and did horribly.   Picture dump follows, Enjoy

The Italian Job & BEF Highlanders

Rob Kelly's Brit Exp. Force scout cars, for Early War tournament March 15

 

Well gang, after finishing two armies on my staycation (pics here) I decided to continue with my Italians.   We have an EW tourney in 2 weeks up with the 'Petawawa Mafia' so time to get a practice game in.   Mainly a picture dump, starting with Rob's Highlanders on the shores of France, 1940, Kilts and all!

 

Something Old, Something New: Moderns and Napoleonics armies FINISHED

Well I just came off a stay-cation, and painted up like a madman.. Finished my Modern-era Soviets AND my Napoleonic French.   Giant picture dump follows after the jump:

 

ELITE: Where Eagles Dare

Eagle Nebula (Hubble)

Alright time for some more ELITE.  Previous installments here (1) and here (2) and here (3)  After messing around with a new ship, the Adder, I realized it can go about 30LY per jump, and with a fuel scoop can go ANYWHERE.  So I asked my brother, being the astrophysicist, where I should go.  He suggested the Eagle Nebula.  As soon as I googled the above pic I knew I had to go.   Then I looked at the Galaxy Map, and realized it was 7000 LY from where I was parked in Mizar (big dipper star)   7000LY divided by ~30LY per jump.....