Let’s start this Wargaming Week, covering the 27th of August through to the 2nd of September.
BLOG STUFF
First up saw a trip to South Africa with a Boer War battle report. It was a fun game to play and a neat diversion to write up. When I get some more, you may see a rise in these battle reports as I join in with more of the games at the club.
The main post this week was looking at the next stage in Project Humvee, actually painting up the first two. I had a really good time just getting them sorted and now they are finished, I can’t wait to get them on the board. Unfortunately, I seemed to have forgotten to order the key component for the third Humvee (the FLIR setup) so it looks like I won’t have to time to get it ready before Friday – you’ll just have to wait for the battle report on the 14th.
Also, it’s the start of a new month so time for a Ko-fi reminder! If you like the stuff I’m working on, I run a Ko-Fi where you choose to donate small amounts for me to spend on Pepsi Max (I’m not a coffee drinker) or other things to keep the site going. If you want to contribute, you can either click the button above or use the following link: https://ko-fi.com/A7374ATG
NEWS
Sarissa Precision has released another kit as part of the North Africa range. Obviously inspired partially by the wave of Western Desert fever (thanks to the recent Bolt Action releases), the new building is inspired by the actual El Alamein train station. As well as standing in for that, I could see using it for modern day MENA situations. With a few tweaks, it could be used as a gatehouse for a larger compound. This is definitely one on my list once I’ve finished the buildings I have.
Big news from Knights of Dice! My favourite range from them, Tabula Rasa Desert Buildings has extended with four new buildings. These are a new style, giving you a set of more urban villas with multiple floors, rooms and balconies to fight over. Much like the rest of the range, all these buildings are basic shells, ready for you to add all the air con units and other details you will need.
Of course, the even bigger news is the first of the apartment blocks. We’ve seen the basic design being prototyped but this is the first release. A small two storey setup, this building contains multiple floors and access points which should make it perfect for games trying to model fighting room to room.
Both these sets are currently released and up on the Knights of Dice store. I’m going to wait until Shiny Games get them in stock and I actually get some more buildings painted and on the table.
As well as releasing a merchandise range, Spectre brought out the updated Russian Operators previewed over the last few weeks. With the updated equipment, these figures are ideal for showing Russian SOF on operations abroad. The squad pack is an ideal starting point for any modern collection, giving you six operators, with a variety of equipment to augment the classic assault rifle and body armour, including thermal optics, secondary weapons like a grenade launcher or suppressed SMG and the medium machine gun. On top of the squad, you also can add more long range firepower to fit your team for the required situation – this can either be by adding more suppression (with an LMG or MMG with backpack ammo) or more precision (via the marksman or sniper rifles).
PURCHASES
I really did try to resist but the new range of Spetsnaz guys are ideal for an alternative SOF force to match up against the Task Force Operators (especially as I was in the process of writing a SF vs SF scenario). So I’ve picked up the squad pack as well as the additional support operators, which should be perfect for some missions I have planned. Now to pick a paint scheme.
I also added the missing items I needed for Humvee 3.
HOBBY
Painting Humvees was the main hobby action this week, although it took much less time than expected. After having hit them with the undercoat, it was just one evening of work (assisted by watching Black Hawk Down) to get them both ready for action. I am tempted to possibly go back and do some highlighting work but I shall have to see.
Next step was finally finishing off assembling my Space Marines. There will be a longer post coming soon where I’ll talk more about this process but it’s been a nice change of pace assembling multi-part plastic kits. On the other hand, I think actually building some Primaris marines has broken me on the older figures – putting the two next to each other just makes the original tactical marines look like children rather than superhuman warriors.
And then I got to play some games! While delivering a box full of Orks to my gaming buddy in York, we managed to get in a game of Killteam. My five recently assembled Deathwatch marines (clad in finest undercoat) took on a horde of Orks while trying to rescue the downed pilot. Both of us failed to use any tactics but with multiple specialists on the field (as well as the Deathwatch’s special ammo rules), there was plenty of bloodletting. The small board size makes combat pretty brutal. Overall, it’s a neat game, perfect for playing with a beer or two and I can’t wait to get some more games in.
That’s it for this update, expect more updates next week!