SKELP! 2014.

On Saturday, 18 October, I made the annual trip to Forfar for Skelp! 2014.

                                               Above are some general views of the hall.

Kirriemuir Wargames Club put on a display game showing a clash between Thracians and a Macedonian force sent to extract tribute.

Shades of the old 'Caesars Gate' playset by Airfix!

 This demonstration game, by The Iron Brigade, shows a Caledone attack against a Roman fort.

Glasgow Games Group: Warzone participation.

RAF Leuchars Veterans: Operation Chastise, participation game. A successful attack on the dam!

The successful crew get their wings from Jed.

 Falkirk And District Wargames Club put on a display game of  a Viking raid using SAGA rules.

 The Geek Room ran a demo game of X-Wing in the morning and a participation game in the afternoon.

Dropzone Commander demo game.

Chain of Command demo game by Too Fat Lardies. 

I was down with David Drage and his son. After dropping off our stuff for the bring and buy and the painting competition  we did the usual tour of the traders. Crooked Dice were the first stop. As well as planned buying, we got a glimpse of their latest licence. More after Targe! After doing the rounds of Dave Thomas, Highlander Games and Colonel Bills, we had our first go at the Leuchars Veterans participation game, which had as it's theme the Dambusters raid. I will cover our attempts in a separate post.

The bring and buy was disappointing; there was not a great selection of offerings to start off with, and not much new throughout the day. Having said that, I sold all that I had put up for sale.

Skelp! is a small show, and we normally do not stay more than four hours. As David had entered the painting competitions, we waited for the results and also the raffle. This was productive. David won a trophy and came second in another category. i will cover this in another post.

For once, I did not buy anything from the bring and buy, but I did manage to bag a bargain from one of the traders, who was selling some painted  28mm figures.

Another enjoyable day out. Only 18 days to Targe!

THURSDAY ON WEDNESDAY: DBA 2.2.

A bit of a change this week. My normal Wednesday gaming group was cancelled because David had visitors. Rick was unavailable for our normal Thursday game, so we moved to Wednesday.

To make up for the lack of preparation time, Rick went for DBA 2.2, which we had not played for a while, although we have had a few games of Hodes of The Things, in the recent past.

It also gave us a chance to dust off our 15mm armies, which we also use for Commands & Colors.

 

The first battle was my Norse Irish against Rick's Later Saxons.  

The armies arrayed. Seen from behind my Norse Irish, Rick has gone for a concentrated smaller front.

The Saxons move quickly forward. Norse Irish light forces.

Saxon light horse destroy a unit of Norse Irish psiloi.

 

The light horse face a unit of auxila.

The armies close.

First clash. Rick lines up the units for combat. The Saxon hordes are still behind the battle line. The Norse Irish nobles are held in reserve.

The battle lines clash. The lighter auxila are pushed back, but destroy a saxon unit.

The heavier Saxon forces start to take toll on the auxila.



The marauding light horse dispatch a unit of auxila, my fourth loss, to give the Saxons the victory.



The second battle was my Hindu Indian taking on Rick's Sung Chinese.

The armies arrayed.

 



My psiloi, cavalry and bows rush for the hill 



A unit of my psiloi is destroyed after a foolhardy attack on bows.

My bows act as a screen for and attempt to shoot in an attack by my Elephants.

One of my bows is lost in a duel with the Chinese artillery and crossbows.

The combat on the hill intensifies.

 

In the cavalry battle, a unit of Indian cavalry is destroyed.

A general view of the battlefield.

 

The elephants are almost in action on the left flank..



In the battle on the hill, a unit of Indian bows is destroyed by Chinese spears. Victory to Rick's Chinese

 

 

 

 

 

Both games were close and tense. We managed to get both games played in little over two hours. It was a fine change of pace and very quick to set up and put away.

 

Some food for thought, methinks!

 

 

 

 

 



 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



ABERDEEN MODELLERS SOCIETY EXHIBITION 2014 (PART 5): DIORAMAS.

Aberdeen Modellers Society have had a close asociation with the Gordon Highlanders Museum over the years. They have produced some fine dioramas that have been used in exhibitions to commemorate the anniversaries of important events linked to The Gordon Highlanders. Some of these dioramas were on display.

The first three depict day to day scenes encountered during the campaign in the Far East during the Second World War.

The larger diorama depicts the liberation of a town in The Netherlands in 1944-45.

 

A wonderful day out. I bumped into my friend David and his sons Matthew and Daniel. I then had a nice lunch in the Duchess Jean Restaurant. If you are ever in Aberdeen, then I can recommend a visit to the Gordon Highlanders Museum. 

ABERDEEN MODELLERS SOCIETY EXHIBITION 2014 (PART 4)

As well as a demonstration of kit assembly (which I did not photograph) and a trader selling kits, there was a demonstration of construction of scratchbuilt 1/300 merchant ships. These were mostly Oil supply/support vessels, familiar to the residents of Aberdeen. 

During a convesation with the gentleman concerned (forgot his name), he told me that it takes about 100 hours of work to get the model to a satisfactory state. He does not model professionally, but has done comissions for some of the shipping companies in Aberdeen.

For comissions, once he has a finished ship, he then constructs a mould. He then makes a resin copy of the hull and finishes the detail with plastic card.and resin.

Here is a finished example. I, for one, would not have the patience to do this! Note from the photos that he has several projects ongoing at once. It's not just wargamers!

ABERDEEN MODELLERS SOCIETY EXHIBITION 2014 (PART 3).

Here are models and dioramas from the naval, space and other genres.

A diorama with 1/32 or 54mm figures showing 8th Army engineers clearing lanes through the minefields at El Alamein

    Various views, from different angles, of the naval, space, sci-fi and other models on display.


Two views of a cutaway model of a gundeck. Really good work! Could have done with some figures to give a better idea of scale?

ABERDEEN MODELLERS SOCIETY EXHIBITION 2014. (PART 2)

The second post covers military vehicle models.

A BT 7 tank being used against it's former owners.

 The BT-7 is one of my favourite tanks. I think this is down to it being the first 1/300 GHQ model I got. It looks more like a tank than the T-34 IMHO. This model represents a captured example in German service.

KV 2: gunning the the BT 7?

 Another of my favourites: The KV2. More a self propelled gun than a tank, and a magnet for enemy fire to boot!

A selection of military vehicle dioramas.

A diorama and some detailed individual vehicles.

Russian Aerosan. I should have a similar model soon, through the 'Winter War' Kickstarter.

I did have a chat with a couple of the members. I build models, but for gaming, so I don't consider myself a modeller. It is comforting (in a way) that modellers suffer the same problem as us wargamers: lots of unfinished projects. There always seems to be that 'oh shiny' moment that leads to a new project that only gets so far before the next 'oh, shiny, momement. Can you have a plastic mountain?