SHOW LOOT: 20mm RUINED EUROPEAN BUILDINGS.

Here are some photos of a set of ruined 20mm buildings picked up at Targe a couple of weeks ago.

I was only going to buy the bigger two buildings, but managed to cut a deal with the owner when prices were being reduced, and picked up the four of them for a reasonable price.  

They have been photographed with some of the WW2 Belgians that i picked up at Skelp.

The bring and buys have been good this year. I have already used the Rif Wars figures and desert terrain bought at Forfar and Kirriemuir. I have also managed to move on a lot of stuff that was not being used. 

Not long till Carronade 2014 at Falkirk!

FLYING LEAD TRY OUT: RIF WAR.

One of my recent birthday presents was the Flying Lead set of rules. These rules are from the Songs Of ..... stable of rules by Ganesha Games. They are subtly optimised for ranged combat.

For this week's Thursday game, I thought I'd give them a try. The game uses some of the painted Rif War figures picked up on the Skelp! bring & buy. Some of the terrain, the desert outcrops, were bought at the Targe b&b.

          Initial terrain set up. The Spanish are in the oasis (literally!) awaiting deployment.
I adapted a sci fi scenario from the book. This has a 'never ending cannon fodder' mechanism. The scenario saw the advance guard a patrol of Spanish waiting at the oasis to redezvous with the rest of the patrol.

                              The initial Spanish deployment.
The local Rif leader, Al T'oo, was heading towards the oasis, but his scouts spot the Spanish. He now has to leave the area safely. The scouts, one of them a marksman, take shots at the Spanish to keep them occupied.

The Rif scouts mowe forward and engage the Spanish. They are in turn engaged by the Spanish LMG team.

       Al T'oo skirts the action with his two man fanatic bodyguard and trusted medic.

The shooting attracts the attention of musket armed locals, who distract the Spanish, whose better marksmanship takes a toll. Whilst being shaken and killed by the Spanish fire, the most they manage to do is force a few Spanish to take cover.

Disaster strikes the Rif! Al T'oo is shot through the head (gory kill) and the body guard scatter in terror. This also affects some of the rescue squad that has appeared on the board. All the Spanish have to do now is mop up.

Rick had not played any of the Songs games before and I wanted to let him compare the system to Fubar, which we have been using recently. This was my first time using Flying Lead. There were quite a few diferences between this and SOB&H. In SOB&H, the melee and ranged combat systems are the same. In FL they are separate and have different effects. But once I got used to that and Rick got to grips with the Songs system, we moved along quickly.

The game lent itself well to narrative and gave a believable result: all you look for in a wargame.

VERSE OF BLADES AND HEROES: WEDNESDAY GAME.

My Orcs took on the Dirz of Del in the latest battle in our Songs of Blades of Heroes campaign.

Derek was the attacker. The scenario was 'Burn Them Out' in standard terrain. This was the second game in a row that we had rolled this scenario. This time I was defending. My initial set up is shown below.

My orcs were spread out to try and anticipate where the Dirz attack would come from. Defence is not a strong suit of Orcs.

This was amply displayed when my ogre raced at some Dirz, one of which was carrying a burning brand. Despite slaying one, the remaining two Dirz knocked him down and finished him off.

 This nice terrain piece served as a cross between Valhalla and a scene from Stardust.

                       The Tiger of Dirz attacked and killed my leader.

                          Almost at the same time, my archer was killed.

 The Dirz now advanced and set fire to the forward operating base (hut!). One grunt was transfixed by the Dirz mage, whilst another was killed by a bowshot from the Dirz archer.

    The transfixed grunt was dispatched and my wizard was shot dead by the archer. Only one grunt escaped!

The spirits of most of my warband ended up watching the preceedings from a very fuzzy orcish Valhalla (not deliberate, poor photography).

A very quick victory for Derek: didn't even reach the chorus!

The amount of kills was down to good throwing by Del and poor throwing by the orc commander.

The after battle rolls saw me net some more cash and a watchtower. All my warband are back for the next battle with a couple of new recruits. Don't think the result would have been different though.

TARGE 2013, PART 2.

Targe! is the last wargames show of the year for us. It is held in the picturesque town of Kirriemuir; birthplace of J.M. Barrie of Peter Pan fame. I have been attending every year since the 1990s. Hopefully the earlier post will have given you a taste of what was on offer.

I travelled down with Rick. We arrived just after opening at 10am. After I had dropped my prospective purchases at the bring & buy and visited Colonel Bill's to finalise the deal for my Xyston figures. I had a brief stroll around the main hall, picking up a mess of Scheltrum Chaco Wars figures into the bargain.

Most of the next couple of hours was spent in the bring and buy and smaller hall.

 

Dunfermline Wargames Club put on a game of Commands & Colors Ancients
using Hexxon II tiles. This was obviously of interest to us.

          The Iron Brigade did an interesting 1918 rescue scenario using Bolt Action rules.

 

.The Independent Wargames Brigade staged a WW2 Eastern front game, using their simple homebrew rules.

Oldmeldrum Wargames Group ran a participation game based on Operation Biting (The Bruneval Raid) using Bolt Action rules. This ran five times during the day. I will cover my participation in a future post. After the game we had our usual lunch at http://www.thrumshotel.co.uk/lounge.htm .

In the afternoon, I finally had time to have a proper look at the main hall.

This Dead Man's Hand game was interesting and inspiring. I am gathering figures and buildings for this as a future project. I think this was also at Claymore, earlier in the year.

                                Durham ran this little beauty. I will cover it in a future post.

                                                        A Muskets & Tomahawks game.

The League of Augsburg's Donnybrook Game. Looks like this will be a new set of rules released this year.

                      The Inverness Role Playing & Wargames Club ran this WW2 game.

Aberdeen Wargames Club had this Commands & Colors Napoleonics using 20mm figures.

Gourock Wargames Association presented this WW2 game based on Operation Sealion: the invasion of Britain. This is another of my long term interests having fought a few scenarios based in that period myself.

I also had a chance to buy from some of the traders. I picked up some 4Ground buildings from Colonel Bills; some Perry and Renedra western buildings from Dave Thomas and two platoon boxes for my Songs of Blades & Heroes figures.

The bring and buy was successful. All my stuff sold. I picked up some wonderful 20mm resin buildings; Warlord ruined hamlet, 36 painted Foundry wild west figures for £40 and some nice desert rocky outcrops.

All in all a good day. I really felt under pressure throughout the day as there was so much to see and do. as usual, I caught up with lots of people. Really inspiring show this year.

SOUTH EAST ASIAN NATIVE HUT.

 

 

The centrepiece for our Wednesday game of Songs of Blades and Heroes this week was this native hut. The game itself will feature in a future post.

This is from the Dyaks in Kayaks range by Sheltrum Miniatures http://www.scheltrum.co.uk/dik281.html  and painted by David at Iron Mammoth http://www.ironmammoth.talktalk.net/imd/

TARGE 2013, PART ONE.

Last Saturday Targe 2013 was held at Websters High School in Kirriemuir. Too busy for a detailed post, so I will tease you with some photos to give you a flavour of the day.

                               General view of the main hall when we arrived, about 1030.

The massed racks of Dave Thomas' stand.

 A couple of shots taken during my go at the Oldmeldrum Wargames Group's Operation Biting participation game. This will get a post of it's own.

General view of the smaller hall, with the, by now, familiar Leuchars kamikaze participation game, and a view of Sholto taking a break from his Scheltrum Miniatures http://www.scheltrum.co.uk/ stand for a bite to eat and a visit to the popular, busy and successful bring and buy (no doubt planning to spend some of the money he got from me for some of his Chaco Wars range).

If you can't wait to find out about the show, my friend David has blogged about his visit to Targe http://ironmammoth.blogspot.co.uk/