Spanish Civil War Painting Mania

 I've completed my planned Spanish Civil War armies. We all say "finished" and mean the other thing. I had planned to have forces of 2 brigades per side, with additional support units and that is what I have done. Obviously I need aircraft (Dave has some I can have), cavalry (if I want), armoured trucks (SCW classic) and if I want more brigades. But for now I have enough to play.

I've written some rules that feel like they will work really well. I have a play test on Thursday at Ian's, and will post them onthe page after. I have stolen the priority points system from Altar of Freedom, which I really like, and added messengers to move these priority points. It gets rid of the IGOUGO approach that can annoy me and required you to plan your moves carefully. More on the rules when I post them. 

Enough of the waffling, I'm waiting for the photos to download to my one drive. Last time I posted a regular Republican Brigade, tanks, trucks and AT guns. Now for the rest

Nationalist Moroccan Falange Brigade

Pretty with their blue shirts and red fez

African Colonial troops were essential for the Nationalist victory

Several companies of Guarda Civilia, they fought for whoever was in control of their region, but were generally on the Nationalist side

Regular Nationalist Brigade

Green uniforms, compared with the Republican khake

but same organisation.

Messengers are important in my rules so

Cavalry messengers, the slowest

radio operators, instant messaging if they get through.

Motorbike messengers, the coolest form

Set of Opel Blitz trucks, to move a brigade about

Finally a Republican International Brigade

Bit more rag tag and comprising Canadian, American and British brigades, cos I had the flags for them

I have to say the Pendraken SCW selection is marvellous and has gone a long way to reinforce my move to 10mm. I love 10mm, it's a nice scale to fight massive battles with loads of units. I prefer my gaming to be strategic and 10mm works. It also helps that they have a shop a couple of miles from my sister's house. So i can buy toys and then go drinking. Perfect.

Even more perfect, Port Vale won the playoff and got promoted to 1st division. UTV

Land and Freedom

 Over the last few weeks I've been assembling and buying a Dwarf 28mm army and 10mm Polish Renaissance and Ottoman armies, but I wasn't feeling the love to paint them. When I'm in the mood I will look forward to painting them, but I needed something to get me going. The opening of the Pendraken shop near to my sister's house is both fabulous and terrible. So a couple of weekends ago I wandered down to have a browse, visit my sister and play with the Old Guard on the Sunday.

Inspiration struck and I bought 2 Spanish Civil War army packs and supports. The SCW is an iconic civil war, a practice for WW2 and clearly good guys against bad guys. I like interwar games, the right amount of fire power, not too many tanks (a T26 is the most powerful tank on display) and not too many trenches.

I am writing my own rules based on Fire Power WW2 rules and Alter of Freedom (more of those later).

I've painted up my 1st Mixed Brigade of Republicans 

Each base is a company, 4 companies, a machine gun company and a HQ base make a battalion

4 battalions and HQ make a brigade (I've ordered the missing machine gun company

2 AT companies (1 per battalion) and an artillery spotter

3 companies of T26 tanks

Nifty turret paint design

some trucks to move stuff around quickly

Finally the Nationalist tank force, 6 Pz 1 companies. Didn't need 6 but here were 6 in the pack!

I've ordered the rest of forces to give me 2 battalions per side. Once I've play tested the rules I'll add them to the blog. Finally the reason for the blog title, Land and Freedom was the name of a Republican column at the start of the war.

At the end of July Dave and me are having a weekend at the wargames holiday centre in Scarborough to run his Sudan game. in random conversation he said he needed some boats. i've got some boats but they needed canopies.

So I made 3 of these. Which will work nicely

Went for a walk near Hexham on Sunday to Dukesfield and the old lead mill. Very nice but the worlds largest number of ants 

Finally back to Altar of Freedom. a Corps scale ACW game. Each base is a brigade. It's a fantastic game with a really elegant orders system which forces you to think tactically. I'm going to use this as a basis for my SCW rules

2nd Manassas. we were the brave Union boys and they were the evil rebels. We didn't read the scenario properly and I had control of the most powerful Corps which we put on the left flank. However the Rebel objective was to take the bridge on the right flank, miles away

I moved as quickly as possible but this is as close as I got, never firing a shot.

Stig spectacularly held the bridge with a fairly crappy corps, despite spending 3 hours standing next to a ford he didn't notice.

See you all soon, not going to Partizan, off to the seaside instead

It's Been a While

 Hello everybody.

It's been a whie since I posted, not since the Painting Challenge ended. I've not painted anything since them, some degree of burn out. I had a good challenge and painted a fabulous Lizardman army, amongst other stuff.

I've not stopped though, new job, holiday and lack of mojo have all combined. But I have played a couple of games

Pendraken opened their shop and Stig and I went along to run a 7YW demonstration. As usual the Austrians struggled to advance and the Prussians got up close and personal. The shop is great and I recommend you pop along if you can.

Next up I went over to play WW2 in Stig's shed - it's a lovely shed. We used rapid fire and it's a fun game. It was a close run thing until my army ran away!

I did do a little painting though. I've bought massive Polish and Ottoman armies, Winged Hussars and all that. 

3 bases of Polish Pancerni

Nice figures but not feeling the love at the moment

I now have a 2nd project in prep, a dwarf army to fight my lizardmen. I have some very old dwarfs, 35 years old original citadel types. These are to complete the units, obviously these are much bigger than the old school ones

I have 2 weekends of gaming coming up, a massive 10mm ACW game at the old guard and a back of beyond game the weekend after at Matt's. Promise I'll write them up