Beer and Pretzels

 It's been 18 months since I last posted, this is not a proper return to the bloggersphere, yet. 

Lots has happened in that time, mainly I have taken early retirement and can devote more time to my glorious hobby.

The main purpose for this post is some advertising. Me, Dave and Angus have written a set of wargames  rules for Vietnam war called "The Liberation of South Vietnam". They are live on wargames vault , for the bargain price of $2.99. 

We have website https://beerandpretzels.co.uk/ and a Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61566511514078  

This is our 1st proper go at writing and publishing rules so it would be nice if you have a look and gave us a like.

Cheers

Martin

New Games Room and a Christening Battle

 Saturday I went over to Matt's for another Blood in the Sand Battle. It was a great battle and I took rubbish photos but Matt's report can be found here.

This morning some men in aa van came and removed some surplus furniture from my house, including the double bed from the spare room. this means I can now play big battles. So I fought one

the table is 6ft x 4ft and folds up. It was made by Stig and given to me. Bren cut in in half to fit it in my car and then I stuck it back together I will be eternally grateful. The mat is an oatmeal coloured £6 single bed sheet with some spray paint for texture

The sides are Carthaginians (mainly Numidians) vs Republican Romans

Lots of heavy infantry

vs lots of lighter troops and missle troops

even more heavy iinfantry on the Roman left

The Carthaginan centre is very strong with heavy spearmen and elephants. In Kings of War elephants are mad hard so we've tweaked the rules to make then hard but easier to rout

So they smash in

3 turns of attritional combat

The Carthaginians have the upper hand

On the left the Romans are winning

But they are dead everywhere else

Crushing Carthaginian victory - Hannibal would be proud

In other news I've bitten the bullet and bought a 28mm Warlord Napoleonic Russian starter army. Should keep my busy for a while

13th Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge Conclusion

 Another winter painting figs for the Challenge has finished and I painted 4643.6 points of figures - equivalent of 928 28mm  infantry figures. I finished an honourable 3rd (although it is not about painting the most number of figures, it is just about painting for fun)

928 figures seems a lot but actually my challenge this year was dominated terrain (you get 20pts for 6" cube) and I needed a lot for an upcoming massive (48ftx6ft) game. Therefore I needed jungle and some really massive hills to do justice to the table

Some 10mm Spanish buildings - for SCW

1st massive hill, all are 6 foot long, this one only 3 inches high

Jungle, made from one of those plastic pivet balls from Poundland

Underground subway station in a file box

Bigger hill, all 3 made from Kingspan and this was was 1, 2 and 3 inch thick sections

Final hill

My figure painting varied from 10mm Renaissance Polish to 75mm individual figures

28mm Subway car

10mm 7 Years War Scottish army, imaginary army. No plan to make it any bigger but useful for fighting Ian and Ian's French and Russian armies

French Trialleurs Algerien from HLBS. Very big 28mm figures

Polish Winged Hussars, I finished the whole Polish army but barely started the Ottomans

75mm barbarian king from Mr Lees

Dwarf general - I scratch built the rider

I painted quite a few dwarfs, these are boar riders

Female Dwarf rifle troop

Gyrocopters, I have a plan for Dwarfs in Lustria - I have jungle and the fantasy version of Vietnam appeals

I finished my ACW armies (10 file boxes altogether). These are the last unit, the 3rd New Jersey

Finally some Montagnards for Vietnam

Hope you enjoyed this brief review of this years work, there were loads more. I'm off for a rest now

Hail Caesar Action - been a while

 Yesterday a wandered over to Bren's shed to play a dark ages battle. Bren was fielding an Anglo-Saxon army and me and Stig the Picts. Stig arrived late so we started with out him, and more importantly his troops. So I was outnumbered about 4-3 at the start. In HC Picts are OK but all my troops were only as good as Bren's worse troops and he hada division's worth of better troops.

The battlefield. Hedges across the centre, a crossable river and a couple of roads. All of these were to be vitally important

I set up 2 divisions of Pict warriors on one side of the road and one on the far side. I had some javelin armed light cavalry on the road. I looked a little light on the left

Bren was tooled up on both flanks and stationed all his good troops in the centre. My last battle consisted of me rolling 1s for 5 hours and getting pummelled. Would this continue

Yip. THis was the 1st of 5 double 1s I rolled in the 1st 3 turns. Luckily in HC double 1 is a fantastic command roll so I got to move quickly and got to the hedge line and river 1st. THe plan was to hold there and let Bren feed his men into the meat grinder

He duly obliged in the centre and my Picts broke a unit of Huscarls in the 1st battle and forced his other elite units to retreat.

He tried crossing the river on my right and pretty much had the same fate. I had terrible break rolls all game and get pushed back a lot but I had spectacular melee dice and chopped him up enough that he couldn't exploit any retreat that I needed to make.

Bren also didn't occupy the road and my light cavalry had free reign here, peppering the troops either side. This basically kept his elite troops at bay and breaking up his charges. Meanwhile Stig failed to activate his division, when he finally arrived, then they activated and advanced, and then they blundered and retreated again. 

Finally they got forward to support my very thin line

Then his "mum" phoned and told him he had to go home and take his toys with him. So Stig's useless division was replaced with fewer units from the casulaties box. I advanced and forced Bren back from the road. 

At this point Bren's army was pretty much shattered and mine mainly intact so we called it. 1st time Bren has been beaten with the Saxons, and 1st time my Picts have actually fought as Picts. They won.

We got the rules wrong, to Bren's advantage, and we will play again.

Overall a good game and good to get back to winning ways.

Siege of Vienna Polish Army

 I've been painting a 10mm Polish army for the Siege of Vienna for several years now. Well I painted some a few years ago and painted the rest last week.

Cossacks

More Cossacks

Winged Hussars

Some More Winged Hussars

Artillery

Command

Dragoons

I'm sure I have pictures of the other units but can't find them. So you will have to make do the whole army

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The army with infantry in the centre and cavalry on the wings

Mixed cav on one wing

Infantry in the centre, Polish infantry is pretty rubbish and tended to hold the centre while the cavalry went off and had fun

The other flank

The figures are based for Kings of War with 4 bases being a regiment. However I can easily scale up and make 2 bases a regiment to give me an army twice the size.

Now I have to paint the Ottomans, I have none painted so give me few weeks