WW1 Swarm Madness

Well, there did appear to be loads of British and German figures on the table on Monday night between Mal Taylor and Andy Hamilton in their WW1 game. Will post photos of the other games in the next day or so. Just wanted to concentrate on the WW1 game for this blog. Andy was showing Mal how to play the game using the Schwerpunkt rules.
I managed to get a total of 9 photos from this game of which I will show 4 on the blog. You'll have to go to our Galleries to view the lot when they have been uploaded.

A Close up of Andy Hamilton's British soldiers. They are so detailed not only can you see facial expressions but if you look carefully you will notice there are 3 stripes on their left arms.

A lot of Andy Hamilton's British figures are conversions by himself. Some of his gun crews on this game were conversions. Really good ones too. To see some more of his conversions, go to the Valiant Miniatures website at:
http://www.valiantminiatures.com/html/andy_hamilton_-_german_figure_.html There you will see his conversions for the Valiant Miniatures Germans. The Valiant Miniatures figures are designed for use with the Rapid Fire! rules in mind. Rapid Fire! is of course for WW2.

Andy's British occupying a building while the British Mark IV Tank rolls into Town. The Mark IV Tank is from Great War Miniatures.

Close up of German Mortar Crew.

Its a German Swarm! Germans attacking and surrounding the town. Mal was using Mark Alcock's germans which had been painted by Joe Dunn, our resident professional figure painter. Follow the link on the right to see more of Joe's work.


Whilst I was taking photos of the WW1 game Mal brought some figures over for me to take photos of. These figures were 20mm German Paratroopers, for using with the Rapid Fire! rules. Mal is an excellent modeller and painter. Many of Mal's vehicles and figures can be seen in the photos of the Rapid Fire! 2nd edition rulebook by Colin Rumford and Richard Marsh.
Managed to get half a dozen photos out of the figures he brought me to photograph, which were: German Regimental HQ and Medical Unit with vehicle. The photos are below.

Mal's German Paratrooper Regimental HQ. Mal actually chose this terrain board for me to take the photos on.

Aerial View of the Regimental HQ. You can see quite a lot of detail including the map on the table.

The German Medical Support Team. Notice the officer on the left with his trousers down paying a visit whilst reading the paper. Another nice quirky touch from Mal.

Frontal view of the Medical Team. You can clearly see 2 wounded soldiers being attended to who appear to be in a lot of pain.

If you wish to see how a terrain board was constructed by Mal Taylor and Colin Rumford for the Elvington Show in 2004, follow this link:
http://www.rapid-fire.uk.com/goldbeach.htm

The disembodied hands apprarently belong to Mal Taylor. Follow the link below to see the Gold Beach demonstration game the terrain board was used in:
http://www.rapid-fire.uk.com/elvington2004.htm
There is a photo of Mal Taylor himself at the Elvington Show.

Next post: Remaining games from Monday 26th Nov 2007. It was a busy night you know.

15mm Napoleonics 19th Nov 2007

Hi all,
Meant to update the blog and this game days ago but with one thing or another never got round to it. Also having a few severe problems in the real world that may hopefully be resolved soon. Such things can be distracting.
Anyway here is my report of the games that took place on 19th Nov 2007 at the club. That night there was only 1 big game going on the 18 foot table downstairs. Playing were Mark Alcock, Jase Whitfield and John Ogden. All figures used were provided by Dave Tuck for this 15mm Napoleonic Game. Jase and John were the Anglo-Saxons and Mark was...actually I've forgotten. They may have been Prussian. Slipped my mind for the moment. Took photos of the game as always. The full collection will be uploaded to our main website soon but here are some previews.

Overview of the 15mm Napoleonic game.

Some British (Anglo-Saxons).

Some Prussians? surrounding a village house. Or are they French? Both always seem to wear silly hats.

Both sides engaging in battle.






Upstairs that night Andy Hamilton and Mal Taylor had began building some new WW1 Terrain for the club. Never seen any of Andy's Terrain before but if his figures are anything to go by the terrain will be top notch and well painted. Mal's figures and painting are superb. He has built many of the terrain boards for the club, my favourite being the Normandy board he built with Danny Malone. It's used a lot these days for the WW1 games.
The terrain they began building is based on photos from another website that look great. The terrain will be loosely based on terrain based on photos from the Great War Miniatures website, which can be found here:
http://greatwarminiatures.tripod.com

The new boards will look similar to this:
http://greatwarminiatures.tripod.com/terrainproject/index.album/finished-trenches?i=13&s=1

You should check out the Great War Miniatures site out properly, especially if you like WW1. I just did and I think it's really good.

I went to the club on Monday where there was quite a lot going on including:
Joe Dunn and Martin Buck playing a game of Pulp 45;
Dave Tuck, Dave Hewins and Tony Walmsley playing 15mm Seven Years War;
Mal Taylor and Andy Hamilton playing WW1 with Schwerpunkt rules;
Jase Whitfield, Paul Robinson, John Ogden and Mark Alcock playing a WW1 card game called "Wings of War" which I think you can buy from Caliver books. Later on they played a card game called "Iliad" which seemed to be a game between the Greeks and Hoplites. Will post the photos I took that day in the next day or so.

WW1 German Efficiency

Achtung! Been meaning to post this for days. Went to the club monday night, paid a flying visit yet again and took some photos. There were 2 games going on: Naval game using the Close Signal Action rules between Steve Mercer, Dave Tuck, Andy Hamilton taking scores with other members Ron Skeet, Andy Sharpe watching. Downstairs was a WW1 game using the Schwerpunkt rules again (well, they are quite good). Playing in the WW1 game were Mark Alcock, Jase Whitfield, Joe Dunn and John Ogden. Mark with his germans which were painted by Joe, Joe with his french painted by himself of course, John with his own figures which he painted. Think Jase was using Mark's figures. It is also my understanding that the germans got the first blood and appeared to be winning.
Below is a handful of the photos I took of the WW1 game. I will be posting them here first before uploading them to the galleries in the next few days.

John's British engaging in battle against a german in cover.

Joe Dunn's French Infantry. Last time I saw Joe's French they were crawling on their bellies. Not this time.

Portrait of the French advancing on Germans hiding behind the hedges.

A German and French soldier playing Hide and Seek.

Some of John Ogden's British chaps.

There is a total of 12 photos I produced from this game. Some of my better WW1 wargame shots anyway. Was able to get a bit closer to the figures.
Dave Tuck gave me his flash drive of all the photos he had taken to put in the galleries. Got it home. There were approx 121 in total over several different periods. Uploaded to the galleries his AWI and ACW Naval pics so far. Need to resize the rest before uploading. The galleries handle it better that way.

At Franklin college on Wednesday as soon as I got there we were all set a practice assignment, which was similar to what we had done before. The difference was that we had to do it as if we were under exam conditions. We were also given another one to do. Managed to complete both in just under 2 hours. Finished literally minutes before hometime. Didn't have to rush but wanted to push myself to see how much I could get done within the time limit.

Lest We Forget

Lest We Forget all those who died in the first 2 World Wars, Iraq, Afghanistan and other wars around the world fighting for freedom on today Remembrance Day.

HUGE AWI Game on Fireworks Night!

We had a great game at the club on Fireworks night at the club on November 5th 2007. Sorry it took so long to report back on it. Along with other things recently on my mind, my continuing course at Franklin College on Wednesdays and the fact that I've been getting out recently having some late nights/early mornings drinking at cleethorpes followed by a subsequent hungover meant that I did not get anything on the blog for some time. The photos from the AWI game were posted on the website within a few days in our AWI album, though I will still preview some of them here. The AWI album can be found here:
http://www.gywargames.co.uk/pics/thumbnails.php?album=13

Rules used were the All the Kings Men rules which can be found here:
http://allthekingsmentoysoldiers.com/ which are designed for 54mm. We adapted the rules for 25mm/28mm figures as you can tell in our game. It was the 2nd time at the club we had played with these rules.

Participating in the game which was using figures belonging to Dave Tuck were:
Dave Tuck, myself (American right flank); Andy Hamilton, Ron Skeet (American left flank);
Joe Dunn, Mark Alcock (British left flank); Paul Robinson, Dave Hewins (British right flank).

General Dave or one of Dave Tuck's American Generals. As always, I love the detail on these figures.

Some more American's under Dave Tuck's command on the right flank.


British Cavalry then commanded by Joe Dunn.

British Infantry then commanded by Paul Robinson.

Cavalry Melee on the American right flank.

View of the game over half way through from center to left flanks on both sides. Each flank was played independently of one another which is why each side had its own deck of cards. Each red card meant it was the Americans go, Black meant it was the British go. Using all the cards up meant 1 turn had passed. Each card also had its own set of instructions on it.
The result: The Americans won but only because the British had suffered several more units of casualties than the Americans had. My dice throwing was decent for once though I was just throwing average scores. Makes a change as my dice throwing is usually below average. For quite some time it meant we didnt get any casualties on my men.
Dropping by to watch during the game were: John Ogden, Jase Whitfield and Andy Sharpe. Think they've got another ww1 game planned next week. If you've been reading my blog and especially Paul's blog at http://grimsbywargaming.blogspot.com you'll know that WW1 is very popular at the club at the moment since just after Partizan in May.

Referring to my course at Franklin college on Wednesdays, we have a "mock" exam coming soon for our CLAIT course. We were given some homework to do though we don't have to. A few things are still catching me out, only minor things that practice can put right so I am going to do some of it. Our exam is on November 28th. Bought a flash drive from Argos for a £10 mainly for the course but its good for anything really. £10 for a 1GB. Not bad.