Earthquake! Very Nearby!

Never felt one before. It may have only lasted a few seconds but I felt it along with many thousands of other people in the UK. It scared the living daylights out of me and the cat. Technically it was a tremor for the rest of us but it was enough. It was reported by the BBC about an hour later. You can find the BBC Report here:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/7266136.stm

At the time the tremor came at approx 1am I was curled up in bed, trying to get to sleep. One second I was still, next the whole house shook backwards and forwards which was also disorientating. Before it happened Puss my cat who was sitting on the edge of the bed, pricked her ears up as something had got her attention. As soon as it happened she jumped off.
It scared the living daylights out of both of us. I was glad when it stopped. Nearly thought the world was ending. As soon as it finished I got out of bed, pulled some clothes on and went straight to the BBC Website to see if anything had turned up on there about it. It hadnt. It seemed to me at the time we were having an earthquake though I hoped it wasnt. So I turned my telly on to BBC News 24 my usual news channel and waited to see if anything turned up. Not long afterwards sure enough it appeared. As soon as it said there had been a 4.7 Earthquake with the epicentre in Lincolnshire the first thing I said was "My God, it was an earthquake". The resulting tremor was felt in many counties, including across the Humber in Hull.
It took me over half an hour to calm down whilst watching the telly. Decided a blog report on it might be a good idea. Had to relax a bit first as I was, still am at time of writing, a little shaken - quite literally - by it.
Before writing this entry I went to the US Geographic Survey's website for more information on the quake and was surprised at its location in Lincolnshire. Grimsby is in North East Lincolnshire. Its location is in fact near Market Rasen near Lincoln, approx 30 miles from Grimsby.
The statistical data on the quake can be found here:
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/eqcenter/recenteqsww/Quakes/us2008nyae.php


View Larger Map Location map of the Epicentre

As you can see it was very close by to us here. The other good thing about blogging this event is that it helps to get it out of my system. Will probably watch the telly for a few more hours to help me relax enough to go to sleep.

Blitzkrieg! On the Eastern Front - Part 2

The battle continues...

Here, Jason Whitfield ordered a Russian Bomber to attack the German Infantry on top of the hill, which was my position. Notice the Russian T34's with infantry support at the bottom of the hill advancing towards me.

A close up of some German Infantry occupying a building in the middle of the games table. These were commanded by Ron Skeet.

Dave Tuck's Kingtigers. In this position they were defending against Mal and Andy's Russian Advance.

The German forces in the middle of the table commanded by Ron Skeet, apart from the Kingtigers. Some casualties had already been taken on the hill where smoke is visible. The large ball of smoke was not due to any artillery. It's where we kept the smoke should anyone need it. I certainly needed it.

A close up of Mal Taylor's Russian forces advancing with Andy Hamilton's forces in the background. Between the two of them, they had a decent number of IS2's - the ones with the very large gun barrels.

Close up of some of Steve Mercer's Russian figures and tanks, here, at Dave Tuck's German position, quite literally breathing down his neck. Notice the horse drawn field gun.

Close up of Steve Mercer's Russian T34's at Dave Tuck's position. Accidentally caught Mal Taylor in the background.

Shortly after Jason Whitfield wiped out my German Infantry he stormed my position and finished me off. His tanks had already destroyed mine before he even got anywhere near the hill. At least I did manage to destroy some of his tanks which I don't deny I actually enjoyed. I don't very often get to wipe out anything of his forces normally whatever period he is playing you see. During that time, Steve attacked Dave's Germans on the hill. Dave somehow managed to hold out for a long time in that position. After destroying my forces on the hill Jase broke through to the middle and pushed forward. 2 of my tanks did retreat before Jase then blew them up moments afterwards.
Mal and Andy took the hill at the other end of the table, destroying Ron's forces on there. With Jase Whitfield then in the middle and advancing, Dave Tuck had to turn his Kingtigers round towards him to act in defense.

The result? The Russians won. The Germans were overwhelmed on both sides of the table, outgunned and outnumbered. Good fun game though and look forward to another one. It was also nice to have so many members involved in the game. Thanks to Dave Tuck and Steve Mercer for that.

Some of you may have noticed that some photos seem larger than others. That's because I forgot to resize some before uploading. You might even enjoy them more that way.

Blitzkrieg! On the Eastern Front - Part 1

Decided to split this report into 2 parts again to make it bite-sized. Although over 20 photos were taken by me, only half of them will be put on the blog. For some reason though when I downloaded the photos they came out quite darkish which is most unusual. They were taken same way as normal on macro mode and no flash. The WW1 shots I took did not come out that way. So I ended up having to increase the fill light in the photos to 50% to the light level it should be. Don't normally have to do anything like that. Once you see them though I think you'll agree it did not do the photos any harm.

The rules used in this game were Blitzkrieg Commander. It was a 7 player game in snowy terrain on 18th Feb 2008. Germans were by Dave Tuck. Russians by Steve Mercer. On the side of the Germans were Dave Tuck, myself and Ron Skeet. On the Russians side were comrades Steve Mercer, Jason Whitfield, Mal Taylor and Andy Hamilton.
The Russians were attacking from both ends of the table while the Germans had to defend from the middle. First, a few shots of the table before the game began..

Some German tanks with infantry occupying buildings. Ron Skeet was playing with these.

Close up of some of the German infantry occupying a building with tanks in the background.
I was actually using my big tripod for these 2 shots. It had been fixed or should I say "bodged" by me using epoxy resin over the weekend so that it held the camera better.

Overview of the German's Defenses in the middle of the table. In the forefront are the Germans commanded by Ron Skeet while in the background you can see near the wood are several Kingtigers commanded by Dave Tuck. Dave Tuck was the other side of the table.

Andy Hamilton (left) with Mal Taylor (right) as they started bringing their Russians onto the table. The Germans are on the top of the hill commanded by Ron Skeet.

All the German defenses are on the top of the hill. Immediately in front with the Stugs and German Infantry occupying buildings was my position with Dave Tuck the other side of the hill.

Notice the masses of T-34's at the bottom of the hill which on the right were commanded and owned by Steve Mercer with Jason Whitfield on the left.

A view of Dave Tuck's side of the hill, with a german mortar crew at forefront and tanks including a Nashorn in front of the german occupied building.

This was Dave and Steve's first WW2 Eastern Front game at the club. Hopefully I have now set the scene up for the battle, which will continue tomorrow..

WW1 Terrain Update

The terrain building has progressed since my last update. However Mal Taylor and Andy Hamilton have also been busy with making some refurbishments at the club. They began doing some refurbishing when we had our communal cleanup by sorting out existing shelving and building new storage for the terrain boards. Needless to say, both have been extremely busy with those projects.

All the WW1 Terrain boards have now been painted brown. Next stage is to start applying the teddy bear fur which will become grass. Got a few photos to show you.

Terrain board ready for the Teddy Bear fur. All the boards are like this.

Another painted terrain board with ruined building built in.

This table has also been built by Mal Taylor and Andy Hamilton. They have hours over the past few weeks building this table and continuing creating the WW1 Terrain. In fact in this photo taken last night, they had only just put the top on and were measuring it up etc

Andy using the spirit level to try to keep the table level while Mal pretends he's doing some work...

Coincidentally it is under this table the new WW1 Terrain will be stored.

Mal Taylor (left) and Andy Hamilton (right) standing proudly either side of the new table which they have christened the HMS Malandy

If they had not been good enough to pose for this shot and stopped what they were doing my photos of them would have been a bit blurred.

WW1 Attack and Defend

On Monday 18th Feb 2008, there were 2 games going on: WW1 upstairs, WW2 downstairs. I am saving the WW2 game for my next post, concentrating for this post on the upstairs game.

Playing were Mark Alcock, John Ogden, Paul Robinson and his son. John Ogden was British, using his own forces which were defending. Everyone else was German using Paul's German's. The Germans were attacking en masse.

I took a few photos of the game as usual:

Paul's German's make their invasion.

German machine gun and next to it a german observer (with binoculars).

British Infantry about to face the German Infantry.

British Heavy Mortar on top of ruined building.

British Light Mortar in back garden with Heavy Mortar in the background.

Frontal view of the germans advancing at the front of the town.

Unfortunately the British lost due to the overwhelming German opposition.

Wargames at the club 11th Feb 2008

Here is yet another slighly overdue games report from Monday 11th Feb 2008. Before I begin though I should say that 2 days before these games took place, Saturday 9th Feb 2008, at least half a dozen of us came to the club to help in the communal cleanup as had been planned in the AGM. The club got hoovered, windows got cleaned, scenery got dusted and some got thrown out, entire club was dusted and cleaned etc . It means with this cleanup that we may be able to get the club redecorated in areas it needs most and especially parts of the club that do require some repair.

On 11th Feb 2008, there were 3 games going on:
AK47 between Dave Tuck and Martin Buck;
Napoleonic Naval game between Mal Taylor and Mike Barnatt, with Andy Hamilton overseeing;
Wars of the Roses between Mark Alcock and Paul Robinson.
Got photos of all of them for you to see, beginning with the Naval game:

Mike Barnatt playing on the right with Mal Taylor on the left. 1 or 2 of these belonged to Mal with the rest belonging to Andy Hamilton, who was overseeing the game and helping with the rules of the game.

Dave Tuck's AK47 Army. Bit small.

Martin Buck's AK47 sailors.

Overview of the AK47 game.

Martin Buck's AK47 Tanks. Actually they're Panzer 4's and Martin won this game.

In this Wars of the Roses game, Paul Robinson was Yorkist and Mark Alcock wasn't. Mark was of course Lancastrian. The fellas in this photo are some of Mark's Lancastrian Mad Axemen.

Melee between the Yorkists and Lancastrians.

Mark's Lancastrian Knights.

A small horde of Paul Robinson's Yorkists.

Yorkist/Lancastrian Clash. Seem to be quite a few knights in this one.

Yorkists on the move handling some rather crude weaponry at the back there.

Better photo of Yorkists handling that rather crude weaponry. Sorry, don't know the name of the weapon but I wouldn't like any of those things anywhere near me.

Another good clash between the Yorkists and Lancastrians. Does seem reasonably colourful too.

Great War Tunnels found in Belgium

BBC News reported today that some underground tunnels had been found in Belgium, used by troops in World War 1. Amazingly they were so excellently well preserved. Other than clicking on the title of this post, click here to view the news item.

Wargames at the Club 4th Feb 2008

Another overdue report. Still catching up chaps. The games that took place on 4th Feb 2008 at the club were:
Poles v Turks 25mm between Steve Mercer and Dave Tuck with myself, Jase Whitfield and Joe Dunn joining in;
AK47 with Martin Buck and Ron Skeet. Was not able to get any pictures of that game unfortunately;
WW1 using the Schwerpunkt rules between Mark Alcock and Paul Robinson.

First up then is the WW1 game between Mark Alcock's Germans, painted by Joe Dunn, and Paul Robinson's American "Doughboys". Took these photos after being virtually exterminated in the game I was playing in downstairs.

Paul's "Doughboys" manning a field gun.

Mark's Germans, painted by Joe Dunn, occupying the forest. Must be autumn.

Paul's FT17's on the move.

Close up of some Paul's "Doughboys"

Mark's Germans, painted by Joe Dunn, in the Town.

Birds eye view of the WW1 game.
Anyone interested in viewing Colour photos from World War 1? Whilst looking through the Wargamer.com site the other day I stumbled across a link to some. To view the WW1 photos go to World War One Color Photos.com They were all taken by French Soldiers.

Overview of the Poles v Turks game before any gameplay. Turks on the left belonging to Dave Tuck. Playing on the Turks side apart from Dave was myself and Joe Dunn. Poles on the right belonging to Steve Mercer, ably assisted by Jason Whitfield.

Poles and Turks in Melee. Poles then operated by "Devildice" Jase W

Some of Dave Tuck's Turks. Notice the stakes near the guns. Would have been more use against a small gang of vampires.

These Turkish guns of Dave Tuck's look big and mean, don't they? It turned out they were anything but. They do look nice though.

Some of Steve Mercer's Poles.

A view down the table of the Turk Line towards Joe Dunn's position.

Close up of the melee between Dave Tuck's Turks, commanded by him, and the Poles commanded by Jason Whitfield. By this time Jase "Devildice", who I had been facing all game, had already overwhelmed my cavalry apart from one small battalion. I was already Horsemeat despite me throwing lots of high dice and Jase throwing about average dice. It is because I was playing with poor quality Cavalry. Joe and Dave weren't faring much better but still were not exterminated as quick as I was. Still good fun game though. If I'd thrown my normal dice, Jase would have got me even earlier!

Close up of another melee between the Turks and Poles.