IHMN, Newt Rider of Venus

I wrote a couple of well received novellas in the 'Storming' series that are Wellesian fantasy space opera. The second was entitled Storming Venus and introduces the Venusian natives, the newts. You can read it free here. Go to the link and click on Chapter 3.

Following Mr Darwin's theory of planetary evolution, Venus is a young planet at roughly the same stage as Earth during the Age of Terrible Lizards.

Here, a newt rider flees through the swamps from where the sun threatens to break through the thick Venusian clouds.

A slightly less digitally mucked about with image.

And another.

That's not a real flower, incidentally, as true flowering plants have not yet evolved on Venus but one of Venus' carnivorous pseudoflowers.

Warhammer Chaos Nurgle Daemons

I have almost finished my 40K Nurgle army. The last units to complete the detachment are some allied daemons.

One more unit to go and the base on my Titan to paint and  I am done, done, never call me mother.

The irony is that I don't play 40K at the moment. The last two versions have utterly failed to capture my imagination.

Oh well.

Ernst Stavro Blofeld - Portrait of a Modern Corporate Manager

James Bond villain Blofeld, played here by the great Donald Pleasance, was in many ways simply ahead of his time. Nowadays his company, SPECTRE, would be regarded as the very model of a modern supra-national corporation what with their Swiss base, tax exemption, bonus structure, bribes and threats to politicians, funding terrorism, disciplinary system and tropical fish tanks.

Oh and their support for less government regulation by interfering busy bodies like James Bond.

I decided to paint my model in a pale blue suit as the flesh colour was a bit insipid on something 28mm high.

The base is from Gladius Game Arts. I can't remember where I got the model (Copplestone? 7TV? Anyone know?).

IHMN, Mathew Hopkins - Witchfinder General

On the painting table I have Mathew Hopkins, the Witchfinder General from Foundry.

Suitable for m English countryside IJMN bands.

Dover Castle

Visited Dover Castle last week while the air was still. It was built largely between the Thirteenth and Fifteenth centuries with another burst of fortification in the Nineteenth. This is one of the old gatehouses to the outer bailey.

The main gatehouse to the inner bailey.

Inside the tower.

The 'throne room'.

One of the chapels.

Review Bolt Action, The Last Levy Volkssturm

I showed off the Hitler Youth Squad and the man-portable AA rockets from Warlord Game's Last Levy boxed set a few days ago. Today it's the turn of the Volkssturm, the 'dad's army' that defended Berlin in the final battle. 

First up is the officer, a Golden Pheasant. They were the Nazi Party bosses who wore brown uniforms tinted with red and gold. Most of them sent the Hitler Youth out to die and then pissed off to the American lines with their mistresses and boxes of portable loot. But a few stayed to fight. They were of course, useless.

This one has chosen a blonde German  Bund Deutscher Mädel (Band of German Maidens) as his aide. She is wearing a Hitler youth uniform with a brown party overcoat.

The Boss wears a Party armband while the maiden has a Volkssturm band.

This is the Volkssturm section kitted out in a variety of uniforms from civilian sports clothes to Heer field grey. Some wore brown party overcoats. they were supposed to have been dyed field grey but many weren't. The wearers could be shot as spies by Soviet troops who assumed that they were infiltrators disguised in copies of Red Army uniforms.

The section wears a variety of armbands. The simple white and yellow were early forms which were replaced by the red and black horizontally striped armbands. Some Nazi Party members wear Party armbands'

And finally a sniper with a gun that shoots around corners.

This is a great set of colourful characters: highly recommended.

 

Song of Shadows & Dust Romans

A few more Foundry civilians for my Song of Shadows & Dust games by Ganesha.

Brutus.

Bolt Action - Fliegerfaust AA

In 1944 HSAG in Germany designed a shoulder-launched AA missile system called the Fliegerfaust - plane-fist. It fired up to nine unguided spin stabilised AA missiles in a ripple up to 500 metres. Around 80 were produced (from 10,000 ordered) in 1945. At least one was used as there is a picture of expended missiles in a photo taken in Berlin.

The models are from Warlord Games 'Last Levy' collection.

The weapon was insufficiently tested and ineffective but the principle was sound.

This is the latest British shoulder fired AA missile, Starstreak. The missile releases three kinetic penetrator high velocity submunitions which beam ride on a laser to the target.

Bolt Action: Medway Charity Wargame

The Medway Club meets on a Tuesday  - and last Tuesday was the eleventh day of the eleventh month of the year twenty fourteen.


Accordingly, we decided to hold a charity wargames day with all club-subs plus any additional donations to The British Legion.

We had a great turn out for such a small club on a miserable night. The younger players set up two games of Games Workshop's Warhammer 40K  and a Lord of the Rings scenario while those gamers of, shall we say, more mature years played a Bolt Action Tank War Megagame designed by club member Michael Valls-Russel.

We intended to play Falaise '44 but it ended up more like Goodwood as every one brought so many 28 mm AFVs that we couldn't get them all on the tables!

I played a Chuchill company in the centre supporting a British infantry attack on a French village at a key road junction. We had British and American armoured on each flank in support.

Michael gave each player a private victory condition in addition to the team victory.

Mine was that I had learnt from René Artois, Hero of the Resistance, that the painting of the Fallen Madonna with the big Boobies by van Klump was hidden at the Chateaux with the Gateaux. We agreed to 'acquire' and 'protect' the painting until the end of the war.

Unfortunately the Chateaux with the Gateaux was on our left flank in an American attack sector.

The British bombardment got off to a good start by blowing up a Hanomag on the German left flank and pinning a Tiger company.

And similar good results were achieved on the German right flank.

An early success for my Churchill company, I immobilised a Tiger advancing up the road with a 6pdr shot into the side. A Firefly from the armoured squadron on my right promptly brewed it up with a 17pdr shot right through the front armour.

Woop, woop.

The German left flank was soon in tatters with brewed up Hanomags and pinned Tigers.

I and my infantry partner had a worrying moment when a Panther troop came up the main road under the cover of an '88 and a quod-AA gun to reinforce the German centre.

Note: the white slip in the centre is one of Michael's secret personal victory conditions.

Then something very odd happened. What looked like an ice-cream van made a run down the road across the British centre. I raked it with MG fire from Churchills until it burst into flames. This was unfortunate as it apparently contained the German regimental pay chest which had been 'liberated' in the confusion by  Unteroffizer Schmidt .

The Reichmarks were all carboneezy. Ah well.

The carnage of armour on the right flank was unbelievable. A German Pak hidden in a wood knocked out a number of our Shermans with side shots before it was comprehensively crushed.

The British secret weapon, the deadly Typhoon, sweeps across the Panther troop laying down a barage of rockets.

You can just see what's left of the German pay chest burning in the foreground.

The Americans capture and comprehensively loot the Chateaux with the Gateaux. Damn!

The right flank became completely obscured by smoke from burning tanks so I disengaged my Churchills and raced (OK ground very, very,  slowly at the speed of a British infantry tank) for the Chateaux.

I had only lost one Churchill with one immobilised. They may be only armed with pop guns but they do have decent armour.

On the left flank the 'Tigers are Burning'.

I motored a Churchill up to the Chateaux and after a free and frank exchange of views with my American allies, involving loading the 6 pdr with HE, I acquired the bratwurst sausage in which was hidden the painting.

The Fallen Madonna with the Big Boobies by van Klump was auctioned at Sotheby's after the war by an anonymous seller after being mysteriously 'found' in a scout hut in Kent.

Incidentally, we raised £112.50 for the British Legion.

Special thanks are due to Michael Valls-Russel who designed the game and Mik Hollands of Gladius Game Arts whose energy drove the whole evening. Well done guys and kudos to everyone who showed up and donated so gererously.

We might do this again next year, and in a public venue.

The Season of Mellow Fruitfulness

Hedgerow on the North Downs.

Bolt Action SA 64 Armoured Car

The Soviet Union seem to have based this design for a light wheeled scout car on the German equivalent. Nearly 10,000 were manufactured from 1942 to 1946. The problem is that wheeled vehicles had very little tactical use in the Soviet Union as they really needed roads on which to operate. The Germans had switched to half tracks and light tanks for recon. by 1942.

The model is 1:48 scale from Tamiya.

Pylons on the North Downs

Streaming electricity to London from the power stations on the North Kent coast. In the background are the substations, high-speed rail line to Paris and the M2 linking London to Dover.

Medway Club Megagame

On the 11th, The Medway Club is putting on a Bolt Action 28mm Falaise Gap Megagame to raise money for Remembrance Sunday. I have volunteered to bring extra armour to fill out the forces.

Two Tigers, Achilles, German guns and various transports.

More British stuff including three Churchills, a Sherman, Firefly and Centaur, an M5 light tank, a 6pdr and various carriers.

More German stuff including three Panthers, a PzIV, Stug, Puma AC, self propelled guns and carriers.

Tank War anyone?

Woop, woop!

Everyone welcome.

Bloody Indians Coming Over Here And Fighting For Us

Photo Source

A photo from France, 1916, of some of the Indian volunteers who volunteered to fight for Britain on the Western Front.

Around 1m Indians served overseas in WWI, around 130,000 on the Western Front - around 9,000 died.

Bolt Action Review - Hitler Youth

This is the Section Leader who has acquired a Schmeisser and some ammunition pouches from somewhere. He's the sort of ghastly little prig who the Headmaster chooses for Head Prefect and who denounces you for smoking behind the bike shed.

His keen enthusiastic younger brother and you just know the annoying little tick is going to get you all killed.

The Head Girl, all jolly hockey sticks and panzerfausts. She's beaten up every boy in the school at some time or other.

The Head Girl's best friend.

Struggling with a Hitler Youth winter uniform and rifle designed for a much bigger boy.

Another set of fabulous figures from The Last Levy box. Full of character and ideal for all sorts of shenanigans. This range goes from strength to strength.