In the quest to play something different and offer a chance for my regulat gaming buddy Dave to get a game with his Pike & Shotte , we moved from my FJ playing his IJA in bolt action last week to Me playing Royalists in a game of English Civil War ( ECW) Pike & Shotte this week. It was fun to be doing something different and learning ( well-sort of , despite Dave being a good teacher haha!) A new game. 

It was good to find out that P&S is  very similar to Black Powder , a game i intend on purchasing and playing properly in the future...but a little disconcerting that i played it as poorly as a drunk stick insect conducting the 'Last night of the proms"!! 

  However; another positive thing was how great Daves armies looked ranked up..made me long for that Warhammer Empire army on the table...it certainly whet the appetite and nice that my suspicion i missed ranked unit movements and bonuses such as  flank attacks etc having gravitas in regards to combat, etc etc. Bodes well for my Black Powder purchase in the future. 

  Thanks Dave, Thanks for having two armies ready to go, and bringing all the gear to play including period scenery of your own!! It felt great to help someone play a ruleset no one has helped him play before..a good feeling for any of us to have that reciprocal social contract fulfilled for sure.

 Join Dan as he assembles and reviews the Med. Town Hall from Things From the Basement. available here;

https://www.thingsfromthebasement.com

This vid contains a tutorial of applying stucco texture to buildings and painting to a high standard for your tabletop- all suitable for a range of periods, scales and games.
We hope you enjoy this; if you do please "Like" , Subscribe and share this with others. Dan & Rex.

​I found these images hiding away and wanted to share them so you could compare the corgi SDKFZ 7 with the warlord games resin.

I think youll agree those look more than comfortable sitting next to each other on the table top..but how about when we add the infantry next to them? Perry? Warlord? Artizan? Offensive? Hmmmm......

So ; heres my point for us. And a challenge to Rex for the next WIP podcast;

Scale. In particular the challenges of 28mm 'scale' wargaming.  

Why cant we have nice things? why do we fight like cats in a bag over the size of models -especially vehicles and armour - to use?

I have a lot to say on the subject, and hopefully some of it might not even bore you! 

We have the next episode 'In the Can' and almost ready to go, but this ones 'stood in the door' as our topic for the following podcast. 

Have a great weekend team and get some games in!! 

Dan

Rest In Peace. 

Private "Bobby" Johns, The Parachute Regiment. Joined up to fight when aged only 14 years old. 

K.I.A in Normandy, aged 16, 75 Years ago. 

Utrinque Paratus.

So Here are my British Airborne after the additional models I added as my "Reasonable Hobby Challenge" goal...and YES ! They were ready ( two days before the 6 June deadline!) and descended from the skies by parachute and glider in our D Day 75th club game 8-9 June 2019. Hope you enjoy getting a good look at them, and look forward to the video being published of the D Day anniversary weekend event. Thanks for watching!

 Bolt Action D Day 75th Battle Prep; Update 3- Almost there!

The latest update, including the finished work so far! Join me as i talk you through some more tips & how i finish off my British Airborne in 28mm or 1/56 scale. Thanks for watching! As usual please Like, share and subscribe and leave your feedback. Thanks! Dan

Hi, this is an update of Dans current (May '19) "Reasonable Hobby Challenge"! as heard on our latest podcast!

Excuse the voice on the commentary as I've had the proper flu for 4 weeks at this stage...! as with the poor motor skills on the camera half way through!!

Friday Photo: To the last Bullet.

A very nice photo by Dan,  enough to inspire a game, or perhaps a new army or even a new home made  campaign. 

Who knows what will happen over the weekend... Hopefully not just mowing lawns and chores. :-)

 Finally had time to finish off a few details on a couple of the other Tiger 1's this weekend..and here they are in all their glory!! 

  For those of you playing along at home ( !) , I have just added the final reveal vid to our Youtube channel! The vid includes the promised painting recipes etc. as well, so pop over there and watch it if youre interested in these cats.

   Hope youve enjoyed following along, and you enjoy the final products. 

   Im very happy, as I have vehicles here for Tunisia, Sicily, Italy, eastern front ( Including Kursk!) and western front including Normandy...and the Battle for Berlin right until the final days.

   I think my year to dates painted model list looks very healthy now, and im intending to keep score until December 15th to make it a full years list.

DANS PAINTING SCORECARD 2019

• 2 x King Tigers
• 3 x Tiger 1's
• 1 x German Opel Blitz canvas canopy/sideboards (interchangeable with existing passenger open back one)
• 24 Italian Coastal Defense Division infantry ( Based by Rex- thank you!)
• 2 x Italian heavy weapons teams
• 1 x Italian Artillery piece incl. 3 crew and spotter
• 15 x German FJ in smocks
• 9 x German FJ Tropical fatigues

Terrain;

• 1x Italian Church
• 1x Stone Bridge
• 1.5 m2 of teddy bear fur hay and grass fields
• Painted ONLY; 1x medium (!) Hill ( Made by Rex)
• Painted ONLY; 1x small (!) Hill ( Made by Rex)
• 1 x table worth of textured flexible rural roads
• 1 x street barricade ( ponys, mattress, crate & sandbags)
• 2 x concrete pillboxes
• 1 x box Girder 'Primosole' Bridge ( Yes- I made and painted another one! Lol)
• 30 x 'infantry dug in' entrenchments terrain pieces

3 days before my end of march "reasonable hobby challenge' Deadline ...may i present 139.6 Tonnes of cricket-crushing goodness (!!)

I really enjoyed these. I will be posting a "Big Tiger Build' update on youtube at  the end of next week to bring you all up to date with the other vehicles in the build. In the meantime; hope you like 'em!!

Op Slapstick-Italy '43; The concluding second part of the mini campaign, German FJ vs British....

10 September, 1943. Operation "Slapstick".

• British Paratroopers from 156 Parachute Bn, having seized Key strategic points of entry into Mottola , now assault the German Fallschirmjager defenders in strength in what becomes a bloody battle for the town.
• Scenario; Meeting engagement. 1000pts per army.
• This mini campaign will utilise the rules for campaigns found in the Bolt Action; Battle of France sourcebook.

See here for battle 1: https://valhallagames.net/index.php/new-ba-batrep-on-our-youtube-op-slapstick-italy-43

Inspired to share by Brad Morrins "Cast Dice" podcast regarding chinese forces in bolt action, here is a nationalist poster i found tucked in a corner at the propaganda poster museum in Shanghai.

   It is worth noting that in Shanghai i couldnt find any museum with weapons , uniforms etc etc from the war....the nationalists have basically been expunged from history, and due to the coalition, my opinion is tackling how that worked for the war to be won caused too many headaches and questions...therefore simply not referencing that part of history started to be the norm.

   The main references i found were from the end of the struggle and the seizing of Shanghai by communist forces, in which the nationalists were referred to in every case as 'the enemy'. So much so, that i thought the pictures must have been the battle of shanghai vs the japanese at first until i rechecked the dates and detail of the pictures....

Squad of Tropical Fallschirmjager ( With breathmint reinforcements) stand easy on my shelf after varnishing. This is the last of the units i committed to finishing on our youtube channel on my channel update & plastic hoard vid....hooray!!

​Plus: 2 ponys and a peed mattress walked into a bar.......Oh wait. No....They got laid into the street as a barricade. (!!) I got this barricade finished also this evening also. 

   Its unfortunate the lighting was poor and the 'set up' for photo so poor, but heres another terrible shot focussing on the barricade  to see the barricade height and some more detail of horses markings etc.

 Painted Minis completed since Dec 15th, Dan;

28mm;

• 24 Italian Coastal Defense Division infantry ( Based by Rex- thank you!)
• 2x Italian heavy weapons teams
• 1x Italian Artillery piece incl. 3 crew and spotter
• 15 x German FJ in smocks
• 9 x German FJ Tropical fatigues

Terrain;

• 1x Italian Church
• 1x Stone Bridge
• 1.5 m2 of teddy bear fur hay and grass fields
• Painted ONLY; 1x medium (!) Hill ( Made by Rex)
• Painted ONLY; 1x small (!) Hill ( Made by Rex)
• 1x table worth of textured flexible rural roads
• 1 x street barricade ( ponys, mattress, crate & sandbags)

TABLE CLEARED READY FOR NEW TASKINGS!!

Dan​

Wanting to finally see proper pictures of the new commonwealth infantry sprue heads??!!? Here they are! close up and into detail. Hope they help some of you, as I was getting frustrated not seeing the full detail from Warlord....Enjoy!

So I purchased my first corgi die cast model in 1:50 scale. Im not going completely in that direction...just happened to see a bargain for less than the kitsets are being sold for!!  

   It needs weathering and detailing...but this pic shows it straight out of the box, and i thought that shows how good they are!

   I will do another post soon showing size comparisons to 1/56 etc. 

  Enjoy your weekend! Dan

Hi All! As promised and thanks to the technological wizardry of Rex (!), our new battle report is up on our Valhalla Games youtube channel.

This one is based around Op. Slapstick & the advance north from the landings at the  Taranto port by the Brit paratroopers of 156 Para Bn, 1st Airborne Div....and meeting their arch adversaries 1st Fallschirmjager.

So, almost midway in January....Rex and I can BOTH honestly say we haven't been in 'Hobby Hibernation'...Rather we have only just come up for Air!!

I spent 3 weeks at Rex's place in Australia with him and his lovely family. We do admit we were lucky enough to get some real hobby time in also; both playing some games ( and taking vids of some battle reports  for our youtube channel , which are in post production now! ), and getting in some serious painting after hours too when all throughout the house, not a creature was stirring. Not even a mouse. Or a snake.

Rex had done a fantastic job of getting a new player into the game and excited, and it was a pleasure for me to meet Ash. as Rex played him in his first game, i had the job of advising Ash where required on tips for his first game. I must say- he didn't need much advising! apparently Ash plays a lot of tactical and strategy games online, and i believe chess too..it showed. He has a good mind for small unit tactics and will become a formidable opponent. He has a penchant for rolling 6s to hit too!! 

​Welcome indeed to the hobby, Ash. looking forward to playing you on my next visit and also seeing your armys progress as you build and paint it.

   I have started my new year finishing off my tropical FJ and therefore clearing my desk. Athough im still in progress there, im already looking ahead to a new army, as you can check out on our youtube channel here;

https://www.youtube.com/.......

I had a really enjoyable game of another game; Kings of War, with my nephew, Daniel. I really really enjoyed it and having both him and his dad (Rex ) explain it. You may not realise, but warhammer fantasy was a huge huge driver for me getting back into wargaming at the end of the 90's. I really missed fantasy armies ranked up majestically, and all the thought that goes into maneouver and the challenge of doing so in ranked units that Kings of war reminded me of.​

Anyways, heres looking forward to another year of getting to share this hobby with you, hopefully a chance to share it with my son and friends of mine in Ireland.

Also, i get to share the hobby and creating our content on this site, our channel and podcast with my brother, Rex. I had a moment where i was being an intolerable cranky-ass off camera in one of our filmed battle reports that was initially crap, but after apologising (for that- AND the fact it was caused by my setting of a gruelling schedule of hobby prep and recording that made this self-inflicted!) it was a timely reminder of all the stuff in our podcast episode one of why i play wargames. That went on to be one of the most memorable games we've ever played...and we got it on camera for you to enjoy one day soon. hope we captured and bottled that feeling for you.

Happy new hobby year!

Painted Minis completed  since Dec 15th, Dan;

28mm;

• 24 Italian Coastal Defense Division infantry ( Based by Rex- thank you!)
• 2x Italian heavy weapons teams 
• 1x Italian Artillery piece incl. 3 crew and spotter

Terrain;

• 1x Italian Church
• 1x Stone Bridge
• 1.5 m2 of teddy bear fur hay and grass fields
• Painted ONLY;  1x medium (!) Hill ( Made by Rex)
• Painted ONLY; 1x small (!) Hill  ( Made by Rex)
• 1x table worth of textured flexible rural roads
  

​One wonders what paint scheme lies under this one, and what stories it might tell....

Taken at Omaka Aviation Museum, Blenheim, New Zealand. More photos and potential youtube vid to follow at a later date.

Well; the work was on Italian terrain in any case! I had a full weekend off and spent it tying up some loose ends and making progress on some tasks.

​These are 90% done now, and looking good to join their buddies in a future scenario. 

The modes are from the Charlie Foxtrot Pantile Buildings range. These ones being; Pantile Tower and Pantile Hermitage. as with previous models ive built from the range these were a great build and very satisfying as a minor craft project too if im honest! Its probably the sort of project a modeller could get the kids involved in too.

  I was quite suprised at actually how big the tower is, and i think it like the rest of the range represent good value!

  Tomorrow i should be receiving my Warlord/ Italeri Italian Church in the post. ...as listeners to the podcast will know, i have had reservations about the model due to its 1/72 actual scaling...BUT I have some plans to amend that after watching Kens youtube vid of the models build on 'The eccentric man ' youtube channel, and his subsequent assistance with some questions of mine.

   More info to come on that! meantime...ill just finish the hermitage door and the bell repaint, and these are table-ready! Hope you like the look of them too,