Bolt action Campaign: The Western Desert first look in this flip though video. Spoiler alert there is lots of sand and everything is yellow, start repainting those tanks now!

  Click on the image below to see it at full size, it's quite large and might take a while to load...

...once the image has loaded in a new window or tab you should be able to zoom or pinch to zoom to see the detail. I'm experimenting to see what can be achieved depth of field wise. Depth of field is what is in focus in the photo, not always the entire image front to back will be in focus, and with miniatures sometimes not very much at all!

It's not bad!, I'm pretty happy (for a test shot) its the best table shot I have ever taken, below are some samples at 100% taken from the photo in the link above (not a zoomed in separate photo). As you can see its "soft" at both ends but it's better than most photos I have seen of boards in terms of full-depth-focus. I can also do better just need to move things around a bit in the wargaming room. Also bear in mind that this photo is *longways* on the table so what you are seeing is a full 6' table "mostly" in focus front to back.

Bolt action artillery observer rules flowchart coming soon (as soon as I work out how it actually works…!!!!)
 

First game on the new table... half finished the game and put the lid on for another day. Magic!
 

Wargaming table - prologue

Wargaming is a bad idea, there go I said it. It's expensive it takes limitless amounts of time and additionally it takes a lot of space perhaps a lot more than anybody else in the house might need for most other hobby's.

So I've been at war with my family about the availability of space to set up even a temporary table. Partly because as you know regardless of how temporary the table is meant to be a game that inevitably doesn't get finished turns temporary into extended and then into permanent then people (ok, mostly me) start dumping stuff there then before you know it you don't have a temporary wargaming table you have an altar to the god of household clutter sitting in your lounge room.

So this is a cause of frustration in our household and it's a barrier to actually getting any wargaming done because inevitably at 7 at night after I finished the days chores and the thought of getting out my temporary table and all my miniatures which is nicely stored away doesn't seem as appealing as it once did even perhaps at 10:30 a.m. earlier that day. So I've decided to take steps and create a semi-permanent wargaming table in the garage.

Now luckily I have a garage that is big enough to accommodate that, however it too had a huge altar in the middle of the floor to the god of household clutter so over the period of a few evenings I managed to chip that away to the point where it was just a dozen things that I didn't know what to do with

Then I purchased an 8 x 4 sheet of ply and began to look at options for a semi-permanent wargaming table I say semi-permanent because I don't have enough space to have it permanently stay in one spot. Even though I have a generous allocation of garage space (won't stop me moaning for more though) I still need to move it around so I can get other garage things done so I've decided to make some sort of a trolley on Wheels that the wargaming table will sit on. This allows me to push it round the garage as required. Added to that I live in a country where it gets up to 43 degrees in the summer time so during those months there won't be any wargaming happening at all in the garage and I will be able to bring the board inside if I get a game.

I have toyed with the idea of having a winch lift mechanism that winches the board up to the ceiling so that it is out of the way for normal everyday usage I'm holding that idea over to phase 37c of my plan for world domination.

My next challenge is that I share the garage with the cat. The cat sleeps there and creates havoc in there at night time while I'm not there to yell at it so my table needs some sort of a covering to prevent the cat from pushing things off onto the ground which apparently is a source of great enjoyment for the beast. Additionally being a garage it is dusty and I don't want all my miniatures filled up with dust so the cover will double as a dust cover.

You can track my progress here on the blog previous info here and here. (and here)

 Wargaming table (with protective anti-cat cover) part 2 - supporting structure for the anti-cat/dust cover assembled. Only nail-guned my finger once and it didn't even hit the bone so a good lunchtimes work!

Wargaming table (with protective anti-cat cover) part 1  (see slide show)
 

Weathering, that wonderful mythical art of making a small plastic tanks and other vehicles look real with chipping, dirt, dust, mud, and damage. It's a new world for me as all my vehicles are either unpainted (so far) or look like they just rolled off the factory floor.

To this end I have been watching https://www.youtube.com/user/Panzermeister36/videos and working out what is appropriate for highly detailed "models" and what's still reasonable for nice looking "wargaming" pieces. For example in one of the videos under the link above he talks about an oil painting technique and demonstrates it, it looks very, very nice but then goes on to say that it took 5 hours (for one part of weathering on one tank), that's not for me... (it was VERY nice though!).

Anyway, to that end I have purchased the following oil paint set from Officeworks (Australia) for AU$25, most of the colors won't be useful but there should be enough in the very small tubes to do a few vehicles even with only using the ones that are suitable. I will start to get stuck in in the coming week, wish me luck.

Late war Fallschirmjäger, the next batch work in progress photos.

​Friday Photo - Germans on bikes: Units may be mounted on bikes for an extra +1 point per man, no indication of tow cost? :-)

Hi All! I hope everyone is enjoying their weekend?. If you are knocking around home doing some jobs maybe then don't forget to download the new episode 2 podcast ( details on last post) which will make those jobs fly by so you can get painting! ;)

Most weeks I attend the Christchurch Wargames Club here in New Zealand. where we play Thursdays and Sundays. I have a regular opponent, Dave and we get a game in almost every Thursday.

   Against all my club opponents we have a great time ( thanks guys!) but im enjoying learning different parts of the Rules simultaneously with Dave as we add a different unit type, play different scenarios etc and therefore encounter new rules regularly. 

  I thought I would share some Pics with you of a few of our games. The blossoming desert table terrain is mine, but the cracking Japanese village is Daves, im sure you will enjoy it as much as i do- Thanks to Dave for all his efforts constantly improving our gaming experience. 

  We also have an agreement we think is handy for those regular opponents while testing new units etc;  we feel free to proxy units of a respective size/type etc to test if we want to purchase them, and we also will play with unpainted models as we make painting progress as quick as we can. This helps get new units and therefore continued interest and challenges for each of us . 

   I hope you enjoy the photos! They arent supposed to be anything like a battle report, ill just do a summary by each batch.

1000 Pt. BRITISH AIRBORNE VS. JAPANESE

This game was Manhunt, I won roll off and chose attacker. I had performed really badly as the attacker for the previous 'confused fight' game wed played ( surrounded) where Dave had deservedly walloped me. and wanted to improve on that this time.

Click on "continue reading" below to see the rest of this post....

 Episode 2: Conquering 'Tournament Fear' is live now...

Welcome back! In This episode we present some info for the first -time attendee of any wargame event/tournament, so you can be well prepared to be able to feel relaxed, roll some dice, and have plenty of fun!

This is set against a backdrop of us taking our first steps to preparing for The Bolt Action 2 Day event at MOAB 2018 in Sydney, Australia in September.

We hope you enjoy it and find it most useful!!

Rex and Dan.

A new US infantry boxed set has been released recently by Warlord games for bolt action. Below are some comparisons between the old set and the new. So I guess I will be selling my old set then !! (still on the sprew) Screen shots from this review: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0xrOWE9-Cgg

 

this is an Unboxing & size comparison of Offensive Miniatures and a work- in-progress Perry Miniatures 1/56 scale German Fallshirmjager, part of a Bolt action sicily themed FJR force im painting up!

Here is the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ANxHlE1MQM the video should also show below.

The first episode of the valhallagames podcast is now live. While we are sorting out the links and directory listings you can add it manually to your podcast app. Copy the link below and subscribe using your app specific method for a manual add.

http://www.valhallagames.net/index.php/component/podcastmanager/?format=raw&feedname=1

If all else fails you can listen via a web player, click on the image below:

Update: You should now be able to find us in your podcast app, search for valhalllagames :-)

Welcome to the naked home of valhallagames. Soon we will be clothed in an attractive new colored design but for now, you are welcome to subscribe to the blog for news and information.