What have I been up to?

Morning All

Apologies for the lack of posts recently but work commitments and to be frank a general lethargy about focussing on this blog has meant things have been relatively quiet.

However hopefully things are about to change and you will see more exciting things coming out of the shed in the next few weeks.

On the gaming front I have been particularly active. We have played a couple more Peninsular engagements using black powder and on both occasions my British forces have been soundly beaten by the Frenchies. I just cant seem to stop the attack columns. This frustration has boiled over to the point that we might be playing the rules wrong but following a post to the Warlord Games forum it does appear that the rules are correct and either the dice gods are just being unkind or those French attack columns are just too powerful. If anybody out there in blog land has some thoughts on this please do ping me a line. The plan is too host a couple more Peninsular scenarios in the coming weeks so watch this space.

Whilst we are talking about my peninsular project I decided that I needed to crack on with the terrain for this period. You may recall at the beginning of the Napoleonic project I managed to acquire this town for a very reasonable price on ebay. I have now discovered that the buildings themselves come from Warbases modular range (worth checking out here).

This was the village I bought

I have now decided to rebase these onto 30cm plywood squares and construct a proper Mediterranean town. This is going to be my next terrain project. To supplement the buildings I have already got I discovered two wonderful pieces from Charlie Foxtrot models. A Church and a tower.

These are listed in their Pantile range (here)

I have shown the pictures of these two (not my models) from the website below. These are MDF kits with resin pantile roofs. I picked up mine from Colours at Newbury a couple of weeks ago and have already started construction. They are great kits.

  

A work in progress post on this terrain build will follow shortly.

Over the last few years (pretty much since I have been running this blog) I have managed to meet a large number of gamer's in my immediate vicinity and last week I was invited to join a Dragon Rampant game at anothers 'Shed'. I say shed but I really should say Cabin. We had a great game (better that I has on the winning side) but sadly I forgot to take any pictures.

This game was however a first for me as my host had created a games mat from teddy bear fur and it looked fantastic. So much so I am going to invest in some of this stuff and see if I can replicate the affect for my own table (yet another project). A big thank you to Dave and his friends for making me feel most welcome and I look forward to our next battle.

As we move into October plans are beginning to gather pace for the Lead Adventures BLAM event. For the past three years this has been hosted in my local pub and once again this venue sees 25+ gamers head down to the Surbiton area to feast on games, beer and good food over a four day period. We have extended the event for an extra day this year because it is our tenth anniversary. For my sins I'll be running a chopped down version of my heroic defence of Rorkes drift and a Muskets & Tomahawks game. I can't wait.

Shortly after Blam I'll be hosting in the Shed an all day game (period yet to be decided) for my original gaming group. Its been the best part of 10 years since we all got together and Mark and I are looking forward to catching up with old friends.

So there is a great deal to sort out in the coming weeks.

On a final note we have been playing a number of board games as well. In particular I can strongly recommend Spartacus - this is great fun and is sure to become a firm favourite during the winter months ahead.

I also received my Kick starter copy of Massive Darkness a few weeks back. This has already seen several games and I think its fair to say the jury is still out on this. Whilst the components in particular the minis are wonderful the game play deteriorates as the players progress. There has been a number of similar comments on Board Game Geek about this. Hopefully some tweaks and house-rules will deliver a better game in the long run.

 


So thats about it for the moment - hang on there is more...

Once all the projects above are complete I will be starting on my next big 28mm venture - I'll let the following picture tell you what it is but suffice to say 6 of these boxes turned up yesterday

Come back soon...