At tonights club night I had a game of Urban War futuristic skirmish game with fellow club members Kev, and Dave K. (Dave ably assisting myself with a bit of suppressing fire on the right flank).
Kev supplied all the troops and most of the terrain too. This was a pity, as Kevs' luck with the dice was abysmal for the whole game failing to wound even once and my dice rolling was above average, so the result was a bit one sided to say the least. Sorry Kev.
I do like the Urban War system with it's order chits indicating the basic 'stance' of each figure which simply translates to a pretty fluid game even when the rules are fairly new, ie to the likes of me has only had a handful of games. (sorry again Kev. It must have been beginners luck ;-) ).
I think a contibuting factor to the result was also the troops. Kev playing the Junkers faction (basically close combat specialist slave soldiers and beasties, and mine were the VASA (the UN in space) who are more tradition marine types with some jump troops, more shooty. The mix seemed unbalanced with the lack of fire power for the Junkers not made up for with the mediocre advantage in combat.
Still, an enjoyable game, for me and Dave at least.
Just finished painting a Mordheim Ogre which I picked up on ebay earlier this year. The model is the OOP GW figure which was a joy to paint, lots of detail to pick out the shape, and good movement in the figure.
Painted pretty quickly for me. Generally pleased with the result though the base was a bit hurried but still acceptable.
The base itself is a Gale Force 9 magnetic base. I quite like these bases and use them particularly for plastic figures as they lend a bit of weight to the models making them less prone to falling over.
I've just come across the online magazine 'Irregular'.
Something I had previously seen, but not really picked up on it. Current issue 6 has the usual mix of Sci-Fi and Fantasy articles with lots of GW stuff, but a healthy dose of other manufacturers too.
The mag also sports a good selection of historical, modelling, painting and review/convention articles which make this mag a step above the rest. And interestingly, and not a little refreshing but no advertising, just articles.
Definately worth checking out on http://irregularmagazine.com/
Finally got the Resources section of ALBAtwo up and running with a copy of a very good article from Bob Black from back in 1986 from Military Modelling magazine.
The article deals with the forgotten Jan Jiskra, a contemporary with Jan Hunyadi and Mattias Corvinus etc from 15th Century Hungary. The Article comes complete with three plates (the above pic being the first of the three) of Hungarian Troops of the period by Richard Judson (More folically challenged readers, like myself, will recognise his works from the likes of WRGs Ian Heath books etc). The Gallery has downloads of good resolution scans of the figure plates for those interested.
http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/albatwo2/resources.html for the article
http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/albatwo2/hungariangallery.html for the Hungarian Gallery
Recommended reading for those interested in Eastern Medieval history, and the plates are nice. Bobs writing on this kind of subject, including the Lance and Longbows publication on John Hunyadi are excellently researched and among the few publications on the subject in English.
Just had another recent game of Crusader using my Berbers, with club member Dave K on our Club night this week.
Ended in another victory for the Berbers but not without some close moments. Really like the Crusader Rules and have always enjoyed the games I have played using these rules. As with most fast play rules, there are always situations where the rules appear silly or annoyingly won't let you do what you want to do but all in all a recommended set for anyone playing Ancient/Dark Age/Medieval games.
The picture above is of our Crusader game at the end of August, a narrow victory to the Berbers but only because of running out of time on the club night.
Thought I'd add to the jumble by posting a picture of my hobby work station. No real reason other than it seems to be a thing to do, so here it is, my station under the stairs.....
Nice and cosy, since I gave it a spring clean last winter, it's even got a carpet now!
Back from Turkey and managed to survive, but only just. Good relaxing holiday, with too much sun, beer and food....oh well. Not much in the way of military style delights in the area, and I couldn't convince my better half that an hour and a half bus trip in 35 degrees to go to the museum in Antalya would be a good idea, but as with most areas of Turkey, your never far from some Greek/Roman/Byzantine/Ottoman ruins.
Left, the Temple of Appollon, and above, the Agora, both in Side.
Nice town and the usual resort type stuff, nice people just the beach sucked big time, since the whole beach for miles is literally covered from the sea wall to the high tide line in sun loungers and of course you can't use the loungers unless you buy food or beer etc. If you want to sit and play on the sand to build sand castles, you just can't.
Back to normality now, and with some new ideas and charged up for some gaming, there's lots to keep occupied with now family duty is done.
