A web log of my historical wargaming. Mostly devoted to Field of Glory Napoleonic 2nd edition, Glory is Fleeting, OATHMARK: BATTLES OF THE LOST AGE, Rangers of Shadow Deep, Black Powder, Bolt Action and BATTLETECH.
They don't work for 1941 Engineer's, but they represent what they are. Currently my only idea is to put a handcart full of equipment next to the unit.I'd really like some men with shovels, wire cutters and Bangalore torpedo's, but I haven't found anyone like that yet. If I add some riflemen to it and drop the mine detectors I can do a squad easily enough.
Video including some of the 2/2nd Field Park Company is here and some war diary's here.
They also do resin desert adobe buildings, and their resin and MDF tanks, terrain and building are cheaper than I can find anywhere else. You have to wait 10 days for it to be made, but I would not mind the wait.
There is a very old review system that says the sooner you see a crate in a game, the worse it is.
Game developers
have known the answer to the first question since the early 1980's: ammo and health can be
hidden inside crates or sometimes barrels. As often happens, the answer to the
second question was hidden in plain sight within the answer to the first. All games
contain crates, therefore all games can be judged empirically on those crates.
Once we came up with that insight, the actual formula for the
world's first completely unbiased review methodology was a trivial matter of
applying our many hours spent watching actors portray scientists on television to our
hatred of crates. Games can be rated and compared based on the shortest amount of
time it takes a player to reach the first crate, which represents the point where the
developers ran out of ideas. This number is measured in seconds and is called
"Start to Crate" or "StC". The smaller the StC, the worse the
game.
They were stupidly hard to put together. I went through 4(!) tubes of old and blocked up superglue bottles to do them. I tried wood glue but that was a complete failure.My fingers are covered in superglue.
One of them (the top one) is not square and I couldn't get the lid on correctly, but it does add some character.
I would rate these 3/10 of to put together and 8/10 for looks once done.
I've gathered nearly all my wargaming stuff (ignoring old sad 40K stuff from 20 years ago) in one place and looked through my Bolt Action units I have.
I also have all my board games in one place (not very accessible at the end of the table). Once I get another bookcase I can move all my table top wargames there too.
Current army list:
PickList
British 2-pdr Portee
1
British Anti-tank rifle team
1
British Bren Carrier
2
British Bren Carrier (Boys AT)
1
British Forward Observer (Artillery)
1
British Infantry (equipped as modeled)
3
British Infantry Tank Mk II Matilda Mk II
1
British Infantry with Light Machine gun (requires loader)
2
British Infantry with Rifle
24
British Light Mortar team
1
British Medic
1
British NCO with Rifle
5
British Platoon Commander
2
British Sniper Team
1
I need:
British 2-pdr Portee
British Medic and stretcher bearer
I only have 20 Bardia Australian infantry with rifles but I have another 52 metal and plastic 8th army and BEF figures I can use to use as them and one NCO with a rifle.
And EVERYTHING needs to be put together and painted! I could also use a 3-ton truck, a 30 CWT truck, another two Vickers machine guns, another two 3 inch mortar's, another Vickers light tank, another Crusader 1/II, three universal carrier's with a 2 inch and 3 inch mortar and a Vickers machine gun and an 37mm light AA gun on a portee truck,
Italian 10th Army OPFOR:
I have a box of 36 Italian infantry I can convert to different types
1 M11 tank
I need:
Another box of 30+ Italian infantry
2-3 more tanks
2-3 light armored transports
2-3 artillery pieces
2-3 anti tank guns
2-6 mediam machine guns
2-6 mediam mortars
2-6 light mortars
3-6 infantry transports and towing vehicles
Terrain - Everything :(
I do have some desert colored pieces of terrain I can use to represent sandy terrian and add some 3d effect to the battlefield, but that's about it.
A 6x4 battle mat for the desert
A collection of white washed and desert colored MDF buildings for North Africa (and can be used in Spain too!)
With all this theroycrafting I should watch the existing film of the ACTUAL battle and its aftermath.
A long setup to the battle with the troops getting to the middle east. A ships cat. Weirdly it shows Crusader I's I think, but refers to the Matilda's. Maybe from later on in the war? The camo on them is post early 41. Also has some German troops from much later! Looks Vickers light tanks with the .50 cals on training beforehand. All painted sand colour (or covered in it). Dark colored Bren Gun Carries but caked in sand to the half way point. Has a light colored field ambulance. Captured Italian tanks attacking Tobruk. Mention of the 2/1 Field Park Engineers and 2/3rd Battalion wearing light colored clothes in shorts and short sleeves and cloth covered helmets I suspect are training. Everyone else is in the dark Khaki. A Cruiser tank of some sort WITH Bren gun pintle mount!
Content warning: Dead bodies past the 16:30 mark.
Raw footage that shows up a lot in other videos. Shows troops in dark Khaki tops but most are wearing light shorts, post battle when going on patrol(?). Guards are wearing greatcoats, it must have been very cold. Terrain is filmed from the and consists of buildings, compounds, sand and dirt dunes and lots of abandoned trucks. Whitewashed Libyan buildings for the centre of town. Trucks have camonets over them. The desert has lots of bunkers, sangers, emplacements, walls and ground floor ruins. Lots of flat space with sparse rocks.
Content warning: Dead bodies past the 6:15 mark.
Mostly terrain, destroying buildings and trucks moving about. The staff cars often have a camonet on them.
Looks like the Matilda II's have Cuanter Camouflage, which is going to be very hard for me to paint. I suspect I'll just cover it in sand colour, which they ended up being anyway. I should put a pennant on the command tank.
Content warning: Dead Italian artillerymen who fell a their guns around 2:40 mark
The 18 pounder crews are wearing slouch hats! More Cuanter Camouflage for Bren Gun Carriers, but at least one looks to be painted a dark green. Only one of the many carriers seen has a pintle mounter Bren gun, so it did happen, but wasn't common.
25 pounders and this time the crews wear helmets and great coat, which makes me think the earlier ones were after the battle. Looks like a Rolls Royce Armored car with Boys AT rifle and Bren gun in an open top. So I COULD get one. One of the trucks has a pintle mounted(?) Bren gun behind the cabin. Troops are wearing dark Khaki clothes and great coats., Helmets are light (presumably sand colored). Telegraph poles, small single trees in the town. Also a Vickers light tank with .50cal crossing a tank trap after the battle.
Mostly post battle. Lots of rocks and sangers in the terrain, 4.5" howitzers, though they would not have been on the table! The guns have camo on them, and nets. 18 or 25 pounders and the crews are all wearing dark Khaki.
Content warning: Dead Italian infantry who fell at their posts at 1:30 mark. Sad part is seeing the family photos from one of them.
I need to a brown door mats and cut them up for fields. Most can be rectangles and some can be smaller for FOGN. Some can be triangles that can be formed into squares.
Also some green ones to represent grapes or other green plants in rows.
I need some 28mm buildings suitable for North Africa. Start with 3 - should be white washed.
Some can have red terracotta roofs for Spain, Greece, Crete and Italy too.
I need some non-fantasy 28mm Western/Central Europe buildings that can be used for both 19th and 20th Century - Black Powder AND Bolt Action (and maybe late 20th Century WW3).
Something got delivered, and it was for me and I wasn't expecting it.
It's a big box and it rattles.
There's a hand written card!
And a personal message from the commander of the KGL!
And an entire Perry Miniature BATTALION OF INFANTRY TO COMMAND!
I have the Waterloo Boxed set, but I didn't have a unit I could use as the KGL. Now I do! Not sure how I can equip them, with the Baker Rifles that the 2nd Light Battalion King’s German Legion had, but I will need to try.
La Haye Sainte (named either after Jesus Christ's crown of thorns or a bramble hedge round a field nearby[1]) is a walled farmhouse compound at the foot of an escarpment on the Charleroi-Brussels road in Belgium. It has changed very little since it played a crucial part in the Battle of Waterloo on 18 June 1815.
La Haye Sainte was defended by about 400 German troops during the Battle of Waterloo. They were hopelessly outnumbered by attacking French troops but held out until the late afternoon when they retired because their ammunition had run out. If Napoleon Bonaparte's army had captured La Haye Sainte earlier in the day, almost certainly he would have broken through the allied centre and defeated the Duke of Wellington's army.[2]
The capture of La Haye Sainte in the early evening then gave the French the advantage of a defensible position from which to launch a potentially decisive attack on the Allied centre. However Napoleon was too late - by this time Blücher and the Prussian army had arrived on the battlefield and the outnumbered French army was defeated.
La Haye Saint after the Battle by Talliou
I was just expecting a hill or a tree or something, but this is way above what I expected! Thank you NT RABBIT! Nothing is broken
This page goes into great detail of the battle and fighting that happened- if you've seen Sharp's Waterloo, when the Prince of Orange ordered a Battalion to reinforce and retake the building, and twice let them get cut to pieces by French Heavy Cavalry...this was that building complex.
Useful for any 28mm battle, historical, fantasy, The Silver Bayonet, World Wars or 40k. The roofs and stories come off so I can do interior battles. The buildings were 3D printed from https://www.printablescenery.com/product/the-farm/
I did not follow the suggested guide on building them, but made my own ruins. You get 5 pieces of thick cardboard that allows to make them as you see fit - 3 are the same and 2 the other type.
OrgMemory
Mixed Model Trees with Base, Diorama Supplies, Model Train Scenery,
Woodland Scenics, (19pcs, 2-6 inch /5-15 cm), Ho Scale Trees, Miniature
Trees with Base:
With nearly all the terrain I need to start doing solo play FOGN and Rangers of Shadowdeep, it's time to start some reviews of the terrain I have acquired. First is Battle Systems: Roads & Rivers
Battlesystems Bridge, and Road & Rivers. The blue plastic is a river mat from a Kickstarter I will review in future.
After my last Terrain order took 3 months to arrive(!!) I have ordered some more terrain from https://www.wargameminiatures.com.au/. A river, road, another town, bridge, olive trees and some stone walls.
Hopefully they arrive next week like the last lot should of, except AUSTRALIA POST LOST IT TWICE.
Fast setting modular terrain made from durable & flexible resin and ready to use.
I found this Kickstarter and it looks very good. I think I'll back it. The river and river banks look very nice, and it would make a normal game map have small dips and rises and folds look a lot nicer and realistic.
The mats are flat and flexible so are east to carry but figure's wont move much around them either.
The tree's are for 28mm, but they are looking at offering 15mm stone walls that would work for me too.
Ordering some terrain, explosion markers and books
I have ordered some
Flames of war pack 15mm blast marker - red and yellow ones from budsblastmarkers.com. There's a scene in Waterloo with a cavalry attack with smoke billowing behind them and it looks very cool. So I'm ordering some 15mmish scale markers to do the same thing for disordered (yellow) and wavering (red). Would be good for any wargame I think, designed as they are for tanks blowing up.
GURPS Age of Napoleon. No one seems to have written a novel of Wellington...IN SPACE. There's a bad series based on Hornblower, but not a land campaign. I'm surprised Games Workshop haven't done a 40k version. Out of print and I'm getting a 2nd hand copy. Reviews say it's actually not very good, but I have a dozen GURPS source books to add to it already.
Some plastic makers and steel movement trays from https://litko.net/. Showing fire, smoke, wavering/disrupted/routing and charging.
And some official Field of Glory terrain from https://miniatureworldmaker.com.au/. Hills, trees, enclosed fields, a village, impassible terrain and some other items.
I want flexible terrain for ease of transport so it needs to be flat. The hills can be made of metal for MAGNETIC TREES they sell, which would should work great with my magnetic bases from Olympic Games I use for FOGN. It is an endless source of annoyance when the figures slide off a hill.
I've sent an email asking how much for a custom sized hill. The large ones count as "standard" size in FOGN, so I need extra-large for FOGN large terrain pieces.
Edit- the Price is between $72 to #160 US for FOGN large hills, not metal...which is probably a bit too much. I should probably make my own, so that way I can place the ridge line too. I might still buy their rivers or roads though.
It's about 4.2 feet by 6.4. Very thin, but you can put hills under it to look nice than polystyrene. I need to get some hills and terrain from miniatureworldmaker.com.au
Took about 3 weeks to arrive from the UK.
They have OFFICIAL Field of Glory terrain which should be the right size.
