Hawker Hurricane

I've never bothered much with air support in my WW2 battles in the past but seem to have been acquiring a number of  aircraft recently starting with the balsa pulp planes. So it seems reasonable to make a conscious effort to look out for cheapish planes and build up my air forces... so when a couple of nice looking Hurricanes came up, seemed reasonable to put a bid in.

Not bad for £7 including postage.

Built with undercarriage down - I can live with that!

Garrison EHC Cataphracts

For the last week there's been the start of a draft post for my latest DBA game... which  is set up but hasn't happened yet. Mainly because the wargames shed is currently showing a temperature of 96 degrees and hasn't dropped below 90 in that time...

But I'm still doing other things - mainly painting 'orphan' units again. This time it's getting a unit of Companion EHC sorted.

Simply my Sarmation cataphract conversion - bowcase removed and given sidearm - mounted on the Achaemenid Persian half armoured cataphract horse.

Not about to try and say it's a realistic representation of early Successor uparmoured Companions, but it will do.

Already have a couple of units of fully armoured cataphracts of course - that do as Seleucid, Parthian, Sassanid, Late Roman...

Adding a shed temperature update - 104... but then, our outside thermometer is reading 110!

RAFM MU Expedition to the Antarctic

Quietly working through various RAFM figures - these were bought in two lots, one several years ago when I simply bought one of each set of RAFM Cthulhu Classics (but missed the big boxed sets) then another a couple of years ago as I started building up Newhaven. One sled just didn't seem to be enough if I wanted to do an expedition!

At a distance, don't look too bad...

Pity about close up - especially obvious I can't paint huskies.

The Saitic/Kushite battle

For the next battle I went for a Saitic/Kushte shoot out, with the Kushites including 2 native Egyptian elements. In other words it was DBA army 1/53 versus army 1/46! Again some of the photos weren't very good due to the lighting situation.

The start of  Move 1. The Kushites are on the right, like the Assyrians still putting cavalry and chariots on the right flank with the native Egyptians holding the left. Kushite Spears and Egyptian Blades standard Garrison figures, Cavalry Minifigs as I never got round to doing the Garrison versions.

The armies at the end of Sequence 1 - as it was really the first 3 moves getting into position. Same Saitic army as before but I thought I would swap the positions of the Bow and Light Archer elements this time.

'Move 2' and the Kushite right is starting to draw ahead  as the Saitic left holds back a bit. The Light Archers are not quite as capable of holding Cavalry as Bows are!

Contact. The Saitic General has decided that the light archers facing the Kushite cavalry will be needing help more than the bows do... or perhaps, didn't like his chances where he was...  In retrospect I should have refused the Kushite right flank a bit.

As the Saitic light horse are pushed back and one unit of outnumbered Bows is destroyed, could be right. Meanwhile the Saitic Spears destroyed the Kushite light chariot and light archers managed to push back one of the Kushite cavalry elements.

At the start of Move 4 the Saitic right is not looking very happy! Meanwhile the Saitic General has managed to hit the Kushite cavalry in the flank but as the Kushites made contact with the light archers first it meant the chariot just counts as a flank support.

Sadly, this move the cavalry managed to destroy both light archer elements while on the left the Kushite blades took out the Saitic bows and the light horse - well, they should probably have followed the General instead of charging back in.

So end of Move 4 the Saitic right and left flanks had both been destroyed plus they reached that 4 elements lost/battle lost moment. Swapping the Bows and Light Archers round proved a bad choice.
Again, a shortish but fun game where I thought I'd try a couple of things that didn't quite come off.

The random palm trees again did their job well as Move Markers - it's proving to be a a simple but effective way of visually keeping me straight for sorting the photos!

The Saitic/Neo-Assyrian battle

Firstly, apologies for the quality of the pictures - one side of the table faced full length windows and it was a sunny day; looks like some out of focus but it's just strong shadows!

So, the battle...

Rules basically DBA. Being a solo effort I didn't see the need for alternative moves or PIP dice. With combat, I diced to see which side to start each set of combats from - important for push backs and overlaps. All archers (including Ps and LH) were given a 2" range rather than just Bw. Sp count 2 ranks against all opponents. Battlefield no terrain, just set up and advance to contact.

The Saitic lineup. Light troops on the right, Bws on the left, Generals chariot and spears in the centre.

Neo-Assyrian forces. The different colour bases show several decades of changes - this is mainly a 1970s army updated in stages to DBA. The blue chariot was originally the Generals chariot but I swapped it out before the battle. These chariots are a Lamming/Minifigs mix, the Hordes are Minifigs, everything else is Lamming.

When I set up my first thought was that it would be an easy Assyrian victory.

You may notice random palm trees. This is a variation on using numbered cards to mark the moves - 2 trees means move 2. 'Move 1', however, was a bit different - I just lumped the initial 3 moves together on the grounds nothing happened except people moving forward. So Move 2 was really Move 4. Happily, I know what I mean.

So Move 2 was the move into contact/shooting range move...

Move 2 was not good for the Assyrians. Cavalry rolled 2, Bw 4, straight kill. Ax 'Destroyed by Knights in good going' Hordes ' destroyed 'Or if shot at.' First contact and Assyrians already one kill away from the 4 element break point!

Removing casualties shows the the gaps that have appeared in the Assyrian ranks.

Then on Move 3 it was a bit better as the Assyrian general and surviving Cv took out both Saitic Bw elements.

But then on Move 4 the other Assyrian chariot was destroyed taking it down to 4 elements lost. The Egyptians lost an element of Ps archers, but that only took Egyptians losses to 3 elements.

So first battle, Saitic win. I'll often continue beyond this point but couldn't see the Assyrians turning things around - their left flank was doing OK, but those Ax in the centre were about to be swamped and the second rank of Egyptian Sp would be able to turn and face the outflanking Assyrian cavalry. If the Assyrian chariot had rolled the 4 instead of a 1 things could have been a bit different.

Simple battle, nothing complicated, enjoyed it.

Back to basics - Saitic Egyptians v Neo-Assyrians, Saitic v Kushites Part the First.

Haven't played a DBA game in ages and feeling withdrawal symptoms, so got down to getting the figures out. So, decided on a couple of games. Normally I tend to use Minifigs for Egyptian and Assyrian armies, for these I decided to give the others a chance.

Rather than putting this lot in  with the battle descriptions I thought I 'd just put the army descriptions in a separate post with links to the armies/figures from previous posts.

Neo-Assyrian Empire 1/45

So sorted out my (mainly) Lamming Neo-Assyrians - basically the ones that appear at the top of my blog - plus my Garrison Saitic Egyptians and Kushites. However, I also used the tin plate chariot as the general. Likewise, the army itself dates back to the 70s - pre-DBA, pre-Hordes. So for them I used some of the S Range javelin men that I put on Hordes bases.

Saitic Army 1/53

One that was completely off the shelf with no need for substitutions.   One nice thing about this army - from my point of view anyway - is that every figure is one of my conversions. 

Kushite Egyptian 1/46

Another army of conversions (mostly) - though in this case I still haven't sorted the Cv element out yet (?) and had to use one from my Minifigs Kushite army...

Ki-46 Dinah

Following all those Japanese aircraft models Tim Gow showcased on his Megablitz site. I succumbed to temptation and sought out a Dinah on EBay. The Dinah was always one of my favourite aircraft back in my early youth when I did make Airfix aircraft as well as tanks - my memory of my own model, painted in a white scheme, is still quite vivid...

That is a stunning colour scheme!

The red props are my contribution and certainly not Chapter Approved.

But then the colour scheme is meant to be 'hemp' rather than white and I haven't bothered with the yellow transfers on the leading edge of the wings either.

Newhaven cannon fodder

It's one thing spending loads on a few figures and then ages painting them up - but if you want large panic stricken crowds running away from/getting trampled by monsters it doesn't work as well. You need a cheap and cheerful rent-a-mob for that.

So had a trawl through eBay for cheap architectural models. Slimline, not at all like chunky wargames figures, they are not only cheap, you can get them cheap and ready-painted...

Bought a pack of 50 listed as 1/50th scale for £6.59 - and as a 'trial' I also bought a pack of 100 ready painted 1/75th figures to see if I could use them for anything - well, at £3.18 painted...

One reason for looking at the 1/75th figures was because I came across another site, Langley Miniature Models, - expensive but, used in conjunction with bulk cheap figures, might be of interest. It's a massive range - you can get them unpainted as well. If I was really, really... really rich I would seriously consider building up a circus or fairground using their figures. As it is, I have acquired some Lledo circus pieces - looking now at a bit of scratch building a few items to go with them.

Crude paint job and only a few poses - I can live with that,would have preferred more sitting figures in this random mix.

The taller, thinner architectural figures don't fit all that well with the smaller of my metal figures.

Likewise, the 1/75th scale figures are both a bit too thin and short in comparison with the bulkier metal figures. Probably a mistake to have based the architectural figures on 3mm thick bases though.

This is where the smaller figures come into their own. The tall figures are a bit too tall, the 1/75th together with the smaller metal figures look a lot better next to the monsters..

So, overall - should have some uses for both sets of figures. It's a matter of matching them to buildings and scenarios - I'm not about to use the 1/75th figures with the 28mm Newhaven buildings, but with smaller buildings and most terrain pieces should be fine - the Lledo buildings and some Lledo cars should be fine, some are listed as 1/76th anyway.

Giesbers Models A1E1 Independent.

Christmas and Birthday presents can be a nightmare for me - I want something, I usually get it before those times anyway. So I tend to think 'What will I probably want in future' - well, the Early War Miniatures A1E1 Independent and Vickers Medium seemed to fit the bill - an expensive want, probably wouldn't buy myself, suitable for a present. That was 3-4 years ago, the Independent is now finished as an adjunct to Newhaven.

One thing I seem to have done is glue the gun mantlet on the main gun on the outside of the turret - seems like it should be on the inside. One the other hand, the War Thunder Wiki site pictures have got the gun upside down, so  I'll not worry too much about my mistake! I'll just call it a production upgrade.

The markings are a very crude paint job to represent the Guards Armoured Division of WW2 - well. it's fantasy.

Likewise, it's an HQ tank and RAC.

Very basic paint job - sprayed olive green with very limited added detail - fine for it's purpose.

Sadly, though, being 1/76th, it doesn't really mesh with the armoured cars. On the other hand, for mass actions I could go down to 20mm quite happily and perhaps get some nice, cheap Frontline Medium Mk2s and Armoured cars - it would make the monsters bigger which would be an advantage.

Medical update

Back to out patients today. seem to be getting there - steroids now down to 4 tablets a day, most things OK, blood pH a bit low as are potassium levels.

However, main thing...

There are 2 things wrong with me - and the potential killer was barely mentioned... it's down as having a minor effect on my issues, the one of concern being the one that has a 90% remission rate though has a 50% chance of coming back - at which point it's treatable...

This is a bit better than a 25-73% chance of surviving the next ten years depending on how aggressive it is!

So, generally speaking, still a way to go but a good day all round.

Next out patients visit in 2 months.

HBLS Armoured cars complete

I've now painted the other two armoured cars - an Austin  and Austin-Putilov(?). Possibly...

I did finally decide to varnish then, including the Rolls Royce - they look much in a clear varnish instead of a mat finish and will fit in better with my other figures. I 've also made an attempt to tone down some of the black on the tyres with grey - not as successful!

I've left all three plain green again with no markings.

Rolls Royce Armoured Car. Not sure of year - 1914?

Austin  Armoured Car - on  box listed as CW5 Austin However, the guns look more like an Austin in British use, so I think it probably isn't one of the  Russian versions. Would have preferred the version with the Russian style gun, it's a lot less likely to break.

Austin-Putilov Armoured Car code GW17 - just listed on box as a Putilov A/C -pictures of these I've seen were actually painted grey rather than green but green means I can integrate it with the others easier!