And so to the Cinema .

 

Me and the Mrs K went to the local cinema to see the latest Ridley Scott blockbuster - Gladiator ll . There are very few modern films that entice me to the pictures , and this new one I have seen mixed reviews about  , but I think it is a good follow up to the original ! . Shakespear it is not - but as a 'Sword and Sandal' spectacular it's good - very bloody , lots of CGI - I enjoyed it ! . People will moan about the historical accuracy and military equipment , but when has Hollywood ever bothered about that !? . I often judge a film by if I find myself checking my watch during the performance - I didn't whilst watching this one.

Recently on the tabletop.

A recent rather undocumented battle from the 'Back of Beyond' involving the Chinese Warlord Fung Shui and his quest for the 'Jade Buddha' in which his forces attack and try to cut the railway line thus depriving the Russians supplies and reinforcements - it did not go well for him.

The Chinese have Artillery !!!

That didn't shoot all game ! 

A strategically place White Russian HMG ., this proved the undoing of the Chinese left wing attack.

The Chinese Infantry move out of the cover of woods into the hailstorm of Russian fire .

The Chinese Mongolian Cavalry charge into the village and having driven off one Russian unit are shot to pieces in the deadly crossfire ! - Oh dear things are not going well for Fung Shui !

The White Russian Priest (with the look of Rasputin) encourages his parishioners in defence of the village and the impetuously charge across the battlefield and capture the Chinese Artillery piece ! at this point Fung Shui thought it was time to call it off and retire . Sorry for not recording more of the action but in the heat and excitment of the game I forgot !

 

On the painting table .

 

Finally getting back to painting and got these four Flint and Feather Indians armed with muskets finished - they have been waiting ages to get finished. They are Crucible Crush 28mm figures .

I also cleaned up added weapons and  based these Huron Great Warriors (?) to be painted next !, again Crucible Crush. I've got quite a lot of these done now and should get around to getting them on the tabletop soon 

Quick Friday morning game .

 

Well we have got the decorating done (for now !?) and having cleared off all the detritus that had gathered on my table I quickly set up a small 2D AWI game and I invited my wargaming colleague 'S' the "enfant terrible" of wargaming round for a Friday morning game.

The inital set up , I started with a force of three American militia and some Riflemen hidden in the woods - I would be reinforced by a couple of Continental Line battalions .'S' had four Line Battalions , Artillery and a few Light Infantry.

'S' advanced quickly to get into contact before my reinforcements arrived . Unfortunatly my Militia proved rather brittle and one by one fled the field .

Just as the Militia exited the field my Continentals arrived and counter attacked driving the British first line back ! - but the damage had been done with half  my army in flight, I conceded the game ! . The game was played using a simple free set of rules by Andy Callan which gave a quick fun game . We hope to link these games together in a loose informal campaign .

A view from the past .

 

The decorating is still in progress which is preventing much modeling/gaming - everthing is seeming to take longer than it should - all the painting is taking 2 or 3 coats and as I suspected all the walls are not level or plumb ! , flat pack furnishing is next ! ( Oh joy!!) . One thing the cleaning and tidying has turned up is the above photo of myself and Mrs K . It was taken about 20 years ago when we were camping at Whitby in a very small tent (we forgot to pack all the camping cutlery , plates, mugs etc and had to scourer  the town for replacements). There was a photographic gallery that did sepia period photos and so we had our picture taken . It may be a trick of the light but my beared and hair look a LOT darker than they are now ! .... It will be taking pride of place in the finished room !

The Quest for the Jade Buddha (part 2)

 

The 'Dare to Die' unit discover the body in the cabin ! 

And are attacked by the Russians - who they promptly slaughter - almost to a man ! 

The Mongolians spotted the Russian Commander all alone and charged him - he had to flee off the table and didn't return for the game ! (horse bolted !?) , not good leaeership at all !

Things get worse for the Russians the Cossacks find it hard to rally (absence of the General did not help !) and flee the table !

In the centre the Russians charge into the village to try and capture the centeral objective .

The Officer unit trys to help but are caught in a crossfire and are whittled down to below 50% and have to retreat .

TheMongolian cavalry drive the White infantry back and the infantry is driven out of the village - things are not looking good for the Whites !

The Chinese Warlord Fung Shui enters the Temple and comes across the Buddhist Monk . That is all three objectives controlled by the Chinese forces .

With the Commander absent , the enemy holding all three objectives and having lost half it's units the Russians retreat off the table - a resounding victory for the Warlord Fung Shui , what this means will become apparent in the next episode ! 

The Quest for the Jade Buddha (part 1)

 

I dice for the position of the arrival of units as they move onto the board , the Chinese got an even spread of units acrss th table on the first move.

However they drew this chance card which delayed the arrival of a unit.

The 'Dare to Die' unit dashes towards the ruined log cabin .

The Russians came onto the board mainly on the right . Note the Cossacks dashing forward towards the village still in column - risky !

Unfortunately the Russian Commander arrived on the far left miles away from his troops - this does not bode well !

Unfortunately the column of Cossacks came under fire from two units of Chinese troops and took heavy casualties .

Luckily the Chinese Commander drew a chance card that cancelled out the previous card and allowed the unit to come onto the table ..... 

Part two to follow 

The Quest for the Jade Buddha (prologue)

 

The first action of this series of games takes place on the above table , the White Russian force appear on the table edge nearest the camera and the Chinese on the far edge .

I will be using this set of rules which a quick to plat and simple enough to remember and the chance cards and command dice make it easy to play solo.

The Russian Commander 

The White Russian forces three units of Militia , one Line unit and one 'Officer' unit which count as Elite , in the background is a unit of Cossacks 

The Chinese Warlord 

Again six units made up of three Militia , an SMG armed Assault unit and a Fanatic 'Dare to Die' unit , the Cavalry are provided by Mongolian tribesmen

There are three objectives to capture the first on the left is represented by an enigmatic Monk in a ruined Temple .

In the centre a lurking stranger .

And on the right the body of a Messenger in the ruined cabin in the woods .To capture these the units will have to move onto the objective and hold it for two moves ....

PS unfortunately I managed to delete the original of this post whilst fiddling with Blogger and don't seem able to retrieve it , luckily I still had the photos and have been able to rewrite it , but all the original comments have been lost - Oops sorry about that ! 

Coming to a Wargaming Table near you soon ............

 

Toy Soldiers in Art No.20

 

Well there has been little progress on the hobby front this week due to home decorating projects , however in an idle moment I have found the above postcard online . It has five children of various ages and a display of model ships and toy soldiers of various scales . Some of the children seem to be wearing lederhosen and Tyrolean hats which points to a Austro/Germanic location ? . There look to have a family resemblance  and the middle three seem to be gals ! (of the better sort - H G Wells) , I can't quite make out the figures but I would guess at the earlry years of the 20th century . (click on photo to enlarge)

A load of new recruits for the Almannia Expeditionary Force (AEF)

I noticed these on eBay , they were Zinnbrigade homecasts I already have some which I painted up last year (.: Almannia Expeditionary Force (AEF) on parade. (tonystoysoldiers.blogspot.com) and wasn't sure I really needed more (of course I did) I placed a bid and rather forgot about it determinned not to get into  bidding war for them . Interestingly they were the only toy soldiers the seller had the rest being clothes, trainers and assorted junk - very odd !. And I won them ! with postage less than a pound a figure 

There are 53 of them which will make 3 units of 12 for AGM rules plus Officers and a Standard bearer and this rather smashing Band ! . They are not badly painted in a Toy Soldier style but need a few touch ups and basing and then a coat of gloss varnish which I hope to get done this week and then hopefully onto the tabletop .

 

A glimpse of a Golden Era of Toy Soldier production.

 

I came across this series of photos of the Britains factory circa late 1940's when most of their products went for export to pay for World War Two . They are from a Pathe News film which were shown in cinemas as news articles before the big picture These two ladies seem to be cleaning up castings .

Here we see a young lady painting up cavalry figures - OMG just look at that pile of figures !.

Serried ranks of metal goodness.

Another view of the painting process .

Here we see the figures being picked ready for packing into their boxes.

Just look at all those boxes of toy soldiers !!!

They are held in place in the boxes with thread .

'Changing the Guard' a  magnificent set of figures in their presentation box , worth a small fortune nowadays.

The finished product in the familiar red box. I find these photographs fascinating a glimpse of a bygone era .