BUILD THAT WALL

A project marked by excessive and tedious repetition; I have finally finished my collection of Peter Pig walls.  Over the years I had been slowly buying a set here and there when I would place other orders.  I even went so far as to contact them for a special order of just the long straight wall sections.  (which they very nicely obliged) The walls are the Peter Pig "High Walls" found under the Normandy Stuff section of their scenery.  They are resin and each pack contains 5 pieces, 1 Long, 1 Long with a breach, 1 medium and two short lengths.  I also picked up 3 packs of their doors.  The walls are a brick and stucco design that is pretty universal and useful to this day.  The doors a mixture of wooden and metal designs.

In the end it took a couple weeks, (mostly due to my incredible slowness) but it is done.  Over 22 feet of walls and a foot worth of doorways.

23.85' to be exact

Are You Ready For Some Football?

Our gaming group routinely has outbursts away from the core historical(-ish) games that make up the bulwark of our gaming.  Blood Bowl is one of these great asides.  A few years ago Games Workshop re-released Blood Bowl.  It must have been a success as they have continued (although slowly) to release more and more miniatures for the various teams. 

I enjoy Blood Bowl but will be quick to tell you that I'm not very good at the game.  There are players in our group who compete using teams with much more thought out strategies.  I, on the other hand, play the perpetual bottom-feeders: Goblins.  I find it enjoyable to play a team that can be expected to lose, it keeps me from getting to heavily invested in the competition.  The greatest joy is the wild collection of illegal weapons they can wield (before getting caught and sent off).  Nothing beats chainsawing apart an opposing player that you lack the strength to even attempt to block.  Or lobbing a bomb into a nicely set up cage.  The re-release also gave the Goblins two new players: the Doom Diver and the Ooligan.  I've yet to play a game with these new models, so it will be exciting to see how they fit in. With the exception of two trolls that I use to anchor the center of my line, the rest of the normal players are largely useless speedbumps.

Gobbos

Back: Doom Diver, Bomma, Pogoer

Front: Ooligan, Looney, Fanatic

Trolls

from behind

The new models are spectacular.  There are a lot of great details and character, even amongst the normal goblins.  The Forge World troll (#20) adds some distinction between the two big men, and if you believe the rumors, was also a swipe at people who complained that every big man in Blood Bowl was modelled with "one leg in the air".

I can now retire my old Gobbo team.  I painted it about 10 years ago, and until this team might have been the last 28mm (heroic?/32mm?.... basically whatever size GW is) figures I painted before diving off into 15mm and smaller historicals.  They'll be stowed away unless someone else decides they want to be my rowdy friends.

Patrick's Patent Guide for Painting Any Rate Ship

While the age of fighting sail has always been a staple when it comes to my earliest memories of wargaming, I knew very little about it when I started to revive that memory a couple of years ago.  

So with my lack of knowledge I took the cautious approach and... went straight to GHQ and hit BUY BUY BUY!!!!

After my fervor died down I did a lot of Google searching, hit up TMP and bought some books on the period.    Probably the best find for me was Langton Miniatures.   Not only do they sell a lot of fine miniatures, they even sell the odd ones that GHQ doesn't.  More importantly, they sell  A GUIDE TO: Assembly, Painting & Rigging of Napoleonic Naval Models in Scale 1:1200.  While that might be a mouthful, the content is immeasurable.

simply referred to as "the guide" from now on

The book covers...  well everything it says in the title.  As far as painting goes, it has diagrams to point out all the parts of the sails and hull.  Further, it goes into listing how each part could/should be painted.

Modern French Army - Part 3.5, The Vehicles (Enter the VBCI)

As mentioned before, I have scoured the internet in search of French military equipment to expand my little reaction force.  I even reached out to a number of people who produce models, but never received replies.   That was until the man of the hour, Luis Glehn, hit me up with the encouraging words "Give me a few days and I should be able to do it".   True to his word, he delivered and I can't thank him enough.  He has a Shapeways store Small Scale Shop with over 250 items.  I highly recommend his work, and it's hard to beat someone who will go out of the way to simply create the things you need.

I'm really excited, as having models of these will really allow us to wargame the forefront of French military involvements. As well as many hypothetical engagements.

VBCI:

Vehicule Blinde de Combat d'Infanterie

The French "Armored Infantry Fighting Vehicle", (such an original name), leapt the French military into the world of massive but maneuverable IFVs. Standing in about a meter taller than the VAB and well over a meter than the AMX-10P, this is a real beast.   Armed with a 25mm dual feed cannon and a co-axial 7.62mm machine gun, it's standard form also packs a little more punch than the standard AMX-10P that it is replacing.  The vehicle was designed to be fully integrated with the new integrated vehicle information system as well as the FELIN system.  The VBCI has a crew of three and can carry an additional 8 people. (7 men being the standard squad size)

Stealth fields!!!

(their original plastic form)

Finishing Up Loose Ends

So, quite clearly I've not posted anything in a while.  And while normally you can attribute this to pure laziness, this time I've actually been doing some work at painting.  In spite of my terrible work schedule, I plugged through roughly 100+ figures, 22 animals and 4 vehicles.  These are all inching me toward finally running my long talked about mini campaing.  But there is always still so much more work to do.

*These are just samplings. (as photographs of the same figures wearing the same or slightly different clothes seemed pointless)   
**Apologies for the photos, I am working through using a new camera set up.

POLICE:

Dusting Off A Classic

Snap-shot: Mansourah

Egyptian MiGs attempt to intercept Israelis

7 October 1973, 0745hrs

Over Mansourah Airfield, Egypt

Our group had previously played through 18 of the 27 missions included in the Star and Pyramid campaign book for the Check Your 6! Jet Age rules.  It has been well over a year since the last time we played any of the missions.  As a testament to how easy the rules are, we got 6 players through this game without problem.

The Forces:

Egyptian Air Force:
6 MiG-21MFs with 1 Veteran pilot, 1 Skilled pilot and 4 Green pilots
3 Light AAA
1 SA-3B Battery

Israel Air Force:
2 F-4Es (cover flight) with 1 Veteran pilot and 1 Skilled pilot
2 F-4Es (bomb flight) with 2 Skilled pilots
4 A-4N with 1 Veteran pilot and 3 Skilled pilots

The Israeli orders were simple, the 2 F-4s loaded out as bombers were to hit the runway, while the A-4s bombed the airbase facilities and command center adjacent to the runway.  This left 2 F-4s to cover the bombing run, entering a few turns into the game.

The Egyptians mission was also straightforward: keep the runway from being bombed, while destroying as many Israelis as possible.

Modern French Army - Part 4, The Aircraft

For the most part this section and the models contained in it are just for wargaming eye candy.  There is no real or realistic need to place a model of a jet or helicopter striking from long range on the table. Their effects are represented by generic in-game rules, but I like the completeness that they bring to the force.... and there is the outside possibility that they might, for some reason, appear in some other state in the game. The transports, on the other hand, will almost certainly be on-board in games.

The camouflaged helicopters were painted by me, using the exact same paints and techniques as I used on the vehicles.

THE HELICOPTERS:

SA 330 Puma

(QRF)

The Aerospatiale SA 330 Puma is a medium transport helicopter, carrying up to 16 passengers, flown by the French Army.  It can also operate as a gunship, mounting a 20mm cannon from the side door.  It is fast and durable, being able to operate fully loaded, with just one operational engine. There are increasingly less numbers in operation with the NHIndustries NH90 replacing it.

Modern French Army - Part 3, The Vehicles

The modernity that I can reach with my French force is, like the infantry, limited by the vehicles available for purchase.  The likes of QRF and, later,  Battlefront Miniatures are hard to beat.  QRF does nearly everything, while Battlefront doesn't do as much, but damn it if they don't do it well.  The biggest shout out goes to Irishserb's Miniatures.  His vehicles really fleshed out the lighter and middle areas that: 1. Nobody else does, and 2. are what I absolutely needed for the smaller scale actions we are wargaming.  Furthermore, he went above and beyond on occasions to get me things.  Can't thank him enough.

Information wise, there is a lot of good information on the Internet.  If there are things tank-related, there are usually passionate throngs of people who can hyper analyze them to levels no one could ever care about.  There are still discrepancies, but there are a number of reasons for this and usually there is a middle ground to land on rather than get too bogged down.

As far as books go: I have found a number of good books.  Barnes and Noble bargains yielded some good finds. Unfortunately in the US the books tend to focus on the US, giving only a few sentences and data lines to less well recognized vehicles.  Again I'll tout the book VEHICULES DE COMBAT FRANCAIS D'AUJOURD'HUI by Yves Debay as a one-stop shop.  It's in French, so you'll encounter hiccups with electronic translators, but the data (numbers) don't change.  It covers everything.  From tanks, armored cars, infantry transports and weapons, soft skins, artillery, and SAMs. Well beyond what I needed it for.  It even has a section on "the future" VBCI, which has since been deployed.

A lot of good information.  Some better than others.

PAINTING:

I really do hate painting.  In my procrastinations I ironically spent more time saving pictures of French vehicles than it did for me to actually paint them.  The pictures were not without their use.  In the past, I used a very quick and dirty method for painting camouflage, but for the these I tried to replicate the actual patterns used.

QRF VABs (multiple variants) and AMX-10 RC

Modern French Army - Part 2.5, The Infantry (TO&E)

Rather than retyping the TO&Es, I'll post these screen-shots of the two most succinctly composed ones I could find.  They are very similar to each other as well as similar to other sources.  If anyone has any formal sources they could provide, that would be greatly appreciated.  Until that time, I thank the authors of these works.  They have been immeasurably helpful.

-click to enlarge-

The above was found at this website. I am not the author.

-click to enlarge-

The above was found at this website.  Again, I am not the author.

These were fantastic references and will hopefully aid anyone, who like me, was completely clueless.

Modern French Army - Part 2, The Infantry

My initial plan for my French force was a pretty generic one.  I didn't know enough about the composition or equipment used by the French, nor did anyone I know personally.  Peter Pig sold French Foreign Legion infantry in their AK47 section and I had previously found the vehicles that Irishserb sold on his website. With that I started rolling onward.

I was lucky to quickly find the book Paras 11e Division Parachutiste French Paratroops Today on eBay.  It must not have been a big seller for the guy, because despite only ordering (and double-checking paying) for one, I received every copy he was selling.  It is a French/English book from 1989 about the 11th Para Division.  Inside was a treasure-trove of pictures, explanations and most importantly: a breakdown of the platoon/squad.   With this information, I decided to base my force on the 3rd Marine Parachute Regiment (3e RPIMa) and set about ordering up the figures I needed.  It was 2016, but 1989 wasn't that long ago right....

Modern French Army - Part 1, The Overview

The task of finding information on the current French army was (and is) an incredible pain in the ass.  Starting off, most of the online information doesn't come from the most reliable sources... assuming it's sourced at all.  Large amounts of the information online is now also largely out of date.  Which, I can understand as there probably isn't a massive demand for the information.   At least not in English.  I managed to find a decent amount of books and historical "specials" that feature the various French military forces.  Again, most of this information is from before the 90's.  I went as far as purchasing books in French (thank God for Google translate) to aid my cause.  One book in particular, VEHICULES DE COMBAT FRANCAIS D'AUJOURD'HUI by Yves Debay would be one of the best purchases.  Published in 1998, it's now over two decades old, but has a lot of detailed information that I was unable to locate anywhere else.

Some of the better books I found.

The primary goal of building my modern French force was to wargame the various interventions that France has engaged in.  While there are many books on these engagements, few are written with the wargamer in mind.   SO, I have tried to do the best with what I could find.  If anything is incorrect, feel free to tell me.  It might be too late to do anything about it at this point (I've already built and painted the army), but I do appreciate any help.

UN in AK47 Republic

French Intervention Force

Although we already had the original, the Peter Pig ruleset: AK47 Republic 2009 Edition Reloaded would prove to be the "Rules That Launched a Thousand Dollars".   In reality it has probably launched many thousands of dollars.... but that's not what I really want to think about here.

After getting the new AK47 Republic rules, we played many games using Flames of War WW2 figures as stand-ins.  (Some of which were played as the Soviet Backed Arabs vs the Israeli Army.  This would eventually lead down the next rabbit-hole of money) After a while we started sorting out who wanted to play which of the many colorful/humorous armies listed in the book. I grabbed up a few of the Peter Pig pre-made armies, plus lots of bonus/option pieces, and set to work.  After plowing my way through those armies, I sought out something different.  Something that would stand out from the pack.  I landed on the Western Intervention Army, which would eventually get bestowed with the United Nations "branding".

My knowledge on literally *anything* in the historical Cold War/African conflicts was near no-existent.  So I began a rampant Google search phase where I would come across many websites and blogs that would help guide me on my way.

It should be noted that until very recently when Battlefront Miniatures started releasing French for their Team Yankee line, there were very few sources for Cold War or Modern French.  When I started in 2012, it was only as follows:

QRF Miniatures
Peter Pig
Irishserb's Miniatures

The Infantry:

UN Inspector with bodyguard

French Infantry with FAMAS

French manning heavy machine guns

 The above figures are all from Peter Pig's French Foreign Legion in the Modern Africa/AK47 range.

French with anti tank weapons

Bizarrely missing from Peter Pig's FFL line are anti tank weapons.  In the AK47 rules the generically named "RPG" foot bases are the backbone of your infantry.  Here I've used QRFs French with AT-4 figures.  They're taller and more differently proportioned that Peter Pig's.  This is something I would normally try to avoid, but I needed the figures.

Early Beginnings

A cursory, often rambling, but whimsical history.

As far back as I can remember, wargaming has been a part of my life.  Vague and foggy memories of my dad and his friends, excitedly cheering and lamenting the performance of little armies of men.   Plastic tanks, sailing ships, knights, spears, and immense lines of  what I would later learn are (but still cannot identify) Napoleonics, waged war over hills, roads, forests and oceans.  A magnet for a child's uninhibited imagination.

I never understood what was going on when I was "playing" back then. Far too young to understand the rules being played.  I also didn't have any interest to understand them.  I just wanted to roll dice and shoot/stab the other guy.  Later on, basic rules were bolted on to the "playing" that I was doing, and a wargamer was born.

My upbringing was with historical and some classical fantasy elements.  But in the mid 90s, while attending a wargame convention, I turned heretic and fell in love with the glitz and glamor of 2nd Edition Warhammer 40k.  Again, a game that was still beyond my abilities at the time, but it looked so damn cool.   My dad bought me a squad of Space Marines and despite terrible glue jobs, and equally lacking paintjobs, I was all in.  

For the next decade and a half, I sunk my (and a lot of my dads) money into 40k and it's offspring: Space Hulk, Gorkamorka, Battlefleet Gothic, ect.  I still played every permeation of historical wargame that was held on Saturday nights,  (although, not so much with the Napoleonics), but I was at foremost a "sci fi" gamer.  I was fixated on fleshing out all my accumulated 40k armies.  I bought up Space Marines, Orks, Imperial Guard, Dark Eldar, Chaos, Necrons, Sisters of Battle, Tau, Grey Knights.  Vast armies that were beyond anything one person would ever need. (until Apocalypse came out)

Then in late December 2011, we were all gathered around the wargame table and the subject of a little rule set my dad had purchased a while before, AK47 Republic came up.  I borrowed the rules and read them.   I was never more excited to read a set of rules, much less find out that there was an updated edition and lines of figures to represent them.  The rules were very tongue-in-cheek, but looked like fun.  Admittedly, to me, the conflicts in Africa always were nothing more than a blur of constant warfare derived from CNN clips.  My only previous experience with the Cold War was the funny looking hordes of long-barreled Soviet tanks rushing en-mass (read: "hub to hub") across a table.   Prior to further research in these "hot" Cold War actions, I was thoroughly disinterested in the period.  But now, that became my new focus.  A couple army lists in the back of the AK47 Republic rules for Arab/Israeli conflicts dragged me down yet another hole.  I expected to buy some figures to do the 6 Day War, but also became distracted into the 1982 Lebanese Civil War/Israeli invasion.  This led me to go back and look for more realistic and historical representations of various African conflicts.  With more research and fascination leading me to acquiring toeholds in modern French and modern-ultra modern India/Pakistan micro armor.

In the end, I have come back to my historical roots and become heavily invested in 15mm "hot" Cold War, (still no interest in European theater), 1/300 jet combat and 1/300 moderns.  Recent interest has even brought me full circle to buying 1/1200 Age of Sail ships, which is a period I would never have dreamt I would be interested in.


***It should be further noted that since this was written and left in draft for the better part of a year (I know, I know! I knock bloggers inactivity and then immediately fail myself), I have gotten back into Warhammer 40k.***

The loop has become a vortex.

It begins

Do People Still Blog Anymore?

After a quick search through my own list of followed wargame blogs, I would guess: not so much.  It appears many people don't have the time, or interest in doing things like this anymore.  They've become something akin to relics, oddities, or dinosaurs, if you will.

That being said, there are still some that continue to plug along, as well as others that have had inspiring resurgences.  (which we'll get to in a later post)

If nothing else, it can serve a repository for pictures of recent wargames, projects and pop culture musings.

But without further delay, 

Welcome to Jurassic Park.

(I do not plan on eventually having dinosaurs on this dinosaur tour.)