Auf Wiedersehen 2013

Trying to piece together some highlights of the year whilst recovering from various Christmas excesses. Hope you and yours had a good one too!

Gaming Highlights

Waterloo Day
Getting 8 or so wargamers to hole up for an entire day takes a bit of effort. Hats off to Conrad Kinch who disguised the Waterloo Campaign in three connected C&C Napoleonics scenarios. As the French, our gallant victories in the first two battles weren't enough to see us to the finishing line. Such a success, that plans are in motion for a similar game of Battle Cry...

Apocalypse World
I know, not a wargame by any stretch, but a damned good time was had by all in this roller-coaster ride of a post-apocalyptic game. This is the game that got me back into regular roleplaying with my group, so kudos are due.

The Hunt
The long-awaited Pulp meets Predator game was well-received. I ran this for what seems like a record-number of players at Gaelcon. The tension and heroism in that last game went to 11!

Blogs of the Year

Small Scale Ops

An entry on my best blogs list for the second time, not just for his ongoing work on BattleTech or his great moderns, but for his Aliens vs Predator project. Take a look around the great work on the Marines and terrain for gloomy corridors

Wargaming Girl

Tamsin's workrate beggars belief; in her celebratory prize draw I was lucky enough to get some post-apocalyptic survivors (including some familiar-looking pesky kids!) done by her

Lord Ashram's House of War

While concentrating on Longstreet for the past while, there's a good variety of projects going on over at Lord Ashram's. I was especially impressed by the 15mm moderns

New Releases

'Classified' for Force on Force

Having contributed significantly to this one, I am very biased. But I'm quite proud of my involvement and feedback has been very positive on the smaller-scale scenarios in this book.

Miniature Wargames (with BattleGames)

With BattleGames having been on the ropes less than a year ago, it's dizzying to think that the new merged magazine seems like a mainstay of my hobby reading (and arriving twice as often to boot!)

Antenociti's Aircar

This unmistakably civilian sci-fi vehicle looks lovely; Antenociti's range sets the standard for me now. 

Projects in the Pipeline

Rainbow Six

With the death of Tom Clancy late in the year, I revisited Rainbow Six to see if there was anything suitable for refitting as a wargames scenario. I've decided that Rogue Spear (the old PC game) might be a better fit, and a takedown inside a warehouse and/or cargo ship is definitely on the horizon

Istvan V Dropzone Massacre

I didn't get this off the ground at all this year, so I'm going to make a concerted effort to paint up my 50-strong force of marines with supporting units this time around.

The Diomedes

While I completed all of the fighter craft I was planning to, I wasn't able to actually find something suitable as the Diomedes itself until very recently. Putting this spaceship together will be a major goal of the year.

Outstanding TV

Utopia

This short dark conspiracy series was exceedingly well done, albeit quite disturbing. It followed the hunt for a comic book manuscript, which held a secret vital to stopping/continuing vast world-altering machinations.

Hannibal

I was very dubious when I first heard of this project. But I must admit to having been won over by the two central performances by Hugh Dancy (as Will Graham) and Mads Mikkelsen (as Hannibal) as well as the visual style of the production. The writing has been nigh-ingenious and the psychological horror is top-notch (whilst using the gore factor in a relatively restrained way)

The Americans

This Cold War thriller about two deep cover Soviet agents living in the US. Wigs, disguises and the constant danger of discovery make this one a bit more pulpy than usual, but it's highly enjoyable and well done once you buy into the idea.

Books of the Year

Slim, Master of War: Burma and the Birth of Modern Warfare

So, the title's a bit of a mouthful (as well as making a grand claim) but this history of the 'forgotten' 14th Army in Burma and it's path from defeat to victory tells a powerful story on the ability of one general to turn around the fate of a fighting force

Jawbreaker: the Attack on Bin Laden and Al Qaeda

This straight-forward account by a CIA officer of his involvement in intelligence and military actions against Al Qaeda is well worth a look. It's heavily redacted in places, but despite this the narrative places the blame for Bin Laden's escape from Afghanistan squarely on central command's shoulders.

The Wargaming Compendium

Henry Hyde's all-encompassing coverage of tabletop miniatures wargaming is a must-have for gamers of all stripes. As would be expected the layout and photography is top-notch.

As always, I hope you all have a great 2014!

Kickstarter Delivers!

So after kickstarting my first project some 12 months ago, I finally got two deliveries last week!

The first one was the large box of Gunship: First Strike, a tactical space combat game which looks very well put together indeed.

The second was the Adventures of the 19XX, a graphic novel of pulp adventures in the 1930s.

So obviously I'm going to have to play/read these at some stage, but maybe when things calm down in a few weeks. Trying to get around to posting some game reports from Leprecon and another few recent games.

Adiós 2012

Hopefully you'll forgive me my recent hiatus - work and home have been hectic and I've gotten in just a single game in the last two months. Overall though, it's been a good year, so as usual here are some highlights:

Gaming Highlights

The Package
My work was published in Battlegames as a command challenge - a small engagement for Force on Force graced those esteemed pages and I've gotten some nice feedback since

Pulp Escapades
I ran a three-part campaign at Gaelcon using Perilous Trail, previously only seen in use hunting dinosaurs, but this time to track the adventures in pursuit of the Lost Treasure of Annobon...

BattleGroup Kursk
Took part in the big game down in Kildare, where we were hosted ably by Piers et al and everyone had a great lark playing this massive game just before its official release





Blogs of the Year

Dougie's Wargaming Blog
In my humble opinion, everything Dougie touches turn into gold! Between his stand-out moderns and really useful tutorials (both miniatures and terrain) this is well worth a look

Small Scale Ops
This year, I'm particularly impressed by Chris' BattleTech stuff - his (1/144 Macross) Davion & Kurita collection is gob-smackingly good!

Lard Island News
Usually I would avoid nominating an 'official' blog like this, but the guys over at Two Fat Lardies are having too much fun with their games for me to ignore it. I also love the extra insights they give us into game design (specifically for their Dux Britanniarum game).




New Releases

Medieval Scots
Claymore Castings' new line of medieval Scots is well worth a look if you're ata all interested in wargaming the late 14th century. From the look of them they’ll be usable for the Hundred Years War and War of the Roses without too much heartache, and given they seem to measure up pretty well with the Perrys’ range.

BattleGroup Kursk
Plastic Soldier Company released this lovely book back in October and I'm incredibly impressed by the look-and-feel of it in reproducing a wargame that feels like Kursk. Normandy and Fall of the Reich to come out next year

M-ATVs
I’m particularly impressed by the M-ATVs (the Humvee’s replacement) from S&S as there’s loads of different options along with oodles of stowage available.





Projects in the Pipeline

Istvaan V Dropzone

Planning to do this one-sided battle from the Horus Heresy with Steve - he'll be running it with Tomorrow's War, bringing his Chaos Marines out of cold-storage. I'll be (finally) painting my collection of Alternative Armies Firefight/Ion Age line







Attack on the Diomedes

I want to do a large scale game pitting fighters against a cruiser. I'm going to use some of Brigade's fighters to take on a scratch-built warship...
This is one for the slow-cooker. Aiming to get on the table for early 2014!




Solo-Gaming
Having been unable to get around to this in November/December I'm going to take another run at the two solo campaigns previously touted here sometime next year...

Outstanding TV

Homeland
Actually, season 1 was shown first over here earlier this year, so this is for both seasons. If the premise involved stretches credulity for you, then the acting by the two main leads (Claire Danes and Damian Lewis) makes this an outstanding show to watch

Newsroom
Although this new Aaron Sorkin vehicle may have painted itself into a corner in terms of how it can achieve its aims of changing the way the news is reported. I'd prefer less of the smaltzy romance, but otherwise it's definitely worth a look if you miss the West Wing.

Justified
This is DVD viewing, since no channel of note on this side of the Atlantic seems to have picked it up! Based on a single Elmore Leonard short story, old-school U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens (played by Timothy Olyphant) kicks ass across Kentucky.

Books of the Year

Apocalypse World
This is a post-apocalyptic roleplaying game by D. Vincent Baker I picked up after playing a dungeon-crawling spin-off at Gaelcon. The mechanics and setup are so well put together, I'm tempted to use the word 'genius' when describing them. I intend to put my money where my mouth is (so to speak) and run this next time around in our roleplaying group.





Sniper One
This account of a tour in Iraq by British Army sniper Dan Mills is intense and delivered in a no-nonsense fashion.








The Heroes
For me, this defintely counts as Joe Abercrombie mixing it up in the same setting as The First Law. Excepting the Black Company, I can't think of as anti-war a fantasy novel as this (off the top of my head at least).







Hope you had a good 2012, here's to a great '13 on all fronts

300!

So, hitting 300 posts came along a lot quicker than expected.

I know, somehow I resisted posting something Spartan!

Around the corner is Gaelcon at the end of October - this time I'll be doing some 28mm Pulp (but without the dinosaurs this time). I'm rewriting some of CS Grant's Table Top Teasers and patching them together into a narrative campaign. Warpcon and Leprecon will probably be Force on Force, though of what flavour I don't know yet.

In November (and probably into December) I'll be playing two solo campaigns:
1. Cold War gone Hot using 6mm figures to play a Memoir '44 variant
2. Modern Special Forces raid using 20mm to play Force on Force.

I've gone back to fortnightly wargaming, so you may see more regular game reports here. Another rekindling is a Cold War ImagiNation game Mr. Kinch and I are planning. Stay tuned for details.

Finally, given the popularity of the favourite figures and wargaming films series a while back I'll be doing a few on my favourite film firefights...

Next up 'll post details of a simple competition for my followers (@154 if you're curious).
In the meantime, any requests/nudges you want to give me for the next 100 posts?

Photo Finish

While I was busy uploading photos from the Kursk game, the Solo November poll closed.

Talk about making things up as I go along - despite the Cold War option taking an early lead, the Special Ops caught up in the last few days: both finished on 13 votes apiece!

Napoleon vs. Austria, Mob vs. Marines and Battle of Saipan were all in joint 3rd place with 5 votes each.

So I guess that means that I'm just going to have to play two solo campaigns this year...For the Cold War gone Hot campaign I already have something sketched out - using some scenarios from Programmed Wargames Scenarios by Charles Stewart Grant.

For Special Operations I'm going to put on my thinking cap, either something based on The Revenge of the 47 Ronin or maybe even use the Raid on St. Michel. If you have any preferences or other ideas, please leave a comment below.

Anyway, I noticed as I went to add this that I've reached post #300! That means a State of the Union is imminent and maybe even a competition from my devoted following.

Solo November?

I think Solo November was organised as a one-off last year (the whole 11-11-11 thing).

Well, I had a lot of fun last time so I'm going to do something similar again come this year.

Some options jump out at me:

1. Play a series of Special Ops missions
   
   
   Using a selection of my 20mm moderns with Force on Force
   
2. Play Napoleon's struggle against Austria
   
   
   Using my 6mm French and Austrians (from Baccus) with C&C Napoleonics
   
3. Play a Cold War Gone Hot campaign
   
   
   Using my 6mm miniatures for either Cold War Commander or Memoir '84 (hat-tip to Oisin for his Cold War variant of '44) if I can't get my head around CWC for solo
   
4. Pit the Mob against the Marines in a Caribbean Port
   
   
   Using my 28mm collection for Perilous Trail
   
5. Continue the high medieval First War of Ruritanian Succession
   
   
   Using my 28mm Bretonnians, probably for Dux Britanniarum (just arrived in the post on Wednesday)
   
6. Storm the beaches of Saipan, 1944
   
   
   Using my 6mm Marines & Japanese (from Irregular) Memoir '44

So polling is open on the top-right corner of the blog. I've left the voting a multiple choice so if more than one takes your fancy feel free to click them.

Thanks!