This week in wargaming at WSS, April 6

A little late due to the Easter holidays, but there’s still been more gaming and painting…

Guy: With the end to our Ligny Project in sight, we’ve been discussing what the ‘next big thing’ will be. James O declared that after Ligny he’d be looking at taking a break from any mad schemes for at least a few months (mad schemes, me?!). David D and I are thinking of collecting something “a little smaller” than several hundred Napoleonics! Lion Rampant is the current favourite, the idea being we start off with a smaller force and slowly build it up to a larger force for other games like Hail Caesar or Warhammer Ancient Battles. Personally, I would like to do King Stephen’s War but the ‘shiny-ness’ of the new Gripping Beast plastic horses probably means I’ll do Arabs for Crescent and Cross and Lion Rampant (El Cid is an old favourite). Speaking of my old favourite WAB, we had a cracking game a week ago of Greeks versus Galatians (play-testing for an article I’m writing for WSS). Suffice to say the Greeks have to be outmanoeuvered or they just steamroller barbarians. We used the WAB 2 Armies of Antiquity list and they are very hard going on the Gauls. Expensive cavalry and a rejig of characters crippling them… perhaps we’re better off with the old lists or using Hail Caesar!

Mark: On Thursday I went to the club and played an experimental WW2 skirmish set of rules. I had two sections of American infantry advancing on a town held by some rather shaky looking Germans. It played out very nicely, although I fell foul of a section if Germans who we bumped into in an orchard just outside the town. My GIs were either gunned down or captured! My other section made much better progress reaching the town square and knocking the Germans out of the outlying buildings. It was a useful experiment and with a bit more play testing they should work well. Entertaining ten and seven year old boys for a weekend is a different sort of challenge. Luckily I’d managed to find an old set of Blood Bowl figures and had a few games of that. It has still got some charm to it. We played the third edition rules from the early mid nineties because they seemed a bit more straightforward. I rather nostalgically like the 1st and 2nd edition still. I don’t normally play fantasy games (I’m a history teacher so I like my history really!) but the game had us laughing and crying and generally enjoying ourselves! Once in a while such a diversion can be rather  fun! Next week I’ve a few Lion Rampant WOTR scenarios to playtest which will hopefully see the light of day in the magazine. I’ve also got to work out what I’m going to run at the Naval Wargames Show. Drepana from the 1st Punic War is looking a likely contender! Watch this space!

Christy: While last weekend I completed a Viet Cong figure for my YouTube channel, I’m using the long Easter holiday to get some serious modelling and painting work done! For this week’s video, I worked on an AWI militiaman sent to me by the fine folks at Huzzahcon. They’ve asked a number of miniature painters to provide example pieces for their Hobby Academy, and I was quite happy to contribute to the cause. Additionally, I am now hard at work on the cover diorama for issue 79 of W&S. This upcoming edition will have a theme centered on the French Revolution and early Napoleonic period. I won’t give away too much at this point, but the cover model will feature a dramatic bridge defence, with very desperate odds! Right now I am working to fabricate the base, which includes a section of a wooden bridge jutting off into space, with a steep, rocky bank dropping away to the fast flowing river below. You’ll get to hear (and see) more of my progress later on, but for now I am just trying to get to grips with this ambitious project!

Jasper: Painting-wise, last week saw more steady progress on the AWI front. I’m working towards completing the units for the Hanging Rock Scenario from the Black Powder Rebellion book. I’d put together some Perry metal and plastic figures for two bases of British Legion Infantry and was planning to undercoat them this weekend. But then I’d also found the new Warlord/Italeri Tiger I at a local model store, so in a change from the usual program, I decided to rattle the box and see what fell out. I’m a fairly methodical builder, but I had the model together in about 1.5hrs: it’s got great detail and excellent fit. I’ve also been reading the proofs for issue 78 over the weekend as we’re very close to the deadline. The beautiful paintwork of Ruben Torregrosa, Andrew Taylor and David Imrie had me inspired to paint some medieval figures, just to see what I could do, having never done so before. So, yesterday I got out the airbrush, undercoated the AWI figures, the Tiger, a Mad Bob Lorraine Schlepper and some plastic Perry WOTR figures I happened to have. I completed two of them yesterday and I’m so pleased with how they came out, I’m terribly tempted to paint some more Medieval minis. Another project, just what I needed…