Wargames Holiday Centre (a weekend with the boys)

I will deal with the games in a couple of separate posts, one for each game. First though I thought it might be a good idea of giving you a feel for what the experience was like for me and what you could experience if you get a chance to go.

 

First up the Wargames Holiday Centre (WHC) is under I believe it's third ownership and has been transferred from Scarborough in Yorkshire down to Bassingstoke in Hampshire and is now ran by Mark Freeth who is using a mix of the previous centres figures and new units he is steadily collecting. Some of the original figures are now looking tired but mark is cleaning these up and breathing life into the old dogs of war.

 

Lee was picking me up, the idea being he would call round at 10am for a coffee, chat and sought out the various items each of us have got the other (it gets complicated). After that we would collect Adi and Andy. Well as always plans don't work out exactly as planned as Lee collected me at !! and we shot straight off for Adi after exchanging goods. Andy was now not coming as he had work to do at home (bummer that) and we were soon on our way down south.

 

 

We paid our respects and sacrificed our pocket change at the Golden Archers as I am sure so many Generals have done before us and finally made it to out destination about an hour early. Lee game Mark a call and he made his way over to us about 30 mins later. The outside of the Holiday Centre will not inspire any Armchair General, it's main characteristic is it's totally normal and boring industrial unit look about it. New unit I grant you but boring none the less. Just behind Mark was Ken, very much a WHC vet and not long after Ken Mike and Ralph arrived with the bad news that the last gent was also not able to make the trip. No boring chores in his case unfortunately, his was more dramatic as he was in hospital with a leg injury! Ralph had played the rules some years before but had not in years whilst Mike had only played at Naval in any period and even though that was Napoleonic it really was not a good basis to work from. I on the other hand HAD played Napoleonic many times with many rules but never with the rules they use. These are In The Grand Manner, designed for the use at the WHC but used by plenty away from the centre as well. Most of the way down, Adi and Lee had been giving me primers on the rules which surprisingly helped when it came to the games.

 

When it came to sides Ken stated he would like British but would play the French almost as happily (just the week before Ken had been mauled rather badly in a game so we all felt for him and agreed to his choice). The rest anyway may well have had sides they would have liked but not enough to request it. Me and Mike were drafted into Ken's side whilst Adi, Lee and Ralph had the French. This meant the least two experienced players were on the same side and this was no problem as it meant we would automatically be opposite an experienced player. We as the Allies had to set up first after assigning Divisions. As it worked out I was playing mostly against Adi with some of Lee's troops coming in as well. Lee had Ken and Mike was fighting Ralph who he had traveled across with. I was to find out in the second game that being paired to fight Ralph was a rather nice experience. He took his time to explain some of the details of the rules which helped build more depth to my rule knowledge. Adi had also done plenty of this in the first game so I was fortunate indeed. Basically we had a good bunch of players and it has to be said that all the vets had significant number of games at the various incarnations of the WHC and could only come up with a pair of bad experiences with players they would not wish to play again but even in these cases they said it did not spoil the experience. I think that says a lot about us wargames and dispels my concern that when someone pays for such an experience the need to win can reduce the experience. Winning it seems is good, having a great weekend leaves the rest so far behind it's almost invisible!

 

You do not put units on the table at start, rather it's sets of Formica tiles which can represent between zero and two units with a maximum of 8 blanks for our force. To make our force look rather chunky we had 1 unit per tile. The French mixed it up rather more.

 

The Unit is fairly square in shape and the three tables are 28 feet long!! and 6 feet wide with a good alley between the tables to allow constant movement of the players. What makes this more impressive is the racks shown above line one side of the building and hold a mix of buildings and units. WWII and Napoleonic occupy half the wall.......

 

......the other half the wall is all Napoleonic and buildings. The shelves are deep and packed with figures. We had plenty of French that did not grace the table, never mind the other nationalities such as Prussian and Austrian.

 

These are just some of the other buildings that are on the opposite wall. Simply put he has buildings to cover all theatres and scales.

 

Under each and every part of the three 28 foot tables is racks of either WWII tanks and infantry or yet more terrain squares or yet more buildings. It's hard to get a grip on just how much gear is stored here. No wonder the place has a modern alarm system and security. The site itself is only accessible trough barriers and protected by 24 hour on site security. Mike obviously took a great deal of trouble picking a site. I was talking about this and along with the obvious security needs was a second and to the user more important aspect. As the unit is so new it was already clean and dust free. The upper walls were clad in wood that had been painted brilliant white (Mike has painted the lower walls a light blue. With the ceiling being made up of metal panels with large clear see through panels the need for artificial light is postponed till mid afternoon and the lights are powerful. At no point was light an issue.

 

It also has a small kitchen and a rest area away from the action and lunch break. Mike has a way of running the whole weekend that promotes a relaxed atmosphere but still keeps the turns moving along at a pace that gets results with out a feeling of being rushed.

 

Weekend games such as the ones we had are £150 which includes playing from about 3.30pm to gone 7pm on the Friday, Saturday from 9.30 till way past 7pm and starting again on Sunday at 9.30 till finished which in our case was pre 4pm but can go on past for longer if it's close to conclusion.

 

For those of us staying over a B&B is £30 including breakfast (£25 without) or better value was the Hilton at £35 twin room (each) including a buffet breakfast that really set you up for the day. The negative with the hotel is eating in is very expensive but the town centre is not a terrible walk in or a quick nip in the car. If you take the latter two options plenty of restaurants to choose from including a excellent buffet Chinese that we used on the Friday night. Mark puts on a great lunch and I never thought I would say this but spending £150 on wargameing and not getting a single figure, building or paint can be great value!



Adler French Lancers

Sorry it's another 6mm post. Bought these figures at The World Championships at Donnington a couple of months ago and was keen to paint them up to see how Adler cavalry paint up. I already have 5 regiments of Lancers but they are Irregular and will have to be replaced at some point.

 

Like the infantry these needed cleaning up and flash removing but it was not too bad, just not used to having to do this in 6mm as Baccus for the most part don't require more than a base clean up.

 

 

This is the 7e Regiment and as such wear a dark blue uniform with yellow facings and turnbacks (I must be going through my yellow phase).

 

They were great figures to paint and the detail is just stunning. Stirrup straps I am used to but the stirrups themselves? Also the swords have well detailed handles that show the two component parts, unreadable! I found them rather easy to paint but again a slower prospect as so much detail will slow anyone down if they paint it. All future cavalry I buy will be Adler as they are a good scale.
 

 

 You get two slightly different posed figures of the Lancer. One he he leaning into the charge and the other is slightly more erect. The tips of the pennants cross over on one figure and straight on the other, as I said above the detail is fantastic. I also got a trumpeter and a standard bearer!

Talking of which I had to go looking for French cavalry flags and finally found one for 28mm figs and shrank it to fit. (I will when I have more time do a post on the site).

Saying the buggers small is an understatement and for once I was happy to leave the flag straight! The only issue is that the pole is attached to the side of the bearers head forcing me to glue it to the side of the pole but it looks fine.

As a size comparison the Adler work well with the Baccus foot so it's no issue to use both in my armies. I look forward to buying more Adler cavalry in the future. First though I need to get through some more of the infantry I have in hand.

OK that's it till probably Monday when I hope to post my AAR of the Wargames Holiday Centre battle that we start later today. We get about three hours in today which I assume is allocating troops, getting to know each other and maybe a turn or two? Then it's all day Saturday and a good part of Sunday. I just hope I have some troops left at the end of the weekend.
 



Neapolitan 2nd Line Regiment Regina

Continuing the painting of Neapolitan foot regiments serving the French in the Peninsular I have painted the second Neapolitan regiment. This regiment was raised on the 13th June 1806 as was the 1sr regiment Re. Eventually 12 line and 4 light infantry regiments wold be either raised or integrated from either the French or Italian army. Only five served in Spain and I do not have the information on exactly which did other than the 1st and 2nd Regiments that have been painted. As such I am painting up the 3rd through 5th. These three regiments were raised in 1809 so it is fair to assume they were raised to join the other two regiments that had been in Spain since 1808. Whilst I am planning on basing my army for the 1811 period I have an excellent order of battle for 1808 so will use this as a basis for building my army.

 

The drummers have their coats in full reverse of the facings and the yellow of the epaulets on all the troops clashes nicely with the green. These are quite a colourful bunch and I am looking forward to finishing off the other three regiments for a group shot.

 

You can see from this picture a little better how colourful they are. Neither regiment took too long to paint but somewhat longer than a French regiment (especially the lights). I have been working on the other three regiments at the same time so have picked up the speed a fair amount. If not for the hospital visit today, the VASL game tonight and the weekend at the Holiday centre I would have them painted, based and on here by Saturday at the latest. It did not help that between doing these and the last three I also painted up some lancers and started the work on the horses for the limbers of 4 guns. Such is the distractions of the wargamer!

 

Talking of which for those who are not into 6mm as soon as these guys are finished I will start on the pike phalanx allowing my Macedonian armies the option of two large blocks and more than the base minimum of 4 blocks. Once finished I will be able to field three small and two large blocks or six small blocks. Even after this though I will have another 60-100 pike figures to paint up at some point!

 

I also need to get cracking with the special sniper reminders, still waiting for one of the figures to arrive which should be any day but I have a firm idea of how the bases will look. I plan to cut the figures off their bases and pin them in place but need to get to the hobby store in town to pick up some ballsier wood that I can cut into floorboards. I could do with watching Saving Private Ryan or Band of Brothers for a look at French wallpaper ;-)

 

Talking of the mini series, just starting to watch the Pacific again and if that's not enough PTO Cath has had Tenko for her birthday and we started to watch that as well. Surprising the historical accuracy they achieved given the date of production. Maybe the producers of the BBC Robin Hood series should have hired the same guys.

 

Leven Miniatures buildings review

Or it's all Phil's fault! Phil over at The Wargaming Site gave a heads up about Leven Miniatures, providers of cheap 6mm buildings. Having recently scanned the Internet for just such items and coming up short I was quick to type in a short reply before heading over to the site via the link Phil had provided.

 

It did not take long before I had picked out a nice mix of buildings that I would like to take a good look at. To order you have to send an e-mail with the codes of the items you want rather than a basket on site. This is rather old hat style but given that I believe this is a part time business (I could be wrong in this!) and how the business operates it's not really a bad thing. If you are buying a large variety of buildings it could be a bit of a pain and given how lazy we are getting adding up what you are planning on spending could be seen as a negative. It could also stop you passing your budget which could be seen as a positive or a negative. Soon and with little pain I had produced my list and on totting up had spent a whopping £14.50 or to put it another way I had averaged £1.45 per building! Phil was not kidding when he said they were cheap! I have to admit the fact they were so cheap kind of makes you wonder what would drop through the letterbox. Mick (the owner) then works out the cost of sending and e-mails you back. Well he does a little more than that as I got a confirmation e-mail letting me know he would sort out the postage the following day. This was Friday evening by he way. Saturday morning rolls round and Lee gets in touch. "Have you seen these buildings by Leven" apparently he reads more than my blog the scank. Yes I reply, I've ordered some. Soon enough Lee supplies a list of what he wants, I pass it onto Mike who adds it to my order with an e-mail stating he has to cast some of Lee's order (typical of Lee that, LOL). I paid for the lot Sunday morning and on Tuesday they get delivered. Service is impossible to fault on this experience.

 

OK but what about the buildings. Well first impression was that they are on the small side, they fit in very well with the Scotia Miniatures from about 20 years ago (anyone remember their resin tanks in 6mm?) I still stand by this view, though I am not saying the size is wrong just in comparison to Timecast and Total Battle Miniatures they are smaller.

 

Painted Timecast against Leven Models

Please note the picture above is not like against like. The two buildings up front are Stone Oast Houses, which by nature are smaller than a house. I felt they could also possibly be made into peasant like buildings at a push for Russia. The buildings I have at present are more town like that village. The Oast Houses are £1 each. I will be putting in a second order at some point for the eastern housing that Leven provide. The church to the rear is a Russian village church, the spire is not attached.

 

Close up detail of the church shows it to have some nice character and will allow some nice weathering. Again a nice price point at £1.50

 

What I really was excited about was the watermill. I already have the Baccus/Timecast one but I have a possible scenario that needed two and really did not want to but the same building again. Leven have two watermills on offer, one stone  and the other wooden. Add to this a Granary that also has a waterwheel and you should be sorted. These two (I have the stone one) look like they will sit together well. In this case the scale looks to be the same. I liked the detail on the Baccus mill so I was pleased to see the same level of detail on this one. I really am looking forward to painting this one up. As a comparison Timecast are £4 for their mill, Leven are £2.

 

Three of the larger buildings between £1.50 and £2 each. Again a nice amount of detail on these buildings and plenty of character. Well worth the price and a small town becomes possible without straining the scenery budget.

 

This is the granary with the separate water wheel. Typical of resin it has an odd blob or bubble but I stress the odd. I would go as far as to say the average timecast building has more trouble with this than the Leven buildings have.

I really like this one with the stairs down to the road and the whole look of the building. It will be a joy to paint up and the detail makes this both easy and fun.

Another interesting building. Most of the buildings are modelled from pictures so are based on the real thing and Mick also states he trys to make buildings that no one else has done which helps to flesh out our building selection.

The English church is a real nice looking church and will fit in really nice in many a wargame based in England. Again though it would not sit well with the Baccus buildings, made worse by the plinths they sit on as they will really dominate the church. I will be mounting the church on a plinth of it's own anyway so I can construct a graveyard etc.

This is the village smithy so again it should not be a big building and when on a base of it's own it will be able to stand against the Baccus cottage a bit better.

So am I pleased with my purchase? Defiantly, the size issue is very much minor and can be worked round with little trouble. Again I want to stress that I am not saying these are small, it's quite possible the other 6mm buildings are on the large side. What I will state though is that these buildings are excellent value for money and are worth far more than a casual look if you are a 6mm gamer. Leven plan to release a 10mm range and a 3mm range! Meanwhile they have more releases planned in 6mm. I just bought a mixed bag for three different periods  limiting what I can show you here. The range also includes a lot of WWII and modern buildings as well as Airfield buildings and even a cinema. If you have not yet nipped over to the Leven site I recommend you do right now, go on you know you want to.

 

Last word will be from my wallet, I will buy more of these buildings and of course when I paint some up I will be blogging the results.

Am I A Proper Wargamer?

OK this has gone viral and even though I have replied in sorts on Phil's blog I will do a fuller job here.

 

Spent over £500 on figures/tanks etc.?

Since coming back I am fairly sure I have spent close to this if not more and that's not much over a year. Now over the years excluding ASL I have spent a few  times that figure on lead alone. Include ASL and well given I have spent at least £1000 and probably more than double over the years. I have though got plenty more back out of both in time spent and entertainment.

 

Pricked your finger on a pike block?

I own the t-shirt, as recent as in the last two months I have been add (though that time by lance armed cavalry.

I think you can also add with cutting tools when cleaning up figures. Yep that too!!

 

Tried at least 10 rule sets. ?

Easy, though not all for the same period! 6mm Naps has got to have had the most rules purchased for it though ECW is not that far behind!

 

Bought an Army off E-Bay?

Can't say I have, bought units or bits and bobs yes. Though I have bought armies on bring and buy stalls to the extent that I did so again this very year (more 6mm ECW)

 

Sold an Army on E-Bay?

Again no but I have sold a few units and single figures. Also again I have sold odd armies on the bring and buy including one I bought an another bring and buy after using it just the once. I also sold a Macedonian army that I still regret to this day!

 

Spent Months painting an army and used it just the once?

No all armies I have bought have had a longer run than that. I do though have plenty of units that have yet to be used after being painted and I have sold a 15mm Austrian Battle Honours army unpainted months after buying it as we then decided to do Naps in 6mm!!!

 

Tried Several Different Periods or genres?

A fair few periods, I seem to be entrenched in he periods I already play and don't see that changing any time soon. Genres? Well played Si-Fi recently and enjoyed that. Have roleplayed many times in the past and would like to get that going again sometime. I board and figure game so I think I have most of the areas covered.

 

Dropped a box of figures from a great height?

Not quite, what I did was accept a lift home for my figures (not me) and when I got home was told, oh your box rolled around a bit in the boot of the car. So casual, opened the box and hardly a figure remained on it's base. A whole army was out of action (15mm ECW) I nearly quit it took me months to get over and re-base them and touch up the paint damage.

 

Lost a battle on the last throw of the dice?

Yes a number of times, happens more in ASL I think that figure games though with the army break rule being in so many rules I think it is now far more common. My best was a two day 20+ hour game based on Stalingrad (Valour of the Guards) were I failed to get a result on the last moving unit, it was well past 2AM and was just too zazzed to sleep so spent the next couple of hours packing away the bits and chewing the fat. Remains my best ASL game ever, the journey was so god it did not matter which of us won.

 

Made an enemy for life?

No, though on Gamesquad I have one guy on ignore as he winds me up. I guess I have the same effect on a few others but nothing as bad as an enemy

 

Had a proper stand up argument over a wargames table?

Far too many years ago, now no, sometimes we will struggle to come to a decision but if all fails throw a dice.

 

Thrown a dice across the room?

In anger, I don't remember doing but I may have. Done it in fun a few times and have a mini vice to crush wayward dice but never have  :-)

 

Rebased an army for another set of rules?

Er, twice both recently and both for different versions of FoG. Now trying to get a mate to do his.

 

Inflicted a whopping defeat on an opponent?

Yes, but as has been said by another, not a great deal of pleasure is gained, sucks for a nights entertainment.

 

Suffered an embarrassing defeat due to stupid tactical decision?

Only once? Not in figure gaming, though I have lost a game in record time on a rout of one unit taking the rest of the army (less hoplites) with them. In ASL a lot more often.

 

Joined a Wargames Club?

Once, never really got into the club culture, if I did not have mates to play then maybe.

 

Bought a ton of lead that remains unpainted?

Not so bad with this as most does get painted but at the moment I have more lead to paint than is healthy but I do not worry as none of it is in danger of not being painted.

 

Been to a wargames show?

Yes and a plenty, though they don't excite me as much as they used to, maybe the lack of money to go crazy? More like the lack of projects to go crazy on I think. The Internet has a lot to answer for as you can get so much from there.

 

Have more dice than logically required?

No, I have enough for the general games I play but I have more precision dice than any man could require. These are for ASL and at £6 each you really only need two, I have ten, go figure?

Have I taken a box of troops down to the club to show mates?

Not a club no, but round to friends houses yes! I remember getting my Prussian 6mm army from Red Triangle (any one remember them?) and taking the box round to Mats to open it together to share the experience, in my defence he did live next door!

 

OK I think I can pass as a real wargamer, how about you?

Neapolitan, do you think of ice cream?

Me I think of little brick like chocolates but then being a chocoholic I would I guess. I also guess that only the most Napoleonic nut types would think of the much mocked French ally/vassal state's troops.  have to admit that my first real interest come knowledge of said troops was in issue 298 of Wargames Illustrated article A Peninsular War Primer by Barry Hilton. His comment "Theirs appears to be a tale of desertion, un-soldiery conduct and thieving" caught my interest. He also goes on to state that they had pretty interesting uniforms. Well the whole article managed to change round my focus of my French Napoleonic army from Russia to Spain (helped by the fact that I can (and am) still go down the route of Russia at the same time.

 

Indeed the Neapolitan foot regiments do have interesting uniforms, the one shown above is the 1st Regiment and in many ways has the least interesting of them all as it lacks epaulets. I have five regiments to paint in all and no two regiments have the same uniform colour other than the base colour of white for the uniform. Indeed the 2nd Regiment has green as the main second colour but yellow epaulets!

 

The cut of the uniform is French so I could use some of the Baccus infantry I already own (20 or so Regiments). This will also be the case for many of the other National troops I will be doing for the Peninsular project and indeed the Russian one too.

 

I love the detail on the flag (from Baccus), French style with the emblem of Naples in the centre. Other flags designs are also available which I may use on one or two of the regiments but I will probably just stick to this design. All the regiments will be based in column as they had such a bad reputation I felt line might be a bit tricky and they probably went into combat in column to help keep order.

 

I have read though that the bad reputation was more down to a couple of bad experiences and whilst they did well in other engagements a smear campaign has left them with a undeserved reputation. However under my rules I plan to give them characteristics very similar to the Spanish. This will allow them to have a chance of glory but a higher chance of not performing. To do this they will have low cohesion and morale but have average combat strength. I can see these being the reserve or defencive troops. They will look nice on the table tough set against the blue of the French.

The Good The Bad and the Ugly (again?)

Well I may have used the title before but not on the three subjects I am posting on now. For a change though I will swap round the topics.

The Bad.
Latest News. Shop is open and trading today so quite possible business is still going.

This is unconfirmed but it looks very much like Maelstrom Games have gone under. A friend ordered from them last week and has received his order minus one can of spray paint. He looked on his account and it was listed as back order. Later he went on again to see what else they had left and the above banner was in place with a message stating the site was down for maintenance. I very much doubt this is the case though it could be that it is down ready for a re-launch of the site. If that was the case I would expect a different message. Anyone who is waiting for items to be delivered who bought on a credit card, now would be a good time to contact them and try and get a reversal on the transaction. The phone number for Maelstrom Games is 01623 238919 which still rings. I will do a update later when the store should be open and may get someone to swing by the store if I can't make contact. I am however expecting the worst.

 

The Ugly.

I was given a load of old Games Workshop castings to look through a few months ago which in honesty have just sat gathering dust. I did have a look through when first given and as it was not clear if these were a you can have them if you want or you can buy them if you want I offered £20 for them given the amount of damaged metals and plastics that it included. Neither the person selling nor the go between had any interest in them and seems they were just off loading junk so happy to have £20 to give their son who had been given this lead pile from old gamers.

So yesterday was the first time  had really paid attention to them. What a mess, the painting standard of the figures painted is between shite and very poor. All will need the paint removing before I can do anything with them. I intend to sell all the none realistic fantasy stuff. Most of the figures are from the period when the slotta bases were first introduced so are very old. A couple of items such as the Skavenblight Scramblers Blood Bowl Team are complete and still in the box with the transfers! Another complete set is the Necromunda Ratskin Renegades (in fact both these sets have extra figures included in the boxes that have been bought and added. I even have Thrud and a Hobbit Hotpot set (or part of) in the mix  so I know I will make my money back on the deal now. If I make a reasonable profit I will send some more money the guys way, after all I was buying blind as I could not be bothered to check and have no intention to rip the bloke off. Still I have a lot of scrubbing to do before then.

 

The Good.

Always finish on a positive note. Lee and a couple of mates are going the the Wargames Holiday Centre next weekend. Seems they have earned four places and as a great act of kindness they have decided to give me the spare place. As Lee said "It's an ideal place to learn the rules we use" Having just off loaded some figures I am in a position to go as all I need is the cash for evening meals and drinks with breakfast and midday meal provided between the hotel and WHC. The room is one of those that costs the same for two as it does for one and breakfast is included. It's also on a special offer so we don't have much to pay for it. I can't remember the battle that Lee said we will be playing but it's 28mm Napoleonic set in the Peninsular and is one of the smaller battles. This really sparks my interest and I am really looking forward to the weekend. I can't say how grateful I am to the guys so another plus is you don't have to put up with my ramblings next weekend but you can look forward to some eye candy shots of the game.