Tuesday 5 December 2017

World War of the Worlds.

A Wings of Glory Kickstarter with a difference, Tripods and Triplanes mixes genres up and brings the War of the Worlds to the trenches. Ironically there is currently no Triplane models available via the Kickstarter, but rocket firing Nieuport 16 comes with the basic kit. (edit - The Red Barons final Fokker Triplane is now a bonus item)

Have downloaded the Print and Play demo rules, and the main thing to note is these tripods are fast! This speed would render most ground based units useless as the ability to accurately target things travelling at this rate didn't exist at this time. Targeting would have to be close ranged and over the sights, So that nicely sets up the background.

Some are already claiming it's just a rip off of 'All Quite on the Martian Front'  , despite that games primary inspiration coming from a mockumentry and unofficial sequels to the H G Wells original plus a mix of World War 1 and 2 aesthetics for the Humans. Both games have spindly legged, almost insect like, Tripods.

Transplanting the War of the Worlds setting has always happened, whether it's Orson Wells, George Pal, or that film with the shrieking kid. The Furness Wargamers even did a 1920s based invasion of Great Britain.

On image that stuck in the mind was the cover from Challenge magazine depicting a German Tripod in a Steampunk 'Great War comes early' of Space1899. It's a shame the proposed Tripod on Tripod rules involves captured machines rather the Earth built responses, but it makes more sense in the setting, especially given the time frame and tech difference.

Tuesday 24 October 2017

Little Not Yankees

First ever game of Team Yankee, the Flames of War spin-off. but not at the expected scale and no Yankees involved.

Arranged by Kieron and using 6mm (1/285scale) instead of the expected 15mm. This was a clash or Russian and German forces. Jim and Derek are the Russians, Dave M and Tel the West Germans.


Sunday 10 September 2017

Sardine Wars

The Furness Wargamers are on the verge of starting another Campaign game. The game is based in Crusader times and on the Island of Sardinia with the waning of the Byzantinian influence on the isle. Despite the place not having much in the way of recorded Crusader history in this time period, things are being padded out to give room for some action.

Sardinia Campaign Map

Tuesday 22 August 2017

Indian Guns

A return trip to Maratha India, as Matt advances with his 'Road to Assaye' project, to recreate Wellington's Toughest Battle.

A converted version of Impetus Baroque advanced in time to the Napoleonic Era, this was its first outing in 28mm. Matt gets to reuse some of his crusader era Arabs as Levy, but the vast majority of troops are new to the field.

Tuesday 15 August 2017

Door to Door

Something a bit different this week as Jim arranges a game. A bit of urban fighting in WW2 using Jim Websters set of rules 'Hell by Daylight'.


Tel, Matt, and Steve are the bad guys trying to get away from the advancing Russians.
Tristan, Scott, Tom, and Bill are the defenders of Poland attempting to block their path.

Tuesday 1 August 2017

The Price of Glory

Still gaming the Great War, but this time back to Europe and with a different rules set 'The Price of Glory' (or rather a Dave M variant of), which we have played in the past and is at a much larger scale to the previous weeks activity.

The Western Theatre

 It's Early War and the initial French push into Germany has come to a halt as the Germans outflank them via Belgium. The Germans are now launching the counter-attack to grab back their territories

Tuesday 18 July 2017

Stuck Truck Ruck

Two more games of TMWWBK's, once again set in East Africa during the Great War, with the first scenario being very lopsided and over quickly, and the second lasting a bit longer and a very close finish.



The first game was already under way when I got to the Hall, A truck is stuck in the middle of the table and the two unit of British defenders have to wait for reinforcements to help them out as the enemy approaches.

Tuesday 11 July 2017

More Dystopia

More shenanigans at sea, as the Steampunk navy's raise steam again. All figures are again from Spartan Games, who produce nice models for Dystopian Wars even if the club are not over keen on using their rules.

Matt's DTS variant rules have been streamlined a bit since last time, no more rolls for reloading the big guns, just a negative to hit to compensate instead.

Blazing Sun vs the Federated States again. In terms of the fleets the Federates have been up gunned a bit.

Wednesday 5 July 2017

Stuck in the Middle

Back to East Africa and another trial game of TMWWBK in the Great War. Set up by Dave M to test the artillery rules and to get a few more players involved.

A German led force is stuck between two British led groups ( Askari and Indian based respectively ). Naturally enough things didn't quite go as planned.

Tuesday 27 June 2017

Would be African Kings


A game of The Men Who Would Be Kings, but transplanted from it's usual colonial period forward to East Africa during the Great War, an often forgotten about theatre of that war. Dave M supplied the rules and figures.



A scenario straight out of the book with two balanced forces, of British and German led troops, trying to make their way across the table and 'Just Passing By'.

Tuesday 20 June 2017

Steam Navy Punk

So a number of people at the club have the makings of some steampunk fleets. All we need now are some rules to play with.

Matt has discarded the idea of using Dystopian Wars (or its Fleet Action spinoff) despite having plenty of models, and has gone on to designing a heavily modified version of DTS, an in house set of rules that normally got used for Sci-Fi battles.

Sunday 18 June 2017

Phalanx 2017

A little trip on Saturday, heading down to the place where Napoleon would have been exiled but for a typo, St Helens; and the Phalanx convention at the Sutton Leisure Centre. A number of the Furness Wargames, both past and present, made their way down as well.



Tuesday 23 May 2017

Steampunk Village People

A big (possibly too big) game of 'In Her Majesty's Name'.

A quite English village gets disrupted as nefarious groups from around the world converge to loot it's treasures. Five factions, and the GM controlled villagers.

Intended as a refresher game to get us familiar with the rules again, it tended to get bogged down a bit with the turn sequence.

The heroic band of the Prince of Wales's Extraordinary Company.

Tuesday 9 May 2017

Frosty ADnD

Things go a bit old school! Modified 2nd Edition Advanced Dungeons and Dragons but in a Frostgrave setting. All organised by Matt. Multiple parties entering the deathtrap city to grab as much loot as they can.

Gates of the ruined city.

Tuesday 25 April 2017

Colonial Impetus

Something a bit different as Matt coverts the Baroque version of the Impetus rules to cover 19th Century action in the Sudan. Matt digs out his British and Mahdists, which are currently based for Principles of War.



Saturday 22 April 2017

St George's Tobruk


The annual St George's Day, or thereabouts, game, fought as an all day game on the Saturday.

North Africa, World War 2 and one of the many sieges of Tobruk.


 Tables galore in this big Rapid Fire game organised by Derek (on what happened to be his birthday.) and with extra terrain by Matt. Four separate, but adjoining zones, of four trestle tables each, for a total of sixteen in use.

Tuesday 7 February 2017

Iraq and a hard place

Another Fistful of TOWS 3 game. This time visiting the Iran-Iraq war.

The Iraqis are to defend the terrain and prevent an Iranian armoured breakthrough.

There was no real point in trying to sit around in defense as the range of our guns were far less than the opposition Chieftains, and we were limited in our number of Saggers to two per APC.

The revolutionary guard didn't seem to be too eager to come forward, even an accidental shelling by their regular army allies didn't encourage them!

The opposition didn't notice me moving up my AA units till it was too late, and I managed to shoot down one of the helicopters. Surprisingly in the next turn they didn't withdraw the remaining two and both of those ended up shot down as well!

So despite being shot to pieces and only holding one defensive position I managed to scrape a win.

Tuesday 17 January 2017

Fistful of Golan

6mm battle between the Syrians and the Israelis on the Golan Heights based on the 1973 actions in the region.

The rules set is Fistful of TOWS 2, the minis supplied by Dave M who is also in charge of the mayhem.