Phalanx 2014

This Saturday I once more undertook the annual pilgrimage to St Helens and the Phalanx Show, the North-West premier (i.e. only) wargames convention. Meeting up down there with the other members of the Furness Wargamers, who had made their own way down.

This year Martin was putting on a demonstration game on the Clubs behalf. This was 'The Battle of Lake Erie', from the War of 1812. All boats are paper models painstakingly constructed by Martin himself.

From Phalanx

Zombie Town

A cooperative skirmish game as 5 survivors try to scavenge some supplies from a Zombie infested town. Using the free Twilight World rules, that, despite the name, has nothing to do with Sparkly Vampires or Swing Out Sister.

Majority of the terrain and all the figures supplied by Dave M. Mini's are a mixture of plastics but include a lot of Wargames Factory's Dark Futures line of Zombies and Survivors. (The disembodied hand on the photo below is not part of the game.)

Fuentes Warm Up

The final test of Matt's Frankenstein style home-brew rules, before their first big outing at the much delayed St George's Day game.

A small affair between the French and the Spanish, who were instructed to hold a built up area. The Spanish had the much larger force but was up against good quality French, including four high quality Guard Cavalry units.

Bank Holiday Buildings

Due to the weather being of typical Bank Holiday quality I stayed indoors and put together a couple of 4Ground models of New England pioneer/settler building for use in any F.I.W. games.

The models in question were the Pioneer's Log Cabin (28S-AML-101) and the more complex two tiered Settler's Lofted Log Cabin (28S-AML-106)

I had bought these at Fiasco last year and had previously tried to piece one together without gluing the main body of it, as the pieces are a snug fit anyway. This time I got the PVA out to stick them together as per the instructions and gluing is essential for the more finer bits, such as the door frames and windows.

Only real tweak I did to them was to dab a bit of paint on the ends of the joints on the roofing to tone down the dark caused by the laser cut. I also had to do some minor shaving of some of the outer timber effects to get them to fit into their holes snugly without much visible gaps. Happy with the final results, but the smell of the laser burnt MDF doesn't half linger.

Since the weather didn't get any better I then moved on to painting my set of Wilderness Force Rangers and Indians,  from North Star, that I had previously started over the new year holidays. Having gained access to the table again and some natural (if dull) light, I've managed to see some further progress, and might even get a second batch started soon.
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Her Majesty's Heroes, Villains and Fiends

Recently sought out the 'In Her Majesty's Name' rules and 'Heroes, Villains and Fiends' companion book after hearing Mark and Matt talking about them as a possible future project. Written by Craig Cartmell and Charles Murton and released by Osprey. I sourced the books as electronic downloads from Amazon, in Kindle format, and coming in at around the £10 mark which is about the same cost as a single pdf\ePub format copy from the Osprey site.

Ionian War pt2

The Basic Impetus campaign in Anatolia continues and concludes.

The Spartans incursion into Lycia provokes a response from the aggrieved neutrals, while the Cadians return to defend their borders. Meanwhile the Ionians and Persians raid into each others lands to try and gain enough loot to bring in reinforcements after both taking heavy losses in last weeks battle.

From Furness Wargamers with Spears

Ionian War

Another Basic Impetus ancients campaign. Once again organised and GM'ed by Jim, and once more played over a grid map, but covering a larger and more politically complex area than Egypt.

This time the fighting is set near the Ionian coast of Anatolia, as the Persians and Ionian Greeks go to war/grab loot, assisted by their allies.

Ionian Greeks - Matt
Spartans (Ionian allies) - Tel
Persia - Tony
Caria (Persian allies) -Mark

From Furness Wargamers with Spears