I Had a Dream

Many years ago, when I was first getting into war gaming, I dreamed of cool historical games that rivaled the popularity and quality of the top sci-fi and fantasy games.  In my gamer naivety I really believed that gamers would flock to great games, with cool miniatures, based on real events.  Then along came Warhammer Ancient Battles.  It was great and I was hooked.  Finally a cool, fun historical game that a regular person could buy at a real store and play.  I remember the early days of the WAB list with Jervis talking about the future of the game - plastic Greeks and Romans!  The future looked bright.

By the early 2000's it was clear that those dreams where a little over the top but the game was well liked and supported and good times were had by all (well most all).  We had some great army books and new figures lines became available.  Our local group jumped in we had a great group of gamers.  My friend Tom started a WAB tournament that ran for several years and for a while was the largest one outside of Historicon.  By about 2005 the new had worn off.  There were still lots of players and lots of new people getting into the game but it was clear that things had changed.

It was around this time that Warhammer Historical Wargames began to diversify by producing new games that were not WAB related.  These new games were, in most cases, very good but they distracted from the production of new WAB books.  As more new games were released even more pressure built up to release new books in support of all the games.  Now, I really liked many, if not all, of the new games coming out and their release coincided with my own lack of interest in WAB.  This caused me to miss the growing discontent in the WAB world.

Once WHW was rolled into Forge World I think we all knew the time was nearing for the death of WAB.  FW did finally release WAB 2.0 but they did everything in their power to screw it up - and they did a good job.  The game was an over priced, under edited, train wreck that you could only purchase online.  Not only was WAB harder to get but all the WHW games became online only sales.  This really hurt.  I really did believe then that it was over.

Strangely enough it was not over for WHW then but they continued for a couple more years to release some new games.  These new releases were beautiful productions and the rules themselves seemed very good.  But they were still over priced and only available online so very few people actually got to see, much less play, these games.  Today we have learned that the end has finally come for Warhammer Historical Wargames and all the great games they have produced.  I really should be sad about this as the one company that I had hoped would change historical wargaming is now gone.

The funny thing is is that WHW did change historical wargaming.  Today there are many options for beautiful, well written rules for many different periods.  New games like Hail Caesar and Clash of Empires have picked up where WAB left off and they seemed to have learned the important lessons.  We now have more figures than ever before and companies like Warlord and Victrix are producing - gasp! - plastic Greeks and Romans.

I am not sad about this.  My dream is alive and well and I think we are closer than ever to realizing it.  There are certain WHW games that I will continue to play and enjoy but I am excited about the work that others are doing.  Hmm, I did all this jabbering and I didn't even mention Flames of War...

Terminator Reinforcements

My Knights of Eden Space Marine army has been neglected for some time...OK, nearly three years.  I am shocked that I have added nothing to this army for so long.  A couple of months ago I got the army out on the table (I might not have played the army in three years either) and got in a game against my friend, Lonnie.  He wanted to try out his 2000 point Deathwing Assault army.  Well, let me just say that he showed me that I have a few gaps in my army.  In order to try and fill some of those gaps I decided to add some much needed heavy weapons to my terminators.  It just so happens that I had a box sitting around so I decided to build one of each heavy weapon as well as a Chainfist and another Sargent. 

I now have 14 painted Terminators for this army.  I still have another box of unbuilt terminators so I will be adding another Cyclone and an Assault Cannon at least.  I also have 5 more AOBR terminators so this could get out of hand.

First Batch of 28mm Confederates

 The first batch of Confederates for by Black Powder ACW project are ready to go!  These figures are all Sash and Saber, which are some of the best 28mm ACW figures around.  I would love to take credit for the painting but these were painted by my friend Tim at Saguaro Painting Service.  Tim gave me a sweet deal on these and I think they look great.  They look much better than my crappy photography shows.  Turns out my new camera hates my lighting setup more than my old camera.  I need to work on that.

Anyway, Tim painted a Confederate Brigadier and one regiment of troops.  Hopefully, this will inspire me to get back to this project but that does not seem likely.  It took me 2 weeks just to base these and add a banner.  I do have two more regiments on the paint table but they have been sitting there for weeks with no progress.

28mm Normandy Roads

 Well, it has been more than a month without an update.  I wish I have some excuse for my lack of productivity but the fact is I just haven't had anything to post.  I guess the new year blah was just a little late this year.  The good news is I have been playing lots of games.

One of the things I wanted to get done this year was to build some terrain for my 28mm WW2 Normandy games.  The first project is to get a good collection of dirt roads.  Roads are one of those terrain items that are really important for modern games but a major paint to to do.  For years I have experimented with different materials and ideas for making roads and I just never found on I liked. This winter I had the idea of using Masonite as the base for the road an then using Liquid Nails as a surface texture.  After some tests I was sure I was onto something.

So after several months of work (and a few weeks of goofing off) here are some pictures of the finished product.

I plan on doing a how-to post on these roads so stay tuned for that.  I am very happy with how these turned out.  There was no warping and the Liquid Nails sets very solid and hard.  Next up for this Normandy project will be the Bocage.  This is another item that I have been thinking about for a long time...

Plastic Soldier Pz III G Platoon

I have been on vacation all week and doing stuff with the kids who are on Spring Break. We we haven't been out doing something fun I have been reading or playing Fallout 3 on the PS3. It has been a pretty good week but I have not neglected my miniature painting. Yesterday I finished up this platoon of Plastic Soldier Company Panzer IIIs. I built these as ausf G to use with my mid war and early war DAK Panzer Co. I have another box of these that I will be building as ausf H for the DAK.

As usual the PSC models are amazing and cannot be touched for price and quality. I am not sure why anyone is buying anything else right now.

True North Hurricane MkI 1/144

I finally finished the first of the True North 1/144 scale Hawker Hurricane Mk I's that I bought to support my British 8th Army. The lists all call for Hurricane II's but I don't think anyone can tell the difference. This is a nice representation for air support in FoW so no need to get all version crazy.


Since Flames of War 3rd edition no longer requires having three aircraft models I worked out a trade for this plane. It went to my friend Tom to support his British North Africa forces and I got one of his extra Shturmoviks for my planned Soviet army.

I still have two more of these models to finish. I will keep one and the other I will try and trade for something useful. Not sure what I will need.

Shagrat, Captain of Cirith Ungol

Miracle of miracles there is a LOTR:SBG tournament this weekend and it is not being run by Tim and is not part of the GiTD! This will be the first chance for many of us to build armies using the new books and the 'warband' concept. I plan on doing a fairly in depth review of the new books soon. For now let me just say that my army for this event is unlike anything I have ever played for LOTR and I was not entirely happy with the process.

Anyway, I needed another hero for my Cirith Ungol force so I pulled out Shagrat and painted him up. Just a quick and dirty paint job.