Friday Night Games: 1939 Winter War, Week Two

Week Two of the game saw the Finns push their attacks home on the struggling Russian column.

For the Russians we had, Steve  Rupert, Nigel  Phil & Mike W, whist John and Mat stepped in as the pesky Finns.

Finnish Ski troops swoop in out of teh forest to attack teh NKVD at the rear of the Russian Column

A Finnish MG team lying in wait for the Russuians,
opens fire with some effect on nearby vehicles

Finnish Ski trooper with his trusty Reindeer companion

A wild Reindeer in the forest, just to confuse the Russians even more....

Close-up of the Ski Troopers

Despite taking out the NKVP Command elemantm the Russians fire back
and take out one of the Ski Troooper elements in return

As can probably be guessed, the Russians had a torid time of it during this game. Never likely to be a winning team, it was how many units could they get out of this mess. As it happens - not many!

The Russian Column starts to take serious damage

A Russian bomber arrives and accidentally strafes and bombs the Russian column,
causing game loosing damage!

Whilst another monsterous Russian aeroplane drops supplies all over the column 

The end came swiftly when a Russian bomber wing mistook the convoy for the enemy and literally blew them to pieces!

Red on Red Bomber damage actually happening!

A previously unnoticed Finnish Artillery emplacement is revealed in the last turn

Overall great models and alot of time put in to devising the scenario. The Finns were happy, the Russians will neded to larn and fight another day.

Another Tomb Kings army Update

 Following on from my Tomb Kings Show & Tell update a couple weeks ago, I have been busy adding more units and characters to the army and upgrading one of the existing Skeleton units.

New regiment of Skeleton Spearmen for the Tomb Kings Army

First up is a new unit of 3D printed skeletons, all spear and shield armed and I think that these were Highland Miniature figures. I'm not 100% certain as I got, these as a used but unpainted lot on eBay. All I had to do was clean them up and add bases, luckily, I had a supply of old 20mm bases, which suits me fine - this aligns with the rest of the army.

Another view of these 3D printed figures

These figures seem pretty robust and come with the shields seperate which can be added prior to painting. As ever a cream undercoat and then a wash of Skeleton Horde before a further dry brush of boney goodness. Shields and weapons were opainted light blue and then washed with blue ink to give an aging effect.

Final view of the regiment

I have gone over to using Army Painter 'Hoplite Gold' for metal work and this is a fantastic paint to use. I then drybrush thus with a bright metalic brass and then use a silver marker pen to give final highlights.

Six new Ubashi figures, these will be lead by a GW original metal Ubashi figure

Next up are six Ubashi figures, these are resin / 3D printed figures from Tabletop Figures, again sourced frmo eBay and good value for money. The figures come with 40x40mm MDF bases and the figures were superglued to these before poainting.

Close-up of one of the Ubashi, mummified animal dieties

I like the pose on this figure!

First of two figures in thi spose, thta came with the set.

I used much the same process as I used on the Carrion Birds in the last tomb Kings post, as these are also mumified figures I used Ratling Grime as a base colour to give that aged, dirty brown look.

Another nice pose!

I may neeed to do some more work on these figure's blue loin cloths, close-up photos on some of these show additional detail is required

Final Ubashi figure, again a nice pose.

Next is a new character figure, a mumified Queen Cleopatra, this is another resin figure, this time 35mm in scale and part of the 'Rumbleslam' range. Once again the painting approach was the same as for other figures.

The Mummy Queen - Cleopatra

Another view - Cleo is being raised by ethral hands to the sky!

Final view of Queen Cleo

Lastly this week there's an upgrade for a skeleton unit featured on my orginal Tomb Kings posting, this unit was originally armed with spears but had no shields. I found an old box containing some Tomb king Shields and painted these up, before adding the additional protection to my existing unit.

Selection of shields painted-up to upgrade an existing Spear only armed regiment!

Said regiment without shields, before upgrade

Upgraded unit now with shields!

Friday Night Games: 1939 Winter War - Suomussalmi-Raate Road Actions

A Russian truck and horse drawn Field Kitchen in the depths of a Finnish Forest

Friday 19th July saw Mark put on a 20mm WW2 game with a difference, the 1939 Winter War between Finland and Russia. The scenario saw the elusive Finnish forces engage a somewhat disorganised Russian convoy in the depths of a snowy forest.

The wintery tabletop, where the Russians had to travel the length of the table from left to right,
effectively limited to the roads, due to risk of boggiong down in the ice and snow, progress was always going to be slow.

On the Russian side we had Steve, Phil, Dave, Nigel, Rupert and Mike W. Mark played the Finns, the figures were Mark's and the venue was at Ruperts. Rules were an adaptation of the fabulous 'One Hour Wargames Rules'.

Close-up of entry point for many Russian units, again direction of travel willl be left to right,
note the many snow drifts and frozen ponds etc.

Russian progress was always going to be slow, with the game mechanics of the 'One Hour Rules' system, each unit on the table moves in a somewhat random sequence, thus more often thatn not the back end of the column will be delayed and stuck behind slower units to their front.

Right hand end of the road, where the Russians have to cross a frozen ruiver to enter a village,
before crossing a second frozen river to exit the table.

After initial russian deployments the Russians were informed that it was night time and that they would camp over night, starting their journey fresh in the morning.

Part of Mark's WW2 20mm Russian collection

However, the sneakiy Finns where busy overnight and the deployed road blocks that would help to cause chaos as the morning progresses for the Russians!

And part of Mark's WW2 20mm Finnish collection

Initial deployment of Nigel's units, at the rear of the Russina Column. Somewhere behind them were the NKVD,
who would enter the table later in the game.

Steve's HQ was initially deployed in the Villlage, where they had a comfy night's sleep.

Rupert's initial deployment

Dave's initial deployment

Phil's artillery deployement

The morning breaks and felled trees have been used to block the road system in a number of places

Nigel's force is relatively efficient about removing the road block and beginning to move forwards again, maybe spurred in by the later arrival of the impatiant NKVD section on the road behind them!

A  view of the convoy at daybreak

A masssive traffic jam ensues after a field kitchen got stuck in a ford the move after the road block was cleared. The NKVD way at the back are not happy and are pushing the trailing units to hurry up.

Another view of the convoy

All to play for next week when Mike N. & John will be jooining the fray on the side of the Finns.

Friday Night Games: Formosa Campaign - 2nd Battle of Heng Chun

Played on the evening of Friday 12th July, this was one of Mat's Formosan Campaign Games which saw the sneaky Japanese return to the port and city if Heng Chun, with a fresh Division under the command of Phil San.

The game was in teeny tiny 6mm scale, with Mat as umpire, using his own rules and with Mike W & Phil playing the Japanese and with Mike N, playing the Formosan defenders assisted by Dave and Steve. We had a camero appearance form Graham, before he was called away on urgent matters!

The battlefield, Japanese entering rmo bottom of the table
and the Formosans defending the city and lands around.

Unsurprisingly, Phil employed 'edge of world' tactics to successfully attack and seize the city of Hung Chen, with his vetran division, fresh from the boats as they arrived from Korea. As such the initial deployment of the troops was on the centre and right tiles of the table and the army attacked along the flank, to the right of the river.

In an audacious move the Japanese blew the bridge on their left flank to secure themselves form any potential flanking attack and began a Naval bombardment of the outer city defences.

A revisit to the Buddish Temple at Heng Chun

Ultimately the Japanese took the city, after several assaults that were ablely defended by the Formosan Black Army units. Eventually, however, the encircling Japanese units eventually reached sections of  the walls that were not defended and they surged into the city.

The walled city of Heng Chun

The Umpire reports that the Japanese took quite heavy casualties, but in taking the city they have released 1,000 captive Imperial Guards and captured about 2,000 enemy.

Japanese troops poor accross the bridge to attack the City Gates,
only to be surprise by infernal French Machine guns

Part of the problem the Japanese faced was the enemy had unexpectedly been supplied with machine guns by the French. By good fortune  the Japanese Naval force that landed the Infantry, Artilery & Cavalry were able to impounded the French freighter and crew, who supplied said MGs.

The encircement begins

The  Japanese will no doubt will exploit this diplomatic gaff by the French at the highest levels, to gain leverage with ongoing international treaty negotiations.

By the time the Japanese had encircled the city,
it was all over for the formosan defenders, which surrendered en masse.

Show & Tell: Tomb Kings Update

Following on from my recent Show & Tell posting about my re-vitalised 'OldHammer' Tomb Kings army, here is a quick update on some additional models that I have been able to put in place in the couple of weeks since that original posting.

At the time I was rambling on about what I'd like to do to further enhance the collection and after a couple of visits to eBay, here are some of the results.

Firstly a unit of eight Mounted Archers, these came to me undercoated and so it was a relatively simple task to add the Skeleton Horde Contrast paint and then to dry brush with a suitably boney colour to add further definition before adding the light blue and gold details on bows, quivers and headwear.

First rank of Horse Archers, with unit champion in headgear

Second Rank of Horse Archers

So looking at the Tomb Kings Codex, it appears that Horse Archers are quite a strong choice for Tomb King Armies, hence my acquisition of these little guys. They get to move, then fire and move again! I'll likely look to swell their ranks if the opportunity arises.

Three Carrion Vultures

The unit of three Carrion vultures are resin models from the Tabletop Games Fantasy Heroes range (Ref: FJ0124, if you are interested!), again soourced from eBay. These are mummified vultures that have a good move range and can  hopefully give an enemy a surprise!

Bird One 

The models were a little fiddly to construct - the wings fitted well but I had to drill out the legs on each bird to allow a wire support to firmy fix each vulture to the base. Without these it would just be a matter of time before the birds would break off from their bases.

Bird Two

I undercoated these guys with a cream paint, then applied Ratling Grime contrast paint to all wing / feather areas, before applying Skeleton Horde contrast paint to all bandaged areas. I highlighted the bandages in white before giving them a Dark Tone wash and then further highlighted cream again.

Legs, necks and heads were painted with Darkoak flesh before I again highlighting bandages in white. Blue and gold details were added to the neck colars before adding sand to the base. After a varnish the hyrogliphs on the oblix stones were marked in, using various colours

Bird Three

Finally, for this update, I eventually get around to building and painting one of my spare Tomb Kings Charriots. I'm pleased with the results, although the chariot's blue colour does not quite match the original model I had, where I used Enchanted Blue (I believe) but that pot had long since run out!

This time round I used a GW colour called 'The Fang', which is reasonably close, although i did add some white to lighten it a bit. Painting was much the same as described above for the Skeleton Horse Archers, so I won't repeat that description again.

My new Tomb Kings Chariot

Another view

And again!

So now there is one remaining original 1990s chariot model waiting to be built but currently I have no crew, so I'll have to find these, where ever I have put them!

What next? Well I already have on order some Ubashi, to add to the single figure I already have, these are resin / 3d prints so I will use my existing model as the unit champion. The other item I have coming is a model of Queen Cleopatra, who will act as my 'Tomb King', I'll share further developments as they get completed....