Jeeze that's a big un

Mooching through some old wargame photos on the external hard drive I have for my laptop I came across some pictures of a few 1/600 scale Old Glory pre-dreadnought ship models from their 'Shipyard' line that Rob Anderson and I did for a customer quite a few years ago. I know that Andy is a mercenary git and would have no objection to me putting them on here!

Truthfully I can't even remember which ships they are, I think Andy has them now (which ones are they mate?).
I do however remember going down to the Durham show where the Tan Toby reprobates were having a game with these monsters which were on a huge (relative to the space at Durham) table, they were about a foot apart blowing seven kinds of crap out of each other, much to the amusement of everyone concerned.
It being a glorious sunny day outside I did suggest (after donning straw boaters and picking up the old champers) taking the game onto the local bowling green just outside the rear exit door. Now that WOULD be a large playing area. But I think the members of the bowels club wouldn't appreciate commoners interfering with their balls!
Well two posts in one week, you know how it is, no buses, then loads come along at once.
Dave.

"I say, it's the chaps"

Found these fellows in a box some time ago and decided to paint them up:

 Three chaps and some peasants out for the day.

Smithers and his chums.

'Bongo' Watson taking aim.

'Spotty' Simpkins prepping the old popgun.

This peasant isn't playing fair!

This fellow has been watching too many damn gangster films.

"Off you go Fido"

Can't even remember who's figures they are.
Dave.

An Austrian reserve.

A few more figures to add to the 15mm Austrian Napoleonics. This will give them a solid reserve to roll through the French ogres forces once the disciplined volleys of our solid line infantry have worn them down (who am I kidding eh!).
The two 36 figure battalions on the flanks are Essex, cast flags therefore hand painted, nightmare! the battalion in the middle is composed from spare figures lying around in a box. I've tarted them up and they still look crap but you should have seen them before. They will do to make up the brigade though.

That's it for now.
Dave.

New Year and Dutch Belgians

First off Happy New Year to all who visit this site (and anyone else for that matter). Each to their own but I'm not going to go over what in wargame or painting terms I've achieved over the last year. I don't paint or game to any schedule or pattern, life's too short and frankly though I really enjoy my hobby there are much more important things going on to plan which lead soldiers and in which order I'm going to paint them.
That said this does purport to be a blog about painting model soldiers and as I've just finnished painting some then here they are.

These guys are a 15mm Dutch Belgians from the 1815 Waterloo campaign. There are incidentally no actual Dutch Belgian figures in this lot (why buy stuff when I have spare figures which will do very well), there are French hussars, Austrian Grenzers Russian artillery and lots of British infantry all painted as Dutch Belgians.

The infantry brigade:

Light cavalry Brigade:

The artillery battery:

Carry on gaming chaps.
Dave.

Battle of the Denmark Straights, May 1941.

This will be the last game played in my garage till the weather starts to warm up again next year and as it was a one night stand as it were I thought the lads (Scotty and Neal) would like to have a go at something a little different. It has been at least a year since I gamed with my WW2 1,2400 GHQ ships so I went for that. The scenario was the battle of the Denmark Straights in May 1941, pitting the German battleship Bismarck and Heavy cruiser Prince Eugen against the British battlecruiser Hood and battleship Prince of Wales.
The tale is pretty well known with the two German ships looking to break out into the Atlantic to raid/disrupt British convoys while the British fleet attempted to intercept them:

The engagement took place with the Hood being sunk after a shell from the Bismarck igniting the Hood's magazine and the Prince of Wales withdrawing under heavy and accurate fire from the two German ships.
I umpired with Scotty taking the British and Neal taking the Germans. We used the Naval Thunder (Battleship Row) rules by Steel Dreadnought Games Here not overly complex but not ridiculously simple either.

The info tables for each ship:

All pretty straight forward when you get used to them and a good set of rules.

The object for the Germans was to sink one British ship then exit the end of the table with both their ships pretty much intact. The Brits had to sink the Bismark.
Naval games never really look that pretty so don't expect any flash photographs!

Set up, Germans at the right, British left:

Hood & Prince of Wales:

Bismarck & Prince Eugen:

The markers denote how many ships are firing at a particular target:

The action continued with the Hood taking a particular pounding while attempting to close the range, the Hoods weakness in gunnery and the Prince of Wales mechanical problems gave the German ships an advantage at this point.
As the fleets closed the range the Bismarck which up to this point had been firing well went two turns without hitting a thing while the Prince of Wales opened up and (Scotty) threw three 10's on a D10 in one go!
This knocked out the two forward turrets and damaged the engine of the Bismark, while it's secondary armament raked the Prince Eugen. A somewhat disgruntled German admiral (Neal) decided discretion was the better part of valor and limped off under cover of smoke.

The tail end of the battle, Hood (left) is on fire and the Bismarck (bottom right) takes heavy damage from the Prince of Wales:

A particular moment of, well if not hilarity, then at least childish giggles was when Scotty, looking at his Fire control chart stated that he did not have any STD (standard fire control) that turn. Both Neal and I thought that his wife would be very pleased to hear it! Goes to show how seriously we take it all.
Dave.