Pre-Game Entertainment

Well I had some fun on the weekend playing Ambush Alley with Brad.
We played Turkey Shoot this time.
Regulars won, but from re-reading some of the forums, it looks like we may have played the Insurgents slightly wrong. Not sure it would have made a significant difference however.
I'm planning on having up a proper AAR later this week, but in the interim......

While I was setting up, my wife came along and started having a look at the figures, etc.
Then things got a little silly:

Precious Prize Duck Escorted to Market


Insurgent Attacked by Polar Bear Atop Building!


Fierce Giant Pigs Attack!


Maybe you had to be there......

More Cork

A couple of quick pics of the two buildings and some quick wall sections for the game tomorrow night.

I'm not going to have time to apply the plaster and have it dry, and clean up the  surfaces ahead of the game, so I'll leave them in raw cork for the moment.  Both the buildings and the walls will be plastered eventually - probably next week.
I'l got to do some work around the house tomorrow, but hopefully I can put out another couple of walls ahead of the game.

What ever happened to those cork buildings ?!?

Long term listeners may remember that back here I was working on some buildings using cork.
What ever happened to those?
Well I did get some work done on them.......

There's only two at the moment and here they are:


A closer shot of the one on the left:


I still need to add some staining to the exteriors and probably some posters and/or grafitti

As you can see below, last night I started work on two more:


I'm hoping to get these, and some walls I started, complete in time for a game on Saturday night.
Since it's now Thursday, I'm not sure I'm going to make it!

Birthday Present Arrives!!

I just had my Birthday present from my wife and daughter turn up at work.
You'll all just have to wait until Feb 23rd to see what it is!
Unfortunately, I'm also going to have to wait that long....... :(

Recon

I'm trying to keep some momentum on modelling for as long as i can, so last night I trimmed and based the LRRP platoon from Flashpoint that I got for Christmas.

These were old figures in the old packaging that I picked up from Drew at Dragonfire.  I know that Flashpoint is working through doing a refresh on the figure ranges, but I don't think they've done the LRRPs yet.
Across the 30 figures there appears to be 10 sculpts - not necessarily 3 of each.
The scults look quite good, plenty of sneaky movement poses!




You can click the images of the sculpts for a larger view.

I picked doing these first-up because I figured that I could get away with only painting and basing a smaller number (maybe 10?) to provide a patrol to go up against a larger number of either Local Force or Main Force VC for Ambush Valley.

So next up, I'll be cracking a pack of VC.....which will it be?.......
(oooh the suspense!)

Eagle Flight

My order from The Flying Mule arrived today. Very prompt service.
3 USMC Hueys:

There are a couple of reasons why I purchased these:

1. As a pre-painted diecast, there is nothing more for me to do.  No gluing, no painting, no basing.
2. They are comparatively cheap.   These were US$7.99.  Flying Mule also has 1/100 UH-1s with an airborne scheme as well for US$9.99.  The very nice looking (but also requiring assembly, painting, etc.) Hueys from Battlefront are AU$30 (US$28).  I bought all three of these for less than the cost of one from Battlefront.

Here is a zoom in of the helo with Irregular Modern US disembarking:

As you can see, 1:100 is actually just a little small against most 15mm (really 18mm) figures.
I have the same problem with the HMMWVs from QRF.
You can get 1:87 (HO) scale UH-1s from Flying Mule and other places as well.  I have also seen UH-1 gunships in 1:87.  I avoided 1:87 this time around because I didn't want the helo to be out of scale with other vehicles.  We'll see how it goes......

Edit: Some discussion in the comments below (notably from Geoff at QRF) indicates that I'm wrong about the scale comparison.  After a 2nd and 3rd look, I'm very happy with the scaling.

Final Christmas Loot

My in-laws gave me the gift that keeps giving - cash!

I have been able to get a copy of Ambush Valley, which I've printed but haven't had time to read it yet.
Looks very good though.



I've also renewed my Special Operators Group membership with Ambush Alley Games, and I have three diecast UH-1Cs coming from Flying Mule to provide some air-mobility or dustoff for my Vietnam games.



Thanks Garry and Kathy!
It's going to be a BIG year!

More Christmas Loot 2009

Okay, so here is the Flashpoint order that I purchased earlier in 2009 and that got put aside for Christmas.  These are were old stock that I picked up from Drew at Dragonfire Games.

Australian Support Platoon and an Australian Rifle Platoon.  The Rifle Platoon is in the newer Flashpoint packaging.



US LRRP Platoon



Main Force Viet Cong Rifle Platoon and Support Platoon
The Recoiless Rifle may find itself serving double duty between the VC and on a technical for my african militia.



Local Force Viet Cong Cell and Support Cell.
The round items in the Support Cell pack includes punjee markers and snipers emerging from tunnels.



And finally, Thomas' continuing efforts to get me to finish my Eldar army:

Christmas Loot!

As promised (and because it's also an easy first post for the new year), I give you :

The Christmas Loot

First up, some air support for my AA/FoF games:


Three Night Hawks (I'll probably drop the mods back to a typical Black Hawk) and an Apache.

Two M2 Bradley's and an Humvee Troop Carrier from QRF:

The Bradleys were inspired by reading House to House.  The Humvee was because you always need more!

Next up are 3 Pinzgauer trucks and a bag each of the new command and grenadier modern british figures from QRF.  Together with the figures I purchased last year, I can pull together a 8 british fire teams + some additional command; and with the Pinz and the earlier land rovers, they don't need to walk everywhere!


Below we have a platoon (3 sections and a command section) of Egyptians to be re-purposed as Iraqis for FoF.  It will also give me th opportunity to drag out some T-55 tanks I have kicking around.  I'll be attempting to keep these fairly generic for use as a general arabic army of the period.


I'll leave it at that for the moment.

Coming soon - pics of the Flashpoint stuff I got around Oct last year which got saved as a Christmas gift.
Also Ambush Valley and more!

100th post!!

It's taken me two years, but I'm finally at the 100th post!

I realised that this post was going to be number 100 back in Nov last year, and I've been planning on doing something big since then.
Unfortunately work took a decidedly busy turn and I haven't gotten anything done since the start of December.
Rather than having it linger, I'm just going to post and move on.

I hope everyone had a great Christmas and New Year!
I got a pile of "dolls" from my wife for Christmas, and I'll post them up in a following post.

At the moment I'm sick as a dog from over-extending myself at work prior to Christmas.  Third round of anti-biotics and it's not shifting from my chest. uck...

I'm planning on trying to minimise the purchases this year and focus on tackling the lead mountain that has accumulated.  We'll see how long that resolution lasts.....

Two key focus areas for gaming this year:

1. on-going Middle East and Africa games with Ambush Alley and Force-on-Force
2. Vietnam games with Ambush Valley and Flashpoint Vietnam.  This year is shaping up to be a big one for Vietnam with TooFatLardies also promising to release their "Charlie Don't Surf" rules (finally!).

Have a Great Year!
Paul