A quick look at Miniature Wargames Issue 349

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This month for various reasons I do not have time to do a full review of the latest Miniature Wargames magazine (partly due to having to create an advert for the next issue but more on that next week!) but it is a great magazine so I want to look at a few bits of it and give my thoughts….. In fact since I typed that first sentence three days have passed and it turns out I had less time than I thought I first had so this will have to be an even shorter look!

Here is an outline of the official contents of the magazine with my own comments inserted into a few key areas of my own special interest.

Cover Story – Scarlet Thunder at Salute. Can Colonel White escort the World President to London Airport before the Mysterons wreak their deadly havoc? John Treadaway presents an homage to Supermarionation in this preview of one of the South London Warlords’ games at Salute 2012.

This is a great article that really shows the potential of a group of wargamers who have talent and time to do something original.  From the scratch built vehicles and terrain to the converted miniatures and the mission idea itself it is pure quality and was a joy to read.  John Treadaway hits gold again…now where is my copy of Full Thrust?

Ancients – Peter Hall continues his series on wargaming the battle of Mons Graupius using Hail Caesar rules.

Napoleonic – John Walsh contributes the concluding part of his series on wargaming Salamanca in the year of the battle’s 200th anniversary.

I had been looking forward to the conclusion of this series of articles and Mr Walsh did not disappoint me.  Now I have the full set I might well give them the Flintloque treatment when time allows! 

ACW – Trevor Halsall looks at wargaming the Hornet’s Nest action at Shiloh, 1862, in a preview of Newbury & Reading Wargames Club’s game at Salute 2012.

I have to be honest again.  ACW leaves me cold as a wargamer but this article had some really nice pictures and the Newbury & Reading guys did a lovely job.

19th Century – Jim Webster concludes his series on wargaming the French intervention in the Mexico of the 1860s with a look at the role of the Egyptian battalion.

The High Ground – Steve Eardley questions our assumptions, reviews the latest products and looks at infantry square tactics on the tabletop.

Insightful and one of the most rewarding pile of pages in every issue of MW.  Form Square and give Mr Eardley a medal!

WWII – Gary Richards presents scenarios for wargaming the Japanese invasion of Burma, 70 years ago this spring.

Modern – Andrew Hubback presents a wargamer’s guide to playing SWAT team actions in a modern urban environment including tactics, terrain, rules and figure options.

Boy have I waited for this one, its been a couple of months but it was well worth the wait.  Andrew Hubback delves into ultra modern hostage rescue and all that entails.  From the background to hostage takers and retrievers to a wargamers guide and miniatures advice but also terrain and tactics advice.  He also tells how to convert standard military vehicles for use by the local PD or SWAT teams (good advice this!) and then on to rules that suit the job.  He openly states that mis-match is the name of the game when playing out scenarios involving hostages and gives good account of what is out there.  He also outlines segmenting play to represent the shock for trained men in entering rooms where hostages are held.  Andrew finishes with a short scenario called ‘Factory Hold Up’ that flows from everything already talked about which I found played out really well in 15mm scale.  I have to say that all this fires me up to do a USE ME title on the subject but for now ‘USE ME Riot’ will have to remain a dream as other things demand life!

Darker Horizons – Gary Mitchell rounds up the latest gossip, news and reviews in his regular Darker Horizons column.

Gary gives his usual zany excellence and it was great to meet him at Salute.  But shucks a whole page on little old me and mine…how kind!  An excellent look at Alternative Armies and 15mm.co.uk, USE ME and Flintloque and more. So impressed by this.   Here is a picture from the free copy Mr Hubback gave me on the day!

Darker Horizons page in MW349

I cannot really talk about this as several interviews and a video post too are enough for my ego in the last two weeks.  As Bob Minadeo said to me today ‘Soon you will need a man to follow you in the style of the ancient Romans and whisper in your ear ” remember you are only a man” ‘.  Perhaps I will…

GBS

Interviewed on ‘Bring your A Game’ blog

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Blog Logo for Bring your A-Game

A couple of weeks before Salute 2012 I was asked if I would like to be interviewed by Bring your A-Game blog.  Mike, the fellow who runs the blog, said it would be fine for me to wait until after Salute to give my responses to his questions which I readily agreed to as it suited me and as it turned out it suited Mike too (he was a bit under the weather during the time of the show).  Now the interview is up and live so why not head on over and have a read!

Questions ranged all over the place including my origins in miniature wargaming, what my favourite set of rules was, what I am currently up to and intend to be up to as well.  Also covered are the origins of 15mm.co.uk and the gaming theory of Flintloque 3rd edition.  In fact once I had finished my evening’s work in writing my answers I realised that it ran to several thousand words but hey…I have a reputation for just going on and on 🙂

Hat’s off to Mike, great work, great blog.

GBS

HOF Fire-Team interview on Dropship Horizon Blog

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HOF Fire-Team book cover

Chris K,  he of Basement Gaming Bunker blog has posted an interview with me on the mighty Dropship Horizon blog.  The interview is a short one all about the idea and development behind the brand new HOF Fire-Team wargame rules written by Bob Minadeo and myself.  Chris asks some good questions and I hope my answers were just as good.  If you are keen on 15mm science fiction gaming then go along and have a read.

Thanks also to all those who have emailed me on this interview already and for chastising for not putting this up already on me blog…well I am busy you know but posts a plenty to come I assure you!

GBS

Painting the Ion Age with Sam Croes

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IB51

Retained Squires - Front

Some of you might have seen the beautifully painted and brand new Ion Age 28mm white metal miniatures from Alternative Armies released in late March 2012.  But I bet a lot of you did not know who painted them or how he did it.  Well know you will know who and how!

Sam Croes a man of many talents has posted on his blog an account of his painting and basing method for the four miniatures.  So go along and have a read and a drool!

You can find these miniatures (unpainted…sorry, I am keeping the ones in the photos!) on the Alternative Armies website.

GBS

Assembled for the Avengers!

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I had promised my eldest that I would take him to the Avengers movie when it came out.  I made this promise several years ago after a brief trailer at the end of his first Iron Man movie experience..he remembered and now it was time to collect!  He even wore his Avengers t-shirt!

So off we went to the local cinema in Ayr.  Not to be a ‘moaning mini’ or anything but by the gods going to the movies in the UK is no longer a cheap experience.  I will not list numbers but if the movie had been on DVD on new release we could have bought three copies for the price of seeing it in ‘kinda 3D but not really’.   But enough of that..what was the film actually like?

Excited to see the film dad!

Honestly it was very good.  It had a decent plot which moved at a good speed with a few twists in it.  Every hero was given development and screen time.  It retained a sense of humour which is sadly lacking in a lot of hollywood films now (it reminded me of the banter between Han Solo and Luke Skywalker at times) and unlike previous efforts the Hulk character was very good indeed.  I will not spoil surprises but it was a shame that the alien army for the big fight scene at the end was the same dumb cookie cutter foe that was almost identical to those in ‘Battleship’ and ‘Skyline’ and ‘Battle Los Angeles’ with a change of hair cut only in some places.

So we gave it an 8/10 or for me…worth the effort of going!

GBS

p.s.  This post is a bit late, we actually went on opening night this week but its taken me until now to get this up!

Opps! Not enough Bandwidth!

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Not quite what I found this morning but not far off!

Maybe its down to the pre and post Salute boost in the viewing numbers on the Alternative Armies and 15mm.co.uk websites but we have used too much bandwidth!  Despite increasing it and a combined total of more than 24,000 views per month it ain’t enough.  So both websites have for the moment vanished but worry not we are still here!

Normal service will be resumed as soon as possible.  Please comment here if you have a question.

GBS

The Free Scenario for USE ME Eldritch Horror

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With life now returning gradually to normal after the mad weekend of Salute 2012 I was putting the final touches to the free scenario mentioned on page four of UM013 USE ME An Eldritch Horror.  This free scenario will begin mailing out to those who requested it from tomorrow.   Almost all of the titles in the series have a free folder of files or just a scenario but I will admit that my workload has meant that I have to write and test these scenarios in my own time at the weekends.  Below is an extract from this two page scenario…enjoy!

GBS

An Eldritch Plant indeed!

An Evil at the Buresmouth Tavern

Captain Standish stood back from the blurred glass panes of the ‘Fisherman’s Ankle’ tavern and considered the grotty little town that was Buresmouth. He was not local to the area and it showed. For a start he has the right number of fingers and toes which, he was beginning to feel, was not the case for many of the local people. Standish and his fellow investigators had been brought to the tavern following a rumour of a cult that had begun to worship a growing plant that was most certainly a creation of the elder gods.

This plant was in the remotest part of the tavern’s plot of land and the main room of the tavern was serving as a gathering point for those who sought to undo the evil of the unknown. Standish had been among the last to arrive and the small army detachment (former rank had it privileges after all) he had recruited for the night had already invested the tavern. They would begin shortly. Standish knew that he would be outnumbered, but dealing with cultists was one thing…if anything from beyond this realm was here then that would be a different and rum deal for all of them.

The Voodoo Orc Salute Video Interview

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I have to hand it to Rob Alderman.  As well as being a really nice guy he is a talented miniature sculptor and also it seems a guru of the video chat too.  To this end he had asked me a couple of weeks before Salute 2012 if I would be willing to do a short interview with him about what I had been up to.  I will admit I had forgotten this..but when he reminded me I was more than happy to do it.

It is always strange watching and listening to yourself but I hope you all enjoy this short film.  The sound quality is rather low (though that could be me, it was a very long day, in a very large room) and in case anyone is wondering who the strange fellow is that appears behind me and pulls a face about three minutes in…its Edward Jackson…artist for the World of Valon and the Ion Age.

If anyone has any questions about what I said just comment on this post and I will be happy to expand on points.

Thanks Rob!

GBS

Salute 2012 – My take on the day

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Driving into London is a hairy experience at the best of times.  I know, I have asked those who live and work there.  But for me and the rest of the team it is a once a year event and sometimes getting to Excel is an adventure in itself.  Luckily this time the trip inside the M25 and then through many, many streets passing such sights as the Angel Islington, the Spittalfields Market and the Moorfields Eye Hospital (plus many streets that feature on the Monopoly Board!) went well and when the doors opened the Alternative Armies / 15mm.co.uk trade stand was set up and ready.  It did not take long for the crowds to build as you can see below.

What do you mean you can't see me, I am near a white wall!

I am always awed by the sheer scale of a hall at Excel (and Salute only occupies half of the possible space!) and if you have not been you can see above what I mean.  I took this standing next to our trade stand which was no where near the opposite wall so this is not the whole length of the hall.   At this point I have no idea of the attendance but I think it topped five thousand and felt just as busy as last year.  I did manage to walk round the whole hall once and said hello to many traders whom I know and also a good number of the Warlords themselves who are customers of ours.

I did not work on the stand this year instead I went back to my 90’s roots and took on the challenge of the ‘Sharkes Gingerbread’ demo scenario for Flintloque.  You can read all about the scenario over on Barking Irons and I managed to entertain a good two dozen with it who all went away happy.  I played as the Gingerbread Men and lost and lost and lost.  The most memorable event on table was watching Sharke being killed by a Trolka armed with a Skandavian Kannonderbuss (basically a musket that is a 6lb cannon!) at short range; even his legendary status did not save him.  A big thanks to Tony Harwood for giving me the actual Gingerbread House from his article; it was photographed a good thirty times across the day and I have seen it on three other blogs so far!  Below is a picture of one of the games in progress; it was excellent fun and really entertaining.  Being my first public demo in…humm…maybe three years.

Can I play mister?...I love Flintloque!

The trade stand itself was right next to the demo game table and it was busy for the whole day.  As yet I cannot say what the highest selling codes of the day were but I am fairly certain of some.  We ran out of the packs used in the demo game (including the Gingerbread Men) and handed over a good deal of Sharke’s Chosen box sets which was the big release for April for Flintloque.  HOF Fire-Team was greeting with big grins and open hands (only being released this week no one had seen it before!) and the print edition of MOTH went down well.  But!  I only put half the number of USE ME books we brought back on the van with there being virtually none of some of the books left out of the now Twelve titles in the series.  I am told that the article in Miniature Wargames reviewing USE ME was quoted by many (I will review that current issue given to me by MW Editor Andrew Hubback himself real soon) and also the poster showing the series brought gamers over.  I took a photo of part of the ‘books table’ so you can see this.

Can I speak to Omer Golan, is he here? If I take all twelve can I get one free?

It would not be Salute without meeting my good friends both old and new.  I apologise in advance if I miss anyone out but I must have spoken to a hundred plus people and my throat still hurts!  First off the Warlords themselves including musical and sculpting talent Steve Young (he of Burrovian fame for those in the know).  Thanks Steve for the novel too…all good Joccian fodder!  And then a new talent by the name of Sam Croes (he of the Ion Age art and tiles already on the blog) who is a super guy and a real pleasure to speak to (I will not go into what we spoke of…but great things will happen later this year!).  The feature writer for Starburst magazine whose card I got.  I also got to meet Darker Horizon’s column writer Gary Mitchell and thank him for his full page review of mine and the company’s work.  I also later on got to meet the editor of MW Andrew Hubback who impressed me with a huge knowledge of the hobby and views similar to mine that diversity in wargaming is the key to its continual thriving.  I am sure I am missing people…   Edward Jackson, artist extraordinary of Valon (he draws all the art for Flintloque and other ranges too) with his good lady spent some time and made me smile…he is a really talented fellow and brimming with ideas.  Watching ‘Jacksorc’ talking with Rob Alderman (sculptor of a good number of current Flintloque miniatures) and Tony Harwood..you could almost see the lightening of ideas in the very air!  Below is a picture taken of that chat (sorry I am not in these pictures, but hey I need to press the button!).  Again there were many more people….

Feel the talent! Yes...I was lurking next to the Flintloque racks!

I got myself some swag too.  I will not reveal who make ‘swops’ with me for our stock in return for theirs (more this year than last) but it will keep me in reading for a few months.  I got a copy of the Aeronef rules by Wessex Games,  a title I had been lacking that was recommended to me.  I look forward to digging in this pile when time allows.  We also ended up with a good number of Salute promo materials that were handed in at the stand, mugs, badges, the salute miniature, magazine and bundles of business cards and flyers.

Rob Alderman asked me to do a video interview (good thing I brushed my hair!) so in return I got a snap of him holding his favourite reading material…

Don't hurt me...I will hold the books!

All in all this years 40th Anniversary Salute show was a roaring success for both me and the company too.  It never ceases to amaze me what talent exists not only in the world but also in connection with me.  Wargaming is home to some of the nicest people you will ever meet.

Thanks to all of you dear customers…I ate prime steak on Saturday night!

GBS

Journey’s End

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Another Salute wargame show is over and another one thousand mile round trip is now complete.  I am back home!

I intend to publish a few posts in the next couple of days, one about the show and my excellent experiences there and another reviewing the latest Miniature Wargames magazine in which I featured!

So look out for these posts and if I feature anywhere else on the web in regards to the show, and failed to say hello, I apologise…it was a heck of a busy day!

Early night tonight I think….zzzzzzzzzzzz  🙂    Normal service resumes upon the morrow.

GBS