Maori War Gunboats

Dressing the Lines, one of my favorite BLOGs posted today about a new book with a different angle on the Maori Wars. Ever since I hiked parts of the South Island and travelled around New Zealand, I have been hooked on all things Waikato Wars, Hone Heke, Mondays Warriors, etc...in essence what used to be called the Maori Wars and is now called The New Zealand Wars.  I collected a large bunch of a defunct line of figures in 15mm figures to game the period. I covet the 28mm figures by Empress Miniatures.  I try to gather and read as many of the books as I can...sometimes tough to do on an otherwise esoteric topic to most Americans.

The new book is entitled The Waikato River Gunboats by Grant Middlemiss. Having grown up around Lake Champlain with it's history of Gunboat warfare, worked on an archaeological dive of the same, and a long interest in Mosquito Fleets, Brown Water Navies, etc., this book is on my short list.

To whet your apetite, I "lifted" two images:

Go HERE to purchase the book. And while your at it, subscribe to Dressing the Lines.

Memoir '44 Operation Neptune Map Set

Memoir '44 is a simple but fun World War Two boardgame. On June 25, 2014, Days of Wonder is releasing a full set of Operation Neptune maps. Six maps can be linked together to play all five beaches, Pointe du Hoc and the Airborne landing zones.

Take a look:

It can be had HERE for $35.00 USD. 

Greek Hoplites

My friend Evil Bob of Evil Bob's Miniatures just painted some great Hoplites...makes me want to game the period: fantastic figures, painting and shield transfers.

VSF Battle at Glenbrook Games

A good friend of mine recently put on a VSF game using the Ganesha Games rules 61-65, a fast play, Company Level American Civil War game based on the popular Song of Blades and Heroes Mechanics. He hosted a host of pictures over on his BLOG. He also takes commission for painting. I clipped some of his photos.

British Force

Prussian Force

Action Shots

Go HERE for the originals and full set of pictures.

Space Crusade

Two days ago, The Black Android posted an AAR on The Miniatures Page about a game of Space Crusade. The game was a combined effort between Milton Bradley and Games Workshop dating back to 1991. It even had TV commercials. The Black Android also posted a link to photos on his Flickr account. The game lasted thirteen turns and it reminded me how much fun that game is to play.

Later the same day, he posted another AAR and Flickr link of the second scenario.

I'd like to dig this one out. I have all the bad guys painted. The marines could use some work. I think the figures would do well with magnetized weapons. Here's a photo from a now defunct website (it's now a video game site)...I tried to find the home for this picture to steer you to the site...beautiful Ultra Marine contingent:

If you know where the site has gone, or recognize the work, I'd love to give credit where it's due...

The next step is to figure out how to use the SciFi corridors from Dwarven Forge. The squares of the board can directly translate but then the walls create issues with the figures. The other option is to "blow-up" the maps so that each square on the tiles is one of the larger four-squares. The blow-up looks great but requires a large quantity of tiles and changes some siting issues with the doors.

Not too long ago, we slapped some piant on the Project Pandora by Mantic Games figures and played out some trial games on the Dwarven Forge tiles. Here's a shot of the game:

And a few of one of the table...but please excuse the three color bad paint jobs...it was a rush to get them to the table for some quick games on nice terrain...

When I finish the figures, I'll repost more games.

Bronze Age Miniatures

On the other hand, Bronze Age Miniatures does send me great figures from time to time for the various articles I have written in These Weeks In Wargaming...their figures are great!

Hasslefree Sale

Hasslefree Miniatures have great figures! Take advantage of this sale if you ever wanted any of their many figure lines...must resist, must resist.

And, no, I don't get compensated from them. I wish I did.

Angel Barracks

Angel Barracks is a great company dealing in 6mm SciFi terrain and figures. Michael is a forerunner in the concept of 6mm skirmish gaming...something you need to see to believe.

During the interim period, Michael painted up some Hamlets from Total Battle Miniatures for me. Here are some sample shots:

Well, it's been quite awhile since I posted on the BLOG. Right about the time of my last post, I got ever so slightly injured in a training--a Blackhawk blasted dirt under my goggles during a water drop. A careless cough from a pogue right in my face led to a viral infection in the eye must have "snogged" the eye. The infection promptly spread to both. A misdiagnosis fed into a situation where I sported the eyes of Sauron for quite a long time.

Eye color change, a spate of blindness, slow recovery, blurry vision, light sensitivity, etc. have all given me a new appreciation. In short, all of the things important to me like wildland fire fighting, painting miniatures, working on my old house, reading, exercising (no sweat allowed in the eyes, don't you know) got put on hold as I stumbled around with limited vision like a vampire in midday...not the sparkly type.

Enough of the pity party...

Now, if your a subscriber to These Weeks in Wargaming either directly through email hosted by Ganesha Games, you know that I managed to keep issues flowing. One can type looking at the key boards. The image pasting and layout was difficult but do-able.

As you're reading this, you also know the Blog dropped off.  By the time TWiW was out, I'd had it for a few days. A life saver was Beasts of War Weekender as I could get about an hour or so of screen time before the irritation set in.

Computers still bug my eyes.  It's been possible to publish out TWiW; but the "reserves" are about tapped out for the old Mk1's by the time I hit send so lately even TWiW tapered off as I tried to rest the eyeballs for my Firefighting physical--I need to get back to the woods.

Well, I'm still sidelined...maybe, I'll be back to the fires in July...until then, let's get this party started back up. I'm going to try to put out more regular TWiW and mirror the postings on the BLOG.

So let's plant a standard, take a stand and make a mark...

(Otherworld Miniatures Orc painted by Stan Johansen Miniatures)