• Virtual Gaming – Chain of Command
    Thanks to COVID-19, many of us had not had the chance to play a game face-to-face with an opponent for almost 11 months. Over that time several solutions to this problem have arisen. As I have previously documented, I have spent some time playing online boardgames via apps and playing Role-Playing [...]

  • Painting Progress – 14th January 2021
    After several weeks in the hobby doldrums, I have finally managed to get some miniature painting done, so my figure count for 2021 has begun. First off are twenty Goblin Spearmen. These are from the Oathmark Goblin Infantry box set, and form part of my Goblin army for games such as Saga: Age of [...]

  • 2021 – Getting back in the groove?
    There is no doubt that 2020 ended with somewhat of a whimper, hobby wise (well, non-hobby wise too really). My plans to finish my third painted army of 2020 were somewhat derailed in October last year when my mum suffered a serious fall and I found myself looking after my parents for the duration [...]

  • Painting Update – 12th October 2020
    In the past week I have managed to complete my painting of the miniatures from the Shadowed Paths expansion to Journeys in Middle Earth by Fantsy Flight Games – I can now safely add the expansion into the app without any danger of an unpainted miniature appearing on our gaming board (The [...]

  • Painting Update – 5th October 2020
    I had a small slump in my painting output recently – essentially several days when I really didn’t feel like picking up a paint brush. Whilst I have been an advocate of trying to paint little and often, I think there are times when you just have to go with it and give yourself a break. [...]

  • Painting Update – 21st September 2020
    Following the completion of a couple of Saga Age of Magic armies, I decided to reward myself by painting the miniatures from the latest expansion to the Lords of the Rings: Journeys in Middle Earth expansion from Fantasy Flight Games – Shadowed Paths. Since I have painted all the miniatures [...]

  • Painting Update – 17th September 2020
    I actually finished this model a couple of weeks ago, but have had some issues taking a photo – this one is pretty bad, but the best I can do at the moment. Hopefully I can get a better one when I finally get to field the army on the table. This is the Emmasarius from the Ex-Illis range, [...]

  • Gaming in a pandemic – rediscovering RPGs
    As I mentioned in my previous post about my gaming experience during these strange days in which we have been living for the past few months, the lack of face-to-face gaming has led us down several different avenues as we have explored alternative ways of playing games together There is, of course, [...]

  • Painting Update – 23rd August 2020
    Only the one miniature painted in the last few days, but in my defence it is a big one… This is the Gargantuan Skeletal Dragon from the Pathfinder Battles range by Wizkids. It’s a plastic miniature that comes ready-primed, so that you can immediately get on with the business of [...]

  • Painting Update – 17th August 2020
    As I have mentioned before, one of the discovered benefits of the COVID pandemic has been our Saturday afternoon ‘Paint and Chat’ sessions. As well as getting the opportunity to socialise with friends, it also provides a regular window for progressing with projects that might otherwise [...]

  • Painting update – 4th August 2020
    Painting in the last few weeks has all been about the beastmen. Following the last update I have finished a further three units of these troops, which gives me 40 in total – not a bad output for me in five weeks. It wasn’t until I put these away in the box that I realised just how far I [...]

  • Gaming in a pandemic – Apps
    Since face-to-face gaming has been denied most of us in recent months we have had to find various alternatives. There are many available, including such platforms as VASSAL and Tabletop Simulator, with various people also coming up with inventive ways of using social media to stream live gaming. [...]

  • Painting update – 7th July 2020
    Following on from my last update I have managed to make steady, if not exactly speedy, progress on my second Saga: Age of Magic army – a Demonic warband. As I said in my last update, the main figures I am using for this are taken from the old computer-moderated tabletop wargames Ex-Illis. I [...]

  • Painting Update – w/e 19th June 2020
    My have managed to maintain my painting output in the last two or three weeks – nothing spectacular, but I have now finished my Undead army for Saga: Age of Magic by painting another 11 Zombies (it was 12, but I appear to have lost one somewhere!) so that my army can now feature a horde of 20 [...]

Painting & Modelling

Battle Reports / Gaming Sessions

  • Review: The King is Dead
    Rating: King Arthur is dead. In the aftermath of his death, the Scots, Welsh and Romano-British fight for the newly vacant throne of England whilst in the background, the shadow of a Saxon invasion looms. This is the introduction for The King is Dead – the first boardgame from Osprey Publishing, [...]

  • Review – Twilight Struggle, Digital Edition
    The lockdown due to the COVID-19 virus has caused a certain amount of disruption to tabletop gaming, and has forced many people to look online for substitutes to their usual face-to-face gaming fayre. I have always been a fan of the Twilight Struggle boardgame from GMT Games, and backed the Digital [...]

  • Review – God of Battles
    Rating: God of Battles is a fantasy mass battle game from author Jake Thornton and published as a 290 page hardback, full colour rulebook by Foundry Publications. It is set in world of Aren, which is, in many ways, a fairly ‘standard’ fantasy worlds with Elves, Dwarfs, Orcs and Undead, but also [...]

  • Review – I Ain’t Been Shot Mum: Battle for Liberation
    Rating:  Battle for Liberation is a supplement for the I Ain’t Been Shot Mum (IABSM) 3rd Edition World War II Company Level rules from Too Fat Lardies. It covers the World War 2 Western Front from 1943 – 45, from the invasion of Sicily to the final battles in the heart of Germany, and gives [...]

  • Review: Pocket Quest…opening the box
    Rating Pocket Quest is a 6mm Dungeon Crawl game produced by Perfect 6 Miniatures and The Miniature Architect. As you first look at it, this game is a thing of beauty. It comes in an MDF box which is just over 6″ square – this doubles not only as the game box, but also as a [...]

  • Review: Cigar Box Battle Mats
    Rating:  In recent years, there has been a quantum leap in commercially available terrain for wargaming. One of the biggest areas of growth has been in terrain mats. It doesn’t seem that long ago that, unless you made a table yourself, your choice of terrain mat was limited to a single [...]

  • Review: Daisho
    Rating: Daisho is a set of skirmish rules for warfare set in mythical Japan. The rules are written by Charles Murton and Craig Cartmell of The Ministry of Gentlemanly Warfare, who have also authored In Her Majesty’s Name and Blood Eagle, and were published in 2015. They are available as a 90 [...]

  • Review: Went The Day Well?
    Rating:  A Very British Civil War first hit our wargaming tables around 2009, and is the brainchild of Solway Crafts and Miniatures . Since that time, there has been a steady release of new supplements detailing various units and factions within this alternative history, but up until now these [...]

  • Review: Dead Man’s Hand
    Rating: In my experience, Wild West games tend to be very hit or miss affairs (no pun intended). They tend to be games that promote style over substance – they can look incredibly pretty, as you can produce some stunning scenery to fight over, but (if you’re not careful) they can be dull as [...]

  • Review: Bushi No Yume
    Rating: Bushi No Yume (BNY) is a set of skirmish rules for fighting in ancient Japan, using either a historical of fantasy setting. They were written in 2010 by our friend Rich Jones. BNY uses the same basic rules engine as Rich’s other set of rules, ‘Flying Lead’, so if you are [...]

  • Review – Mortem Et Gloriam
    Rating: Mortem et Gloriam is a new set of Ancients mass battle rules, written by Simon Hall, who was previously a co-author of the Field of Glory rules, which were published by Osprey Publishing. The first thing of note about these rules is that they are not presented in a traditional bound [...]

  • Review: I Ain’t Been Shot Mum (3rd Edition)
    Rating:  The third edition of I Ain’t Been Shot Mum has arrived from Too Fat Lardies with a bang, declaring itself ‘The Other World War II Miniatures Game’ and thus immediately addressing the elephant in the room of company level WWII rules that is Flames of War. And indeed, IABSM is [...]

  • Review: Open Combat Sword Masters
    Rating: Open Combat is a set of warband skirmish rules designed to be played with any set of miniatures that the gamer has to hand, and is published by Second Thunder. The setting is pre-gunpowder, but can be historical or fantasy in nature – it’s completely up to the players what and [...]
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    Snowdonia – lots of fun to be had in North Wales
    Last night saw our first play of Snowdonia, the new game from Tony Boydell and Surprised Stare Games. Tony has previous designed games such as Fzzzzt and Totemo, both of which I own and enjoy. I’d played a final draft of this game at the UK Games Expo back in May, and liked it very much [...]

  • Review: Forager
    Rating: Forager opens with an excerpt from the account of Lieutenant George Drummond Graeme of the 2nd Light Kings German Legion of the battle at Le Haye Sainte in 1815: “There are countless tales written by soldiers of the Napoleonic Wars, many highlighting that some of their experiences [...]

  • Review – Cigar Box Battle Plush Gaming Mats
    Rating: Cigar Box Battle produce a number of different styles of terrain mat (we interviewed Chris Ward and Cory Ring from the company in Episode 221 of the Podcast) One of the newest products they produce is the PLUSH fabric gaming mat. This was developed due to the rise in popularity of using [...]

  • Review: Gothic – A Dark Companion for In Her Majesty’s Name
    Rating: Gothic is the third supplement for the Victorian Science Fiction rules In Her Majesty’s Name, written by Charles Murton and Craig Cartmell, but it is the first published directly by The Ministry of Gentlemanly Warfare, as opposed to Osprey Publishing. Whilst the original IHMN rules [...]

  • Review: Hail Caesar
    Rating:  Wargames rules, it seems, are somewhat like buses: You seem to spend ages waiting for a set to come along, and then two or three arrive at the same time. Last year (2010) this was true of Napoleonic rules, this year it’s the turn of Ancients, with several new Ancients rulesets being [...]

  • Review: Red Star, White Lights
    Rating: Red Star, White Lights is a new scenario book for modern warfare, written by Jason Weiser. During the Cold War, most eyes looked to Germany as the place where a potential land battle between the forces of NATO and the Warsaw Pact would take place. This book highlights Scandinavia as another [...]
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    New game for the pub – Wazabi
    Well, it came too late for this week’s game night, but I’ve just picked up a very interesting looking dice game from Gigamic (the people behind the gorgeous wooden abstract games like Quarto and Pylos) called Wazabi. The idea of the game almost couldn’t be simpler – you have [...]

  • Review: Maalintii Rangers
    Rating: Maalintii Rangers (or Day of the Rangers) is the first Battle Book for the Skirmish Sangin rules, and as such is a supplement, and requires the original Skirmish Sangin rules in order to play. As you can imagine from the title, this book concentrates on the events surrounding Operation [...]

  • Review: Battles in the Age of War
    Rating: Battles in the Age of War (BAW) is a set of wargames rules designed for Samurai Warfare in the Sengoku period between 1467 – 1650. They were written in 2008 and are published by Peter Pig. The rules are 136 pages long, perfect bound and are black & white with a full colour soft [...]
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    Shogun – First impressions
    Last Wednesday night saw the first play of the boardgame ‘Shogun’ (designed by Dirk Henn and published by Queen Games) at Scimitar Wargames Club. This is a boardgame which is a re-theme of the classic 30 Years War game Wallenstein, and rather than Europe, this game puts the action into [...]

  • Review: Pandemic – Reign of Cthulhu
    Rating: One of the (few) saving graces from attending Strategy Game Con last weekend was the fact that I got to play a couple of games of the new Pandemic game: Reign of Cthulhu. Reign of Cthulhu is a co-operative game for between two and four players. Players take the role of one of seven [...]

  • Review: Battlegroup – Fall of the Reich
    Rating: Battlegroup Fall of the Reich (FotR) is the third volume of the Battlegroup Kursk WWII rules that were released in 2012 by Iron Fist Publishing. As you might expect, Battlegroup Fall of the Reich looks at the last months of the war, as the Allies marched into Germany on both the Eastern and [...]

  • UFO Squad is now available
    Rating:  You may remember back in episode 146 of the podcast, I interviewed Rusti Gregory or Crossover Miniatures about his Kickstarter for a new game: UFO Squad. Well, I’m very pleased to say that these rules, and the associated figures, are now available to buy from the Crossover [...]
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    1/48th Fallschirmjager – Enemy Lines vs North Star (Scarab)
    Paul Caspall was asking how the Enemy Lines figures that I mentioned yesterday match up with their North Star equivalents. Marco at Enemy Lines is going to send me a sample, but here are side-by-side pictures of the figure sets – North Star is first, followed by Enemy Lines. As you can see, [...]

  • Review: Test of Honour Ninjas of Iga Warband
    Rating: Ninjas of Iga is the latest box set of miniatures to be released by Warlord Games for their Test of Honour Samurai skirmish game – it is the second box set they have released which includes all new metal miniatures. The box set includes 7 metal miniatures, 10 plastic bases and 2 [...]

  • Unboxing Test of Honour – Core Box & Faction Boxes
    As you no doubt know by know, I have been in a state of excited anticipation ever since Warlord Games announced that they were releasing Test of Honour. Well, the time has come and everything has arrived – I ordered my copy from PE2 Collectibles, which meant that I didn’t get the Geisha [...]

  • Unboxing Dark Souls: The Board Game
    When the Dark Souls Kickstarter project funded, having raised over £3,770K from over 31,000 backers, there were few who believed Steamforged Games when they stated that their estimated delivery date of April 2017 would not affected. However, here we are in April 2017 and Steamforged are proving [...]

  • Review: UFO Squad – Defenders of the Earth
    Rating: UFO Squad is the new sci-fi skirmish game from Crossover Miniatures, where squads of human troops defend the earth from the threat of alien invasion. As well as the rules, Crossover has produced a range of figures for the game. In this blog, I’m taking a look at the human troops. [...]

  • Review – Wargames Terrain and Buildings, The Napoleonic Wars.
    Wargames Terrain and Buildings, The Napoleonic Wars is a book written in 2019 by Tony Harwood (probably more well known by his online pseudonym Dampfpanzerwagon) and published by Pen & Sword Books. Overview The Napoleonic period is one of the most popular periods to play wargames in – [...]

  • Review: Soldiers of God
    Rating:  Soldiers of God is a set of Ancients rules written by Warwick Kinrade and published by Artorus Games. The game is specifically aimed at gaming tabletop battles during the Crusades. The book is in softback A5 format and is printed in full colour on high quality, glossy paper and comes [...]

  • Review: Ice Cool
    Rating: Ice Cool is the new dexterity board game from designer Brian Gomez and published by Brain Games.  In a nutshell, it’s a flicking game with penguins. The Components The game board is actually made up of several box inners …plus a set of 16 wooden fish token, 4 plastic penguin [...]

  • Review: Broken Legions
    Rating: Thus begins Broken Legions – another in the series of Wargames Rules from Osprey Publishing, written by Mark Latham. As you can already deduce, this is a fantasy skirmish wargame set in the time of the Roman Empire. Broken Legions is a ‘warband’ style of skirmish game, so [...]

  • Review: Saga -Varjazi & Basileus
    Rating: Varjazi & Basileus represents the last of the current Dark Age supplements to be released by Gripping Beast at the current time. Whilst they are no doubt due to visit the Arthurian period at some time in the future, for now, these are the last factions. As such, this book not only comes [...]
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    Legitimacy review @ Scimitar Wargames
    I mentioned that we’ve played several of Minion Games new releases in recent weeks. I’ve recorded my thoughts for a forthcoming podcast, but Richard Hardy, another member of Scimitar Wargames group, has shared a few thoughts on the game Legitimacy. You can find the review by following [...]

  • Review: Battlegroup Rulebook
    Rating: The Battlegroup Rulebook is a new, small format book published to accompany the release of Battlegroup Overlord. These rules were previously released as an integral part of the Battlegroup Kursk book, but Iron Fist and Plastic Soldier have perhaps recognised that not everyone would want to [...]
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    Ex illis – First impressions
    After a couple of weeks spent gluing plastic together, last night saw the first outing for Ex illis, the new wargame from Bastion Inc, a tabletop wargaming company from Quebec, Canada. OK, grey plastic figures aren’t the most visually appealing of subjects, but given my record on painting [...]

  • Review – Augustus to Aurelian
    Rating:  Whilst many wargamers are content to play with rules they have bought ‘out of the box’, there is a sizeable number of gamers who are notorious for ‘tweaking’ rules, changing them so that they correspond with their own particular view or reading of history. Sometimes, this reaches [...]

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Virtual Gaming – Chain of Command

by Neil Shuck in Battle Reports & Gaming Sessions

Thanks to COVID-19, many of us had not had the chance to play a game face-to-face with an opponent for almost 11 months. Over that time several solutions to this problem have [...]

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