• Mike Hobbs – Funeral Webcast
    It was Mike’s funeral today. Due to COVID restrictions, attendance at the service was strictly limited, and I know so many people would have wanted to pay their respects. The service was recorded and is available to watch for the next week. Should you wish to watch please use the link and [...]

  • Mike Hobbs – A Book of Condolence
    Following the outpouring of messages from the community following the passing of Mike Hobbs, I thought it would be nice to have a permanent record of these to pass on to his wife, Mandy. I have created a Book of Condolence for Mike – you can find it at the following link: [...]

  • Mike Hobbs – The Welsh Wizzard
    As I write this, I am still reeling from the shocking news of the sudden death of Mike Hobbs, only a few days after his 55th birthday. I first met Mike on the UK show circuit as he used to help on the trade stand for Musketeer Miniatures with his long time friend Bill Thornhill. I was introduced to [...]

  • Painting Tally – March 2021
    A decent month for painting, but not on a par with last month. Some would argue that it may appear better than I think it was as cavalry count as two models… Anyway, two-thirds of the month was spent painting wolf riders – I added a further 25 to existing models, including these: These [...]

  • Burrows & Badgers – New Kickstarter running until 2nd April 2021
    Michael and Jo at Oathsworn Miniatures have launched their biggest ever Kickstarter project for Burrows & Badgers, with a whopping 30 new miniatures being added to the range. The Dark, The Devout and The Heroic brings the undead into the realm of Northymbra, and those which fight them. The [...]

  • Goblin Wolf Rider host is complete
    Almost exactly a month after starting them, the Goblin Wolf Rider host has been finished and is ready to join the rest of the army… There are ten scouts… Fourteen riders with hand weapons… Six characters… And five [...]

  • Hobby Update – 8th March 2021
    A fairly productive weekend has seen a group of Goblin Wolf Riders finished and another about 80% complete. This latest group is armed with spears and shields. 20 down, 15 to [...]

  • Evil Dvergr Dwarves on Kickstarter
    I have been a fan of Colin Patten’s Dark Age sculpting for some time – especially his twist on fantasy miniatures, right back to the days of the original Vendel Miniatures ranges. A few years ago he sculpted an new range of Dwarfs for Conqueror Models, and is now following these up with [...]

  • Painting Tally – February 2021
    February has been a hugely productive month for me – I’ve probably painted more models in a month than at any other time, even if I have slowed down a little in the past few days. I have spent the month concentrating on painting my Goblin army, finishing the infantry and starting on the [...]

  • Who let the Wolves out?
    With the Goblin Infantry finished (at least for now) the last few days have been spent building and priming Goblin Wolf Riders. I started painting them over the past weekend. I started with a unit of wolves without riders in order to figure out how to paint them. The plan was to paint them with [...]

  • Goblin Wolf Riders – An attack of Deja Vu
    The next stage in my Goblin army was to assemble a number of Wolf Riders, using miniatures from the Oathmark Goblin Wolf Riders box set Having assembled them, I looked and had a sudden attack of deja vu – the last time I had 30+ cavalry models on that tray, the happened to be Norman Knights, [...]

  • Goblin Infantry finished – Hobby Update 17th February 2021
    Well, I say finished. They are almost finished – one thing remains to be done, as you will see. The weekend saw the completion of painting my Oathmark Goblin Infantry. These have now been based and are pretty much ready for battle. First up is a group of 5 Goblins wielding dual weapons. These [...]

  • Hobby Update – 13th February 2021
    Reached the end of what has turned out to be a very productive week. The last figures of my latest Goblin unit – Goblins with Hand Weapons – were finished on Thursday, and I spent Friday and this morning finishing the basing. Our weekly ‘Paint and chat’ session has just [...]

  • What accounts for the increased painting speed?
    It has been noted that my painting output appears to have increased dramatically over the past few weeks, and I was asked on Twitter what accounted for this – was it regular painting time or using Contrast paints? The character limit of Twitter stopped me from fully expanding on this, so here [...]

  • Hobby Update – 9th February 2021
    Started the week with another ‘Paint and chat’ session. These type of get togethers on social media – whether on Google Meet, Jitsi, Discord or whatever other platform you wish – have been an invaluable way of sharing hobby time. I hope that even when we can all safely mix [...]

Painting & Modelling

Battle Reports / Gaming Sessions

  • Dark Souls – thoughts after first play through
    I had the chance to play the new Dark Souls boardgame from Steamforged Games the other night, and I thought that I would share my intial thoughts on the game. I have never played the video game on which this boardgame is based, but I am told by various people that it is a faithful adaption of that [...]

  • Review: Land of the Free
    Rating: Land of the Free is a set of wargames rules from Osprey Publishing. Written by Joe Krone, the rules concentrate on four wars in the Horse and Musket period which helped shape the modern day United States: The French Indian War, the American Revolutionary War, the Northwest Indian War and [...]

  • Review: UFO Squad – Vehicles and Buildings
    Rating:  Crossover Miniatures has just released UFO Squad, a set of skirmish rules for fighting battles of Humans vs Aliens, inspired by the games that we saw in the old X-COM: UFO Defense computer game. Following on from the rules and the Human and Alien Troops, we also have a range of vehicles, [...]
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    Game Review – Zombie Dice
    Zombie Dice is the latest release from Steve Jackson games, and is one of those ‘classic’ push-your-luck style dice rolling games. Players take the roll of zombies, who are all out to eat the brains of their hapless victims. The victims are represented by dice, and are of 3 different [...]

  • Review: Lords of Waterdeep
    Rating: If you have ever played in a fantasy role-playing game you will recognise the scene: The party is in a tavern when they are approached by a stranger – the representative of some sponsor – who asks them if they are looking for work and then proposes that they be hired to escort a [...]
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    Conflict of Heroes: Storms of Steel
    A game that has been on my list of games to get for the past several months has been Conflict of Heroes: Storms of Steel. Ever since I bought and played the first game in this series – Awakening the Bear – I’ve been keen to get this sequel. At over £50, the price of the game is [...]

  • Review – Saga:Northern Fury
    Rating:  The Saga rules, published by Gripping Beast, have taken the wargaming world by storm over the years, and are still proving to be very popular. Northern Fury was the first of several supplements which contained additional new factions to add to the existing factions from the core rulebook, [...]

  • 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 [...]

  • Review: Iron Cross
    Rating: Iron Cross is a new Company – Battalion level World War II game, written by Stuart McCorquodale, Darryl Morton and Mark Mainwaring and published by Great Escape Games. The first thing that struck me when I heard about this game was “why do we need another Company Level WWII Game?” [...]

  • Review: Polemos S.P.Q.R.
    Rating:  2011 has definitely been the year of the Ancients rules, with several different sets being released. S.P.Q.R. follows these, it’s publication having suffered a couple of delays (not the least being a rather large roof leak that left the area of the Baccus studio where pictures are [...]

  • Review: Banzai
    Rating: Banzai: Age of the Country at War is a set of wargaming rules written by Robert Fellows and published by 2D6 Wargaming in 2016. This game is written to be used with 6mm miniatures using 60mm x 30mm basing, though it should work for any scale miniatures as long as the basing has a 2:1 ratio [...]

  • Review: Battlegroup Overlord
    Rating: Battlegroup Overlord (BO) is the much anticipated second campaign volume to the Battlegroup Kursk WWII rules that were released last year by Ironfist Publishing. It is perhaps the book that many were expecting to see first, as 1944 Western Europe appears to be the most popular part of World [...]

  • Review: Black Powder – The Last Argument of Kings
    Rating:  Almost as soon as the original ‘Black Powder’ rules were released, there were rumblings about adapting these rules for fighting the earlier Horse & Musket period, and this supplement – penned by Pete Brown – formalises these adaptations. Black Powder: The Last Argument of [...]

  • 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: Rapid Fire – Normandy Battlegames
    Rating:  Rapid Fire is a World War II set of rules that has been around for some time, but has proven to be enduringly popular, not the least because it remains well supported by the authors. This latest title follows on from the previous supplement; Normandy Battlegroups, which gave balanced [...]

  • Review: Test of Honour Samurai Warband
    Rating: The Samuari Warband box set from Warlord Games is one of several expansions for Test of Honour. The box contains the following: 1 plastic sprue of Samurai (5 models) 2 plastic sprues of Ashigaru (10 models) 1 plastic sprue of Ashigaru Missile troops (5 models) 20 small bases 5 group bases 1 [...]

  • Review: Deus Vult!
    Rating:  Fireforge Games burst onto the scene at the start of 2012 when they released their first box set of plastic Teutonic Knights. They have since released a further two boxes of knights and their first box of infantry, with more promised in the near future. One of my favourite images in [...]

  • Review – Hail Caesar: Army Lists: Biblical & Classical
    Rating:  As soon as Hail Caesar hit the wargaming public back at Salute (was it only 7 months ago?) an outcry was seen on many different forums… Where were the army lists? Where were the points values? How could gamers possibly be expected to play this game without them? I must admit, I found [...]

  • Review: Lord of the Rings – The Card Game revisited
    Rating: The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game was originally released by Fantasy Flight Games in 2011, and upon release very quickly became one of my favourite games. I and my son Josh are big Lord of the Rings fans, and so we played this game a lot over the next couple of years. Then with one thing [...]

  • 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 – Hind Commander
    Rating:  Hind Commander a set of rules from Assault Publishing, a company from Poland and Marcin Gerlowicz, creator of Sturmovik Commander, and describes itself as a ‘Modern helicopter warfare tabletop game’ – something that is probably best described as a ‘niche genre’. I was initially [...]

  • Review: Empire of the Dead
    Rating:  Two wargame genres which always seem popular are Victorian Steampunk and Gothic Horror. West Wind Productions have taken these genres, put them in a blender and Empire of the Dead (EotD) was the result. EotD is a skirmish wargame which takes place in an alternative universe, where the [...]

  • Review: Sabre Squadron
    Rating: Sabre Squadron is a new company-level ruleset for gaming modern, post-World War II conflicts from Australian company Bernwode Ltd. Modern warfare has become a very complex affair with huge amount of technology involved, so the problem is how to distil all this into a set of wargames rules. [...]

  • 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. [...]
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    Miniatures Review – Warlord Games Marquis of Montrose
    Following of from my review of the Montrose Irish box set from Warlord Games, this episode of the Miniatures Review show from Meeples & Miniatures looks at a mounted general figure produced to lead the army of Montrose – the Marquis of Montrose [...]

  • Review: For King & Parliament
    Rating: Being a British wargamer, I have often thought that I should take more interest in the wars that have shaped the island on which I live – let’s face it, there are numerous ones to choose from. The English Civil War has always seemed a challenging period of warfare – [...]

  • Review: Muskets & Tomahawks
    Rating: Muskets & Tomahawks is the second set of wargames rules to be published in English by Studio Tomahawk, following the success of their previous rules: Saga. These rules, however, have been available in French for a while. The setting for these rules is somewhat unusual. I don’t think [...]

  • 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 [...]

  • 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 – 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 – 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 [...]

  • 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 [...]
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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: Jugula
    Rating: Jugula is a gladiator game, written by the same team that have previously published Saga and Muskets & Tomahawks. Unlike some previous gladiator games, Jugula does not simulate a detailed combat between two gladiators. Rather, each player takes on the role of a Lanista, taking charge [...]

  • Review – Dux Britanniarum
    Rating:  With this title, the chaps at Too Fat Lardies bring to life the struggle that engulfed the inhabitants of Britain during the 5th and 6th centuries following the withdrawal of Rome from British shores. The remains of Roman civilisation came under attack from the Irish, Picts, and Scotti in [...]

  • 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 [...]

  • 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 [...]

Thoughts of @TheBrummieDwarf

Hobby News

‘Other Hobby Stuff’

In the spotlight

Mike Hobbs – Funeral Webcast

by Neil Shuck in Editorial

It was Mike’s funeral today. Due to COVID restrictions, attendance at the service was strictly limited, and I know so many people would have wanted to pay their [...]

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