• 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

  • Review: Longships: The Wrath of the Vikings
    Rating : The Dark Ages as a gaming genre has been under something of a revival ever since Saga appeared on the scene a couple of years ago. Longships is Peter Pig’s addition to this growing catalogue. The rules concentrate, as you may well gather from the title, on the Vikings as the main [...]

  • Review: Deep Cut Studios Print-O-Mat
    Rating: Over the last couple of year, game mats have become have become a common accessory for players of all sorts of tabletop games, be it Miniatures Games, Boardgames, Card Games or Role Playing Games, with neoprene backed mats (mousepad material) seen as the premium product choice. Up until [...]

  • 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: 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 – 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: 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 – 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: Vpered Na Berlin
    Rating:  Vpered Na Berlin (“Onwards to Berlin!”) is the second supplement from Too Fat Lardies for the third edition of I Ain’t Been Shot Mum. Following on from Battle for Liberation, this book (produced in PDF format, 111 pages, full colour) details army lists for the war on the Eastern [...]

  • Review: Test of Honour Ronin
    Rating:  The Ronin box set for Test of Honour was one of the wave one expansions for the game. The box set allows players to field a force comprising fully of masterless Samurai, led by a special character – Tadashi ‘The Dishonoured’. The box contains the aforementioned metal [...]

  • Review: Tomorrow’s War
    Rating:  Tomorrow’s War is the much-anticipated Sci-Fi skirmish rulebook from Ambush Alley Games and Osprey Publishing. You may have seen a PDF-only version of these rules appear in 2010 – these were very much the pre-cursor to this final book. The introduction to the book is written by Jon [...]
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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: Classified
    Rating: Classified is the eighth scenario supplement for the Force on Force rules for modern warfare, which were published in 2011. It is once again published by Osprey Publishing. In many ways, this supplement takes Force-on-Force back to its original Ambush Alley roots, as it covers Special [...]
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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: Twilight Struggle- Digital Version (Android)
    Rating: Twilight Struggle is a board game designed by Ananda Gupta and Jason Matthews, and published by GMT Games in 2005. It’s a 2-player strategy game, taking place during the Cold War 1945 – 1989. One player takes the role of the USSR, whilst the other plays the USA. The game is a [...]

  • Review: Black Ops
    Rating: Black Ops (written by Guy Bowers and published by Osprey Publishing) is a game about covert military operations, inspired by films such as The Wild Geese and Zero Dark Thirty, and computer games such as Metal Gear Solid and Splinter Cell. Although there are rules for a stand-up fight, the [...]

  • Review: The Chicago Way
    Rating: “You wanna know how to get Capone? They pull a knife, you pull a gun. He sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue. *That’s* the *Chicago* way! And that’s how you get Capone” Jimmy Malone, The Untouchables (1987) Back in 2013, Great Escape [...]

  • Oshiro Model Terrain – A review by Mike Hobbs
    People who know me well know that as well as being a keen wargamer I’m also a bit of a foodie, well let’s be honest working as a chef for 15 years gives a person a certain perspective into what’s good and bad about the food we eat. One of my greatest pleasures in life is getting up early on a [...]

  • Review – VIII Corps: The Somme 1916
    Rating: VIII Corps: The Somme 1916 is the first in a series of games written by Neal Reid and published by Vexillia Limited. VIII Corps is a card game, currently available in PDF ‘print and play’ format, which is designed to give the players some appreciation of the difficulties faced [...]

  • Review: The Campaign for Kharkov: October 1941
    Rating: This 48 page book, available as a PDF or an e-book, is a campaign supplement written by Chris Stoesen for the Chain of Command World War II Platoon level rules from Too Fat Lardies. It is worth noting that this supplement is not a complete game in itself, and you will need both a copy of [...]

  • 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: Enduring Freedom
    Rating:  Enduring Freedom is the second supplement for the Force on Force rules for modern warfare, which were published earlier this year. This supplement covers the campaign in Afghanistan from 2001 – 2010, and gives all the information required for players to recreate battles in a region of [...]

  • Review: Sword and Spear
    Rating: Sword and Spear are a new set of wargames rules for gaming in the Ancient period, from the time of the Ancient Egyptians right through to Medieval Europe. They have been written by Mark Lewis, and the Second Edition is published by Great Escape Games. The rules are designed for armies made [...]

  • 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 [...]

  • 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 [...]

  • Kill Team – First impressions
    I had the opportunity earlier this week to take a look at Kill Team – the new skirmish wargame from Games Workshop, set in the Warhammer 40,000 universe – when I went to Boards & Swords Hobbies in Derby. As you may be aware, whilst I used to be a fully paid-up member of the GW fan club, it [...]

  • Osprey Boardgames – The King is Dead
    Osprey Publishing are just about to launch their very first boardgame. It’s called ‘The King is Dead’. It is set in Dark Age Britain after the death of King Arthur. I have received a review copy of the game – I only managed to open it to have a quick look inside the other [...]

  • Review – Cold War Gone Hot
    Rating:  Cold War Gone Hot is the fourth supplement for the Force on Force rules for modern warfare, which were published earlier this year. ‘What If…’ Cold War scenarios have been the staple of modern period wargamers for some years, and this volume from Osprey capitalises on that fact by [...]

  • Review: Horizon Wars
    Rating: Horizon Wars is a set of sci-fi battle rules, written by Robey Jenkins and published by Osprey Publishing. Whilst the game does have its own ‘history’, this universe is not woven into the rules, and so the rules are essentially a set of generic rules which can be used with any figure [...]

  • 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: Fistful of Lead – Reloaded
    Rating: Fistful of Lead: Reloaded is a set of wargaming rules for ‘Gunfights in the Wild West’, published by Wiley Games. It was funded by a kickstarter project which was launched in November 2015, which had 132 backers and raised just over $8,000. Fistful of Lead (FoL) is a skirmish [...]

  • 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 [...]

  • 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: AW Miniatures 28mm Samurai
    Rating: I have recently been putting together a couple of forces for Seven Swords (The Samurai version of Dux Britanniarum from Too Fat Lardies). To this end I have been using lots of models from my collection (rather than simply buying new models). I had bought several different packs of Sengoku [...]
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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: 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 [...]
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    Saga Accessories
    Rating:  As you are aware, I’ve been playing several games of Saga recently. One of the things I like about the game is the use of good, old fashioned movement sticks (much like the Song of Blades series of rules). Whilst I was originally planning to make some myself, I have recently come [...]

  • 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: 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: 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: 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 – Thud & Blunder
    Rating: Thud & Blunder is a set of skirmish rules for warfare set in a land of high fantasy. 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, Daisho and Blood Eagle. They are available as [...]

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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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