Raffle updates

Just a quick update ,Underfire Miniatures prize donation has arrived and its some of Bill's great Helmand Brits a popular and very nice collection of 20mm figures, also hopefully its just me panicking but a couple of the prize donations have not arrived yet and I have not been able to get in touch with the  kind people who have promised them so I am hoping that they turn up before Saturday ..not long now .

Draw 1pm saturday 9th November at the war-games emporium ,sheffield turn up to collect your prizes in person and of course buy some last minute tickets .

motivation

With trying to organise the raffle ,holidays ,kids ,grand kids , hospitals and work I've not done too much gaming or painting recently and I have just sat at my desk got every thing ready and then put it all away no MOTIVATION again ,last time this happened was when I needed to get my FIW stuff together for a game of M&T  and I set my self a time limit and was pushed on by lots of encouragement  from family and gamers and enticed by Elaine saying she would buy me lots of new toys if I finished plus kind words and freebies from Lance at Galloping Major ,so I have set myself a new challenge ,this time just to clear my work bench ,this consists of 2 S&S recce land rovers and a Airfix landie and trailer for my B.A.O.R cold war gone hot stuff these are about 50% finished . 9 samurai for ronin that are undercoated and stuck together ,3 Doctors and the master all Heresy models that are just sat looking sad not even glued together or even on bases , 4 airfix nato ground crew that were test figures for my cold war gone hot "hunting the harriers "scenario .This with a repair job on a die cast car and my bench will be clear , all this before the end of November ?. I might then put to the vote what part of the lead and plastic mountain is to be next ,so keep tuned.

Assault Publishing 15mm Sci-Fi Figures

Marcin Gerkowicz the owner of assault Publishing as well as contributing a set of his new sic-fi rules PMC 2640 as a prize to my charity raffle as also kindly donated some of his range of 15mm figures for us to use in our charity games. The packs in his range are actually made by other manufacturers then re packed to suit his own rule set ,saying that the figures are really nice and can easily be used with any 15mm sic fi rule set such as tomorrows war .

The figures and vehicles are on his web site as APCR range which stands for Assault Publishing Choice repacks , a title that says every thing .I believe the actual ranges are from Odzal Osmy and Rebel mainly but Marcin will add to these as he expands the rules and army lists .

The figures he has kindly donated are packed in sets of 6 and 8 figures labelled as Rifle Infantry ,Light Infantry ,Engineers etc and are a random mix which usually contains a nco/leader figure and 2 or 3 basic troop types then a heavy weapon or 2 .The figures are nice and have crisp detail all of the poses are very good and realistic there are no strange men dancing with rifle poses here , they are white metal and have very thin bases cast on and hopefully I will get some painted over the next few days and they will be taking part in many charity fund raising games . The vehicles Marcin has donated are again very high quality and are a mix of white metal and resin ,you can tell Marcin has put a lot of thought and time into picking what goes in what pack and they are easy way to start a sic fi army .

Below are a few pictures of the figures straight from the bag and a size comparison against a critical mass figure the only other 15mm sic fi I have.

The selection Marcin provided 

Wolverine mk 3

same vehicle built up

The critical mass figure is the larger figure

overall the range is a nice addition to the Sci Fi market allowing you to pick from ranges of figures on one site packed to make ready built units for the game.

Raffle Update

A update on this years Raffle ,the tickets are on sale at the Wargames Emporium Orchard Sq Sheffield . Priced at £1.00 for a strip of 5 tickets they are great value and every penny raised goes to the Royal British Legion .Any one wishing to donate without buying a ticket can either leave money at the Emporium care of John or Eric or for donations on line please see the donation link on here. The Draw will take place in the Emporium on Sat 9th November at 1pm .
The prizes are detailed in past posts on this blog with new ones arriving daily its hard to make a complete list for example Brigade Models prize arrived today which is a great starter set for their own space ship game .Some of the many ,many prizes are shown below and as stated on earlier posts.

Brigade Models starter set .

A nice selection of prizes 

Some Blisters from 1st Corps

some of the prizes from Galloping Major,Dashing Dice and Gripping Beast .

RH Models and S&S Models

Russians

 I would like to thank Rolf at RH models (liberation) for joining our growing band of supporter's ,he has kindly donated a bag of 36 1990's russians for Chechnia , and  a set of 9 SAS for Afghanistan .Both Sets are really tremendous figures .

SAS 

2 of the latest from S&S

And again for the third year running Shaun of S&S models has donated some of his great vehicles this year 2 of his latest a jeep and a Lerraine sig33 both are resin and white metal models and not yet on his on line store they are that new .I have a huge selection of his vehicles and will always recommend his models.

Royal British Legion

Official Royal British Legion Photograph

The Royal British Legion needs a minimum of £37 Million this year , I am proud to do my small bit to raise funds towards this amount and would like to thank everyone who as donated a huge amount of prizes for my raffle and to all the people buying tickets , every pound does make a big difference.

Assault Publishing

My old friend Marcin Gerkowicz of assault publishing who has been very generous in sponsorship of the Royal British Legion and my own gaming needs in the past ,as very kindly donated a copy of his latest war gaming rule book PMC 2640 .This rule set is again his own work and as usual is a top notch rule set. I will try and give a review soon . Marcin's own description of the rules are below,taken from his web store all the art work is from the rule book .

PMC 2640 is designed as a ‘true company scale’ wargame, which means that it runs smoothly both with a few as well as a few dozen units on the battlefield. This was achieved by eliminating sophisticated, but unnecessary special rules, and limiting the number of counters to morale markers only, represented by D6 dice. The ruleset itself is compact and elegant, written in simple, “international” English, leaving no place for vagueness and multiple interpretations. On the other hand, PMC 2640 offers countless possibilities, as the rulebook contains a few dozen of unit entries, six scenarios and seven terrain generators, all of which ensure that no two games will look the same. The classic alternate activation (with small balancing modifications) makes the game fast and addictive.

The unit/team is the basic element of the game and all parameters are given for the whole team, with the number of soldiers modifying just a few parameters (Firepower, Assault and Morale, to be precise). We do not worry about equipment of individual soldiers. Rifle team is a rifle team, whether they use assault rifles, lasers, neutron blasters or any other similar weapon. There are only two requirements: they units have to be Recognizable and Cool-Looking! This allows you to prepare and field the coolest teams you can, with sarges, medics, war correspondents or whoever else you wish, as long as there is no doubt what unit the miniatures represent.

The available units are diverse and work best when properly teamed. For example, assault troops charging through an open field will probably get bogged down, decimated and finally forced to retreat. But support them with heavy weapons teams who will pin down the defenders, and the attack will be much more effective!

PMC 2640 does not feature a typical point value system. Instead, all units are grouped into Tiers which correspond to their level of training, experience and equipment. What is more, the battles have their own Battle Tiers, which specify the sum of all Unit Tiers and limit the number of units of specific Tiers. Low Tier battles are clashes of unreliable greenhorns, while high Tier battles feature lots of specialised, deadly troops.

Another feature of PMC 2640 is a smart, but simple morale system. Morale is not a 0-1 value (didn’t pass – passed) like in the most games, but instead troops under fire get suppression points. When the number of these points becomes high enough, the unit gets suppressed and later broken. To make things more interesting, every lost soldier means a reduction of the Morale parameter, so like in real life, the units with half of the soldiers down usually have little combat value. But even troops which haven’t suffered any losses can sometimes be forced to retreat – though killing a few enemies always helps!

PMC 2640 focuses on tactics and proper use of even the slightest advantages the commanders have at their disposal. Terrain pieces are not just decorative dioramas, but play a very important role. They may hide your troops from enemy line of sight, provide them with a defence bonus and/or boost their firepower – definitely something to take into account. Additionally, some of the terrain pieces can be demolished, and buildings or barricades may become deadly traps!

Perhaps the most interesting component of PMC 2640 is its campaign system, which resembles those featured in skirmish games. Instead of a chain of several more or less playable scenarios, the players develop their PMCs by playing standard battles. The commanders gain funds to recruit new troops and develop their companies, while the units get experience, upgrades and trauma, all of which affect their performance in later games.

And if you want to try something different than typical competitive battles, PMC 2640 allows for solitaire and cooperative games! These are described in a separate chapter with additional rules, six dedicated scenarios and new special units (insurgents and space bugs). Solitaire/cooperative games might not be perfectly balanced (which is probably impossible), but are intended to be as cool and fun as possible. Whether you wish to crush a rebellion of disappointed miners or evacuate civilians attacked by oversized bugs, you will find these games challenging and unusual compared standard battles.

The PMC 2640 rulebook is the first product of Assault Publishing to include an original background story. It contains a brief history of the future from 22nd to 27th century, a description of the rise and fall of the corporations, the genesis of PMCs, and many other events which allow you to get immersed in the world of the year 2640. But do not expect another “Oh-My-God-Evil-Aliens-Are-Murdering-Us!” setting – instead, you will find a hard science fiction universe, inspired more by Blade Runner than Star Wars, where mercenary commanders fight for powerful corporations, corrupted states or colonial authorities – depending on who provides the highest salary! To further help you feel the mood of the 27th century, the rulebook is illustrated by Łukasz Marko (Markotny Drawing Studio) whose independent, rough style perfectly portrays the grim nature of future battlefields.

PMC 2640 is designed for scales between 15mm an 28mm, with 15mm as the default one. However, there is a possibility of using smaller scales (like 6mm, 10mm) using minor modifications included at the end of the book.

You may purchase the game in Assault Publishing online store.

Usefull sheets can be found in Assault Publishing free download section.

Sheffield War Games Society

Had a good night at SWGS the members bought a nice amount of tickets for the raffle and made me feel as though I had never been away ,hopefully after November I might actually be able to get down on a regular basis again .If you live in or near Sheffield its the club to attend ,nice friendly people a great mix of games and of course they are the team behind Triples .
Thanks to all SWGS members for a nice time.

another great prize for the raffle

Piers Brand who is responsible for some of the great paint jobs in the Battle Group and Force on Force rule books amongst others has offered to paint one 15mm or 20mm vehicle free of charge ,just send him one of your models and he will work his magic on it for free and pop it back in the post to you .
(you supply the model &P&P to him ,he paints it free and pays return P&P to you )