Viking Great Army .work in Progress

A few pics of my Viking Great Army progress ,still a long way to go .Figures are amix of footsore ;Artizan ,Gripping Beast plastics and Victrix plastics .

2 bits of scenery A victim of the Viking Blood eagle and a rune stone

A rear view of the grusome punishment

1st of my Viking Sub-Commanders Arnvid Ale Sinker

2nd Sub Commander -Erik Oak Solitter

and the 3rd sub commander -Sigurd of the Bridge 

a group of Viking Pirates

Bondi

A close up of the above

and another close up of the Bondi

LT -Col Henry Pulleine

Over the weekend we visited the memorial to Henry Pulleine , the commander of the forces left at Isandlwana ,often blamed for the disaster in full or partly With Col Darnford .He is buried with his men somewhere on the Isandlwana battle field, but there is a great memorial stone in Kirby Wiske ,in what was his fathers church yard .

Lieutenant ColonelHenry Burmester Pulleine

As played by Denholm Elliott in the underated Zulu Dawn

Some of the many cairns on the Battlefield 

The Infamous Mountain

Close up of the inscription

The Memorial in Yorkshire has a bit of a lean now

Rhodesian Light Infantry and Eland 90

I finished painting my two sticks of RLI from Eureka UK ,beautiful miniatures which were a real joy to paint .The RLI were a whites only elite force that fought throughout the Rhodesiaan Bush war or Second Chimurenga or Zimbabwe war of Liberation depending whose side you were on ,they proved an hard and succesful unit seeking out and attacking the rebels from different factions not only in Rhodesia but in the many cross border actions that happened in this long conflict (1964-1979).When I saw these in the flesh (or lead) I ordered the full range so needed some support so ordered a Eland 90 from Butlers printed models ,The Eland was the South African version of the French AML .This is my first printed model and I am impressed , a bit rough on the surface but cleaned up nicely and half the price of the resin and metal versions on the market .

The printed model out of the box

a little work needed to smooth the barrel and wheels.

The Finished Eland 

The First Stick

The second Stick

Both units consist of a stick leader with Radio and Slr 2 troopers with Slr and agunner with an Fn Mag

Night Convoy -A cruel Seas game

We played Cruel Seas again last night ,we will soon need to change the games name as it now doesnt have much of a resembalance to Warlords game.  We played night time action with the Royal Navy trying to intercept an Italian Convoy ,The italians put up an epic defence but The RN reinforcements turned up and 2 Torpedoes hit 2 transports sinking both immediatley with the remaining 2 managing to creep away whilst their escorts put up a great covering action .The random reinforcements and arrival points added a lot to the game .At somepoint soon we will playtest the aircraft rules then write up; our house rules and amendments .

Lighting up the night

The scene of our adventure

The starting force for the Brits

The Convoy advances through the dark

2 more vospers arrive but so do 4 Mas boats 

attack

full speed ahead

The fight begins in earnest 

2 torps one broke the back of the merchant and sank it immediately  the other destroyed the others engines and gave it 90 points of damage ..it only started with 85?

The Italians light up the night

an areial view of an epic encounter

Rifle and Spear with the Zulu

I have just read this amazing story of one of the lesser known heroes of the Zulu war of 1879 Lt.Col.Alan Gardener byKate Birbeck .The story of this survivor of Isandlwana is amazing enough but the story of how Kate discovered not only his story but his grave is a epic on its own,this self published book is a great read and covers Gardeners family history as well as his own story and is packed with photographs ,maps and drawings and comes in at over 400 pages and is alimited numbered edition probably only the most hardened zulu war buffs would look at it but if you get the chance its well worth reading .I was lucky enough to be introduced to Kate by Ian Knight during King Goodwills visit to the uk ,Kate is a lovely lady and she very kindly  signed my copy.

AVP -1st campaign game

Tonight we played our first AVP campaign game ,John taking the Aliens and the Predators for myself .Started well for me before my 3 warriors died in heroic last stands ,great fun a always .

AVP-cooperative game

the 2 teams

The first fight went ok for the Marines

more action

it starts to get bloody

ho shes a big un 

Another AVP game at a really busy Sheffield Wargames Society ,this time a co-op game with us both playing marines against the Aliens ,a couple of scary moments but we scraped a win .