Christmas goodies

As usual I have been spoilt with lots if great presents and a lot of them are scenery and paints etc but as usual Elaine has managed ti get me loads of bookd for my latest projects mainly covering the Arab -Israeli conflicts but also one adding to my gothic horror ,victorin crime library ,hope you all had a lovely Christmas and wishing you all agreat new year .

1/600th Egyptian Aircraft

DID A FEW QUICK PAINT JOBS TO GET ME IN THE MOOD Aircraft by Tumbling Dice , decals by Flightdeck and stands by me .

Arab-Israeli air wars -progress so far

I had every thing I need to start my project except bases so looking at various types and unable to find what i wanted,I decided to have a go my self so a few hex bases and dice frames from Pendraken and some nails from the local DIY store plus some rare earth magnets from my bits box and Im happy . The pics show the under coated bases and some under coated Egyption Mig 21 and IL 28 from tumbling dice

Arab -Israeli Air Wars

Getting things together for my next project the Arab Israeli air wars covering the six day war up to the Yom Kippur war . I have my aircraft amazing service from Tumbling Dice ,I placed the order on Monday Morning and the stuff arrived Tuesday the 1/600th kit is really nice Now to choose the rules ,I have 3 sets to choose from Airwar C21 ,I have played these using them for a Uk V Soviet what if campaign .They are quick play ,do not use a hex mat and list all the aircraft stats I will need ,on the down size they are only suitable for a few aircraft per side and everything is assumed to be flying at the same level but they are good fun . Bag the Hun ,there a few free down loads to bring the rules up to the jet age and a dedicated Arab/Israeli supplement . I have played these for the normal ww2 period and enjoyed them but haing the rules spread over a few suplements might cause issues and these need a hex mat. Check you6 Jet Age , not played these yet but they seem ok , they need hexmat and some way of showing speed and altitude but they do a campaaign book covering the years I am covering . Will prbably have ago with eaach and then make my mind up before we start the campaign .

updates and new things

I have not posted much lately ,work ,illness and other stuff have kept me busy. I have managed to get afew games in recently , Zona Alfa, Cold War Commander seem to have taked my gamoing time up . My Korean War project is finshed although I do have acouple of bits to paint ,I originally started the project to use Cold War commander as the rukle set but changed to Blitzkreig Commander whenthey realeased the Korean war Supplement ,which then spurred me onto to getting a 10mm ww2 British army as well . For Cold war commander I have started a 15mm Israeli army covering from the 70;s through to the 1980's My 10mm ACW project is coming along nicely using 10mm pendraken with the Alter of Freedom rule set Even with my painting table creaking under the wieght of unpainted lead and resin I am planning another project and attempting to do it properly trying to plan it in detail . It will cover thge middle east air wars covering the 6day war ,War of attrition and Yom ~Kippur as astart but going back to the war of independance and lebanon as well , I willuse tumbling dice 1.600 aircraft and I have 3 rule sets toi try out ,airwar 21 ,Bag The Hun and check your 6 jet age ,I have played the first 2 but not CY6 jet age . Santa will be bringing me lots of reference books so hopefully start this in the new year .

Zona Alfa

Played a game of Zona Alfa just using the original rules ,playing military v bandits , a great game really quick and fought to a fine win for Johns Bandits . the game was so good I forgot to take any pictures other than the starting line ups and the initial table lay out . All the figures are Patrick Miniatures painted in army painter speed paints

zona Alfa - new figures

After my recent games I wanted some figures that better represented the bandits and civilian characters in the game ,plus wanted a suitable dog to represent Laika for the Scattered Readings scenario ,so I went straight to Patrick Miniatures and got what I wanted ,the figures are well detailed need very little if any cleaning and take paint really well plus the service is excellent All the new figures are shown below and are painted with Speed Paints

https://patrickminiatures.de

Zona Alfa

Got a couple of Zona Alfa games in using the `kontraband supplement for solo play ,great game made a couple of mistakes but overall pretty easy to pick up.

most of the figures are Patrick miniatures as is the russian store

Alter of Freedom

We have played a lot of Blitzkrieg commander and Cold War Commander recently and we have really enjoyed the quick play big battle games and with the 10mm Pendraken stuff made it possible to filed big armies without the need for huge tables and lots of expense ,so after looking at the Pendraken ACW range I looked for a set of quick play period rules and found Alter of Freedom by Greg Wagman . The Rules cover large battles using Divisions with smallest unit being a brigade ,the game is historical scenario driven with emphasis is on the commanders with each one having traits representing how they behaved at the actual battle. Players bid points to get to move first and also to control the game clock which when thye have control of it they can manipulate it to shorten or lengthen the turn. There is no casualty removal or record keeping a unit is either combat effective or broken , the game only uses a D6 for each side and a D8,10 ,12 etc to represent the clock , the actual type is shown on each scenario. The scenario comes with a map ,instructions where to set up allowing slight chnages to the actual battle and comes with a sheet showing each commander their strengths and weaknesse ,what brigades they control and how many points they each have to influence the game .Another thing I like is each scenario comes with a printable sheet of lables to attach to your bases so you just change the lable for each scenario The rules come with 4 scenarios and are supported by 2 scenario books each with another 14 or so scenarios and a web site with lots of free downloads, videos and after action reports . Altough the rules are meant to be played for historical battles there is a section on how to build armies for points driven games and non historical games . From read throughs and looking at the videos and after action reports I liked what I saw and have started painting and basing some figures below are acouple of test bases I did a infantry brigade and an artillery battery .

Figures are Pendraken

Blitzkrieg commander British v Germans late war

Had a game of Blitzkreig commander with my late war Brits versus Johns Germans , a series of incredibly bad command die rolls meant very little happened and when it did it made more of a whimper than a bang after seven turns of action I had lost a 6pdr ATG and an armoured car and John lost a command vehicle ,I did have great luck in calling in air strikes but the the first caused minimal damage to Johns panzers and the next two attacks were driven off by AA fire . Still great fun and we are both off to alter our army lists and practice rolling D6