Anzac Centurion

Finished my first centurion for Nam ,I am pleased with it seeing as it was such awful casting and its the first time I have used pigmenst for the mud and rust effects .

Urbanmatz second review .

I was incredibly impressed with my first Urbanmatz purchase so I ordered 2 more ,The service was just as good , emial cofirmation when my order was placed late Sunday and another with tracking details before they  arrived thursday and if you read my last review you may remember I mentioned there was no name or markings on the bags and as I knew I would be ordering more and would end up taking the wrong bag with to the club ,well Martin at Urbanmatz read my post and not only remedied that issues by putting name and size tags on the nags for free but even sent me aspare one for my previous purchase . I will ask Martin if they are going to produce a desert terrain in 6x4 and a Urban mat with a British road lay out ,if so they will be my next purchases .

My collection so far with name tags 

6x4FT Grasslands Mat
My favourite so far the grass and rocks have an amazing 3-D look to them and jsut by coincidence almost matches my basing .I used this today for another play test of my "Nothing Remains but to Fight " Rules Pictures below

The Mat in its full glory

The detail is amazing almost 3D

Zulu's Fasans of em !

The Zulu's close in

The thin Red Line awaits its fate 

The NNC ,one of the new rules I wanted to test ,they ran as expected 

The cavalry another new rule , They performed very well but died enmasse when they dismounted 

Marching to their doom

One group of the Brits make a last stand 

3x3 Snow Terrain Mat
Very nice indeed perfect for Frostgrave and snowy 7TV games I have planned .

The detail is just as good as my other 2 mats 

Vietnam Anzacs work in progress

Started on my Vietnam Project detailed in an earlier post ,most of the infantry was ordered from RH but when I ordered it Rolf did say it would be delayed due to illness so I ordered a few bits from Grubby tanks to keep me going . I wasnt too keen on ordering from Grubby as I had ordered once previuosly and it was a disaster I had ordered a load of infantry and about 6 vehicles when the order arrived the infantry was almost all wrong and the vehicles were awful .I sent a couple of emails and recieved no reply  so vowed never to deal with them again ,which was a shame as I had always dealt with Britannia before Grubby took it over. Well with only Grubby doing the Aussie Centurion and the M113 with cadillac turret I bit the bullit and put in a small order for 4 vehicles and about a dozen or so figures . Well this time the infantry figures were correct in number and were exactly what I had ordered plus there was a bonus free pack thrown in ,very nice indeed sadly the vehicles were terrible I have had to use loads of green stuff to try and make them presentable even one of the metal gun barrels on one of the tanks was a mess it looked like it had been sawn through with a blunt hacksaw , the resin crew were half cast on one of the m113's so i ahd to cut it out and replace with a metal figure and a metal crew figure was missing plus I think there should have been a couple of Mg's which were also missing
 I need another 2  each of the vehicles so will buy at a show so I can look at them before paying .Below are afew work in progress pics . 

Centurion even with a lot of green stuff the barrel s still a mess 

this lot just need the bases and varnishing finished 

.

Urbanmatz Review

I have been looking ta buying some mats to game on for a while and took the plunge after seeing this particular one on facebook and I am well impresssed I purchased the 3x3 urban district mat for using with Batman Miniature Game, 7TV and any other 20th century or sci fi games that i dabble in .

VALUE = excellent about £27.00 +P&P and it comes with a free carry case which is zip fastening and has handles along the top and each end ,the bag seems pretty durable ,the only moan i could come up with was there could have been a lable pocket to mark which mat is in the bag as I plan buying more of these so I am bound to pick the wrong one up but that can be easily sorted . 10/10

Service = Excellent I ordered late at night on the 6th Feb had 3 emails detailing the progress of my order one of these had a tracking number for the courier and it arrived on the 11th , not bad considering Urbanmats are in the Czech republic . 10/10

Product Quality = 10/10 The mat seems to be very strong made from the same stuff as mouse pads I believe . The colours are good not faded or garish and show agreat deal of detail such as oil stains and cracks .The mat allows figures to be moved round without snagging which happen with some cloth mats Ive played on ,but counters and terrain stay in place  . The roads and areas are the right size for 28mm and 32mm figures ,10/10

A brilliant buy ,I will be purchasing more when my funds allow I want a 3x3 for frostgarve and a 6x4 grasslands for general use .Below are some pics of the mat and a game of Batman which we palyed to christen the mat .
http://www.urbanmatz.com

The free bag

The mat in all its glory 

a close up of teh amazing detail 

with terrain and figures in action

Alfred spent the game polishing the Batmobile

a bit of rooftop action

Gordon and a collegue stop for snacks 

Riddle me this

Bats and Penquins 

The Riddler legs it 

Wednesday Night Gaming -The nuclear pirates

A quick but original game of Force on Force put on by John Grayson last night ,a group of pirates had captured cargo ship containing nuclear waste and 2 seal teams had to recapture the ship ,a very good game with a very slow SEAL victory  .  The ship was by TT combat and was the centre of attention at the sheffield wargames society even though John had not had time to paint it yet .

The heroic seal teams 

The Blackhawk that would drop the SEALS in and the Viper that would menace the pirates 

The target swarming with maritime bandits 

The guards around the Nuclear waste 

One of the seal teams land on the bridge 

a overhead shot from one of the choppers 

The SEALS storm the Bridge (very slowley as they failed their tests 3 times before going in ) 

The Viper flies low to keep the pirates heads down (actually they all stood up and waved ) 

The Seal team secure the Nuclear Waste 

Wednesday Night Gaming -The Battle of Mirbat

A quick play test last night of our Triples game , Using Force on Force and the scenario (slightly altered ) from Classified both by Ambush Alley Games . It went pretty well I played the insurgents and John the SAS ,after turn 1 my dice rolls went down hill and I had lost convincingly by turn 5 . We are tweaking a couple of bits and will do another couple of test games before Triples .

The set up pre game

The insurgents start moving up the Wadi and down from the hills

The famous 25pdr 

the Bat House

A strike Master pays a visit 

a victory fly past 

Anzacs in Vietnam .

My big project for 2016 will be Vietnam in 20mm ,I have chosen to do the Australian and NewZealand forces rather than the usual American ones that grace so many war games tables . The Anzac contribution to the war in Vietnam was no where near as big as the American presence but is recognised as being more succesful , The Aussies at first only sent advisors but were soon committed fully and even introduced national service to bolster the numbers they could commit .The U.S at first used the Aussies in joint operations with its own forces but the Australian command pressed for its own task Force as it realised the American objective of large battle ,all out war was not the way to go. They had learned in Malaya with the British that the best way to deal with this type of war was to seperate the population from the enemy and deal with the enemy with patrols and ambushes .The hearts and minds war used by the Aussies was well recieved by the civilians and they soon became hated by the VC and NVA forces they came up against .The Aussie's were soon backed up by the SAS and the New Zealand Kiwis as well .

o 59,000 Australians served in Vietnam
o A total of 508 were killed in Vietnam
o A total of 3,100 were wounded in Vietnam
o 804,000 Australian males registered for National Service 
o 63,000 Australians were conscripted into National Service
o 18,000 National Servicemen served in Vietnam
 200 were killed
 1,279 were 
wounded
o Peak Australian troop deployment in Vietnam was 7,672 

New Zealand Defence Force in Vietnam o 3,500 served in Vietnam
o 37 were killed in Vietnam
o 187 were wounded in Vietnam
o Peak NZ troop deployment in Vietnam was 552

Over 100 medals for Gallantry were awarded including 4 Victoria Crosses .

THE PROJECT 
I am going to base the first part of the project on the scenario Binh Ba Market place in the Force on Force book Ambush Vallety from ambush alley games,  The scenarion is based on events on the 7th/8th june 1969 when Australian forces engaged VC and NVA forces in the village of Binh BA , this was an unusual battle in this stage of the war as it involved fierce hand to hand combat and house to house fighting .

Troops and AFV's advance on Binh Ba

Step 1 will be the Australian forces which will be

Platoon HQ = Officer , NCO, RTO, Runner and Medic

3 x Rifle Sections each of :

  

Element 1= Leader , scout,MG team ,rifleman

Element 2= Leader ,Scout, 3xRiflemen

4 x CenturionMkV tanks

4 X M113 Cadillac cage turret

Then I will concentrate on the NVA /VC forces and then the Village its self , when all this is done I will expand the Australian forces to company size for a possible Long Tan Scenario .

7TV 2nd Edition

I have always been a big fan of 7TV the game set in the world of 1960's & 70's television and films and have most of the original books and card sets ,the only draw back with the system to me was the cast building which was a long process.Crooked Dice have now updated it and the casts are easier to choose as they all come on top quality pre printed cards ,many other changes have taken place as well the counters and templates are now perspex and it all comes in a sturdy box with the rule book split into 2 seperate books .Crooked Dice have also already released some scenario books based on star wars ,scooby doc and Ghost Busters in PDF form and the best bit is the Star wars and Scooby doo are free. Below are pics of the box an contents and the figures from the pre order Army set . I will be playing game in acouple of weeks so will do a better review and AAR then .

The Box which is very strong so will last 

the cards -almost 150 profile cards , 20 gadet cards and 45 count down cards

blast template ,metal maguffin token and loads of other counters 

the 2 books 

both books are laid out well and contain lots of colour examples

also in the box is this discount token 

not part of the box sets but one of the pre order starter sets