The Last Post

The South London Warlord blog has moved to Wordpress on the main SLW site, address is over here

or, in cut n' paste format http://www.salute.co.uk/blog/

Cold War Imagi-Nations

There is quite an active band of 6mm / 1:300 Moderns players at SLW, and as an alternative to  playing actual forces against each other, one of our members decided to build a Cold War Imagi-Nation based on the Order of Battle (and camouflage) of the Polish army in 1939, and using the modern equipment of the manufacturers they used in the 30's (so Vickers tank of 1939 becomes "What's the available Vickers tank of 1979"). The result is the OOB over here and here are some pictures.

  

Vickers Mk 3 Tank Company 

Armoured Cavalry Regiment  - Panhard M3 APCs and AML 90 Armoured Cars

Well, another club member who has an odd penchant for thinking about what medieval Byzantium may look like in any period you care to name, followed suit and built Byzantium's imaginary forces in the Cold war, taking a lead from the forces of the Cold War "border neutrals" like Austria, Finland and Yugoslavia. The army Order of Battle is described over here  and here are some pictures....

Byzantine Thematic Brigade Tank Co - T-55 tanks and Daimler Dingos with AT-4 Spigot AT missiles. Finland and Yugoslavia both found it politic to use predominantly Soviet equipment well into the 70's, but mixed it with own-design and increasingly Western equipment.

As with all Imagi-Nations, borders are quite vague - so vague in fact that these two nations find they are in dispute over their joint border, and tensions are rising - there are fears that there may well be a full  scale border "Incident" in the very near future....

So you want to build your own Imagi-Nation? 

Imagi-Nations are great fun for combining equipment you otherwise don't see together, or "what if" organisation structures, and 1:300 scale means even building a decent sized force is not exorbitant (in Fistful of TOWS, one model or one infantry stand represents a platoon sized unit, so a battalion is usually c 9 - 12 models). Even less so if you build it out from a core force, say a Soviet or US supplied core force in this era. 

How do you do it? Simple - Invent a country, imagine a history, build an army, and assert your right to rule :)  There are fellow Iamgi-Nation enthusiasts in most periods, TMP has a section "Modern What-Ifs" where they gather for this period. 

 

War of Spanish Succession in 10mm

For Tricorne fans....benefit of 10mm scale here is you don't have to paint the lace :)

French and Bavaarians vs Dutch and Palatine, approx 1705. French and Bavarians assaulting a prepared position and trying to turn the Dutch line. Figures all Pendraken.

Rules are the General de Brigade variant called British Grenadier. Rules are written for AWI, but have a lot of mechanisms that suit the WSS and SYW. We were play testing to see if the rules worked and broadly they did what we hoped. Will need to tweak, but all war gamers want to tweak rules!

Silver at Golden Daemon

Warlords member Ellis Kaye scored silver at the 2015 GW World Golden Daemon painting competition with his Cryptus & Karlean Duel based on the box art.

Ogle below:

The Fight at Chukkawanna Creek

From club member Iain Fuller's blog, about a good night at the Warlords:

Last night I had the pleasure in playing another of Phil Andrew's ‘Crazy Horse’s Fury’ Plains War games where my brave Hunkpapa Sioux took on the 2nd Cavalry to prevent them moving a wagon over a creek and off the table – no doubt for various nefarious reasons.
The US force was of 4 companies of cavalry, 2 Veterans and 2 new recruits, with a Crow Scout troop and a wagon containing something or other (either the payroll or working cartridges, we couldn’t decide which!). They were controlled by Philip and Darren.
I controlled 4 bands of Sioux, 2 were Warriors and 2 were ‘Boys’ – not great at shooting as they had yet to obtain rifles but very game and eager to get stuck in!

Field of the action with ‘my’ side of the creek nearest the camera – the Wagon had to be exited anywhere on this edge.

I was allowed to set up each warband either in cover or behind a hill so that they were not visible to the yellow-legs until they got close enough to try and see me (needed to get 4-6 if the Crow’s, and 5 or 6 if ‘regular’ troopers I think). I duly marked the map and hoped my cunning plan was cunning enough – the two older Warbands were placed in the ‘rough’ ground (brighter green patches) to the left and the furthest right of the table with one of the Boys bands hidden in the copse by the creek, the last band was behind the right hand hill on ‘my’ side of the creek either to be used as a reserve or as a last gasp ambush attempt on the wagon if everyone else got mullered earlier!
These rules are a good deal of fun and whilst being simple have enough subtleties to make them really interesting. Each unit has to draw a commander chit which has a characteristic on it that will either bring a benefit or hindrance to their units’ performance. For example my old mate ‘Talkheaps’ was drawn for one of my Warbands which meant that instead of automatic activation I had to roll a d6, get a 1 and the unit was inactive that go (the Cavalry drew their own version of this: ‘West Pointer’). The Cavalry are quite lethal once they get dismounted and start firing plus they have longer range than the Indians but the Indians can move further each go and can Move, Fire and Move in a turn (instead of just Move and Fire) which gives them more fluidity, plus they are a bit more lethal in melee so both sides have their pluses and minuses.
I won’t be able to do a blow-by-blow account of the battle as it was really fluid all the way through, (again one of the great things about this game) but here’s the basic outline. After the Crow’s nearly spotted my left hand band I decided to break cover with them and leg it over the creek, planning to either draw a unit after them so that the waiting Boys in the copse for could spring an ambush or if that didn’t happen to go into reserve to be used where needed. Over on the right Darren’s troops were getting mighty close to spotting my braves so I sprang an ambush which managed to hit home but I started an unbelievably inept sequence of rolls in melee, so the attack was quite ineffectual. The Crow scouts and a Company then started probing towards the woods and I unleashed the Boys from there in another surprise attack – again they charged home on Blue-bellies but again not with the desired effect.

Some of the damn Yellow-legs prepare to escort the wagon. I think I see a reason for subsequent bad shooting!

Crow scouts get ready to do some scouting.

Wagon-ho!

Braves break from cover in surprise attack. and get promptly flanked – manage to escape unharmed though!

Where’d they go!

From this moment on the battle ended up as a series of moves to contact from the Indians with which I failed to do much damage from the melee; or the Cavalry would move into range to unleash a volley at me and roll a 1 or 2 (honestly they rolled about ten 1’s all night!) hence causing no casualties; or I would move into range, fire, get a 5 or 6 forcing the Cavalry unit back, then retire myself to keep out of range. I therefore managed to hold the line of the Creek whilst forcing the Wagon to withdraw to prevent it from being captured.

Boys charge out of the Copse

Holding the line of the Creek

I did manage to rout away one Cavalry unit with a successful charge by the boys, this Company being wiped out by fire when it returned but the boys came a cropper themselves when they tried to evict the Crows from the Copse and nearly got cleaned out themselves. Over on the other flank the other boys band had a terribly ineffectual in the rocks with some veteran cavalry and retired back behind the creek. By the end the Cavalry had started to unjam their rifles and cause losses on the braves so I started to fall back further and further, now not being strong enough to cause much damage myself. As time was getting on we called the game and I believe a morale victory was gained by the Indians as the Cavalry failed to get the wagon off the table but I had suffered quite a lot of casualties in the process.

Cavalry take the rocks

Boys fail to evict them!

Hoka-hey!

Up and at ’em boys!

A great game again, and I’m looking forward to play another one in the future.
Here’s a few pictures of Des and Ian’s game of 6mm Napoleonics (General de Brigade – Prussians v French) that was going on behind us – game looked great so had to take some photos!

6mm Napoleonic goodness!

En Avant!

Deploying

Vat is the Wurst that can ‘appen?

Lovely terrain…..

Oh help! help! It is the Hooded Claw...

"I was proceeding on my duties in the vicinity of the Old Vlad Grange ruins when my attention was drawn to one Mimi Mouson (formerly Elsie Bagshaw of E14) the reknowned music hall artiste. Miss Mouson was being chained to a rock by a hooded and robed figure later identified as Grand Dark Master Zooban aka Reginald Spoke of 15 Victory Road where he lives with his Mother ('it all just started as bit of fun officer...') . A number of other suspicious characters were also in the vicinity, namely: a large armoured figure emitting whirring and clicking noises; a gentleman of middle eastern extraction who clearly should still be in hospital due to his injuries and the moans of pain: and a set of fellows I can only describe as: French. I therefore adopted standard procedure of arming myself with my notebook and declaring: 'Oi you lot, you're nicked'. At this point a fracas broke out...."

And so with these words from PC Dorkins, we start our tale of the most shocking events of recent times that led to the death of one of the great characters of our era.

In the middle of the great ruins of Vlad Grange, Mimi is chained to a rock and is the focus of an arcane ritual led by the hooded Master wielding an ancient artefact. Several supporters watch.

Besides PC Dorkins and other members of Scotland Yard, other parties wish to intervene.....

The Cult of Amun (above) are here to seize the artefact and kill the Master and his supporters on the principle that the crazy cult market is already over supplied. The French Foreign Legion Compagnie d’ Extraordinaire are here (below) because Col Croissant taken a real shine to Mimi er.. is seeking to remove the artefact from evil hands. El She-bab the Compagnie's mysterious desert scout has his own agenda: to kill as many of the Amun as possible.

Fresh off a lurking Zeppelin, the Panzerclockwerken Sturmtruppen Abteilung (below) are also here to seize the artefact for the Kaiser. Oh and killing as many Frenchmen as possible 'iz alvays a gut idea!'. They also have a bonus for killing the French professor who is a rival in robot design.

Finally (below) the boys in blue with the assistance of the Great Detective are trying to make sense of it all, rescue the girl and arrest the Master and his accomplices.

The fracas commences:

The Prussians move in at speed with their fearsome clockwork robots, their key wielding operators puffing with the effort to stay close behind, and with cover fire from a lonely jager. However in a rare logistical error the Hun has only one shot per bot from their Congreve rocket guns as  some dolt forget zem on der Zeppelin! (points adding up fail, forgot he had to pay for the grenades).

In early gun play the Bobbies just annoy the mummies while the Arc rifles of the French are just what are needed to negate the armour of the Hunbots: a clockwork man goes down in a flurry of sparks but a barrage of Congreve rocket-grenades in return kills some legionnaires and knocks down the French Professor and so incapacitates the French robot.

One grenade is clearly made by Acme of Hamburg as it corkscrews out of the gun (rolled a 1) and comes with a whisker of landing on the firer (then rolled a 2).

The French professor fails roll after pluck roll to stand up, so much so that the Prussian’s start up that well know Munich beer hall tune: “He gets knocked down und he does not get up again , we vill always keep you down, he takes a schnapps drink, he takes a lager drink…”

El She-bab makes dash and rescues Mimi, making her day: being chained to a rock and being worshipped was fun while it lasted, but being whisked off her feet by the suave Arabian Prince is one story to tell the chorus girls.

The civilian cult supporters scatter at random at the sound of firing/lightning bolts/Germanic singing. One is mercilessly gunned down by the French, two conveniently run towards the Police. The fourth flourish his warrant card from his pocket and reveals himself to be Atkins of Special Branch on undercover duties: he steps forth to clap handcuffs on the hooded Master.

Two other civilians are arrested (aka beaten in a fight) by Scotland Yard’s finest, and they feel all is going well as they haul the prisoners back to the Station. Only the girl needs rescuing from the clutches of the dastardly French and so Benedict Sherly and Doc are dispatched to deal with that.

Their task is made considerably easier when the sniping Jager fells El She-bab leaving Mimi in a dead faint on the ground. More exchanges leave the French severely depleted but the Hun are equally suffering, down to one automaton with the mechanic/operators busily trying to fix the rest to the sound of Hamburgian cursing and springs going ‘boing’. The situation is made worse as Sergeant Baguette, trusty rifle in hand (none of this arc new fangled nonsense for him), takes out the Prussian colonel and the Jager.

At this point it becomes a little confusing but there three main areas of action… In one corner the Cults of Amun mummies and tribal warriors are making the previously smooth exit of the bobbies and their prisoners somewhat awkward. An unlucky PC Dorkins is frozen in terror as the resurrected Nefatari calls on Heart Rending powers and reaches her talons into his chest. Holding her hand high she cackles; only to realise she is holding not a beating heart but Dorkin’s emergency winter warmer flask - ‘oi that was birthday present…’ he cries over his shoulder at a gallop. Enraged, Nefertari beheads one of Dorkins' colleagues with a single swipe of a poisoned Ankh. A melee develops over the Master and his artefact, a situation complicated as is he still handcuffed to a Special Branch Officer who has been knocked down by a be-fezzed supporter of Amun. Around him stand more Special Branch officers, the last working Hunbots, and several fez wearing types. After some vicious hand to hand (and hand to steam claw) action, the Anumites kill the Master and the deadly dwarf hits a vital steam pipe on a robot, while the remaining clockworkian monster stomps off with the artefact towards the Zeppelin rendezvous point, though as it used a steam claw to grab it, the artefact is still attached to a significant part of the Master’s arm. Colonel Croissant has now grabbed Mimi and supported by the now working French robot and Corporal Éclair and his mule Mouffin (Mouffin carries the Companies arc generator for the arc rifles and has a kick of his own) faces deadly foes: Sherly and the Doc, and the evil priest Pinudjem and his very deadly dwarf assassin side kick. Somehow with a blast of steam and a flourish of his sabre, le Colonel not only survives but the robot stomps the dwarf. For his next trick he exchanges words of wit and candour with the Great Detective and then plunges his sabre through that well know caped coat, felling Holmes (and to the annoyance of his player before he remembered to use his Meticulous Planning talent…Curses!). Watson follows shortly afterwards. The French are on the up; another cracking volley fells the Hun automaton carrying the artefact; a German engineer rushes to fix it. Seizing his chance a fezzed fanatic charges in to also grab the artefact but is knocked down as you would be if you are hit by a 4 foot long winder key used as club. Distracted by the attack the engineer can’t fix the robot but legs it with the artefact himself. In conclusion: The one surviving Hun was last seen climbing up a rope ladder into the clouds and into a waiting Zeppelin, clutching the artefact and with some sharp words for his dummkopf logistics officer. Mimi is now Mrs Croissant of 64 Rue d’Argent, a loyal wife at the Colonel's court martial for losing the artefact, though with a yearning still for her lost El She-bab. Mouffin was awarded the Medal d'Honneur and a bag of carrots. The Police are too busy extracting themselves and their prisoners from the clutches of the undead to yet mourn the loss of Sherly and the Doc. Finally a highly unseasonal dust filled whirlwind passed over Brighton heading south. Some claimed to have heard cackling as it passed and that a fez fell from the sky. Such reports have been dismissed by the Home Office… (A 4 player IHMN (In Her Majesty's Name) game, plus Umpire controlling the Cult of the Hooded Claw. Much fun and many outrageous accents were had by the cast)

Lost figures at Salute...

Found at Salute- a figure case with painted figures.

Please contact president@warlords.org.uk with description of figures if you have lost them  

Salute 2015 - its a wrap!

Another year, another show done, and the Warlords are mostly massaging tired legs and blisters today.....

We would like to say a big thank you to everyone who attended Salute; Traders, exhibitors and paying visitors, members of other clubs, Warlords & their families who help on the day - you all make Salute what it has become, a great show, with a great atmosphere (even in a hanger).

Also a shout out here to the bloggers who cover us, here are a few selected pictures from early blogs' coverage:


Lurkio - the thin high viz yellow line of Warlords scanners swamped by Wargamer warband....

Eric the Shed - pic of Fort George AWI game, won Best Game Scenery for the Essex Gamesters (as a tall ships nut, I loved all those ships!). The quality of this years games was the highest ever, made it very difficult to judge! We will put up other prize winners and more games pictures in future posts.

A Wargaming Gallimaufry - South London Warlords' Stingray! game

Don't Throw a 1 - South London Warlord's "Lake of Death" game - 1813, Araure - Bolivar's finest moment

We had quite a few requests as to where the teddy bear fur we used as grass came from - its from Craft-Fabrics  (follow link to site)

Big Lee's Miniature Adventures - Space Marine & Guardsman to scale

Tenfiguresaweek - Old Guards Waterloo game, gets prize for "most figures per square inch of table space"

Highlight of my day was having to take Richard Bodley-Scott (yes, that Richard) to his stand - they seemed to have mislaid him ;)

The traders were very happy, so we hope everyone's bank balances recover soon....

We hope to see everyone again next year (rumours of Salute's demise being etc etc)

Salute Online e-Ticket Sales end Thursday 23rd April at 6 pm

Salute £10 Online e-Ticket Sales end Thursday 23rd April at 6pm

After that you will need to pay £15 on the door on the day

Don't wait 'till its too late

We have to close it so we can make a list of all the attendees before the show starts

Megalith Games not at Salute, Dark Sphere taking over stand

  Megalith Games will not be at Salute,  Dark Sphere will replace them at the stand at TD06

Ax Faction becomes ORC Faction this year at SALUTE with the release of Jack the Hack!

He's a whopping bruiser at 40mm and would make a great Uruk, Orc leader, Ogre... or just hacking up your display cab.

Jack is Released on the day at Salute and only available from Ax Faction direct - the first 10 purchases will receive a Ltd Ed Jack sticker. 

Check them out at STAND TH02 - with the entire studio painted range and sneak peeks of new concepts.

Warlords Spring painting Competition Part 1

The SLW run 4 club painting competitions a year, here are the Spring comp entries. We have 4 categories - Themed Fantasy/Sci Fi, Themed Historical, Open (anything done since the previous competition) and Terrain. The Fantasy/Sci Fi Theme this session was "Female". To make it more interesting, this time we had prizes, not just points (Brushes courtesy Games & Gears)

Winner was this bevy:

Runner up - Gargoyle Gals

 Grandma

Baneblade MK II "Female"

 The African Queen

 Chaos Lordette

Dreadball Bunnygirls