Innehållsförteckning för October 2023 från Miniature Wargames

This issue has a selection of rather longer pieces that I have been trying to fit in for some time. The Aztec ‘Alien Invasion’ approach is something I’ve been aching to include plus the Lacewars piece reminds me nostalgically of casting figures over my kitchen stove using Prinze August moulds, boiling lead and motorcycle gloves. Remember children, safety first… Jon Sutherland gives us some excellent gaming advice; Mr Kinch supplies a Command & Colours Napoleonic scenario plus we have a Dragon Rampant (always tricky) and we build a Stone Barn. As Dave Gilmour sang (in a Momentary Lapse Of Reason): “Steps have been taken, a silent uproar has unleashed the dogs of war; you can’t stop what has begun: signed, sealed, they deliver oblivion”. And – on that cheery note…

“They destroyed civilization–they landed in huge vessels with strange powers. They looked like us but were more pale and some had four legs and two heads, with one of the heads growing from a body in the middle of the back although some said they were two separate beasts and the one in the middle rode on the other one’s back. They were accompanied by strange savage beasts which attacked our soldiers and they wore armour which our weapons could not damage and used weapons which sounded like the end of the world and killed a great many of us from a great distance – some of us collaborated with them and became their allies, others became their slaves and other tried to fight back but in the end we…

Get more out of that forgotten pile of wood particulate: no silver hammer required… Ed. This month’s tutorial shows how I took a simple MDF kit and clad the walls with blue foam stonework and the roof with DAS modelling clay thatch. The kit was picked up at The West Midlands Military Show, Alumwell back in March of 2023 – the plan was to use it in a Silver Bayonet scenario, but those plans changed and this ‘new’ stone barn is the result of a week’s worth of scratch building using the plain kit as a basis and then painting it in a natural stone colour. The Warbases, Border Reivers kit is very easy to put together and – although having some engraved stone wall texture – it looked a little…

PENINSULAR 10MM ◗ pendraken.co.uk ◗ £3.20 - £6 Although they make models in a few other scales – 6mm 15mm and 28mm specifically – it’s fair to say that Pendraken have rather made 10mm their ‘thing’. On that basis they have just released some new Napoleonic Peninsular figures in that very 10mm ‘scale’. As I’m a bit of a stickler for measuring things (moving on…) the models are consistently 10mm to the eyes making them 11mm to the top of their putative heads and generally 12mm or so to the top of their varying hats and so they are pretty consistent. I would say that they also fall into a good spot for ‘caricaturing’ by which I mean that – unlike a lot of 6mm figures – their heads are…

“So, little people, you think you can challenge me? Anglanchor the Great, King of the Fire Drakes. You pose no threat to one such as I.” Staring impassively sat a knight upon his trusty destrier. As his party of loyal followers spread out over the glade he spake: “I am Sir Garavel, Paladin of Rosy Court, and yea verily I doth come to smite thee and lay thee low. Your life is now forfeit, O great wyrm of fire.” “Others have tried before thee and others have failed, brave knight.” With these words the mighty dragon drew himself up and opened his powerful jaws revealing fangs like iron spikes and a raging fire within. The brave knight spurred his horse and charged… I had a thought quite some time back, when…

It was whilst I was preparing to leave school, clarinet case in hand, that I saw someone jumping up and down in front of a window. It was my second month of secondary school and I had already established an after hours timetable of Chess Club and Concert Band Practice. It was after the latter had wrapped up for the day that I walked across the school quad and saw, leaping about in the second-storey art classroom, an older student from my form class. Curiosity piqued, I ascended the dark stairwell to the solitary room with the lights on two hours after school had finished. I had discovered the school’s Warhammer Club and soon another evening of my weekly routine was scheduled. The group comprised of all ages, started by…

Every so often a book comes along and hits you right between the eyes and stops you in your tracks. Like most wargamers, I am a man of many projects. I have a Rangers of Shadowdeep project that I’ve been meaning to finish off for over a year now I have unpainted armies for an 1859 invasion of Sicily project that are calling out for the airbrush. Meanwhile my Pacific War Japanese and US Marines have stalled completely having been thrown over for my 19th century Abyssinians. The only thing I’ve definitely committed myself to is organising an eight player Stalingrad game in October. I’ve got the snow mats ready, my terrain maker Capability Savage has been doing some interesting experiments in painting Sarissa kits in greyscale and I’ve just about…

This month Command Decision takes a different turn and ponders on how to create the perfect scenario for your valuable gaming time. Over the course of writing over a hundred Command Decision articles, I’ve often pondered on what it takes to create the ideal scenario. No one wants a slow moving game with minimal movement, lack of opportunities to shoot up the enemy and disrupt him. If you are playing a game in a particular historical period, you also want it to look and feel like the real thing. Equally if you into are fantasy or science fiction gaming you might want to emulate the world you set your games in, whether that’s Middle Earth, Donaldson’s The Land or Klendathu, or the Arachnids’ home planet in Starship Troopers. It’s not…