Busy hobby week

I am on holiday. Everybody else was still at work so I was able to really indulge myself this week. I played two games of Bolt Action. Painted up some new figures for my next project. Popped up to Gripping Beast and picked up some bases and could not resist the new Roman Light Cavalry.

So on Monday I went over to Steve’s and played the next Scenario in the Western Desert Book. It was called Hellfire pass. The Germans were defending with anti tank guns. The British were attacking with a mixture of infantry, artillery and tanks. The British had a points advantage. Steve was playing with his newly painted Sikhs from Warlord games. They looked jolly nice.  It was going to be a tall order for the Germans to succeed and it certainly turned out to be that. At the beginning the Germans did manage to almost knock out the mortar and took out a Matilda Tank. However, the ominous artillery observer came into play and destroyed the 88mm. By turn 4 the Germans were down to just 6 figures and the game was a forgone conclusion.

i also had on the following day my first game of Firefight. The new skirmish Bolt Action game. It was rather good. The game plays very quickly because of the number of figures.

The game is just as exciting however. The Canadians and Germans were both vying for the control of an area of Caen.

The game started off fairly evenly. The Canadian mortar scored a direct hit on the German MMG.

Lucky shots from the Germans took out two Canadian SMGs. After that a series of good rolls from the Germans and a massive mistake by the Canadian player led to the destruction of the Canadians.

However, this is a great game and I will definitely be looking to play it again.

 

My visit to Gripping Beast was lovely. You are always welcomed like an old friend. After chewing the cud with Darren I left with some bases and also some not yet released plastic late Roman Cavalry. They are the release some cataphract horses soon. Sounds quite exciting. Anyway here are some pictures of the sprue and the options. I made these archers, but they can be spears, swords, axes.

The figures are very nice, crisp with little or no flash. The kit comes with 3 horses halved. They join together well but are not interchangeable which is a shame which means that you can only produce three horses. There are many more options with the riders. Six bodies with various arm options and a variety of weapons. There are three types of shield from large, small and buckler. I really like them. My only criticism is that the heads seem rather large for the figures. I know figures are heroic scale, but they still seem rather large.

I have not really been playing any ancients recently. This may change as I have just purchased SPQR by Warlord games. It is an ancient skirmish game. The game looks good fun. The basic game is rather straightforward but there are many options which will need careful consideration when picking your force. It had spurred me on to finish painting some Celt fanatics. I have the Romans ready to go. It came with a free Druid. It was made from resin. I think this could be a new venture for Warlord.