"...There is Only War."

On a personal note, I recently moved from the lovely state of Virginia to the wonderful state of Ohio. Things are different here. I miss my gaming partners and dear friends Bwana Bill (and his son!)and Consul Scipio (and his son!). However, I'm pleased to report there are gamers here, and my "war room" is up and operational once again.

My first task is to prepare for a GW event on 16 April 2016, "Celebrating 30 Years of Space Marines." Therefore my Space Wolves are back to their position at the front of my never-ending painting queue. Thankfully, the infantry is pretty close to being done, with just detail work needed on one unit of Grey Hunters and one unit of Space Pups (Blood Claws). The second unit of Grey Hunters has most basic colors on it, but needs a bit of flesh here and there, as do my Thunderwolf Cavalry.

Given the need to roll more die, I may flesh out the Space Pups with a few extra lads, toss them in a Land Raider Crusader (which is only gray at the moment!), and send them into battle. Which leads me to my vehicular dilemma.

I have only one vehicle - a Rhino - that is painted. Since I painted that particular transport my painting style has changed as has the color pallet - thanks GW! ** so I may have to paint that one again, or touch it up a bit. Additionally, I have a Razorback that requires additional paint, and (if I decide on adding Blood Claws) a Landraider Crusader that needs a lot of work.

As it stands, I know I can finish the infantry and the Razorback prior to 16 April. Stay tuned, I'll post the results of my ongoing painting frenzy, as well as any gaming exploits that may or may not occur.



********* Addition - Last evening, as I was drifting off to sleep one of our cats pulled a "ninja" and broke into the war room. He then began throwing $50.00 models and infantry figures from the table to the floor, breaking several of them. I'm now taking time from painting to research a recipe for "Kitten Tikka Masala." <*just kidding - but I'm not a happy chappy!*> ******

"Battlecruisers at Jutland" scenario

Here is another thing I did at HISTORICON this past summer. This is a WWI naval game I ran utilizing the Fleet Action Imminent (FAI) rules. FAI is the General Quarters 3 (GQ3) World War I variant. The GQ3 system is a very realistic set of rules and yet the games flow very nicely and once all the participants have the hang of it the turns move very quickly. These rules produce a very satisfying result. I have run many GQ3 FAI games now and every time I introduce someone new to these rules they have always gone away quite impressed. These rules can be procured from Old Dominion Game Works and no, I am not connected with that company. I'm just a guy having some good naval wargaming fun! In this scenario I used 1/3000 scale models from NAVWAR. These are nice, inexpensive models. They are a nice compromise between the very small 1/6000 scale models that are now very popular and the traditional 1/2400 scales models. Unfortunately, as far as I know, there is no one in the U.S. that is currently selling this line of models. If you want them, you have to contact NAVWAR directly. They are located in England

"Battle Of Ginnis" Sudan 1885 Scenario

Greetings and my apologies for being gone so long. I don't know why these things happen, but they do. I am going to try to get caught up on everything that has been happening over the last year or so. To begin with, we did finally run the "Battle of Ginnis" 1885 Sudan scenario at HISTORICON last summer. It turned out looking really nice, and we had five very nice gents show up to play. They all loved the set up and the game. It ended up being very one-sided with the Brit side winning fairly easily, but I think that tactical decisions made on the Dervish side had a lot to do with it. In any case, it is a really good scenario. Everyone should be looking for this one when it gets published in one of the Skirmish Campaigns scenario books. The best guess is that this will happen sometime in late 2013.

Gunboat on the Nile

We are experimenting with an 1885 Sudan campaign scenario these days and I'm trying to incorporate the Old Glory Shipyard 28mm gunboat I bought a few years back. Dont have much time to write about it now, but here are a few photos for starters.

A Tribute and Final Salute to the Orkmeister

These are very sad days for our gaming group. Mr. Carl E. Cordell, our beloved and revered Orkmeister, also known to us as Karlmek, passed away on July 31st. It was not unexpected, but nevertheless we never gave up hope that he would be with us for many more years. He never gave up hope either.

Carl was the consummate hobbyist and wargame enthusiast. Not only was he an extremely brilliant tactician, he was also one the best model builders that we have known. His achievements in this area were many, but the one thing we will always remember best were the Space Ork vehicles he scratch-built for playing Warhammer 40,000 (40K). We spent many hours over the 12 years that we knew Carl playing in huge elaborate battles, both 40K and WWII in 28mm scale, that he staged and directed. We spent many hours trying to defeat his vaunted force of orks and their beautifully hand-crafted battlewagons, wartracks, guntracks, stompas, and trukks full of the best close combat specialists in the universe. We rarely won.

Carl was one of the best 40K players on the East Coast. He frequently competed in the Games Workshop Grand Tournaments in Baltimore and Philadelphia. In 2003 the Games Workshop staff at the Grand Tournament were particularly struck by the appearance of Carl's army and his scratch-built vehicles. They decided that some photos of his models would go nicely with an article they were preparing about Ork Speed Freaks; an army list that Carl truly loved using. So they took some photos of a few of his models and they ended up on page 72 of issue 279 (April, 2003) of their "White Dwarf" magazine (middle photo). This was truly a unique honor for a hobbyist who had not sought out any recognition or publicity for his modeling skills, but it was very well deserved.

Carl was also a master at designing and making scenery for our games. As can be seen in the photo above he made the most beautiful 40K city that anyone has ever seen. In this case he actually used Games Workshop's "Cites of Death" building models, but of course nothing out of a kit was ever good enough for Carl. He took the basic kits and added his own plastic pieces to them to make them even more imposing and impressive.

I also need to mention that we also spent a very large amount of our gaming time on World War II. This was another aspect of the hobby that Carl loved. We were always amazed by Carl's encylopedic knowledge of World War II, especially the North Africa campaign. Along with this, he seemed to know everything there was to know about WWII armored vehicles and trucks. We used to talk on the phone frequently and listen to him talk on this subject for one to two hours at a time. Everything we did in the WWII area was always done with 28mm infantry figures and 1/48 or 1/50 scale vehicles. Carl had a flair for dramatic effects and as far as he was concerned any models in scales smaller than that were lacking in visual impact. It was an expensive way to do it, but there was no arguing with the approach. Every time we set up our WWII stuff at the local hobby shop we always drew a large crowd of envious onlookers!

We had a great time using all the wonderful scenery sets that he created. We had a lot of fun over a period of 12 wonderful years with Carl, and because of Carl. We of course are very grateful for the time we had with him but we are sure we will never see his like again and we feel very empty.

REAL Thunderwolf Cavalry

As I previously noted, I discovered a gent who makes true Thunderwolf Cavalry. Of course, he doesn't call them that - or GW would be all over copyright infringement or some nonsense. Which makes it tough for those of desiring to field howlin puppy cav - since GW doesn't MAKE any. On top of not making any decent models for a really cool unit, GW doesn't even make any halfway decent models.

Paulson Games = problem solved.

Not only does he make lovely wolf models that are the right size to have an eight-foot tall Space Marine riding them, he makes the saddle/legs for the rider as an extra bits option you can buy. I bought the "full meal deal" with all three poses of howlin pups and the legs to match.

The models are made of resin and require assembly (duh!) and painting. There is some flash, but it requires minimal effort to clean the bits up and prep them for gluing. Not having worked with resin before, I discovered that my model glue doesn't work, so in stepped my "Zap-a Gap" to save the day.

Interestingly, the bodies have Roman numerals inside ("What have the Romans ever done for us!?!") to keep the modeler from getting confused about which body half goes with the other.

There are three poses available. I'm not sure if Mr. Paulson intends on crafting any more poses. Perhaps if he sells enough, he might be encouraged to offer another pose or two. Perhaps a "lunging" or crouching model? Just saying!

As nice as the wolves are, I have to say the rider legs and saddle bits really brought a smile to my face. They are extremely well crafted, nicely detailed, and have "Space Wolves" touches on them. In addition to the very cool space marine cavalry legs (with stirrups!), Mr. Paulson has created textured bases the same size and shape as GW Warhammer 40K cavalry bases!



Here are a few photos of the models and bases painted white and touched up with badab black wash to show the detail. For unadulterated images, head over the Paulson Games.

As soon as I get one ready to show off, I'll slap up some pics for my fellow Space Puppy fans to drool over.







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Thunderwolf Calvary Tweaks and "Hacks"

I mentioned a while back that I planned on “hacking” some non-Games Workshop figures to create Thunderwolf Calvary. I found some figures that were almost right – still a tad small – and looked nice. Not great, but they would do… I found them at my (RIP) local, Game Parlor Woodbridge (the shop closed recently after six years of trying to stay afloat – the main GP store in Chantilly, VA remains open!). I asked some of the lads at the shop about wolves. They ran through the normal litany of Ral Partha, GW Dire Wolves, and Reaper minis. While some of the Reaper figures were actually quite nice, they were far too small. I started digging through various stacks of figures and raiding different racks in a random manner – when I came across the Privateer Press figures for Warmachine. Specifically, there were some wolf figures for the Hordes add-on that were about the right size, had some armor, and weren’t “ugly”. So, I bought three figures and mounted space marines on them. Mounting the marines, in particular, the legs, was torture for me – and for the space marine in question. After several tries, I was able to get them on, but not without breaking the legs on one or two, and having to use green stuff to fill in gaps or glue to hold the bits together. No Canis, space marine legs aren’t designed to bend that way!

I’ll get some photos of my “hacks” up soon. They remain a work in progress; however, I have to get this post up, because I know there are Space Wolves players out there that are desperate to field some new figures, and, like myself, are having a tough time finding appropriate figs. Although these “hacks” work, and they are “nice”, the reason I felt compelled to throw this post up was that I’ve actually found some incredible figures online.

I originally found the link on the Dakka-Dakka forums, if I recall correctly – so some SW players know about them. However, I’m so very impressed with these figures that I want to spread the word – and do a good deed for fellow SW players, and for an extremely talented sculptor. For now I’ll throw in a link to the Web site – later, after I’ve had a chance to actually do some work on them, I’ll try to do proper justice to them with a full post!