Force on Force - scenery and concepts

Up until now I'd sorted my scenery - especially what I term "scatter" scenery into four rough periods:
a) Ancients, Dark Age and Medieval - when pretty much everything was expensive and had some value.  (There was a separate box for Samurai stuff because of the cultural differences).
b) Pre Industrial - the era from the English Civil wars through to the Napoleonic wars.  Some items have become substantially cheaper than in the earlier period but the full benefit of the industrial revolution and water and steam power and machines has yet to be felt.
c) Industrial - which loosely was when the benefits of the industrial revolution were felt by the people at large.
d) Science Fiction - the realm of the future and also the oddities like the Carnivorous plants etc.

Force on Force - and I now realise Post Apocalyptic - pushed things into a fifth grouping - namely modern.  Look at the following items...

The sofa is probably good for the Victorian era onwards (so fits into Industrial) as do the Mattresses since the circular bits represent coil springs.  "Wheelie Bin" - I would say 1990's onwards, although research on Wikepedia would put it at 1970 onwards in Western Europe...

Wheelie bin

And lastly metal beer kegs...

1950's onwards.  (The beer kegs came out of a model railway bargain bin - OK, so at OO/HO scale then a little tiny for 28mm but given that beer kegs come in all sorts of sizes, then perfectly acceptable).  

So, I think we are going to have a new category, probably "Modern Era".   

I see the Sofa as a hotel reject, with springs coming through the covers and now found outside a shanty hut having been "rescued" from the disposal lorry.  As one of the Gripping Beast boys said, what it really needs is a couple of children sitting on it who are playing.  

Whilst on Force on Force I've been looking at cheap scenery....

All three vehicles came from Poundland, and there's a few others already in the Force on Force Box.  The Humvee is 5mm too long for true 1/56tj scale on my calculations.  The Tractor - admittedly large although with a small seat I see as one of the new generation of "super tractors" - probably supplied by a kindly meaning but ill informed church/charity given African standards of maintenance and the cost of spare parts.   

Having just done a bit of surfing then might be time to go back and see if I can get a couple more of hte minibuses for use as Taxis with a respray...

  

 

Force on Force - books and videos

Force on Force

I’ve been shopping on books as they say, reading and watching videos..

Firstly Osprey apparently re-released some older titles, including Russia’s War in Afghanistan (1986).  It is clear from the text that this was written whilst the war was ongoing (Russia withdrew in February 1989) and information (as is probably the case with anything involving the modern Russian military) is somewhat patchy.   From a modelling viewpoint then enough to paint Russian troops.

The other Osprey to drop though my letter box this month is Russian Security and Paramilitary Forces since 1991.   I ordered this in advance of publication so it has only been out for a week or so, but it looks like a good one on a first glance through.   

 

The Book Depository had a  bit of a sale (around 30-35% off) Force on Force titles and I took the opportunity to get a couple more of the expansions:

Day of the Rangers – the cattle raid scenario in this is what I played at a convention that got me first interested in Force on Force as a set of rules, whilst the movie Black Hawk Down has long since been a favourite. 

The other was Enduring Freedom – The war in Afghanistan.

Of the others that leaves the following which are of little interest except possibly the Vietnam book, which having had the chance to look through and hear reviews on may be the weakest of the various books:

Ambush Valley - Vietnam –

Road to Bagdhad – Iraq 2003

Fallujah – Iraq 2004

Cold War gone Hot – Mid 1980’s Cold War

I've only had the books a couple of days but have already been through Day of the Rangers listing the scenarios and figures needed.   Often this comes down to a US Platoon of assorted composition but say 30-40 figures and lots and lots of Somalis, especially with the random Somali reinforcements rule.   I think this may be a somewhat longer term project than I first thought, probably to provide some variety on the painting desk.  

Which brings me to some videos I ended up watching....

Part 1 (of 3) sets the background to the French in Mali in 2013 and the "live action footage" starts at around 2 minute 30 seconds.  All three parts are worth watching I felt and some of the scenes like the Malian soldiers relaxing and then in combat bring home that there - in the African context - then mixed camouflage uniforms and equipment are very much the order of the day.   

And then this - Danish Soldiers fighting the Taliban...

Gutsy stuff to be running anywhere when there are bullets flying around, and the sound of the Squad Assault weapon opening up at 2 minutes in...   Not hard to see why the Germans regarded the rest of the squad as ammunition carriers for the MG42.  

Lastly, another book. £1 from our local Poundland (where everything is £1) - where the author brings home the reality of TOE lists which we gamers are so concerned with - he is charged with forming a platoon from scratch which never seems to be fully up to strength and gets the wanted and unwanted, never seems to have enough equipment to fully go round and ends up with some very grubby jobs..

March 2013 Current Reading and is a love affair about to end?

So, what have I currently got on the go?

Current top of my list is a book that I got for £1 from Poundland:

This guy tells it as it is; often brutally honest.  I picked this up, given its cheapness and following my recent interest in Force on Force.  Its a tale of daily life in a combat zone, fighting a war that has yet to make it to the silver screen, and yet which at times we already seen through CNN etc.  Recommend for a £1. 

The latest issue of Wargames, Soldiers and Strategy (no 65) arrived on Friday.  I will say straight away that I write the boardgames column for this magazine. 

With a central theme of Biblical warfare then this would always be a weak issue for me, given that I don't go back beyond Imperial Romans - which really means around 40 AD and the invasion of Britain / 70 AD and the Roman Civil Wars.  Yet, there are reviews, painting help, columns by Rick Priestley, Steven MacLauchlan and Richard Clarke, some stuff with actual gaming stats (the AWI game, the chariot race) and other bits of interest (figure storage, in depth look at Deus Vult and a Battlefront thing amongst others),  So, after an hour I still haven't finished it.  

Which brings me to a love affair that may be about the end.   For a few months now I've been thinking that the magazine was going more "White Dwarf" ified, with a big Flames of War emphasis (current owners) battle reports, eye candy pictures, and not an awful lot of actual gaming, and then padded out with regurgitated history, when I would be better off buying the relevant Osprey or two in the first place ?  Is this the historical gaming magazine for the attention span challenged?  

113 Pages:

8 pages - 1066: battle report: lots of 15mm eye candy, but nevertheless a battle report for all that.  Army listings after a fashion(might be appropriate for the rules used) but no real map or starting disposition. 

14 pages - Battle for Hunner Park: lots of 15mm Flames of War Eye, but another battle report.  Map this time but no starting dispositions.  

18 Pages - 1069 - SAGA/Hail Ceaser battle reports, without even giving me the army listings, nor maps and starting dispositions to enable me to refight it.  

4 Pages - Scenery making - the wharf and some other boards.  

8 Pages - building Leonardo Da Vinci's tank.  Interesting enough if somewhat specialist. 

6 Pages - Scalp - FW wars - finally something with bit of gaming substance that I can take away and use rather than just look at. 

6 Pages - Battle of Kut Al MAra - potted history

2 Pages - Siege of Kut Al Mara - back to what I call proper gaming.  

4 Pages - Advertising FOW - back to Vietnam.  

10 Pages -Martinque - Eye candy.  Next issue the battle begins.  Will that mean rules, or a battle report that means more eye candy but little else? 

9 Pages - Egypt for the Egyptians - more potted history with a nod towards some gaming. 

4 Pages - Trip report to Battlefront HQ in New Zealand. 

Remainder will be advertising or editorial.    

Very Glossy but not an awful lot to return to after 30 mins of flick through or use in my own gaming.   Ultimately I want my gaming magazine to have things related to gaming that I can take away and use or learn from: something that battle reports with no maps, no army breakdowns, no starting dispositions don't give me, even they have lots of nice pictures.  And the love affair about to end?  Well, I bought WSS from issue 3 onwards after seeing it in a local newsagents.  Issue 2 was back ordered, and issue number 1 had sold out, although I have it from either EBAY or a bring and buy (I forget which). 

I think last month's was somewhat better I seem to remember 

Robots for £1

No point having a blog if I don't post the bargains I've found on it...

Today's bargains from Poundland were some Robots..  I'm not a Warhammer 40K gamer, but do hanker after SF and Cyberpunk RPG, and have got a couple of Science Fiction Miniatures skirmish sets.   Faction Wars from Fire and Forget games, which desperately needs some rules for vehicles, the free Chain Reaction 3 from two hour wargames, Void (aka Urban War) from Urban Mammoth and had been thinking of Tomorrow’s War from Osprey.   I'm much more a Total Recall, Bladerunner, Battlestar Galactica, and Firefly movie fan than Space Marines and Starship Troopers.  

A large box from the Walle movie of some years ago, and then some "Androidyz" which might be American aimed at the Italianmarket which arrive to Poundland via Russia... The Walle box was hard to see what you actually got aside from a picture and a description, whilst the Androydz were fairly easy.  

Close up of an Androidyz in packaging.  Per the flyer that comes with them then there were 24 different models.  Mixture of ones with weapons, to buzz saws etc.   I got "Night Shield" which has a stick, shield and gun - so can be some sort of security robot, and "Scuba Miner" which has a drill and claw for use as an industrial robot.   

Out of the box with some Games Workshop figures for scale comparison.   The Walle stuff as one might expect from a disney licensed product is the most sturdy and is part of a playset - the blue robot has a winching crane hook activated by turning the arms.  The Androydz have a metal wheeled chassis, plastic uppers and arms that move  at the shoulders.   All likely to benefit from a respray and repaint.   The mining robot is probably my favourite at the moment - might see about getting another one or two of the "engineering' style so that I can stencil numbers on them for a consistent workforce theme after the respray.