Monday 30 December 2013

The Tractate Middoth on BBC

Last night I had a chance to watch the new video of the M.R. James story The Tractate Middoth. 



I thought it was a very good adaptation of the short story, with lots of atmosphere and memorable characters.  Of course there isn't ever going to be a movie that completely replicates the story exactly, and this version has its bits that doesn't jive with the original.  Overall, I enjoyed it and recommend you spend a half hour of your time and get into some M.R. James goodness!  :-)

Monday 23 December 2013

Moving!

Sorry everyone, but there will be a lack of updates in the near future.  We're moving to a new house and I won't have the man cave in order for a while.

Have a great Christmas Everyone!  :-)



Monday 2 December 2013

Russian WW2 Scouts

Taking a break from the Lord of the Rings miniatures, I painted up some WW2 Russian scouts.





These are a mix of Artizan Designs and Black Tree Designs.  I had to look at reference photos on the web to do the camouflage - I don't think I did it too well...*sigh*

The guy in the first picture looks like he's doing some kind of funky Russian dance.

 

In a few hours I will be flying up north to work until Dec 19th.  It should be fun as there is a snow storm going on right now and my flight has already been delayed over an hour.

So until I get back, get painting!  ;-)

Painted while listening to:  Wayward by Blake Crouch


I finished listening to this one.  It was good!  Not as good as the first one, but I liked learning a bit of the back-story and what's going on in the world outside of Wayward Pines.  I'm looking forward to listening to the next one in the series when it is available! 

Sunday 1 December 2013

Bolt Action AAR November 30th 2013

I was very happy to be able to get a game going with my friend Grant - it has been a while and I wanted to try out my new Russian army!

I was defending the objective...errr...stand of pigs.  Grant was attacking me with his Germans.  We were using his new buildings, which were awesome!  I brought the 4ground building, roads and fields - purchased from Terra Firma Studios.  It was the first time I had used the terrain I purchased and it is amazing!  I love it and will be getting some more in the future.  Looks like the owner is sick right now though.  :-(



The table at the start of the game.


Grant's starting force.  Note all the trucks...there will be more coming in later.


Most of my starting force of Russians.  Sniper was in the second floor of the 4Ground building, there's a MMG in the barn and an AT-rifle team off in the field to the left offscreen.


Some of Grant's new buildings - awesome!  The roofs all come off too.  The church tower was to take some heavy fire from the inexperienced Russkie squad and bust its steeple.  :-(


Grant brings his force on the table, trucks leading the way (to my surprise).  It was our first time using transports.


I tried to surprise the German commandant with moving some of my force up to the nearest building.  In fact, I was trying to get my flamethrower team in the mix asap.


My anti-tank rifle team tried all game to hurt the tank to no avail!  You can see them far in the distance, taking fire from the tank.


My flamethrower rushes up and blasts the German squad in the church.  I killed a few but they survived their morale check.  In typical Russian fashion the flamethrower runs out of fuel after the one shot.  Dimitry forgot to fill up the tanks from the last battle apparently...


Some good shooting from the MMG in the Renedra barn knocked out the truck and (if I remember correctly) took out some troops.  You can see the Kubelwagen in the background.


After some confusion about how airstrikes worked, I brought my Russian LMG squad up to the pumpkin patch.


An overview of the mid-game.  All the little red dice you see are my pin markers (just little red dice I picked up on eBay).  


The Germans concentrate their fire on the Russian squad, which held up their advance for a few turns.


Sadly, they were whittled down over time (and even rallied!) and perished.


On the other side of the board, a my squad is wiped out and the HQ whittled down from three men to the LT.  He didn't pass his morale check for about three turns, so the Germans snobbishly ignored him! (sorry for the blurry picture)


My lone AT-rifleman lasted most of the game, but I don't think he even hit anything.


A very blurry picture of my green, inexperienced rifle squad that I get for free.  You get them for free because they suck!  After shooting at the Germans in the church on round two, they didn't pass their morale check until the second to last turn of the game.  *sigh*


The remains of a squad and the pioneers.  Unlike my flamethrower which fizzled out after one shot, Grant's flamethrower kept on blasting away the entire game!  Argh!  ;-)


About half of my remaining force at the end of the game.  The LT FINALLY passed his morale check and ran to the building.  The useless Russian squad is in front of the house.




Grant got excited about being so close to the objective that he sent up his medic first for some reason.  ;-)


This was a really fun game!  It was interesting to see how the Russians worked as I had never played with them before.  Most of my force was regular, the HQ and flamethrower was veteran and some of the support teams were inexperienced.  I really need to have a tank on the table.  I couldn't really do anything to the German's light tank and it dominated.  I managed to pick at the squads and support teams, but not much in the way of complete kills.  
I may have to pick up some transports too.  Grant used them to good effect, zipping them and his squads all over the table.

My most valuable players were the MMG team and the rifle squad in the building near the AT-rifle team.  My mortar got one hit in, and the sniper hit a few times.

I will definitely be tweaking my list for the next game!  :-)

And of course the obligatory pictures of Pixie: