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The Battle of Al Khali

Tonight we returned to the Sudan for another battle between the Ansar and Anglo Egyptian forces. It did turnout to be a bit of a one sided affair.

We organised our forces, I took some naval ratings, Egyptians and Sudanese, with a Gatling. Joe went for the the Ansar. I was lucky with my command values, but not so with tne officer attributes, having one drunk, one cad, one short sighted chap, a brave one and the general’s favourite nephew . The naval ratings were led by the cad, and the Sudanese by the nephew…

So from left to right some really useless Egyptians who were both poor shots and unenthusiastic. Next are some okay ones, but their officer was short sightedness couldn’t shoot beyond close range, we then have the Gatling gun led by a brave chap and finally the naval ratings and the Sudanese.

In the scenario Joe was expected to defend the town, and therefore had to drop his points to 18.

My subterfuge was to put the useless troops as far away from the fighting as possible…it worked as their dice rolls were impeccable and as I was rolling 8 plus on all of my dice the fact they were useless wasn’t obvious. The force steam rollered forwards and engaged the cavalry in the trees. They took a couple of casualties, and then got annoyed by the firing and charged… sadly they fell short and were caught in the open. All of my units managed to fire and made short work of them and the unit of fanatics coming up behind.

The Ansar in the open moved to threaten my left flank…if they had pressed home they would have rolled up the line.

To be honest with two units out if five down, it was pretty obvious that my forces only had to stay put down fire at long range…

My dice rolls were pretty jammy tonight and the Gatling failed to fire or move only once… I have a confession to make. I was hitting on fours, it was only when I went to tidy up that I realised that I was reading the Gatling stats from the last game. So a big apology to Joe for being a cheating B*stard. I should have been hitting on a five.

We have decided that the Ansar are going to have hidden set up, as was the case in reality, they would often appear in their hundreds outof defile etc. This will make jt a bit harder for the British, but jt should stop the stand and just shoot approach.

Today was another midge day, we were putting up and electric fence and it was a nightmare until a breeze got up. On the upside I still have my fetching veil

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Letter to Her Majesty

Ma’am, it pains me to inform you of some severe losses that took place on Monday 2nd August near the town of Khufurah.

A mixed force of naval ratings from HMS Norfolk, Sudanese and Egyptians met with terrible losses and there are unfortunately few survivors to recount the terrible events.

The force had been tasked with scouting an area west of the town of Khufurah. They marched out of the town at 14.00 and were last seen at 14.30 as they crested a rise.

Unbeknown to all the Mahdist’s had returned to the area. As the Sudanese approached the first water hole a number of Dervish leapt from a hidden defile and charged the right flank. With military precision they wheeled and gave fire halting one unit with terrible casualties…

Sadly the second enemy force made contact and pushed the line back, butchering the wounded as they fell. The Sudanese withdrew in good order, but the enemy were on their heels and killed them to a man. Unfortunately Colonel Smythe and his adjudant Captain Smith were among those that fell.

The naval ratings swung their gun to protect the flank, but unfortunately major Twitt marched his men the way they had come and stopped the gun from firing. Unfortunately this occurred numerous times during the short battle.

The Egytian force nearest the threat did a smart about turn but unfortunately the horrific scene in front of them meant that they were unable to fire as they were shocked to the core.

Panic rippled throughout the Egyptian forces as unit after unit refused to obey their orders, Major Twitt managed to clear the way for the gun, only to March in front of it again momenrs later…

Cavalry appeared out of the smoke and attacked the right hand unit, who held for a while, but assaulted on three sides, as they were, then they too fell.

The gun opened up on the enemy to their front whilst Twitt contemplated his next move. It inflicted heavy losses on the unit, but it’s morale still held as they sensed victory.

As more cavalry appeared and threatened the rear of the gun, the gunners brought it to bear, but unfortunately the horsemen were upon the gunners, who with valiant effort pushed them back even though outnumbered three to one!

This gave the hard pressed matelots a chance to fire at close range, enough to cause the cavalry to pause, but unfortunately with enemies on all sides and Twitt once again masking the gun, things were very quickly over for out forces.

Wolsey has advised me that another large force is to be sent into the area to Bury the remains of our troops and to locate the forces who perpetrated the defeat. They will not escape justice.

I remain your must humble subject,

Colonel Moutard

This game was an absolute hoot, with sod all chance of an allied victory. Well the latter is not entirely true. With hidden set up for the Mhadist’s it makes it tricky to form a strategy, however if I had set up on the left flank instead of the centre then I wouldn’t have met any forces on turn three. Twitt was an absolute blast. If I rolled a one for his unit then Joe got to order him about, this happened four times in six turns, then again at the end of the game. I knew I was pushing my luck fielding an Egytian force, but things happened pretty much as they did back in the Sudan.

We are doing a double point game against Mr Babbage next week… we will see how that goes.

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Massacre at Khufurah

Today our game of ‘The Men WhomWould be Kings’ took place between Joe and I. We went for 24 points as per normal and then after dicing for officers rolled on the scenario table. I was tasked by Wholsey to take the Fort at Khufurah which was sadly surrounded by lots and lots (it seemed) of enemy combatants.

Luckily for me the points of the defender dropped to eighteen causing Joe to lose his two cavalry units.

Left to right, are the guards, denoted by their red tunics( yes I know they didn’t wear then, but it let’s me see who is who). Next is a 9lb artillery piece, followed by a unit of Egyptians and finally the Durham’s. The officer in the guards was a brave chap, the Durham’s was as bald as a coot and sadly for the Egyptians their officer was rather useless. I had reduced the Egyptian points to 4 to allow the Guards to gain sharpshooter, hitting on 4+. The Egyptians ended up being poor shots as well as unenthusiastic meaning I needed to roll a 9 on 2D6 to get them to move at all.

The Guards headed off onto the left flank whist the Durham’s went right. The gun and Egyptians decided it was still breakfast and sat still.

A unit of Hadendowah bounded forwards and received volley fire as well as a clobbering by the gun. They made it no further and were destroyed to a man. The Ansar gun maneuvered to try and get a shot at the Guards but they moved out of sight, before the gun got a chance to fire.

The Egyptians eventually decided to move and were supported by the gun (who had had their cup of tea and jam on toast) and had already moved to support the right flank. The Ansar gun failed to fire and unfortunately was in range of the the Royal Artillery who made short work of it.

With the centre free of a threat, the Guards came right and the Egyptians bolstered by the presence of an elite unit bounded forward turn after turn, only to be halted by some sneaky chaps hiding in a mosque. Sadly they got no further as although Joe’s dice rolls were poor, they did enough casualties to cause them to turn tail and run for home. Sadly this meant the guards now got shot at too

On the right flank the Durham’s and gun made short work of the troops hiding in the trees

These two units then swung around the buildings to their front to support the Guards and threw everything they had at the Troops in the mosque… as I said, Joe’s dice were bad, mine in the other hand were not…

The Mosque did not last long, neither did the troops inside. With a last gasp the troops in the fortification sortied out and made straight for the Durham’s. The brave Northern lads managed to wheel and meet the foe, bayonet to sword and spear. They took four casualties but Miraculously they held and actually pushed the enemy back, leaving the field open to volley fire and a clobbering by the gun.

All in all a good little game. First one in about 2 years.

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Bits and Bobs of Painting

My ribs are still burning, so after doubling up all the meds I could take I managed to get some work done on the Genestealer cult miniatures…

Still a very long way to go, but they are a bit further on than they were. The eagle eyed amongst you will have noticed a change to the jacket colour.

I got the dwarves flocked, they just need varnishing and probably some tufts put onto them…

And finally, I found an wood elf horse and tested it too… please note I do listen to advice and tried out the Dino mounts too. Of the three here I prefer the Trike’.

Tomorrow I hope to carry on with the cultists and Pendraken Mongols.

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Belladona and a Whole Lot More

So I was mooching about in the shed looking for a mount for her ladyship. I now have three choices off the top of my head. Technically I could put her on a wood elf horse, but I don’t think it would work.

Now personally I prefer the top one as I feel the lines actually flow nicely from horse to rider, it is only an aesthetic thing, but I thought I would ask what other people thought.

As you probably know I do like my Contrast Paints, as I was mooching for the horse I found my Advanced Space Crusade and it looks like I was going for an early version of them…

For the big beasties and the unfinished ones they were done in GW washes and inks from what I remember. Soooo I have decided that these need an update so the five scouts and two ‘nids are going to be undercoated again and brought up to date. This will fit in nicely with Ann‘s Neglected but not forgotten challenge Here.

I managed to get the paint on the bases tonight….

As I had the brown out, I thought I might as well get the Mongol cavalry bases painted…before I paint the models! And finally, as I had some new whit I thought I might as well spray as much as I could before bed….

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Dwarves… Nearly Done

Well today I had a day off. Got up, went to work, was there half an hour and came home and slept until 15.00. I sat in bed from then until 19.00 and mooched online watching random YouTube videos. On the upside, I have a set of Covid home test kits at home, so I know it isn’t that.

I made it up for dinner and then sat and threw some paint on the dwarves while the kids watched Wall-E.

They look better at a distance as you can’t see the mistakes 🥴. Really just the belt buckles and some shading on the armoured bits to do and then onto the bases.

I really enjoyed doing these as it was a nice change from the 28’s of late. Because I enjoyed doing them so much I was straight onto the Pendraken website, but held off hitting fire as I suddenly remembered that I have a Mongal army to paint, a pile of fantasy samurai as well as a Plains war army too.

See I have sort of managed to not buy anything new… well apart from these which were waiting for me when I came in this morning, I must have been ill as a I totally ignored them…

Now the second one above would fit in nicely with the first set I already built… the question is do I add them all in together or have two separate bases…

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Ugg and the Mammoth Clan

These things have sat in a semi finished state for about five years at least. I bought them from Magister Millitum for my open day Mammoth hunting game yonks ago. Part way through the build I changed my mind and got some Magister Inuit instead and used them. The plan was that I would have various clans. As it happened I just used one lot for the Games.

So here we have the mighty Ugg and the rest of his hunting party (minus the dogs).

Once again these were done in Contrast paint for speed. It took about an hour to get them from white to painted. I resprayed them white when I did the goblins the other day.

Once again I am back to the ‘what the heck do I cover the bases in’ conundrum.

The following photos show some games my kids and I played a while ago…based on the bottom photo I used some of the cavemen miniatures as fire starters in the game (I thought I was missing some). The Inuit can be seen taking on a Mammoth (the rearing Mammoth was converted from the standing ones. The baby Mammoth are 6mm irregular miniatures ones, the older ones are Pendraken and the rest of the fauna are Magister, apart from the mighty gorilla in the wood, he is a 54mm Britain’s zoo animal. Works really well as a King Kong substitute in 10mm.

Not sure what I am going to paint tomorrow 🤔

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Nasty Orkses all Finished

Tonight I decided to get these done and out of the way.

They need some kind of basing material on them but the proof if colour concept seems to work and I am happy with them. Once I get the Samurai done, I will get some more if these.

Apologies for the naff photo.

Popped in to see my mate today and he seemed a bit better than yesterday, still struggling with vocabulary, but looking better in himself.. other good news.. my wife got a tax rebate as she had paid too much plus, the insurance came back with an acceptable value for the wrecked car…phew!

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More Work on the Elves

Okay yesterday, I foolishly said it was warm, but not South temperature… foolish me!

Taken in the garden at 11.00 this morning.

it was still 26 degrees at 18.00 this evening… anyway onto the elves…

They are pretty much done apart from the bases, so I did indeed manage to get them finished by the end of the weekend.

I am honestly not sure how I am going to base them…I might stick some of my home made flock into the coffee grinder and get it a lot finer. I will have to have a think.

So, apart from the shields, hair and the metallics, these were painted in contrast paint. I do quite like it for this scale, I am still a little ambivalent about it in 28mm. Tomorrow I think I will make a start on some 15mm Lizardmen. I have just remembered that I have a ‘Tin Soldier’ 15mm Aztec DBA army sitting there too. They would make a nice opposing force to the Scalians.

Shortly after taking the photo above – this happened…

These lucky ones hit the table, the unlucky ones hit the floor. I think they all survived.

Tomorrow I am helping my in laws dismantle a lean to and put another one up in it’s place. Wish me luck, if the temperature is anything like today I am not going to be a happy bunny. I have become acclimatised to a Shetland Summer.

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More Work on the Elves

Today has been a warm one, nothing like the silly temperatures down South, but still warm enough for us. So this afternoon, as promised, we went of for a game of hide and seek in one of our few woods up here. I am pleased to report that my Ninja skills have not left me.

Anyway…Elves. I blasted on with these again tonight and managed to get them to the nearly finished stage. Basically weapons, metalwork, hair and hands to do and that’s them finished.

Looking closely at the actual bases, I have noticed that some have bi coloured trousers that need rectifying.

Hopefully I will get these finished tomorrow, then potentially move onto some 15mm Lizardmen (Battle Valour- Scalians) that I won at the HOTT tournament earlier this year.