Borodino Refight.

This weekend in Christchurch NZ saw a huge Napoleonic re fight of the battle of Borodino. With over 5000 troops and more than 150 guns a large number of New Zealand wargamers converged to play this epic game.
 There is an excellent battle report on Craig's blog
 http://craigswargamingblog.blogspot.co.nz/2012/09/borodino-20120-report.html    
with another bunch of wonderful photos.
This was a fantastic way to spend a weekend, playing with the wee chaps and meeting a great bunch of guys.
Below are photos from the game showing just how big this game was.

Looking from the French left after the first turn.

From behind the Russian right.

A view down the table from the Russian right.

The French right flank.

Troops from the French right flank advancing.

French centre and right.

French left wing under pressure

 

The Commanders at the end of the game.

Several of the Commanders had already left by this stage, some had flights to catch back to their home towns and others could not make it back for day two.
An awesome sight to see so many Napoleonic troops on one table.
Thanks to John and co for organising this event.




Chris Packer who was Napoleon over the weekend managed to find time amongst his command responsibilities to shot  some video footage of the game. The link below is for the first part of 9!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1nglNHTaYJU&feature=youtu.be

more to come.

Enjoy.

WW1 German SMG's

These guys are another lot that were finished off a few weeks ago. Figures are from Great War Miniatures this time and very enjoyable to paint too.

Flushing out a building.

Aim at him not me!

SAGA countdown

On Wednesday night the Southern Strategists will have their first games of SAGA.
With that thought in mind I decided to finish off these two Viking dudes. Given to me by my friend Geoff last year when I was making the Longboat. They were both originally swinging axes but after a fair amount of carving out lead and drilling holes in their hands they are now hauling on ropes to help beach the boat.

I have no idea what make of figures these guys are.

Axes removed and now with ropes in their hands.

 Last weekend I also decided to have a wee play with Photoshop. The thought of having four separate measuring sticks floating around the table during a game didn't sound like a winner to me. So armed with a download of the measuring sticks I cut and moved and rotated them around until I came up with a one piece measuring stick. The "S" and "M" are also staggered so as to be able to quickly see the distance. With "VS" at right angles it is very easy to measure between figures.

It was then a matter of printing it out and glueing it to some cardboard.

My measuring stick

Checking unit formation.

Some levy checking the range to these Berserkers.

Beserkers on the move.

Looking forward to my first game of SAGA.

WW1 Flamethrowers.

Some of these guys I painted up a while ago but only recently finished off the last few.
They are from Renegade Miniature set WW1G 112.

I have been busy finishing off a few sets of figures like these recently so more to come in the next week or two.

I see that the blog has finally got to 200 followers after hanging in the 190's for ages. Thank you all very much for this. Thanks for all the comment too. I really do appreciate them.

Zulus

A few years ago now I picked up a box of each of the Wargames Factory Zulus and the British infantry. I have made up most of the British and even painted a couple but don't like them that much.I thought the Zulus might be just as bad so they have been sitting around untouched! Finally, the other week I was looking for something other than WW1 to paint, came across the box of Zulus and proceeded to make some of them. There are 30 in a box , so, I have split them into a group of 18 that will be spear armed, and a group of 12 that will have rifles and muskets.
Here then are the skirmish chaps, armed with muskets and  Martini-Henry rifles, with a few mods.

The photos were taken last weekend when there was next to no sun about.

The firing figures are crap! But the guy in the centre here got a bit of surgery.

There are some powder horns on belts to be worn over the shoulder but I changed a couple of them to have the guys carrying them in their hands

The way the powder horns are meant to be positioned.

Along with the captured Martini-Henry rifle this fella has grabbed an ammo belt as well.

This guy has also grabbed an ammo belt but he is wearing his one.

All 4 stands.

Zombies!!!!

A couple of weeks ago my photographer daughter Mandy told me that she was arranging a photo shoot of Zombies. Although not really into the zombie thing I thought there would be a few of you out there who would like to see the end results. Making use of some of her friends to act as the zombies, a bit of makeup and some props, and they were into it. These are just some of the photos she took. I have reduced these photos a fair bit so some of the quaility has been lost but hopefully you get the idea.