tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-71360553749842699612012-01-27T01:06:17.048-08:00A blog for all our wargaming activities.derekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15697367565481702828noreply@blogger.comBlogger421100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7136055374984269961.post-89351735195118881772012-01-26T17:51:00.000-08:002012-01-27T01:06:17.069-08:00

Further instalments of Beth's New Guardian Archive of the Martian Campaign, set in the GZGverse during the siege of Sol.  Stepping Up - Jock gets a transfer A Bloody Nose - The elite 3/7 fight to secure a Krak held port Operation Leopard Seal - Mopping up the coastline and a history of the 3/7 Raid on the Wheat Field - Troops from the OU join with NAC and NSL forces to flush Krak out of

derekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15697367565481702828noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7136055374984269961.post-4769173168703341772012-01-17T00:57:00.000-08:002012-01-17T00:57:20.711-08:00

With the advent of Summer here in Tasmania Beth had the opportunity to add to her ongoing New Guardian Archive of the Martian Campaign. In Moving South the Oceanic Union unit, the 2/34th assaults a Kravak outpost. Read on .....

derekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15697367565481702828noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7136055374984269961.post-69219380725682726992011-12-23T16:54:00.000-08:002011-12-23T16:54:29.884-08:00

Time to be a proud dad. This is a video put together by my oldest for a school assignment, not surprisingly it involves a battle in space between two opposing forces. If you've got three minutes to spare why not have a look. 

derekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15697367565481702828noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7136055374984269961.post-14065486203873549202011-09-06T06:22:00.000-07:002011-09-06T06:22:59.350-07:00

Recently Carl dropped by with two forces for 'Warmachine', from Privateer Press. I had never played Warmachine before, but you would have had to have been living under a rock not to have heard about it. It's a skirmish level game where a combination solider, sorcerer leads a small force containing soldiers and large steam powered, magically controlled combat mechs called warjacks. The game which

derekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15697367565481702828noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7136055374984269961.post-62914816206564832772011-07-16T02:24:00.000-07:002011-07-16T02:24:48.633-07:00

Over the last couple of weekends we have had a number of Full Thrust games. First there was Ben with his 'new' new style ESU fleet who faced off against Beth's old style FSE. Both Ben and Beth keep things simple charging head long at each other and then passing through each other. This followed by a free for all involving ESU, Phalon, NSL and a Narn Bin'Tak dreadnought masquerading as a ESU

derekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15697367565481702828noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7136055374984269961.post-41483013380180395472011-07-03T16:39:00.000-07:002011-07-03T16:39:33.267-07:00

Once more Carl dropped by with two excellent looking armies, the houses of York and Lancaster from the 'War Of The Roses' and we played the game using Carl's favoured rules for this period, 'Field Of Glory'.  Once more Carl effortlessly demonstrated how I should be playing the game by soundly defeating me, even my youngest daughter rolling my dice couldn't save me from eventual defeat.

derekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15697367565481702828noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7136055374984269961.post-91738067374597792202011-06-05T18:06:00.000-07:002011-06-05T18:06:03.521-07:00

Recently Carl dropped by with two ancient Greek armies, Athenian and Spartan for a game. This gave me a chance to grab Field Of Glory off my book shelf. I did hope to spend a quiet Friday reading through it before game with Carl but my youngest daughter's school excursion and watching/snoring through Evil Dead 2 with my son Lachlan managed to consume any spare time I had. But fortunately Field Of

derekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15697367565481702828noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7136055374984269961.post-82889844654651038292011-03-27T23:42:00.000-07:002011-03-27T23:42:37.341-07:00

Digging around in the gaming den I found some missile miniatures I use in Full Thrust games. The miniatures themselves actually aren't missiles, they are in fact zeppelins. They are most probably from the Hallmark 1:6000 scale ship range, I purchased a number of the smaller zeppelins from Eureka Miniatures back when they had license to sell them in Australia. The overall length is about 2.5cm

derekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15697367565481702828noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7136055374984269961.post-65481313405373171822011-03-24T00:47:00.000-07:002011-03-27T23:43:16.796-07:00

Finally after long delays and 'painter's block'. Yes, there really is such a thing, how else can we explain those half completed projects and piles of unpainted and sometimes unassembled miniatures? Almost 11 years after I started, I have finally finished my Phalon Fleet. Of course I could buy more, I mean, I could do with some carriers and battle cruisers........ My Fleet as it stands

derekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15697367565481702828noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7136055374984269961.post-51457032089865661162011-03-19T17:00:00.000-07:002011-03-19T17:05:59.524-07:00

I love seeing wargamers argue about whether simulations as wargames are fun or not. I’ve been a scientific modeller now for 20 years, but all of us are modellers. We have mental models of how the world works and games are one expression of that. Regardless of whether they purport to want an effective, realistic simulation of an event all gamers well tell you when a game doesn’t work “because it

Bethhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02737218447546980568noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7136055374984269961.post-65644665668995734292011-03-01T12:38:00.000-08:002011-03-01T12:44:42.707-08:00

I was going to wait until I had finished the Andromeda (which you can see half completed in the background) but why wait? Here you can see the first Earth Defence Force destroyer with it's two new friends, another destroyer and a battleship. Once completed the fleet. Oops, what I mean to say was, once the models I have are finished. Because as we all know no wargaming army or fleet is ever

derekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15697367565481702828noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7136055374984269961.post-23421621852723290312011-02-16T19:24:00.000-08:002011-02-16T19:25:04.785-08:00

Back in 2009 Beth was in the UK on a work trip and she was lucky enough to attend Colours, a wargame convention hosted by the Newbury And Reading Wargames Society. Amongst the loot she brought home were a selection of 1/600th scale aircraft from Tumbling Dice UK and now I've finally got around to doing something with them. But before diving straight in I first stopped to think about how I might

derekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15697367565481702828noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7136055374984269961.post-76027025481036423792011-02-12T19:25:00.000-08:002012-01-17T01:04:14.279-08:00

The latest batch in Beth's ongoing New Guardian Archive of the Martian Campaign. A series of 'news reports' and other fiction pieces based on Mars in Beth's version of the GZGverse A Month In Marin - A new reporter, Jock, links up with the OU-2/34 on Mars. Fighting Through - The 2/34 fights for its existence. In Memoriam - The 2/34 get some well earned R&R and a memorial service. Night

derekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15697367565481702828noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7136055374984269961.post-14959177313241243562010-11-03T19:17:00.000-07:002011-03-01T12:45:44.847-08:00

Earth Defense Force Destroyer. Sitting on the workbench after receiving a coat of varnish is this excellent little model starship,  a 'Earth Defense Force' Destroyer from the Spacebattleship Yamato TV series and resultant movies, it is part of a group of models I picked up while on holiday in Japan earlier this year. It has a grey hull colour painted over a black undercoat, the detail was

derekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15697367565481702828noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7136055374984269961.post-72422558574341463692010-10-08T02:55:00.000-07:002010-10-08T05:45:21.842-07:00

In July 2002 I tried setting up a fantasy campaign and like a good many campaigns this one was still born, but I did complete the map, for a closer look and explanation about the map follow this link. But it wasn't a total loss as Beth gave me 'Theatre Of War' a Piquet campaign supplement as a Christmas present and eager to try it out we dug out the map and set a small campaign in the bottom

derekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15697367565481702828noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7136055374984269961.post-83412015681323662862010-06-16T05:11:00.000-07:002010-11-04T05:38:15.359-07:00

Work on the first box of the Space battleship Yamato space panorama sets progresses well, I've only the Comet Empire Army Battleship to complete and the battleship Andromeda and Comet Empire missile cruiser are already undercoated and ready to paint. Plus I've also ordered some more flying bases via the local shop, Area52. As the title of this post suggests, there really doesn't appear to be

derekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15697367565481702828noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7136055374984269961.post-61025602351237291432010-06-10T00:40:00.000-07:002010-06-10T02:21:07.924-07:00

Recently I moved my 'workbench' to it's winter quarters. While it's great to have a den down in the shed to wargame in, it does take a little motivation to trudge down the garden path on a cold Tasmanian winter's night just to paint a few miniatures. So not surprisingly I moved into the study, where it is altogether warmer and generally a much nicer to paint miniatures and make model kits, model

derekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15697367565481702828noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7136055374984269961.post-81484852450794531832010-05-08T05:11:00.000-07:002010-05-08T06:28:43.622-07:00

It's been a bit quiet on the 'wargaming front' but recently while on a trip to Japan with my wife Beth I did manage to end up at the memorial ship 'Mikasa'. The Mikasa was the flagship of Admiral Togo Heihachiro during the Russo-Japanese War and has been preserved at the city of Yokosuka and it is the only remaining example of a pre-dreadnought battleship.

derekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15697367565481702828noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7136055374984269961.post-3990013905914268722009-08-02T15:29:00.000-07:002009-08-02T17:03:13.249-07:00

The Mortar Platoon is finished and their bases are ready to be flocked and staying with the World War 2 theme I've moved on to some British 25 pounder artillery. Once again these are 15mm Flames Of War miniatures and these four 25 pounders will provide me with the towed artillery for my armoured division under Piquet's Point Of Attack 2: Blitzkrieg rules.And finally a side project that has been

derekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15697367565481702828noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7136055374984269961.post-78213281896611931282009-07-27T15:32:00.001-07:002009-07-27T15:59:56.918-07:00

Since August 2000, Beth and I have maintained a small website dedicated to our wargaming hobby but recently my ISP decided that it will no longer provide the free websites it had been providing for it's customers. Apparently the need to upgrade infrastructure and provide a better service means that the customer should pay for something the customer already gets for nothing or at least that's the

derekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15697367565481702828noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7136055374984269961.post-64804932234037245992009-07-04T21:22:00.000-07:002009-07-05T04:38:53.347-07:00

Finally I managed to break through the choke point that a 15mm 'Flames Of War' late war British infantry platoon had become and completed them. In truth these shouldn't have been difficult miniatures to complete and I certainly didn't attempt to wash or high them, this was a basic get the colours in the right place, over a black undercoat and varnish to finish. They sat on my bench for some

derekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15697367565481702828noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7136055374984269961.post-44404801446074733502009-06-26T06:49:00.000-07:002009-06-26T07:41:26.535-07:00

Something else from my recent trip to Townsville, these images are a collection of slides I discovered amongst my Dad's wargaming collection. I borrowed them and had them scanned and copied to a CD. I believe that the original photographs were taken about June 1974 and shows French and British armies facing each other across the tabletop during a display at a school fete. The display was made up

derekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15697367565481702828noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7136055374984269961.post-71637491683523955652009-06-19T18:04:00.000-07:002009-06-19T19:42:44.080-07:00

I've been busy trying to work out how to base and re base our 'new' and existing 15mm scale Napoleonic miniatures. Unfortunately, or fortunately depending your point of view we have a number of rule sets we are interested in playing. All are, not surprisingly Piquet supplements. The first two 'Les Grognards' and 'Grand Piquet, 2nd Edition' use the same basing system but the third, CdePk (Chef de

derekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15697367565481702828noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7136055374984269961.post-46085934990648333022009-06-16T18:46:00.000-07:002009-06-16T19:27:46.616-07:00

Recently during my trip to Townsville I finally managed to convince Dad to sell me his 15mm Napoleonic British. Needless to say this has certainly renewed my interest in the Napoleonic era so now I have dug out Beth's Saxon Troops and my megre collection of Spanish and French and a copy of 'Scenarios For Wargamers' by Charles GrantHopefully I should get one game with Beth before my jetset wife

derekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15697367565481702828noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7136055374984269961.post-30700327726603271132009-05-14T21:17:00.000-07:002009-05-14T21:53:00.680-07:00

I'm currently back in Townsville for my Dad's 70th birthday and I thought I might share this photo of his 2mm Napoleonic miniatures and terrain. The troops at the bottom of the photo are Austrians and those at the top are Prussians. Dad likes to use CdePK, a piquet derivative of Chef de Battalion, each base of 2mm miniatures represents a single company. The photo shows approximately a brigade of

derekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15697367565481702828noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7136055374984269961.post-59196805878708453102009-05-07T03:21:00.000-07:002009-05-07T03:35:04.980-07:00

I played a game of Full Thrust against Ben today at Area52, his new style ESU fleet sporting it's new improved colour scheme delivered a solid victory against my Phalons. Here a two phone camera images of our fleets on the table.

derekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15697367565481702828noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7136055374984269961.post-68009191520513731382009-04-27T16:37:00.000-07:002009-04-27T18:50:57.165-07:00

We managed to play another 'FMA Skirmish' game last Saturday afternoon. This time we tried what we call a 'bug run', a simple scenario where a defending force holds a position against a larger attacking force. The attacking force predominately made up melee troops attacks in waves down the length table toward the defender's position. The defending troops while small in number are equipped longer

derekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15697367565481702828noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7136055374984269961.post-45709536297315582252009-04-18T17:09:00.000-07:002009-04-19T03:32:11.861-07:00

Last Monday, some friends dropped by and we dug out a set of unpublished science fiction skirmish rules, FMA Skirmish, which we were involved in play testing for Ground Zero Games a few years ago. The scenario itself was a simple one, we each took a squad of 4 to 6 miniatures and proceeded to move on to the table. Prepared to take on all comers.I fielded my Neu Swabian Jagers, Lachlan used his

derekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15697367565481702828noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7136055374984269961.post-58594547846006240952009-03-10T15:23:00.000-07:002009-08-02T18:15:06.516-07:00

I'm taking a break from my Full Thrust miniatures and coming down to earth and working on my 15mm WW2 British. Finishing this block of miniatures will provide me with either the core to a Flames Of War late war British rifle company, or all the infantry I need to field an British armoured division in the Piquet POA2:Blitzkrieg game (at the 'battalion' scale).As well as the British I'm also

derekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15697367565481702828noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7136055374984269961.post-13934642262433085262009-02-24T17:14:00.000-08:002010-11-10T22:20:04.546-08:00

Some time ago for a bit of fun Beth and I decided to flesh out the Oceanic Union, one of the nation states in the GZG-verse. We looked at all the entries regarding the OU in all three of the GZG games, Full Thrust, Dirtside and Stargrunt. We also took note of the six star systems allocated to the OU on the unoffical star maps, developed a brief outline of the OU's development and

derekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15697367565481702828noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7136055374984269961.post-80173637239763741722009-02-21T14:49:00.000-08:002010-10-19T22:58:47.496-07:00

A while ago Beth wrote a series of 'news reports' and other fiction pieces based on Mars in Beth's version of the GZGverse. The articles were called 'New Guardian Archive of the Martian Campaign' are set in the Xenowar, when the Kra'Vak landed on Mars and set up a military base of operations there. Recently we played a game and Beth took that as an opportunity to pick up on

derekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15697367565481702828noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7136055374984269961.post-4244110720203092022009-02-20T19:20:00.000-08:002010-11-28T02:16:30.306-08:00

Over the summer as well as painting miniatures I have managed to update my Full Thrust campaign rules. Recently borrowing from games like the Traveller 'Fifth Frontier War' I added a section introducing pre-plotted FTL movement to the campaign to simulate the problems commanding fleets spread over multiple parsecs when you don't have FTL communication. You can find the campaign rules here -

derekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15697367565481702828noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7136055374984269961.post-83118037063351121222009-01-28T02:41:00.000-08:002009-05-10T15:28:03.245-07:00

Recently I began poking through the hard drive on our computer, cleaning out old files, etc and I happened to come upon these images from a few years ago. They are from a meeting of the now defunct 'Van Dieman's Wargaming Club' back in 2002 when I ran a Full Thrust tournament. The Tournament under way, seen in the foreground is Nik and Matt. Matthew is getting ready to do

derekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15697367565481702828noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7136055374984269961.post-19767143195613433542009-01-26T00:21:00.000-08:002009-05-07T04:43:00.453-07:00

Slowing down a bit, real life intrudes once more with painting rooms and bringing in hay. But there is still progress as all I have left to complete for my Phalon fleet are the two dreadnoughts, which are half complete. And on a completely unrelated topic. Today is of course Australia Day and my little sister was awarded a Conspicuous Service Cross - look here. Go Stef!

derekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15697367565481702828noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7136055374984269961.post-46066909137180616362009-01-17T23:26:00.000-08:002010-10-08T03:29:29.079-07:00

This morning I finally did another of those tasks you always intend on doing but never quite manage to do. Ages ago I posted my Dirtside2 vehicle designs to my site (look here if you that interested) and over time I have added some images of the miniatures I use to represent them on the table top. This morning I finally got around to adding two images of the aerospace craft miniatures I use to

derekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15697367565481702828noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7136055374984269961.post-90603875508343644182009-01-09T22:32:00.001-08:002009-05-10T15:23:55.052-07:00

The Phalon cruisers and second battleship are now complete. All I have left to do are the scouts and two dreadnoughts.

derekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15697367565481702828noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7136055374984269961.post-48784206336268027562008-12-31T03:24:00.000-08:002009-05-10T15:22:26.086-07:00

Well those Klingon starships are still pushed aside to make way for the rest of my GZG Full Thrust Phalon Fleet and some BFG Elder escorts.

derekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15697367565481702828noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7136055374984269961.post-55755824958257655722008-12-22T03:02:00.000-08:002010-10-08T03:33:19.031-07:00

After a break of about five years, I found myself having 5 games of Full Thrust and Battlefleet Gothic at the local gaming shop Area52. Two local gamers both independent of each other decided they needed a break from Warhammer40K and went looking for something new. The first didn't stray too far from home and was looking for a opponent to face off against the Battlefleet Gothic imperial ships

derekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15697367565481702828noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7136055374984269961.post-7801026542991729252008-11-23T14:28:00.000-08:002008-11-23T15:21:46.957-08:00

Recently I played a scenario from the World In Flames board game. It was the first introductory scenario, the German invasion of Russia, Operation Barbarossa. But I'll have to admit that even though I enjoyed myself playing as the Russians making fundamental errors that lost the game in two turns and allowed the Germans march on to Moscow, I did come away feeling somewhat overwhelmed. So many

derekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15697367565481702828noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7136055374984269961.post-77258955391329326462008-11-13T02:35:00.000-08:002008-11-13T03:12:37.429-08:00

There, just when I was thinking that I had my wargaming project impulse control well in hand. Having completed a block of WW2 British miniatures and starting on a squadron of Klingon starships now sitting on the workbench, but alas it is not to be. Now thanks to a thread in the local games shop forum I’ve convinced myself I want to, no! I need to dig out my Battlefleet Gothic Elder pirate fleet

derekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15697367565481702828noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7136055374984269961.post-9748829297277837862008-10-25T21:18:00.000-07:002009-06-20T17:17:39.267-07:00

The current block of 15mm WW2 British are done and now the Klingon starships have made it to the front of the painting queue. I had hoped to have them finished by the end of the weekend but alas the need to tear down the old fences around the house yard and dig up an offending water pipe from the dam of course took longer than I would have hoped.Once these are finished it's back to more WW2

derekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15697367565481702828noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7136055374984269961.post-32412149956289342332008-10-19T00:30:00.000-07:002009-06-19T20:21:41.436-07:00

What's on my workbench? Some 15mm Battlefront late war British. Almost done, all I have left to do is finish the bases.The black masses in the background are the next project, Klingon starships to use with ADB's Federation Commander game undercoated and ready to be painted.

derekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15697367565481702828noreply@blogger.com0