Battle Fleet Atlantic

Battle Fleet Atlantic is my working title for my naval wargame ruleset and is a hybrid of an old homebrew set of mine and Battle Fleet Gothic, Games Workshops spaceship game.

It's a bit of a rip off really...

 Battle Fleet Gothic relies heavily on blast markers as a game mechanic and I have transposed them into shell splash markers for this.

 These shots are from several test games.

 The Prince of Wales on "special orders, all ahead full", another good mechanic nicked from BFG.

 I can live with the scale/ranges issue on such a small table.

The rules are coming on well now and just require more balance regarding firepower/damage.

Then I've got torpedoes and planes to deal with...

Fifty shades of battleship grey

Work continues with the 1/1200 scale ships, as I don't have a single pot of grey paint to my name I've had to mix all of my colours.
I use Games Workshop acrylics mainly and mix Bleached Bone with Chaos Black to achieve most of my colours. A bit of Skull White and some Enchanted Blue also get added to the mix at times.

 The Bismarck and the Prince of Wales.

 The Prince of Wales is really a Revell Duke of York kit.

 Airfix Bismarck with yellow turret tops.

 There are about six shades of grey on this model!.

 Shell splash markers - Milliput over a screw glued onto a washer.

 The Prince of Wales under fire!.

 Still to do.

Battleships

In a moment of weakness on Tuesday I bought myself the Airfix Sink the Bismarck set of 1/1200 scale ships plus a Revell Duke of York.

After much glueing and a little bit of cursing I got them undercoated this morning and despite having to cut the grass in the back garden I managed to paint a couple of them.

 Prinz Eugen in the foreground and HMS Suffolk.

 I found these kits quite fiddly to build.

Well, getting them built and painted is one thing but getting a game with them on my 6x4 table is going to be quite a challenge.

Watch this space...

Fantasy Battle

After a very successful experiment using Warhammer for Napoleonics I decided to get out some of my Warhammer Fantasy Battles stuff.

However upon reading my army lists I baulked at the detail of all the special rules ( getting old ! ) that I would have to remember. It is a long time since I played WFB and I just didn't fancy it although the table was set up and the armies deployed.

I then recalled a fast play set of rules that I sketched out over three years ago whilst recuperating from heart surgery. So I found them and had a quick read through, game on...

 Chaos versus Vampire Counts - here are some shots of the game plus some staged shots, the models are mainly Games Workshop with some Reaper too.

 A couple of Reaper miniatures.

 The leaders battle.

 A vampire gets chopped up!.

 Clash of the knights.

 Look behind you!.

 Zombies fight the beast men.

 A Reaper ghost haunts the graveyard.

 A zombie with a headache.

 Chaos knights.

 The Chaos general.

 Black Knights.

 Beast Man.

 Chaos marauders.

 Chaos knights.

 Bat swarm.

 Dragon Ogre.

 Vampire Countess.

A Reaper Demon.

Not a bad game but not great either, I may invest in Kings of War from Mantic Games.

Napoleonic battles using Warhammer

Today I had a small game to see if Warhammer would be good for Napoleonic wargames...

 The French on the left in columns screened by their skirmishers advance against the Prussian lines.

 Mainly Esci with some Airfix and Italeri soldiers from the eighties and early nineties these fellows are real veterans.

 The opposing Dragoons clash.

 Prussian guns.

 Les Bleus advance.

 The columns manage to defeat the lines.

 The Prussian infantry break.

 The Prussian cavalry got the better of the French but the battle was lost by then.

A long shot of the table shows the rout of the Prussians.

I used very few amendments to a mash up of Warhammer Fantasy Battles, English Civil War and Ancient Battles and I reckon the system works really well for a small brigade sized clash.

The rank bonus gives the column attack a good feel and the solid mechanics make for an entertaining game.
If I ever paint my 28mm Napoleonics I think that I might use Warhammer for my games.