Comrades of Normandie

 Any chance to catch up with my mate Comrade James is a good one.  And this time we checked out a gaming venue new to us in Canberra: Three D6.  Better still, is now has the "Loaded Dice" annex with full bar and snacks, and booths to play in.  And good craft beer on tap too.

A winning combination - if you are in Canberra go check it out.

http://www.canberratimes.com.au/act-news/the-loaded-dice-a-new-pub-for-gamers-and-geeks-opens-in-tuggeranong-20160317-gnl7ia.html

They even had German Ale on tap for Oktoberfest - nice!

And so Comrade James introduced me to Heores of Normandie, which I had heard about but not seen or played before.  Really beautiful components, nice thick card stock and well sized.  While the cartoonish nature of the characters is not my normal thing, they did grow on me.


A couple of perspectives from our game:

• Think of it like good cinema with Hollywood action and a climatic ending 
• Adding your own Commando Comic style quotes along the way adds a lot to the theme ("Mein Gott", "Take that Fritz" etc)
• That aside, its quite a deep game with many many decision points and card resource management on top.
• Unlike most games, the majority of your units wont be firing their weapons very often.  Some wont fire a round for the whole game.  This is probably far more realistic than units burning though all their ammo in a half dozen turns or less.
• I liked the balanced, combined arms ORBAT approach
• It feels like a miniatures game
• Its what I wanted ASL to be, but its also fun (which ASL is generally not, IMHO) with a little bit of crazy added.  This game inspires you to engage an enemy Sniper with a Bazooka team and then send in a hero to bayonet whats left.  Well it did to me anyway (and whats more it worked!)

How we laughed when James' Handgranaten attack scattered onto another of his infantry squads!

You know you've had fun when you get home and immediately start internet shopping for the game you just played, and looking at the detailed review of its expansions!

..and how much more we laughed when that squad then fumbled their own handgranaten attack onto their own location!

In summary: Good buddy + fun new game + beer = Strategic Victory!

Moongrunt

Earlier this year GZG released a new range of hard suited near future models for 15mm Combat on the Moon called "MoonGrunt".  Somehow I missed them but now I'm aware of them they have really captured my imagination - they are very cool!

USMC troops from Ralph's great Putting the Colour into Space Blog

If you ever wanted to do some sort of lunar combat and near future fighting on Mars, these are the business.  The range currently has USMC and PLA-SC (People's Liberation Army Space Force) infantry (riflemen, heavy lasers and rocket launchers)

[June 2018 EDIT] - The first (?) wave of British Lunar Force models has now been released also

Ralph's wonderful PLA-SC forces from his Putting the Colour into Space blog 

And good news - Buggies and Rovers have now joined the range too!

https://shop.groundzerogames.co.uk/moongrunt.html

Detail of the recently released Lunar Rovers, from the GZG website here

I’m thinking some Infantry focused low intensity combat with a squad or two per side could be a LOT of fun with minimal investment.  And if you've ever read books like Stark's War which depicts a lunar war (with WW1 trench raid parallels) this is you chance to reenact those fights.

Combat in a different hostile environment might be a lot of fun too - separatist colonists perhaps?

Yes, I think you might see some of these figs in my Painting Challenge efforts this year.
Because I needed another project...

Colonial Rangers for FIW

An 8 man unit of the famous green coated Roger's Rangers

Presenting my newly completed Colonial Rangers for use with Muskets and Tomahawks/ Sharpe Practice 2. Figs are all Northstar from the British Wilderness Force boiled set which I picked up at Fall-In last year. Now at last they are ready to take to the table and tackle Alan's Courier des Bois!

An 8 man unit of Goreham's Rangers, led by an Officer.

I wanted a bit of uniformity but with lots of variation to reflect the irregular nature of these woodsmen come soldiers.  So I did them up as two different 8 man units: Roger's Rangers and Goreham's Rangers, plus an Officer from Roger's as well.  I really liked the variations between the figures which goes them nice individuality while also blending into an irregular styled unit.

In their natural element, stalking the dastardly French!

Thanks to my friend Ken who hand made the tufts I used in basing these figs - cheers mate!

I'm now working on the last six figs from the boxed set, which are Mohawk Allies.  I've got my eye on a unit of Provincial Infantry after that, or maybe some Regular Light Infantry.

Notes on colours:

Roger's Rangers - base coat colour is GW Salamander Green, bonnets Vallejo Prussian Blue
Goreham's Rangers - base coat GW XV-88, facing GW Blood Red

And for our northern hemisphere friends who are starting to feel the cold, just wanted to let you know that its getting lovely and warm down here :-)

Whats not to love about Oktoberfest season? Prost!

MOAB 2016

Its the October long weekend here in Sydney, which means two things: Daylight Savings commences and its time for the annual Mother Of All Battles convention!

Its a relatively small Con, but its less than 45mins away so the boys didn't need much of an excuse to get out there and spend some money.

Note the lads at bottom left already spending their cash

The very fine gentlemen of War and Peace Games: Ian and John 

The Blood Bowl comp in full swing

A big Star Wars Armada game in action

Despite the nifty campaign in progress, Alan looks unconvinced regarding the merits of DBA v3...

Titan demo game that the kids were all enjoying very much

Shield decals: "They are evil and the work of the Devil" exclaimed Alan!

The Shiny

Very nice Late War Germans

The pin marker 'antenna' on this Puma is rather clever

Dave and his Demo Gamers had a nice Arnhem game running

And yes, I thanked Dave for his great indexes for BA1&2, and K47!

An eye catching Winter Russian army

Cossacks! 

What a beast - I imagine this will be more effective in BA2 now too

This LRDG army was rather striking too

EDIT: Turns out that this is Patch's LRDG force which starred in the WWPD Tutorial here: http://www.wwpd.net/2016/03/bolt-action-review-painting-guide-long.html

A rare Finnish Armoured Platoon: what a wonderfully unique force this is

Some nice terrain

The Finale!

How all good days out with the boys should end

... and the inevitable pile of shame, which saw a bit of 15mm WW2 Desert War goodies from the Bring and Buy, some ruins and the beginning of my new late war German force in 28mm.

It would have been rude not to do some stockpiling prior to the next painting challenge!