About Me

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I'm a bit of a born-again wargamer! I played many of the Games Workshop games when I was in my teens and early twenties, but left the hobby behind when I went to University. Over the last few years I have gradually got back into it and am literally having a ball! I'll play pretty much anything now, ranging from ancient historical to the far future! I think that I get more out of the painting side of things than actually playing, but that might just be because I get more opportunity. Hence the title...this blog is all about the colour of war!!

Monday, 31 December 2012

The "plan" for 2013

So, here we are at the end of another year and the start of another. Like many others I like to try and give myself some direction for the coming year and set some goals, but, also like many others, my plans usually don't survive first contact with the next shiny new thing to come around the corner! However, we'll try it again for 2013. In no particular order, the finalists are :- 
  • Dystopian Legions - This is one of the new shiny things I was talking about! But I really like the models  and the game looks pretty solid, so I intend to build out my British army for it and see how it goes.
  • Malifaux - I finally got to play this in 2012, but I never really got going with it properly. I want to finish off the figures I have for it and maybe get a few more. Thankfully this will require very little monetary commitment, it's just the painting time required.
  • Infinity - Another skirmish game that I really like the look of. So much that I have bought a number of the Bakunin Nomads and am in the process of acquiring a bunch more Corregidor. Of those, enough are painted to start playing right away, so that's quite high on the priority play list!
  • Force on Force - This is a no brainer. I probably played more FoF this year than any other game and I want to keep it up. So, expect more of the Murdistan campaign and hopefully some Mogadishu games, too.
  • Maurice - This is a bit of a difficult one. I got a 10mm starter army from Pendraken and starter basing them on 25mm squares, but it turns out that George has 15mm figures already. The only other folk I could play have theirs based on 30mm squares. I'll probably complete the figures I have, but it remains to be seen where we go with this.
  • Super Heroes - I really want to do some Supers gaming this year. Whether this be SuperSystem or Pulp City I don't care! :) I have enough figures that I could just acquire the SuperSystem rules and actually get a game, but Pulp City is also very tempting. I know that some folk at the G3 club play PC, so I could probably just proxy some Supremes to give it a try.
  • Zombies - This is mostly just for solo gaming, but the numbers of zombies required means I may not get this off the ground too soon! In fact, if there's anything that is going to drop off the radar then this is most likely it!
  • And the rest - Vikings, cowboys, boardgames and everything else that will take my fancy at the time!
So there we have it! Let's see just how much actually gets completed by this time next year! I'll also try to keep my post rate up and perhaps even post more. I managed more posts in 2012 than either of the previous and my hit count and members have increased accordingly. This isn't the most prolific blog in the world, compared to some, but I try to post a variety of things and keep it interesting, so thanks to all you readers for looking and making it worth doing. Please keep reading as I am approaching my 100th post and I intend to give a little something back to one of you when I hit that landmark!

The nearly finished KoB Line Infantry to whet the palette, so to speak!

Friday, 28 December 2012

Run out the guns!

Today was my annual festive season game with James and Carl. For the past couple of years we've tried to play something that doesn't get trotted out very often and this year we decided to revisit Trafalgar, the Napoleonic naval game from Warhammer Historical. This set of rules was actually the game that featured in the very first post on this blog, which shows how long ago it was we played. Unfortunately, in that time I've not painted any more ships, so the OOB was the same, but we played a different scenario. In this, the Royal Navy, under Admiral James, was trying to capture the moustache-twirling scourge of the Carribean - the Spaniard Don Carlos! There was a simple, small island in the middle and the wind was blowing from the East as the Spanish ran North into a Royal Navy ambush.
The two Spanish ships run with the wind as the Royal Navy attempt a pincer move.

Don Carlos places the San Justo (74) between the enemy and his prize vessel, the mighty Santa Ana (112).
The two larger RN 3rd rates, HMS Caesar (80) and HMS Captain (74) turn to cut off the escape route while HMS Agamemnon (64) rounds the island in pursuit.
Caesar and Captain engage San Justo, which turns into the enemy  to divert attention from Santa Ana.


Caesar and Captain pass San Justo on both sides and deliver  devastating broadsides which knock out her rudder. She  will never recover and took no further part in the battle. Santa Ana turns to make her escape as Agamemnon races in.
Caesar and Captain execute a beautiful turn and  prepare to punish the Spanish 1st rate with  a stern rake!

Santa Ana limps away, her hull ablaze, but Caesar and Captain are now worryingly far behind. Agamemnon strives to gain a position, but, crucially, the wind starts to turn into the ships and we all have to start to tack. As the Spanish sailors manage to deal with the blaze, the Royal Navy have lost the initiative.

Santa Ana sustains another broadside from Agamemnon, but lives to tell the tale! She sets full sail and stretches out a lead which the British cannot close quickly enough.
A good, fun game was had by all! Both Spanish ships were very roughly handled but managed to make good there escape, giving Carl a narrow victory. Santa Ana escaped with just a single hull point left! We all really enjoyed it and vowed to not let it wait another two years before we played again. And who knows...I might even paint another ship or two by then!

Sunday, 23 December 2012

Ghost of games past and future

Last Tuesday was a really nostalgic games night for me. For the first time in about 15 years I played a game of Blood Bowl. Now, Games Workshop gets a lot of flak for their marketing and business practices (£45 for 4 resin figures...!) but people can sometimes forget that they actually used to make some very solid games. I would always rate Blood Bowl and Space Hulk among the best miniature board games ever. I recall many games of Blood Bowl at my friends house using the second edition with the hard core rules, so that games went four quarters and lasted hours! Brilliant stuff!

And then, a few years ago, I made the most elementary error any wargamer can make! I sold my teams on eBay, thinking I would never play Blood Bowl again! Cut to a couple of months ago and I'm collecting my copy from the local GW store! D'oh! However, Michael from the Phoenix club got wind of this and also got a copy and bought about 5 painted teams on eBay, so at long last we were ready to take to the pitch and bash each other's brains out! And you know what? It's still as much fun as I remembered!

The crowds cheer as the players line up for the kick off...

...and the carnage begins!

I was playing Undead versus Dwarves! This was not a running game! :)
I'd actually never played an Undead team before, so it was a bit of a learning curve, but it was fun! I really liked them and might actually pick up one. The other team I have my eye on is a Shadowforge Elf Team.

So, that was my ghost of games past! But what of the ghost of games future? Well, a wee game called Dystopian Legions has popped onto my radar and I simply couldn't resist...!


The first Kingdom of Britannia section is on the paint table already!

Sunday, 9 December 2012

Santa's Sleigh Dash - Festive 7TV Fun

Last Tuesday was the last night at the club for 2012 due to us getting kicked out for panto season! So, George thought it would be nice to lay on a  bit of seasonal fare with a 7TV game. I'd never played it before, but George has run a couple of games so I was in safe hands. The scenario....eeerr, I mean plot...was as follows:

Somewhere near the North Pole...

...some cheap BBC style effects have been employed!

The good guys move towards the shack. Apparently a UFO carrying a rotund alien clothed in red and white has been shot down by the Russians. It is imperative that the technology for such an amazing vessel is recovered.

But they are not alone! The villainous Lana Serv and her accomplice Travers lead in the Coalition of Evil!
The dastardly Guru follows his trusty Fembot towards the projected location of the crash site.


Some trusty Snow Troopers cover the flank of the forces of good.

Two Iron Comrades make sounds like the probe droid from Star Wars as they float towards the friendly trappers! These mechanical monsters would pin down the good guys on this side for the whole game.

A charismatic alien known to his friends as 'The Medic' is mercilessly cut down as he finds the crash site, He will surely regenerate into a different model in time for the next episode.

The Snow Troopers desperately try to pin the Guru down, but his mental powers blast the mind of one after another, leaving them dazed and confused!

I really enjoyed this game. 7TV was a lot of fun despite the fact we left out the gadgets for simplicity sake. It's a pretty easy game to pick up and the 'audience appreciation' points and event cards add a lot of theme. I look forward to playing it again when we may see the goodies try to recover the fat, red alien's navigation device.

Monday, 3 December 2012

Leibster Blog Awards


So, there seems to be an award thingie doing the blog rounds where bloggers can give the nod to other bloggers that they have found to either be useful or entertaining, or whatever. I was really surprised to see my little blog receive this award, as it's hardly a titan in the field like Anatolis Games Room or The Angry Lurker! But it was a really nice gesture from Caliban (aka Paul) so I'll accept graciously and post my choices, although I'm struggling to see a blog in my watch list that hasn't already been nominated!

The rules:

- Copy and paste the award on your blog, linking it to the blogger who has given it to you.
- Pass the award to your top five favourite blogs with fewer than 200 followers by leaving a comment on one of their blog posts to notify them that they have won the award and list them on your own blog.
- Sit back and bask in that warm fuzzy feeling that comes with knowing that you have just made someone's day.
- There is no obligation to pass this onto anyone else but it is nice if you do.

My nominations are:-
  • Shed Wars - This is a very interesting blog covering the FIW mostly. As this is something I'm looking at (I have Muskets & Tomahawks) then I found this most inspirational.
  • Pulp Citizen - This is mostly about Pulp City. I don't play it (yet) but I like the genre and the site has lots of nice pictures and very entertaining batreps.
  • Hard Boiled Zombies - Another genre that I really want to break into is zombies! I have ATZ and some 15mm figures and the batreps here are very entertaining and inspirational.
  • Colgar6 and the Infinite Legion of Toy Soldiers - Keeping with the zombie theme, but also with a healthy dose of cowboy action! It's almost criminal that this blog doesn't have more followers!
  • Dales Wargames - Lots of Flames of War and Commands and Colors thoughts and analysis. Definitely worth a read if you're into either of these systems.
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