Don't Throw a 1: June 2022

Thursday, 23 June 2022

Haitian Revolution buildings

I'm sure you've all seen at least some of the figures I've been painting up for my Donnybrook Haitian Revolution project. Well I've got loads of figures done to its time for a game soon (fingers crossed). I made loads of jungle terrain a year or so ago, so my thoughts turned to buildings.

Funnily enough there aren't that many pictures of Santo Domingo during the late 1700's and nobody makes building specifically for this period (why would they?) Being a colonial French and Spanish island logic tells me the buildings would have a Spanish/Mediterranean look to them

You can get a little bit of an idea in this picture.

So the search was on for suitable looking buildings......

I remembered seeing some buildings on the buildings on Ken's Yarkshire Gamer's blog a few years ago

They were from a company called Empires at War, I decided that these would/could fit the bill.

Now here's the problem, I went slightly overboard and bought nearly the whole range!

I have been busy beavering away building them ever since the Challenge ended. I did plan on posting pics as I went on, but it never happened, so here's a pic of the buildings that are left.

But I wasn't yet satisfied......

Mrs R and the kids all chipped in and bought me some 4Ground Pirate range buildings.

I did look at these before buying the Empires at War buildings, but they are so expensive.

So when 4Ground announced they were closing (boooo!) and were having a sale,

I thought I'd get some.

I ordered them back in March a few weeks before my Birthday, hoping they'd arrive in time for the big day??

But 4Ground had different ideas.

These actually turned up last Friday! I know they were inundated with orders, but 3 months?

Really?

Anyway I will start posting up a few pics of what I've made so far soon, so look out for the posts.

Thursday, 16 June 2022

AHPC12 - Wrap up

Scrolling through my posts today and I found this in my drafts, seems I forgot to post it so here it is.

Better late than never!!

I do apologise for the dodgy picture, this was the best of a very bad bunch! I think my wife was waiting for me to blink or pull an even more stupid face than this one, and that's me being normal too!!!

Anyway enough with me, this post is about what I managed to get painted after all.

When I put all the figures out on the table they looked a lot, but not so in the photo?

Challenge XII was a first for me, it was the first challenge were I painted exclusively 25-28mm figures. Not s 15mm figure in sight this year?

I did participate in the bonus rounds in the Challenge Quadrant and even finished at the centre. It always helps knock your points total up. Luckily most of the bonus round figures can fit into my onging projects. There were only 9 figures that don't, they will live in the box of doom, never to be seen again, or maybe I'll give them away??

I concentrated on 2 projects this year, the Haitian Revolution above, were I painted up a Spanish unit, a Spanish Militia unit and some more dastardly rebels, as well as some Spanish commanders and Haitian Voodoo priests.

Last year it was the Ottomans, this year it was some of their foe for my Vienna 1683 project.

I painted up some Polish Winged Hussars, Pancerni, Polish Cossacks, three Haiduk regts and some commanders. Also for the Imperialists I painted up a unit of Militia, Cuirassiers and artillery.

The Ottomans did get in on the act receiving some extra commanders and their long awaited artillery.

My main aim like most challengers is to get as much painted as humanly possible, I set myself a goal of 1200 points and hoped for a top 20 finish. The 1200 mark was soon passed and changed up to 2000 points, thinking I might be able to get a top 10 finish this year round?

I did manage to pass the 2k mark late on, but ran out of time and steam and reached a total of 2168, I did late on, try to beat my total last year of 2260, but it wasn't to be. But I did get my highest placing of 7th, since Challenge III in 2012/13 where I finished 4th. So I was well chuffed with that.

So all in all I painted up

227 x 25mm foot figures

57 x 25mm Cavalry figures

Total of 344 figures last year it was (231)

Various terrain pieces and buildings

5 Boxes

Torture Cage

5 Artillery pieces

a BBQ!

a Forge

a Table

Here's my performance so far in all the Challenges

Challenge II 4940 points 1st

Challenge III 2586 points 4th

Challenge IV 1227 points 17th

Challenge V 691 points 37th

Challenge VI 681 points 36th

Challenge VII 1093 points 24th

Challenge VIII 662 points 40th

Challenge IX 2274 points 8th

Challenge X 1687 points 11th

Challenge XI 2260 points 8th

Challenge XII 2168 points 7th

I've said it before and everyone's already said it, a massive thanks to Curt, Sarah, all the Minions and all the rest of you Challengers, for all their hard work it running the challenge, putting it all together and for pulling me along in 3 months of madness! Its been a blast and I'm already looking forward to it all starting again in 9 months!

Cheers

Ray

Monday, 13 June 2022

Broadside - Posties Rejects - The Battle of Beau Hunks

As you may know, the Rejects were at Broadside Wargames Show last Saturday, we put on

a French Foreign Legion v Berber demo game called the Battle of Beau Hunks.

It was all the work of BigLee, from painting the figures and making the terrain to re-writing the rules, to make them more show friendly. And what a fine job he did, others thought the same, when at the end of the show Lee's game was voted "Best Show Game"

It was a very busy day, which we all enjoyed immensely. I did stupidly think that we might get two games in, but we only just managed, the one game. We do like to interact with the people coming to admire the game, so at various times the game completely stopped or carried on while some of us were chatting, which meant we all missed parts of the game. So this isn't so much as a battle report, rather than a post with some pictures.

I'd suggest popping over to Richard and Lee's blogs for their reports

Lee's report

Richard's report

Lee, Steve, Ricard and Surj, planning their attack.

The headless Reject!

In our practice game, the Berbers moved a little too close to the fort, they didn't make that mistake in this game.

Looks like they're heading for the centre?

In the practice game, our best performing unit was our Cavalry. (T'was a bit like a Tiger tank) so for this game boring Lee downgraded them to mounted infantry.

So instead of attacking we defended the rough ground.

Dave finally got our artillery out of the gates, the first 2 turns he threw snake eyes for them, which denied them a move. We wanted to put the artillery on the walls, but Lee wouldn't ley us?

Here's where they attacked in the first game, not this one.

Long range fire

We get knocked out of the rough ground.

We're holding our own......just!

Lee worked hard on the game and on the display as well.

Answer a question and win a lolipop!

The push through the middle's going well for them.

The walls gave us a little protection.

Poor goats and goat herder getting caught up in the battle!

Another winning melee for the Berbers. This time they push us off table. But we might return?

History meets Hollywood

Stan & Ollie

Stan & Ollie could win the game, if they manage to pick up 8 Jeanie Weanie cards.

At the end of each turn Stan & Ollie have to move and attach themselves to a Legion unit commander, then pick up two cards. It could be a Jeanie Weanie or an event or even better a Slapstick cars!

One of the event cards was The Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia.

Postie sang the song and I did the dance!!!

But we received two casualties back for making fools out of ourselves, in public!!!

There's hordes of 'um!

I think the flag should be flying at half maste?

Time was running out and so was our luck!

Some great dice from the Berbers on the last turn, smashed the FFL to a pulp!

A well deserved victory was handed to the Berbers and to BigLee for a great game!

Wednesday, 8 June 2022

Broadside Games Show 2022

Last Saturday the 4th June, the Rejects drove the 12 minutes it takes to get to Medway Park Sports Centre, to take part in a demo game at Broadside Games Show, run by those very nice chaps at Milton Hundred Wargames Club.

We arrived just in time for the hall to open up for traders and clubs to set up.

As you may already be aware BigLee has spent the last few months painting up figures, buildings and terrain for us to put on a game.

The game in question was "The Battle of Beau Hunks" a fictional game set in the early 1900's

Using Bluemoon's range of French Foreign Legion and Berbers.

We were using the rules The Men who would be Kings on a 6x4 table

We played 1 practise game, where the French Foreign Legion claimed victory.

Surj, Richard and Steve all wanted revenge and plotted and schemed how best to do it on the day.

They were joined by Oliver.

Me and Postie claimed victory in the first game, for the show we were joined by Smiffy and Dave, which was a bit of a worry as Dave can't throw dice for toffee!!!!

And we're all set, which is where I'm gonna leave our game and concentrate the rest of the post on other games and the show itself.

The Hall

Its quite a size to be honest and it was great that each table had a lot of room around them, so its easy to get all around the tables to take photos.

I've been to countless shows all over the country and I've got to say that this is a great venue (not just because its 12 minutes from my house!) The lighting is brilliant, everything is so clear, which really helps when taking photos. Also for a busy hall its also very quiet, apparently its got excellent sound proofing built into the walls.

“No, It’s Mine!” - Last Argument of Kings, Friday Night Firefight

Star Wars Legion - Medway Wargames Society

Utini! - Sci-Fi Sandcrawlers, Maidstone Wargames Society

ECW Skirmish - Gravesend Gamers Guild

Middle Earth Strategy Battle Game - Hythe Tyrants

One Day in the Battle of Britain - SEEMS Wargames Club

Emperor Toad's Emporium - Bespoke Terrain & figures.
It was great seeing some more French Revolution action after Richard's game at last years Broadside.