Modern wargaming

Let’s start this Wargaming Week, covering the 10th through to the 16th of December. BLOG STUFF Surprise, I’m back! Last week I took a look at the Ember team guys from Spectre Miniatures. I really like these guys and I really hope we’re going to see more figures from this partnership with Echelon Software. And just as I get back, I immediately go away again for my Christmas break. There will be a new Wargaming Week on the 7th of January but I might try and drop a few things during the break. For example, I think the last figures for my fantasy project should be arriving today so I can at least get them glued together. NEWS Empress has revealed their plans for the next year. As well as showing off some late war British figures (which are really making me think about building a force for crossing the Rhine) they also mention some of the other ranges they will be adding to. For Ultramoderns, I am very excited about the prospect of some Kurdish Freedom Fighters. With so m

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Let’s start this Wargaming Week, covering the 2nd through to the 9th of December. BLOG STUFF Oh look, blog stuff is back. Okay, after my lovely time away I’ve been doing some thinking about this blog. As much as I have loved writing a feature post every week, it’s safe to say it’s knackered me out. So I’m going to change how I’ll be running posts. Monday posts are remaining the same. It gives me a good place to check in and update how I’m doing. I also know a few people who don’t use Facebook read this and so it’s handy to pass on new releases and such. Also, I like writing them. Instead of a feature post every week, you’ll be getting a bit of writing every time I finish something. So what this means practically is that some weeks all you get is the Monday news update while others you might get a pile of posts to read. They will still be going up at the same time (12pm GMT) to make sure you get something ready to read on your

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Let’s start this Wargaming Week, covering the 26th of November through to the 2nd of December. NEWS Under Fire Miniatures has updated its Cold War US Army infantry range. As well as adding a new release (the Dragon ATGM team), they have also been rebalanced. This mean the packs are a little easier to choose when trying to build you force, splitting the riflemen from the support weapons. If you want some of your own, you can find them on the Under Miniatures site . Image from Spectre Miniatures This week also saw a small but exciting release from Spectre Miniatures. The first figure is the undercover operative you see above. Dressed in civilian clothing ideal for the MENA region and with a suppressed pistol, she is perfect for more covert missions. I’m also a big fan of her sculpt, and can’t wait to get her painted. The other release was designed to give the FSB team some backup. Deciding that .50cal rifles were not enough of an advantage, this new killteam operator arrives i

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Let’s start this Wargaming Week, covering the 19th through to the 25th of November. NEWS The Ultracombat Kickstarter has now concluded. It managed to hit it’s minimum goal, as well as storming up the stretch goals list to add a few additional teams to both sides such as HQ units, weapon teams and two other fire teams full of additional poses. Now we just have to wait for it all! Spectre also had a big week. ALong with a Black Friday sale, they also released the first figures from their co-operation with Echelon Software, the company behind Black Powder Red Earth. These figures are Ember Team, a set of operators from the latest series. Despite wearing civilian clothing these are some pretty high tech operators with all sorts of tech and high speed, low drag gear. I’ll have more thoughts on them once they arrive. PURCHASES Surprise, I bought Ember team. I really like the posing and style to them, they should look perfect for the middle of a fire fight. I’m really hop

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Let’s start this Wargaming Week, covering the 11th through to the 18th of Novemeber. NEWS Oh boy is this a big one. The long-awaited French from Empress have been finally released. These guys continue their Ultramodern releases, seeing as they are not wielding the trusty FAMAS but instead various items from H&K’s catalogue, the 416 and the 417 specifically. There is a nice variety of poses in the packs, as well as plenty of grenade launchers. The release includes four packs of infantrymen, a three-man AT missile pack and a set of heads with NVGs. I quite like this range, both for using as modern French but also for generic 416 armed troops if you swap the heads for US Army or Marine Corp PURCHASES None, still working on my backlog. I was very tempted with the new French but I’ve decided to wait until Vapa in the new year. Maybe the feeling of the nations I haven’t finished yet (like the USMC and the Rangers and the British) were weighing on my mind. HOBBY

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Let’s start this Wargaming Week, covering the 5th through to the 11th of November. NEWS The Ultracombat Kickstarter continues. At the time of the writing, we’re sitting well funded and with two stretch goals down. Usefully, the team at Radio Dishdash has released this handy comparison image. The image shows the relative height of the new Russian figures in the kickstarter compared to Empress US Infantry, Tiny Terrain Chechen, Radio Dishdash Taliban and Eureka US Marines. This type of image is always useful and I think the new figures look like they should work well alongside most other manufacturers. The kickstarter can be found here Alas, by the time you read this, the smart looking gentleman above will no longer be for sale. However, Spectre have released a special edition figure to celebrate their trip to Texas for Millennium Con. For those of us not at the show, he was on the store from Friday until Sunday. PURCHASES Well I just had to grab the Spectre exclusive. I’m not planning on

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Let’s start this Wargaming Week, covering the 29th of October through to the 4th of November. NEWS Blotz has released a new bit of terrain – a submarine! I do like the fact this is modular kit, letting you set it up as appropriate for your time period with a mix of missle hatches, deck guns and deck pieces. A more modern alternative conning tower would be a neat addition for those people wanting something to deploy their Navy SEALs in style. If you want one of your own, find it on the Blotz store. The Ultracombat kickstarter rolls on so it’s time to talk about it. First up, the disclaimer. I have worked with Dishdash on the last Skirmish Sangin book but I have not been involved with any work on this ruleset So the cool thing we have seen this week is a preview of how the rules work, showing a small Russian and American force encountering each other in Donetsk. For anyone who has played Skirmish Sangin, a lot of these concepts (and the presentation style) are going to seem familiar –

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Let’s start this Wargaming Week, covering the 22nd through to the 28th of October. First up, I hope everyone is playing Red Dead Redemption 2 is enjoying it! NEWS After a week of teases and previews, Spectre kicked off the weekend with a pretty major set of releases. First up, they have officially entered the AFV business with the release of a 1:50 scale BMP1. Ideal for a variety of MENA forces and the rebels fighting them, these IFVs are the biggest vehicle Spectre has released yet. They are also making noises that other vehicles are on the way. The other part of Spectre’s release is all about drones. The Tier 1 and Insurgent ranges now both include a figure ideal for controlling the various remote systems your teams may need, with each pack also including a small quad-rotor drone for close in recon. In addition, the much larger PUMA UAV is perfect for maintaining recon coverage. For all of these flying drones, Spectre is also selling some flying stands to make it easier to get them on the boar

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Let’s start this Wargaming Week, covering the 15th through to the 21st of October. BLOG STUFF This week’s post was taking a look at the Spectre Tier 1 Operator range. This was another range that has been sat in my “to be finished” queue for a while and, despite not having much hobby time, it was really great to just push them over the edge and get them ready for the tabletop. IMPORTANT BLOG NEWS So things in the real world have been a little busy for the last few months. The project at work is wrapping up (you’ve probably been seeing adverts for the release out and about – being bright red they are hard to miss) but things are in the final stages and I don’t want extra deadlines hanging around my neck. Don’t get me wrong I really love writing the posts and getting everything together but it takes time. Lots of time. And that time is among the first thing to get cut when I need to do more stuff at work or indulge in other hobbies to relax. What I’m t

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Let’s start this Wargaming Week, covering the 8th through to the 14th of October. BLOG STUFF This week’s post was taking a look at Spectre’s S.W.A.T. team! These guys were fun to paint and I’m really happy with the final result. Now I just have to get them operating. NEWS First up, Radio DishDash (who for disclosure I should say I worked with on Plausible Deniability) have announced their next Kickstarter. Ultracombat is going to bring a new game (separate from Skirmish Sangin) to the market, as well as a range of vehicles and figures for it. Going off the description on the forum, this is going to basically be what Platoon+ was aiming for but with a different gameplay system closer to the upcoming WW2 game. I’m really excited for it – as someone who loves Skirmish Sangin, it’s going to great to see their take on a Platoon level game. More news from Spectre Towers about their partnership with Black Powder Red Earth. As you can see, they are really making sure the

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Let’s start this Wargaming Week, covering the 1st through to the 7th of October. BLOG STUFF This week’s post was a Range Impression taking a look at the Deniable Operators from Spectre Miniatures. These are a cool set, and despite being painted a while ago I really like them. I’m still really busy with work so this week’s post may be another Range Impression. My SWAT/CIA Operators may have to wait a bit until I have a bit more time to sit down and get to work on them. NEWS Tiny Terrain’s War in Chechnya Kickstarter is up and running! It started off on Monday and they are almost 200% funded, with several stretch goals already down and ready to add to your pledge. In rather exciting news coming from New York Comic Con, Spectre Miniatures and Echelon Software, the makers of the Black Powder Red Earth comic series and several related project, are partnering up. This is pretty cool, especially after they announced two of the projects they are working on. For people looking for

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Although wargaming for most is focused more overt actions (complete with all the firepower you might want), for most of history covert action has played an important role. TV, films and games are filled with deeds of low profile agents fighting wars in other people’s countries where they are not supposed to go. The frequent refrain of “we’ll deny you even exist” is probably becoming a trope at this point. If you’re wanting to bring some low profile guys to your own tabletop, the Spectre Deniable Operators are perfect. At the moment, Spectre has four packs available – two for the rifleman and two for each of the specialists. All of the operators are dressed in civilian outdoors clothing and are wearing rucksacks. If it wasn’t for the AKs in their hands, they could easily be hikers out for a day’s stroll. The chance to paint some civilian clothing means that you can add the odd touch of colour that you might not normally see when painting more regular troops

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Let’s start this Wargaming Week, covering the 24th through to the 30th of October. BLOG STUFF This week saw yet another part in Project Humvee, looking at the new weapon options. I’m really excited to see these come out, especially the weapon stations – I think I’ll be picking up a few more to upgrade some American armour I’m planning to pick up eventually. After all, can’t have a platoon of Marines without some heavy armour to back them up – going to need to get a War Pig on the table. NEWS Tiny Terrain’s next Kickstarter is rumbling closer (in fact it should be up later today). As part of this, the two main squads of new figures have been previewed. First up, we have the Russians. This is a nice set of guys, packed full of AKs but with an SVD, PKM and some disposable RPGs for support weapons. The other preview is for the OPFOR, the Chechens. These guys are armed similarly to their Russian oppositions but clad in a very different style. For example, I thin

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Let’s start this Wargaming Week, covering the 17th through to the 23rd of September. BLOG STUFF This week’s post was finishing off the Foxhounds. I’m really happy that I have finally got these vehicles done – they have been sat on my desk for over a year at this point but now they get to go into the completed project box. Hopefully, they should be out on the board the next time I run a game featuring the ADF but I’ll have to work something out to really show them off. Also, I updated last week’s battle report with some post-game analysis. Seeing as people really liked it, I’m going to try and expand what I do with battle reports, as well as getting more games in. Go and take a look at the updated write-up! NEWS First up with have a double bill of news from Tiny Terrain Models. Last weekend at Colours, they were there with a brand new terrain board for their set of rules focused on the First Chechen War. As you can see in the picture above, and in the gallery on Fac

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Let’s start this Wargaming Week, covering the 3rd through to the 9th of September. BLOG STUFF Last week saw two posts! Wednesday’s post on the new stowage available from Spectre was completely unplanned – I wasn’t expecting the new kit to arrive on time. However, seeing as I was about to stick some of it onto my new vehicle, I thought I might as well quickly get something written about it. The main post though was a short one looking at the latest Humvee to be added to the project. Despite the minor problems I mentioned, I’m really happy with getting this vehicle ready and on the table. NEWS This week has been a little quieter than the last couple. First up, the painter currently working on the White Dragon Miniatures Quad Bikes has been teasing some more and shown off one of the vehicles WIP. They are looking really good and I’m now feeling incredibly bad about not painting my guys up. Spectre continues to tease. This week, they have shown off another weapon system

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