Thursday, 29 November 2012
Tuesday, 27 November 2012
Liebster Award
James from rabbits in my basement, has put Dougie's Wargaming Blog up for a highly coveted "Liebster Award".
Here are the Liebster rules as I got them from Rabbits in my basement ;
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 5 favourite blogs with less than 200 followers by leaving a comment on one of their posts to notify them that they have won the award and listing 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!
First up I have to nominate Hurry up and Wait!. Rusty has produced a cracking Falklands blog, always loads of updates, brilliant ideas and lots of eye candy. I regularly visit this blog to get enthused!
The Winter of '79 is an alternate Britain, law and order broken down and seperatist movements, regulkar posts by Mark and lots of excellent stuff.
Modern Warfare:Wargaming the 21st Century is Tacobat's blog with some lovely painting including his vehicles with his signature vision blocks!
Sapper Joe's Wargaming and Toys features the Falklands and other 80ish content, lots and lots of good stuff to check out!
And finally Cold War Gamer a site run by Andy, his passion for the period shines!
To close thanks to James for the award and glad folks are enjoying my stuff!
Here are the Liebster rules as I got them from Rabbits in my basement ;
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 5 favourite blogs with less than 200 followers by leaving a comment on one of their posts to notify them that they have won the award and listing 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!
First up I have to nominate Hurry up and Wait!. Rusty has produced a cracking Falklands blog, always loads of updates, brilliant ideas and lots of eye candy. I regularly visit this blog to get enthused!
The Winter of '79 is an alternate Britain, law and order broken down and seperatist movements, regulkar posts by Mark and lots of excellent stuff.
Modern Warfare:Wargaming the 21st Century is Tacobat's blog with some lovely painting including his vehicles with his signature vision blocks!
Sapper Joe's Wargaming and Toys features the Falklands and other 80ish content, lots and lots of good stuff to check out!
And finally Cold War Gamer a site run by Andy, his passion for the period shines!
To close thanks to James for the award and glad folks are enjoying my stuff!
Monday, 26 November 2012
South Armagh Scenery 1
Had to do these signposts, very simple, find the image on google, print it off on paper at a suitable size, trial and error, bang it on some plasticard and you're done. Dougie
The signposts
The rear's done as well!
A figure for size
The signposts
Sunday, 25 November 2012
Target Vehicle!
I've been looking around for suitable 70s-80s civilian vehicles for Ulster, a trip to my local model railway shop brought Oxford Diecasts to light. These are 1/76 scale painted and assembled diecast vehicles for use on OO gauge model railways. Very nicely done £3-£4 a shot and you could use them straight away, of course I didn't do this cause I like to tamper! On a serious note the vehicles are very, very nice but I wanted mine dirty and dull so here's how I did it. Oh by the way I managed to restrain myself from altering the number plates to NI ones. Dougie
A rather natty looking blue Ford Cortina. This is untouched straight out of the box!
A figure for scale
You remove a couple of screws and the car comes apart.
The body dirtied up and a few scratches added, not a fan of clear glass windows so they've had the treatment!
Reassembled and the glass glossed. Ready to transport some players.
A rather natty looking blue Ford Cortina. This is untouched straight out of the box!
The British Army in Ulster
It's not my intention to go into any excuses or hand wringing over gaming the conflict in Ulster. It was a brutal counter-insurgency war but no more so than the French experience in Indo-China and Algeria, the US effort in Vietnam or the current conflict in Helmand.
From my own experience the effort focussed in the Bandit Country of South Armagh allowed the British Army full scope of tactical deployment and was completely at odds with the public perception of the Army patrolling the streets of urban estates.
This then is what I'll be gaming, the British Army's effort in South Armagh against the Active Service Units of PIRA's South Armagh Brigade.
"The" book to read is without doubt "BANDIT COUNTRY-The IRA and South Armagh" by Toby Harnden, the Amazon link is below;
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Bandit-Country-The-South-Armagh/dp/034098094X/ref=dp_ob_title_bk
You can only really game the Army in Armagh using a low level skirmish system, for a long time my system of choice for this sort of engagement had been Phoenix Command. The system was produced by Leading Edge Games in the 80's and 90's, its no longer in production but looking around you can still pick copies up, the link below is for the unofficial support site;
http://www.phoenixcommand.com/
Phoenix Command is a highly detailed system for playing out any modern firearms engagement but unless you're very experienced with the system it can tend to be quite slow. However I've recently picked up a copy of "Normandy Firefight" by Warwick Kinrade, this is a low level skirmish system for Normandy that actually transfers fine to South Armagh, with the Blackthorn hedgerows replacing the bocage. Warwick does mention Phoenix Command in the Designer's notes and you can see the same flavour. More details of my adaptations later.
Scale and figurewise we're at 20mm, my Falklands Brits will drop straight into South Armagh and for opposition Rolf Hedges Liberation Miniatures do some perfect figures in their Urban Terror range.
To end this post I'm recommending a BBC dramatisation from 1985, "CONTACT!" by A.F.N. Clarke. Originally a book by an Airborne officer this was aired in the mid 80's but I don't think its been repeated often, if at all, probably due to its content. I haven't been able to find it on Amazon and it may be the BBC may not have released it. The DVD copy I have was originally recorded on my VHS top loader in the 80's! If you get a chance to see this film grab it with both hands. I managed to find some information on the film on BFI Screenonline, the links below;
http://www.screenonline.org.uk/tv/id/439385/index.html
As a figure tester some PIRA players, Liberation 20mm. Dougie
From my own experience the effort focussed in the Bandit Country of South Armagh allowed the British Army full scope of tactical deployment and was completely at odds with the public perception of the Army patrolling the streets of urban estates.
This then is what I'll be gaming, the British Army's effort in South Armagh against the Active Service Units of PIRA's South Armagh Brigade.
"The" book to read is without doubt "BANDIT COUNTRY-The IRA and South Armagh" by Toby Harnden, the Amazon link is below;
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Bandit-Country-The-South-Armagh/dp/034098094X/ref=dp_ob_title_bk
http://www.phoenixcommand.com/
To end this post I'm recommending a BBC dramatisation from 1985, "CONTACT!" by A.F.N. Clarke. Originally a book by an Airborne officer this was aired in the mid 80's but I don't think its been repeated often, if at all, probably due to its content. I haven't been able to find it on Amazon and it may be the BBC may not have released it. The DVD copy I have was originally recorded on my VHS top loader in the 80's! If you get a chance to see this film grab it with both hands. I managed to find some information on the film on BFI Screenonline, the links below;
http://www.screenonline.org.uk/tv/id/439385/index.html
As a figure tester some PIRA players, Liberation 20mm. Dougie
Sunday, 4 November 2012
Skirmish Sangin
Anyone gaming the current conflict in Afghanistan needs to check out this link for a new system in development, looks very very nice ! Dougie
http://www.radiodishdash.com/
http://www.radiodishdash.com/