....the story so far....yet another update.....

Bolt Action in Sicily

So, What's New...

 .....yes, another update; that's what these blog things are all about, ain't they? Since I last posted things have been, pleasingly, busy and frothy on my own wargaming front. I've managed to get in two games of Bolt Action; both versus Jamie's Italians; one using a predominantly Inexperienced Soviet force and the other saw my Yanks take a tentative step towards driving the Fascists out of Sicily. Tentative I say, as this game was supposed to be the first in a narrative campaign but we forgot the mission brief for both sides so we're going to have to revisit that particular scenario before I can do a write up of it on here.

 

Soviet and Italians clash in Southern Russia...possibly

   ....as well as that brace of games I spent a fruitful evening at the Village Idiots in East Kilbride with James and Robbie rolling dice and character building our respective retinues for our forthcoming Inquisitor campaign (though we are playing it in 28mm so technically...sort of...it should be called INQ28) but more that in a separate post as, well, it really needs it's own post.

Purchasing Power

.....As ever I have felt the need to flex my financial muscle and indulge in buying lots of stuff; mostly but not exclusively the following.....

Two units of shotte

....with my first game of Pike & Shotte looming over the wargaming horizon and the shameful realisation that I couldn't face building more of Warlord Games plastic P&S figures (I just find them hard to love; sure they fill an enormous gap in trhe wargamng market but they are just so flipping ugly; utilitarian might be kinder but still and all, it takes a lot from me to build and paint them) I bought some cheap, prepainted ones on eBay. They've allowed me to expand on what I have, obviously, and saved me some precious hobby time...result!!

.....equally, INQ28 and my first bash at Games Mastering, is cantering towards the wargames horizon and I felt that some more WH40K universe type scenery was required so a quick trip to the marvellous TT Combat site was in order.

     The second set of MDF terrain is from AQSgames who I found using my Google-fu. This is for games of INQ28 (and possibly Necromunda 95 should I ever get around to playing that!!).

.....and for Lion Rampant? Hail Caesar I indulged in this nice, wee kit when I was shopping on Wayland Games when I went shopping for.....

....because the medieval/Crusades froth is still very strong. A wee while back, whilst off work suffering from Man-Flu I spent a day and a half on the couch watching YouTube and stumbled across the marvellous 7th Son channel and since then the frotho-meter has surpassed previous frotho-meter levels of...erm..frothing. I had always assumed that, like Black Powder, Hail Caesar (and Pike & Shotte for that matter) required a lot of large units of 18-24 figures per unit but no, you can use foot units of 12 figures as your standard sized units and cavalry units of 6 mounted units (though I think units of at least 9 mounted figures looks a wee bit better...just saying). With the amount of units I have for Lion  Rampant I could easily field a decent sized medieval army for Hail Caesar, especially for the 7.5'x5' gaming table that I have.

.....and speaking of medieval cavalry I also indulged in this box set and....

Gripping Beast Islamic spearmen sprue

Victrix Islamic infantry sprue

....a sprue each of Gripping Beast and Victrix Islamic infantry sprues as I can't, or should I say I couldn't, decide which I prefer from watching reviews of both on YouTube so I bought one of each for comparison purposes. I think the Victrix ones are far and away superior sculpts but they appear just a tad tall to my eye and, pardon my pernicketyness, a bit too detailed(?). Anyhoo, the long and short of it is I have bought a box of the Gripping Beast Spearmen and also a load of Little Big Man shield transfers for my Islamic forces.

    There's a whole heap more stuff that I have for LR/HC burrowed away in my plastic mountain that I'll blog aboit later. Right now I need my kip. Am up early to drop the wife off at the airport then Dan is coming down from Up North and we're off to 17th century Poland for a Thirty Years War battle between his Poles and my Swedes. Photos and battle report to follow.

Table set up for Pike & Shotte

likely objective for my Swedes

Toodle pip,

Jim

ps. Had a near brush with some old 3rd edition 40k Space Marine figures and was also tempted to buy a fifth Baneblade whilst visiting Castle Comics in East Kilbride when I went shopping for some paints. Phew!

Second's Out! First Update

 

It's been a busy week......and it's been a long week...     

    So continuing with the theme of Lion Rampant from my previous post and I am writing this allmost exactly a week on from that post and, blimey, the wargaming froth is increasing in... I dunno...frothiness?!! 😀

    So if I've been frothing about Lion Rampant why do I have a photo of a horde of rampaging WHFB Orks and chums as a header photo? Well, besides looking jolly and chummy and like their all having a spiffing time on the rampage it's also a reminder to myself that back at the start of the year I had made a (semi...quasi..) solemn vow to myself that the first project that I would give my attention to in 2026 from the many projects that I have in the Stash of Potential would be my 6th edition WHFB Orks and Goblins.....and this is the first I have looked at them since the end of of 2025.....so much for semi-quasi-solemn vows....sorry 6th Ed WHFB O&Gs

    Now mostly I've failed to keep my semi-quasi etc etc because I have been playing a fair bit of Bolt Action 3rd edition at the Village Idiots in East Kilbride as well as in the Gaming Garage and also prepping for a game of 40K Apocalypse back in February which involved revisiting my 5th edition 40K Imperial Guard armies, tanks and stuff to get them up to scratch for the table; I'll post some stuff about it later as well as some photos....but I digress... Since then the chance to once more play GWs Inquisitor has reared it's head and demanded some attention (we're not there yet, at the actual point of playing but soon...see later in the post for info) and now Lion Rampant 2, more specifically a  campaign book entitled The Crusader States has become the focus of my attention; my main froth if you will...

......a copy of which bought last week from Firestorm Games. It's a bloody marvellous book!! If your not acquainted with it, it has been written,, mostly by Gianluca Raccagni, a lecturer in Medieval History at Edinburgh University and born again wargamer so it's fair to say he knows his stuff and how to apply it to wargaming. Said stuff has been written, from my point of view, purely to stir my froth and encourage me to buy yet more, very necessary, boxes of figures etc!!

    My other bookish purchases arrived too; £40 well spent at Colonel Bill's. I flipping love Osprey Books. And I especially flipping love Osprey Books illustrated by Angus McBride; he's brilliant in my humble opinion.

     Other stuff arrived to from Firestorm; a Rubicon M8/M20 Armoured Car for Bolt Action, a Renedra Wattle and Timber Building as well as a box of Fireforge's Turcopoles that gave me twitchy, need to glue and paint stuff feelings. 

    These all arrived on Wednesday when I wasn't terribly well. I had a stinking cold which kept me off work but kept me on the couch in front of the TV watching Youtube and more specifically the wargaming themed channel 7th Son. And here I watched Martin, who I assume is the 7th Son of the title playing games of Hail Caesar set in the Crusades which looked.....I hesitate to use the term "awesome" as I am an old fart but, honestly, I can't think of a better, more apt one. 

    So, despite being poorly, the froth was still going strong (which probably contributed to me feeling poorly as scientific research that I have concocted shows that frothing uses up quite a lot of energy and can cause excess stress due to a lack of Vitamin F....that's an actual fact that I have just created!!)

    All of which leads us...or rather me, though if your reading this and your not me then "us" is more appropriate, to.........Pike & Shotte by Warlord Games.

      You see, my chum, Danny, who lives up north and is a fellow frother (we are part of a support group for people who suffer from wargames frothing), has these Warlord Games Polish Winged Hussars that he loves and are part of a growing collection of Pike & Shotte era figures he is collecting and, as he is visiting the great metropolis that is Glasgow in May for some work related training (I think it's to do with personal hygiene and eating like a human being but, hey, that's not important...he's a good person and that's what counts) and is staying at mine we have decided to play our first game of P&S in the Gaming Garage...

    Now, you know how it is; deciding to play a game that requires lots of figures is one thing but putting said figures on the table on the day, in an acceptable painted state is another....

    

   ....so for the next three weeks (which is when Dan is due at mine) I will be focussing on getting these units finished off plus a couple of cavalry units for the game to represent a 17th century Swedish Army which, though I am kinda grumbling about it here I am really, rather looking forward to playing as I really like the era for both it's actual history and also as a setting in which to play games. Besides I have had the P&S rules for years but have never actually played them so I am grasping the chance to play P&S with both hands.

....but the things is, I really, really want to work on my Teutonic Knights and Turcopoles as well as the archers and foot serjeants I dug out last week; oh man it's the age old struggle between duty and desire....well, in a rather small, selfish and, possibly, mildly amusing way. 

    and on the subject of struggles.....there is also the struggle for the soul of the Emperor of Mankind in the 41st millenium!!

....which I will write about in another post. It's getting late and I really need my beauty sleep....trust me 😁

    This post was brought to you with the assistance of Marks & Spencer's Found range of wines; specifically their Moschofileron Roditis which was jolly nice. 

    The musical accompaniment was by Dvorak, Brahms, Sibelius and Smetna courtesy of my Spotify subscription....I'm not a completely uncultured swine, you know 😉

    Pip pip till next time when I will, hopefully, bring you an update on my aforementioned stuff, a look at a forthcoming game of Bolt Action with an Italian force fending off a Soviet one and also an actual look at Inquisitor and not just an allusion to it...

pip pip,

Jim Bob

Never Mind The Updates, Here's The First Post....

 MY NAME IS JIM AND I AM A WARGAMING FROTHER....

.....and you can bet your last dollar on that....or pound coin, euro whatever, you can bet the last currency unit of your choice on that. Why do I mention this? Well I'll explain....

   Take the photo at the top of this page as an example. This is from a game of Lion Rampant 2nd edition that I played on Friday gone. I hadn't played Lion Rampant in a few years and had definitely not played 2nd edition (there's very little difference in the core rules) since I had bought the new rulebook. That fact didn't get in the way of a couple of really good games with a new gaming chum. The upshot of which in the immediate sense was that both the chap I had played against; let's call him Johnny since that's his name and one of his pals (who's name might be Graham but then again, it could be Callum) who had watched some of the game being played, are both now very interested in playing more Lion Rampant. 

   Excellent, as Lion Rampant is, in the grand scheme of things, a fairly inexpensive game to get into, and being a medieval themed game, there is some interest at the local gaming in nearby East Kilbride, in playing games based in the period of The Crusades; a period I have only the very faintest knowledge of but, you know, it's medieval with swords, spears, cavalry, you know... 

   That was Friday evening. It's now Monday evening, four days later and, damn and blast my own goggly eyes, since Friday I have dug into the stash in my hobby room and rooted out stuff!! 

The hobby room....

rooted out stuff...Front Rank miniatures

...Citadel Miniatures Bretonnian Archers...

....Wargames Foundry Crossbow Men

...and more Front Rank men-at-arms. All these were
bought for playing Bretonnians in The Old World
...more of that another day..perhaps

....but that's not all as I have also spent, no, not spent, I have also invested about £100 on books relating to The Crusades as well as buying some more figures...and downloaded a book on The Crusades from Audible....

.....a couple of games of Lion Rampant, some interest in the game from some guys I met at a local wargaming club recently and, whoosh!! I am off a-frothing, a-frothing and a-spendi....I mean investing..

    So, being a wargaming frother, and an unrepentant one at that, that's pretty much what you can expect from this blog. My next post should be about GWs Inquisitor.....I write that to remind myself as I was a-frothing about that last week....and it can sometimes be difficult to keep many different strands of frothing going...which is why I ma writing this....so I don't forget...

chin chin,

Jim