Sunday 27 November 2022

Battleground, painting and bits and bobs

A bit of a general update this morning. Yesterday I went to the Battleground Show over in Stockton. This is a regular for us and I put on another small participation game. I tend to keep things simple and focussed mainly around younger players giving them an introduction to gaming and some fun. This year a Lord of the Rings battle between Gondor and Mordor Orcs.

Here is the game in situ, having put on similar quite often it is a fairly swift setup.
The scenario is for the Gondor forces led by both Boromir and Faramir to stop the Orcs getting across the table. The ‘player’ always takes the good guys.
Without giving too much away the scenario is designed to look really difficult from the start, how can such a small force defeat the horde of orcs coming from the dark woods ? however, the forces of good are much stronger and unless the player has some absolutely terrible dice rolling they should win…..making them feel like they have had a gaming challenge but won through 🙂
 I played through 4 or 5 times during the day, with each gaming 30-45 minutes it felt busy enough. As predicted the forces of good won out, although one young lad managed to get all the Gondor Knights killed off and one nearly got Faramir killed 🙂 everybody had fun ! Also spent a lot of time talking to people about the figures etc….. I did manage to whizz round to a couple of other games here were the pick for me
Wellington in India…….finding it hard not to start this as a new project and this didn’t help !
WW2 desert warfare
This massive game was at the last show I attended as well….it is very impressive but nothing much seems to happen ?
A beautiful ACW Vicksburg battle 
Pavia 
Medieval 
Of course a bit of shopping
Very unusual for me I pick up some painted figures from the bring and buy. As I am already working on a Celtic Dark age army I bought these cavalry. I wouldn’t normally pick these up but they were significantly under priced for metal figures. They need some rebasing and a little fiddling but they will be fit for battle very quickly.
A perfect book as I am looking at French forces for Norway and had actually been looking at the pictures from this book on the internet the evening before
Some mixed spruces which were literally a couple of pounds to lot
A couple of German transports
And some winter trees
After the Lillehammer battle I was putting away my German forces and decided to check how many squads I can now field, turns out five complete squads with a command figure and a half squad so as I had a few odd figures I have made them up to bring it to six.
I painted a few extra LMG
Separately I had a German Early war ATR team by Warlord so this can cause them as much frustration as the British now 🙂
Also completed a couple of German 15mm Nerbelwefer with a spotter
The last few metal Panzer Grenadiers I had, I do have some other German infantry but I’m not in a rush to complete them.
And finally some Jacobs sheep….well why not for a dark age village sometime

So lots going on, thanks for checking in

Matt 😀


28 comments:

  1. Another nice mix there Matt, some great looking games at the show, including your own, of course!

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    1. Thanks Keith battleground is a very nice ‘small’ show

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  2. You had a grand day by the look of it. Good book find, it must have been your destiny!

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  3. Game, books, minis! Lovely trio :-)

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  4. Nice to see the new Boromir in action. Lovely additions to the German forces as well.

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    1. Thanks Lawrence hopefully the Germans will get a run out soon

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  5. Looks like a terrific (if not exhausting) day out for you, Matt. Good job on catering to the younger wargamers with your LotR game. Doubly good job on replaying the game four or five times. You are a worthy ambassador.

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    1. Thanks Jon they all had fun which is the main thing 👍

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  6. Great sounding Lotr game, Pavia looks great as does your early war painting and sheep!
    Best Iain

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    1. Thanks Iain at least the sheep were easy 😀

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  7. good to see you, shame I couldn't stop longer. Nice purchases, I didn't buy much, my lead pile is massive and somewhat overwhelming at the moment, although I did buy a couple of 15mm ballistas from irregular 40p each! I can now paint my 15mm Roman legion. The challenge should put a hole in it.

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  8. A very fine looking participation game there Matt. Good that you managed to get round the show a little to see the other games and add some toys too.

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    1. Thanks Phil everyone seemed to enjoy it and lots of people stopped to chat during the day as well

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  9. A nice looking show and game Matt…
    And what’s not to like about more toys…and some nice new additions on the painting front.

    All the best. Aly

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  10. A fine little game there and a good set of rules too. Haven't played them in years but have fond memories of them. The show seemed to be a roaring success and a good mix of games on show. Wellington in India is tempting, as too are the Italian Wars games, both visual feasts!

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    1. The ‘India’ project is scratching away at me at the moment !

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  11. I was gutted to miss the show - I always enjoy playing in your games

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  12. Some very fine looking games there, including yours. Do like a bit of LotR 🙂

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  13. Looks to have been a great gaming con for you. Always a pleasure seeing the tables people put together & then scoring at the end with some purchases to complete the day!

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    1. Thanks Terry, it is I guess a ‘medium’ sized show but really well attended this year

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  14. wow quite a collection of projects Matt, I don't feel to bad myself now. I am glad the game went well.
    Cheers
    Stu

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