Narrowgauge Railway Engine.

Heres a little Railway Engine that I have recently knocked together. It was a ‘thomas the tank engine’ die-cast that I have sawn apart and turned into a 28mm scale model (I don’t know what Die-Casts are made of, but its not easy to rip apart with a jewellers saw!) All I have done is set the wheels so that they fit on the track, cut open the cab and added a platform from a 25x25x3mm base, chiselled off the little engines face and replaced it with a 15mm Troll’s shield and added a few internal details. 

 

It’s mostly just a bit of table dressing but I can see it being an objective for a few future games. I’ve got about 6’ of track (with every other sleeper cut away to make it look more in-scale) and a few bits of rolling stock. I’m rather happy with it. Tell me what you think! Thanks for looking. 

Generic Un-English Buildings.

I made these, start to finish, in the space of two afternoons. They are made out of Foamboard over Polistirene cores, with doors and windows either cut out or added out of balsa wood. I gave the things a good coat of a 50/50ish mix of PVA glue and Polyfiller to add a little texture, then painted them up. I’ve made them with VSF Turkistan in mind, but they will do for everything and anywhere East of the Holy Roman Empire. Hope you like them.

 

Polish Armour 1945

Here’s some Polish Armour I painted tonight for my Late War Polish ‘Cursed Army’. Apart from a few brief stints, the Polish resistance, like just about every other resistance movement of The Great Patriotic War, did not have any armoured vehicles to call their own. These assault guns and tanks are made to take part in a ‘what if’ force, fighting off the tail-ends of the Nazi German occupation forces and the new oppressor – The Soviet Union.

A T-28e-85.  This one has probably been captured off the Russians (perhaps part of the 1939 invasion force) and has been re-armed with a captured 75mm or 85mm gun. I knocked it together because I use this tank on 'World of Tanks', and have got to the point where I have to make models of everything that I take a fancy to.

A Captured StuH 42.

A Captured Hetzer.

A Captured FCM36 Ex-Police Tank.

Also, Ive been playing with magnets. Both of the turrets have been hacked up to fit the magnets in properly.

More to follow soon.

Battle Report: 1877 The Russio-Turkish War

It was a nature-deifyingly hot day out, so for the first time ever, I played a wargame outside!

1877 The Russio-Turkish War, A Squadron of the Black Seas fleet, Reinforced by Ships rushed in from the Baltic face off an Ottoman Squadron of Ironclads.

As the two squadrens come into range of one another head-on, they manuver into their formations for the battle.

The Russians form their frigates in a line on their left whilst Khaptain attempts to go-it-alone down the right, all with the circular ironclad Novgrod dawdling along giving long range supporting fire.  

The Ottomans take a different approach, advancing in-line, with their ironclads screening their more vulnerable unarmoured ships.

As the two squadrons close, the concentrated fire of the ottoman ships jams the rudder of the lead Russian Armoured Frigate, forcing her to cut to starboard, destroying a number of her guns and starting a sizeable fire below decks. No other ships take any sizeable damage, and move on unmolested. 

As the ships speed on, exchanging shells at distance, an unexpected catastrophe befalls the Russian Armoured Frigate Kreml, who takes a hit to her boiler, causing her to explode with unrivalled violence, killing all aboard and sending the previously undamaged ship, in pieces, to the bottom of the Black Sea. 

The Ottoman Fleet breaks into two wings and takes significant but not crippling damage from Russian fire, and contuse onward doing considerable damage. The now one-ship-column of the Russians speeds on firing ineffective volleys at the large Ottoman Ironclad Messudieh, the Russian General Admiral, that had previously taken a rudder hit was left dead in the water, but still returning fire, and Khaptain continued her wide arc towards the enemy fleet, cannons blazing as she goes.

Then came the most dynamic moment of the game. Khaptain, moving in at full speed rammed the damaged Ironclad Corvette Muin-I-Zaffer, splitting her in two, before successfully ramming the Side-wheeler Torpedoship Squab and reducing her to matchwood. Khaptain then took the brunt of the fire from the remaining Ottoman ships at very close range, destroying many of her guns. 

The game ended with the Khaptain ramming into Messudieh to little avail. The few remaining guns of the ships exchanged blows, before, with all ships badly damaged, night approaching and all crew exhausted from the days events both squadrons disengaged. The game was a draw in Russia’s favour.

Ottoman Navy - First Three.

Ive have got the first three of my Ottomen Ironclads up and ready, giveing me enough to play a game. Yippie.


The large and powerful Ironclad Frigate, Messudieh. She has a main armliment of twelve (!) 10" muzzle-loaders.



The Ironclad Corvettes Avni Illah and Muin-I-Zaffer. Both are compact and powerful ships, each armed with with four 9" guns and procted by a good thickness of armour. Very powerful for their size, they can confidently lock horns with the larger ships of the Russian fleet.

I dont know how well these photos show it, but these ships are painted dark green rather than the usual 'ironclad grey', as as far as I can tell, the ottoman navy was painted green thoughout swathes of the late 1800s and early twentyeth centry. Im rather happy with them. Not sure if the dark green looks so great really, but they dont look awful. Please feel free to tell me what you think.

Over the next few days (by the weekend) I plan most of the rest of the ships I have painted and ready for battle, including some nice paddle-sloops and the worlds last and most advanced Ship of the Line. I have also (finaly) got around to ordering some RE magnets, so can my pile of airships into the air as soon as they get here.

Khaptain

Got this one painted up tonight so I thought Id post it up too. Without further adue, the third hand Turret Ironclad, Khaptain.



The model is that of the infamous and unique British warship HMS Captain. For those that dont know the fatefull history of this ship she was designed as the royal navys first large oceangoing warship to mount its main battery in the revolutionary revolving turret. It was the grand design of the famous Captain Cowper Coles, the man responceable for the Coles turret. It was built as a responce to public and political pressure rather than because the admeralty wanted it. Although a valid but kinda 'out there' design, errors were made in construction that resulted in her having a dangeriously low freeboard, be dangeriously overweight and have a dangeriously high center of gravity. She passed her trials, but within months of her launch she capsized in mild seas in the Bay of Biscay with the loss of all but 18 crew (her compliment was over 500). This caused reprocussions in British Naval History, with the admeralty gaining greater control over themselves (they blamed the deaths on the fact the ship was built due to public pressure) and in general the total falure of this state-of-the-art ship led the admeralty to avoid adopting new developments in technology without the greatest of caution.




Clealy though, I appear to have modeled this sunken ship and placed it in Russian Survice. I did this for two reasons - First, I really liked the ship and the model (from Tumbling Dice) and Second, I needed a major capital ship to bulk up the Russian Black Sea Fleet for a Ottoman/Russian naval campain that I am going to run for my friends.

So, I present the following counter-factual situation to allow the HMS Captain to become the Khaptain;

Rather than being lost at sea, the Captain of the Captain, took the desision to run the ship aground, wrecking her on the Southern Cost of France. In the insueing politcal arguments over the disaster, the disision is made not to recover the ship and to sell her off to avoid further embarisment. She would most probably end up in the hands of the French and then move from there into Russian hands.

Russian Ironclads

Ive got a fair bit done this week towards finishing my little 1/24th scale ironclad project ready for games.



Russian Baltic squadren. General Admiral on the left, Petr Veliki to the center and Kreml to the right.


Close up of the armoured cruiser General Admiral


Petr Veliki



Kreml



Tsesarevich


All of these ships have been shown before, but since last-time I have added 3mm bases made out of balsa wood that allow me to acctualy pick the things up and move them around the gaming table. They should also greatly increase the durability of the models as people will be much less inclined to handel them by the model. I have also added small flags to the rear starbord quater of the model to denote its nationality. The ships names and ID numbers are unde the bases, but you cant see them.


Also, three Black Sea Cost Defence Monitors




The two larger monitors are the Russalka and the Chichgov.






The smaller, circular monitor is the infamous Novgrod. I have the rules written up for her, including a rule for her spining out of control! No model is avalable in this scale, so I made one. Its a goblin shield with vairous bits and peices added to it. Im really rather happy with it.

 

WIP photo.


Also, a trio of murchantmen to be targets in some cruiser games. Im not sure what little flags to put in the corner of their bases. Any ideas are welcome.







Hope you like them. Tell me what you think!