On The Bench: Bolt Action and Warmachine

The local game store I frequent is running a Journeyman League for Warmachine to kick off the new rules set (Mark III). I haven't played Warmachine in years. I played fairly heavily during Mark I and a bit in Mark II but then it faded out. I sold off my Cygnar army and decided I wasn'y going to play anymore. However, with the league starting and a way to make a fresh new start I decided to at least go a bit into a new army. I went with Khador solely because I wanted to paint them up as a WWII Soviet army.

Here we have the beginning. The one model that actually has paint on it is the Marauder that I'm adding for week 2 of the league. It has just the basic of paint on it. No shading, highlights, decals, weathering, dust, mud, etc. All of that will come later. I'm using Flames of War Soviet colors with a few P3 paints thrown in.





I'm also working on my first Bolt Action squad. I've got quite a bit on order that hasn't arrived yet. This is a squad of German Blitzkreig infantry I was given at Historicon so I went ahead and put them together. Here we have a pretty standard squad with an NCO and right hand man, both with SMGs, an LMG and reloader on the move, an observer (prone), another reloader awaiting his prone LMG, and several regular riflemen. The reloader is modeled after Corporal Upham from Saving Private Ryan even though he's in a German squad. I couldn't resist building him this way. Next step is to add gear and packs, clean them up and start slapping paint.



Apologies for the terrible pics. I really need to figure out some lighting and how to photograph minis. They really do look better in person.

Diving into Historical Wargaming

I went to Historicon last weekend. I went last year for the first and fell in love with the convention and all of the epic battles that were waged. I have been a tabletop gamer for twenty years but the extent of my gaming was always fantasy or sci-fi based. I've had curiosity for historical gaming but it always seemed so daunting. The closest I've come to jumping in is Flames of War. I like the game, but I don't really care for the 15mm size.

So this year at Historicon I decided to check out Bolt Action. It would satisfy my itch for my love of WWII and it is 28mm. Much better for my old eyes and fat hands. I also decided to actively look into games based in the 17th century. Most games from older history I had seen were always big blocks of tiny figures on a huge field and I wasn't sure that's the direction I wanted to go (tiny figures again). So I started thinking about maybe getting into Black Powder. It's made by the same company putting out Bolt Action so it drew my attention.

However, when I was wandering around the exhibit hall I found a game called Beneath the Lily Banners and I met Barry Hilton, the game designer. Not ashamed to say it was the table and the minis that drew me there first, then I got a chance to play and really liked the system a lot. The period (1660 - 1721) covers a lot of ground and conflict. It will be quite the endeavor to pick where to start this journey. I bought "Donnybrook" while there. Donnybrook is a skirmish set of rules covering the same period. Smaller battles and skirmish rules may be easier to get my friends involved. I picked up the PDF of BLB yesterday and will be digging in with great gusto.

So that's where I am. I'm trying to figure out where I want to start. As soon as I do I'll start putting up miniature pics and probably terrain projects.

Oh, this isn't going to be just about BLB and Donnybrook. I'm putting together my first squads of Bolt Action and I've got other things I'm working on. Stay tuned.