PIRATES! The Buccaneers return in 4 more match reports

The "I can't believe it's a serious army choice" Buccaneers return in 4 match reports from the BHGS Doubles, taking on opponents from the year 1695 in a fury of pirate-based action.

See a 900AP Pirate army in action against non-historical and entirely infeasible opponents such as The Tatars, The Anglo-Dutch, The French and finally, The Poles and Lithuanians as Piracy reaches shorelines previously thought safe from the scourge of the Caribbean (especially the Tatars, on account of Mongolia technically being land-locked).

The reports even feature proper maps and stuff so you can make some sense of the action, as well as just being vaguely amused by the bits I've spliced into the reports..

10 FoGR Army Lists now posted

Army lists from the competitions at Oxford and Reading now added to the FoGR Wiki:
Lists include:

• Buccaneer
• Tatar
• League of Augsberg Anglo Dutch
• Later Louis XIV French (Alasdair Harley Special)
• Later Polish & Lithuanian
• Early Swedish (x2)
• Later ECW Royalist
• Later Imperial Spanish (x2)

Get That Zimmer Frame Off of My Longship!

It's a first for Madaxeman.com as the game of SAGA takes full advantage of it's free bus pass to arrive bang on time for a 4-game, one day first outing to the seaside in 4 consecutive Viking-laden Battle Reports!

Marvel as the tactical inadequacies seen previously in eras as diverse as Ancient Egypt to the Pacific theatre of WW2 are replicated in painful detail in the Viking Age, and then relax by smearing yourself in Viking Hannibals Goose-fat of Criticism !

Go on - you know you want it.... 

Online Reviews of these Match Reports

• "Does go to show how seldom you see the phrase 'engorged testicles' in a battle report critique." (TMP)
• "..these are genius" (Gripping Beast's Mike Hobbs on Twitter)
• "Great stuff. I got my laughs for the day!" (WWPD)
• "I wanted it, and I got it....." (Saga Forum)
• "Nice figures....f**king awful table.....green felt....this isnt the 1970's......spend some time on your table rather than your game report (Frothers)

That Pope is Far Away!

More one day action with the big boys toys, as Tilly tries to take on three opponents in a 25mm style TYW thingy at Farnborough 2013

Does the Pope end up on a rope?  Or will he manage to slip away...!

Force on Force pictures

No science to this, just some pictures from a recent game of Force on Force played at the club. 6th scenario from Enduring Freedom if you are interested, with old-style Matchbox British Paratroopers (in 80's gear!) taking on the Vegetarian Liberation Army forces in Afghanistan

As usual, all images get larger if you click them ... 

25/8mm ECW/TYW at Farnborough 2013

There are three battle reports on their way (eventually) but in the meantime here are a handful of photos I took from some of the other games at the recent 1-day competition in Farnborough. Click on any image bfor a bigger version...

The French go to Southampton

A textbook Italian Wars French army, containing the mandatory Mikes Models Swiss Pike Kiel takes on three opponents in one day in the Southern League round held in Southampton.

See all the usual stuff, with the added bonus this time of a new commander for the French Army being deployed and using his extensive linguistic skills to explain his success - or lack of it perhaps..?

Central London Wargames Club is running London's first Epic Minigeddon tournament!

A one-day tournament running on November 3rd:

Minigeddon is a fun and fast-paced supplement for GW's Epic Armageddon and great for newcomers and seasoned players alike, For more information and the official Epic UK sanctioned rule set please visit the Epic Armageddon London website. 

The tournament consists of 4 rounds of swiss-format, using 1000 points armies. Entry fee is £10 which helps the club to pay for the venue and terrain. There will be trophies for the top 3 players, best painted army and also the infamous wooden spoon. Lists can be chosen freely from the latest NetEA Tournament Pack 2013-08-07, EpicUK lists overrule where applicable though.

W've set up free pre-registration through Eventbrite. The event is limited to 20 players max, so secure your spot soon! More details about the event at the Eventbrite page or if you have any questions please write to Florian Hess

We're looking forward seeing you at the table! 

Roll Call 2013

Yes, it may have been almost 3 months ago, but sometimes even for me the real world gets in the way of writing up match reports!

See how the Earlier Danish army did in 4 themed battles, as lots more Gendarmes than have ever been seen before take to the field, complete with some supporting Reiters !  (Apologies if the lists aren't in the Wiki - I may well have lost them in the last 3 months)

Saga Vikings

Well, I've finally cracked and got myself a SAGA army, of course of Vikings. They ended up being painted quite quickly, and for those of you who have not been following my Facebook Page, here's the progress

The Saga Viking warband...early stage preparation as I finally get back to painting and playing...black undercoat sprayed on, using 2p coins and some Renedra bases I got in an army pack from Gripping Beast. This was taken August 20th. And why do Renedra bases cost more than 2p each ... ?

24th August - All the metal bits, and a first "colour" - in this case Coat d'arms Linen. This might be quicker than I expect... The figures are a mix of Gripping Beast and Wargames Foundry

25th August - Always interesting how much figures can change from this block painting stage to when they get inked later on.

25th August - Gloss poly varnish on the shields, in preparation for some Little Big Men transfers tomorrow - bit of bronze and gold on the jewellery, brown for the backs of shields and wooden spears and they'll be ready for Army Painter..

25th August - Ready for the shield transfers in the morning... Then the Army Painter magic by lunchtime...!

26th August - All glossed up with Army Painter (not the shields with stickers on them - they get clear poly varnish as a topcoat), and then outside to dry .. it's a nice warm day so maybe spraying matt varnish later ? The shield designs are from the LBMS "GB (Large)" and "Foundry, Artizan & BTD" ranges and really make a huge difference to the quality of the figures

26th August, almost all done.... A good weekends work.. all based with builders sand, awaiting some grass and the like on the bases.

I may add some more photos once they are totally done and on the table

It's been a while - so, some Perry Knights!

After somewhat of a hiatus I've finally gotten round to adding some more content to this site. Nothing too onerous (for me) but here are a load of photos of 28mm multi-part plastic Perry Mounted Men at Arms, which I will be using as C15/C16 Gendarmes in FoG Renaissance armies.

I was wildly impressed with these models - a phenomenal amount of thought had clearly gone into designing each sprue to have huge variations in how you could equip and assemble the horses and riders to allow you to do a variety of troop types from each sprue

The horse barding included was sufficient to do every single horse in the pack of 12

There were just 2 riders who were unarmoured and which add a bit of colour to the formation

Everything was painted in a black spray undercoat, and a drybrush of Gunmetal, with some Gold highlights to bring them up a little

Army Painter Dark Tone gave them a blackened look after the drybrushing

 Very simple Gold details really makes them look more upscale than just plain silvered metal

Ready to rumble - hopefully I will only see them from this angle when they get on table!

If Guillermo del Toro had ever seen this website...

Definitely worth seeing (but I'd skip the 3D version).

Website issues - almost fixed!

After a lot of painful manual editing, the FoGAM Wiki, and both the 10mm and 15mm Galleries are back up and running  -  although all of them still have some incomplete or untidy looking bits of formatting, so please bear with any glitches you may come across. I've also taken out loads of dubious code that had gotten onto the site (on the 12th July - so if you accessed the site in the last 7 days you might have seen some security warnings - a reminder to keep your AV solution up to date if nothing else!)

The FoGR Wiki is also now fixed!

Website problems

The Wikis and Photo Galleries on this site seem to be having some problems at the moment, and probably have been hacked with a form of malware. I've set up some redirects to try and take the site offline and redirect everything to this Blogger site (which is entirely separate so is not affected)  and will try and fix it over the next couple of days

In the meantime, in case the redirects don't cover all the ways in, it may be wisest to avoid accessing the wikis and photo galleries, as there might be something untoward hiding in there somewhere that could disagree with your PC..

Its a right Saga!

I've been painting up some 28mm Foundry Vikings to be used as in-game prizes for the Saga Tournament at Britcon 2013, the idea being these couple of units will be fed into the scenarios across the event, and someone (not necessarily the actual tourney winner) will have the chance to go home with them.

See what you think:

They are all undercoated in black, drybrushed in white (to help being out some highlights in the proper painting) then painted normally - finally a coat of Army Painter Strong Tone has been added, finished with Testors Dullcote

I just love the slightly cartoonish aspect of many of these Foundry figures !

I've semi-deliberately not finished the bases, so whoever ends up with them can make them match their existing figures.

The Beserkers are very obviously totally beserk..