The Roaring Northerners are Dave Stewart, John Hill and Iain Robertson; a loose affiliation of tabletop wargamers and figure painters who inhabit the frozen and somewhat soggy wastelands of west central Scotland. Shadowy and secretive, they stoically quest to reduce the scale of the lead mountain that threatens to engulf them all, and perhaps even find the time for the occasional game...
....This is their story

Friday 4 March 2016

Belated Updates No. 4- The Cold War Re-heated....

As far as the Cold War stuff goes, I've been working on both sides simultaneously; for the BAOR, I've been working on a Battlegroup Command base, for higher level games. The figures are from the ever dependable hand of Matt at Elhiem, with some subtle tweeking by yours truly (since my fictional Cold War is viewed by the rose-tinted goggles of the ARRSE forum...)

The Base consists of the CO, in obligatory Barbour jacket. No one tells the CO he's improperly dressed, though the RSM may gently hint at it... he's acompanied by the Ops Officer; no idea if this is the correct 1980s terminology, but he's represented here in all his Silvermans Trolley Dash glory- SAS Smock, Tropical Comabat Trousers and DILAC hat. Well ally. Also present is the Adjutant, wielding a map and compass (the most terrifying sight in NATO), an officer from the RAC element of the Battlegroup and the RSM, pointing out to the ruperts that Ivan is in fact that way, oh yes, and Pvt MacAuslan is on jankers again, for pissing in the stew.

The plan is to have them clustered around a table strewn with maps, Thermos flasks and fags...

Left to right- Ops Officer, RAC Officer, CO, Adjutant, RSM.







On the other side of the IGB, I finally managed to get the four remaining figures in the first Russian platoon finished. I never intended to do two platoons, but Elhiem released a flurry of new Soviet Riflemen poses, and I simply must posess all the pretty things...





Hope to get the BAOR base finished for the end of the month...

Cheers
Iain

Thursday 3 March 2016

Belated Updates! No. 3- A Game Of Lion Rampant (Or Three...)

Following Dave and I's initial foray into Lion Rampant back in October (!) John and I managed to get an unprecedented run of three games in on the bounce! No pictures were taken on the first couple of games (we were still trying to get a handle on the rules, so it was a bit clunky), but by game three, things were moving sufficiently smoothly to allow us time to get a few snaps.

The first couple of games had ended in well-fought victories for John, with my guys reverting to type and doing great hedgehog impersonations, prior to charging heroically to their now much-outnumbered doom. Could I salvage some shred of dignity in game 3, or would John make it a hat-trick?

Forgone conclusion really, I recieved another drubbing at the hands of John's well balanced force of late mediaeval English, although, to be fair to my long suffering Scots, they did add some variety to the mix by deciding this time to flee the field en-masse, rather than dying gloriously, if pointlessly, as any self-respecting mediaeval Scots force should...








Vengeance shall be mine, Hill!

Cheers
Iain

Belated Updates! No.2- A Game of Black Ops

Having struggled to get our heads round the Force on Force ruleset from Osprey, we've been on the look out for something that could provide a workable alternative to allow us to actually get some figures on the table and rolling dice (I really want to like the FoF rules, they do seem to be a decent set, but just really poorly laid out out and confusing at first, without someone who knows what they're doing to actually teach you the game...). I'm looking forward to the future release of the Battlegroup expansion for Cold War, but that's a) years away and b) pitched at larger scale engagements than the usual platoon level skirmishes we usually play. Assuch, when I saw the release of the Black Ops set from Osprey, I was intrigued. Could this be something we could use?

While it seemed to be pitched more at sneaky-beaky style asymmetric engagements rather than conventional battle, it might at least provide us with something that in true Roaring Northerners fashion we could bastardise into suiting our purposes...

So, having picked up a copy and had a look through, it seemed that we could tweak it for some conventional shenannigans on the Central Front. Designed, as they are, for small unit, covert action in the modern period, a certain amount of "clunkiness" was expected, as we would be doing a 1980s Cold War setup, involving conventional forces, on a rather sparsely populated board....

However, it all went rather well, actually. We decided on a variation of the "Assault" scenario. Rather than two reconnaisance forces having a meeting engagement, it was arranged that a small  force of Dave's Czechs, composed of 4 fireteams mounted in two BMP-1s, supported by a BRDM-2 and a PKM team were attempting to punch through a covering screen of my BAOR, fighting a delaying action. BAOR forces consisted of a two fire teams, a MILAN team and a SF GPMG, all in pre-prepared positions. This worked out with the Czechs having about 150% of the points available to BAOR, which was what was suggested in the rules. 7 turns were allowed for the Czechs to either force their way of the opposite table edge, or drive the BAOR off same, and continue their advance towards the Channel.

It started well for the Czechs, although the BRDM stopped a MILAN missile early on and was immobilised half way across the board. Both BMPs charged past it and were rapidly bearing down on the BAOR positions when both were stopped; one falling victim to a MILAN missile, the other took a sustained burst of GPMG fire in the side armour. This caused both to burst into flame and subsequently explode, taking almost all of the crew and infantry dismounts with them. The remaining Czechs then came under sustained small arms fire, and despite some excellent suppression early on of the MILAN team (which had allowed the BMPs to get as close as they did), were slowly shot to pieces, and forced to withdraw by turn 4. The BAOR also suffered casulaties, but definitely benefitted from being in prepared posistions.

All in all, a very enjoyable game. A believable result was achieved by the use of realistic forces and tactics used by both sides, and had the Czechs perhaps had one more BMP and section, or even been luckier in saving more of those riding in the existing BMPs, the result could have been very different.

I was pleasantly suprised by just how well these rules translated into conventional warfare, from the more "stealthy" verison they are invisioned for. Definitely need to get my SAS painted up and get them sneaking about a Soviet supply depot I think!

Since this was a "first run through" I didn't bother taking proper chronological photos, rather just some snaps as we went along for the sake of recording the madness...
















Definitely a game we will need to get back to, with more terrain. John has also caught the bug now and obtained not only the rules but several factions (which the bugger has already pinted too!) So inaddition to my Soviets and Brits, and Dave's Czechs, we now have Chechens, Mercenaries, terrorists and more Brits...

Cheers
Iain


Belated Updates! No.1- Napoleonics....

I'm very conscious that the blog has been getting a bit dusty of late, mainly due to the ease of uploading stuff straight to the Facebook page, versus the ballache that is trying to upload pictures to here. However, I am trying to rectify this...!

First of all, you may remember a couple of posts ago (so, read "several months") I alluded into a foray into Napoleonics. well, this didn't last very long, as I soon remembered why I don't paint much in the way of Napoleonics! However, I did get a few more of my Perrys' 28mm Redcoats finished, and I'm quite pleased with how they've came out so far.

Rifleman- Forward the 95th!
This was the first chap out the box I painted, probably some time around 2010. He came out rather well...





First of the 44th- The Essex Ploughboy Abroad.
This chap was painted about 3 years ago for The Guild "Red" Group Build competition. Snared me 3rd place, much to my surprise! Well chuffed with this guy.









And on to the actual recent stuff! These miniatures were the ones I painted over the summer/autumn. First up was another private. I was keen to portray an "on campaign" look for these guys, so wanted a nice, faded hue for this soldier's jacket. I think it turned out quite well...





Follow me, lads, for I cannot die! The Sergeant-
For a bit of a change, I decided to do the Sergeant with his 9ft pike next. Bags of swank in this figure, you can just feel the confidence.... "Sign up lads, sign up! You'll get a shilling a day and a spanking red coat. The girls'll love it!"





I did make a start on another figure (well, started sticking him together...) and even got some opposition for them, in the shape of French dismounted dragoons; if I told you that I also obtained some old GW plastic Space Wolves tails, would you guess where I'm going with this....? However, as it was, I ended up tempted back into mediaevals, and painting the Otterburn figures that I was posting up previously. I will return to painting Naps at some stage, but exactly when is anyone's guess...

Cheers
Iain