Now that THE FOURTH PORTABLE WARGAME COMPENDIUM has been published, I intend to take a few days off from blogging so that I can return to it with my mental batteries fully recharged.
I intend to spend the break constructing some more buildings to paint and base, and possibly visiting our storage unit with Sue to have a bit of a sort out. If we manage to do the latter, I hope that I might find and bring home a few more of the wargaming bits and pieces that I put there nearly two years ago.
After a few ups and downs, I can now announce that THE FOURTH PORTABLE WARGAME COMPENDIUM has now been submitted to Amazon KPD for publication!
The contents include:
The prices will be as follows:
I hope to publish a PDF edition via Wargame Vault as soon as the printed and eBook/Kindle editions are published … and I am hoping to add an audible edition in due course.
STOP PRESS!
The hardback, paperback, and Kindle editions are now on sale on Amazon!
Some time ago, I built a model border fortress based on a kit I bought from an English Heritage shop. When I finished it, it looked like this:
Initially, I painted it medium grey ...
... but I felt that the walls needed some sort of texture. I therefore put it to one side until I could think of a way to achieve that end result.
After my recent splurge of painting and basing model buildings, I decided to apply the techniques I have been using to this model border fortress. To give the walls some texture, I applied a coat of PVA glue to the walls and dipped them in fine cork granules. Once that had dried, I painted the walls with Tank Grey (Humbrol No.67).
I then dry brushed the walls with White (Revell No.05) and the planks with Earth Brown (Humbrol No.29). I then flocked the base with fine cork granules.
The end result looked like this:
I am rather pleased with the way this border fortress now looks, and it doesn't look out of place with the other buildings I have painted recently.
During a search of my box of spare bits and pieces, I found the unused components of the wooden castle model I used to build this border fortress … and there looks as if there enough left to build a small castle/fortress!
Last year I spent a long time bedridden, sleeping in a hospital bed that had been installed in our conservatory. It was only when I had learnt to walk again that I was allowed to sleep in my proper bed ... but at the time, getting up to the first floor to our bedroom was impossible until we had a stairlift installed.
We had several quotes from various installers, and in the end we opted for one that could fit a stairlift within a matter of days. That was just over a year ago, and until last Friday it had given us no significant problems. However, on Friday I received a phone call from the installers. The remote monitoring system was indicating that the stairlift was developing a fault and that an engineer needed to come to repair it.
One arrived on Saturday morning, and after nearly three hours he was unable to rectify the problem ... which seemed to be a faulty battery, a problem with the charging points, and the stairlift's programming had developed a fault. He therefore arranged for a second, more experienced engineer to pay us a visit on Sunday to sort the problem out.
We had booked the engineer to arrive at 10.00am, but his previous job had taken him longer to solve than expected and he arrived somewhat later that expected. He then spent two hours working on the stairlift before the faults had been identified and cured. He left just before 1.00pm, and we were told not to use the stairlift for at least an hour so that the battery could be fully charged.
I can now use the stairlift to reach the first and second floors of our house, and not being able to do so for the last day and a half has made me realise just how immobile I am at times. I could climb the stairs as far as the first floor with the aid of a walking stick and the banisters, but there's no way I can easily climb the stairs to the second floor ... which is where my accessible shower and toy/wargame room are located. Having a working stairlift again has restored my mobility … and my ability to do some more modelling and wargaming!
Another foray on eBay resulted in the purchase of another light cruiser to add to my collection. It was the IJNS Sendai.
(5,278 tons; 35 knots; 7 x 5.5-inch guns; 2 x 3-inch AA guns; 4 x 24-inch torpedo tubes; 48 x mines)
Some time ago I bought a Faller HO model of a ruined castle (B-291) via eBay.
Having opened the packaging the kit came in, I realised that with a bit of work, I could use the parts to create two models ... a partially ruined castle that is still in use by the military and a small residential building. The latter began life as the wooden shop attached to the ruin, and its place was taken by a stone building constructed from spare bits and pieces I had in one of my modelling spares boxes.
After constructing the two buildings, they were fixed to MDF bases and then painted using the technique I used on my previous buildings before adding fine cork granules to their bases. The end results looked like this:
At Dice of the Hill last Wednesday, four of us refought the Battle of the Falkland Islands, 1914. We used 1:3000th model ships, vinyl sea mats, and John Hammond's 20-page-long Skytrex WORLD WAR I NAVAL rules that were published in 1973.
The action began with the German East Asia Squadron (comprising the two armoured cruisers SMS Scharnhorst and SMS Gneisenau and the three light cruisers SMS Nürnberg, SMS Dresden and SMS Leipzig, accompanied by the colliers SS Baden, SS Santa Isabel, and SS Seydlitz) approaching the entrance to Port Stanley in the Falkland Islands from the southeast. The German commanders (one of whom was me) thought that there was no enemy ships in the harbour, and our plan was to sail in, seize control of Port Stanley, arrest the Governor, and then re-coal our ships from the stockpile that was maintained there for the Royal Navy's use.
The German Far East Squadron.
Little did we know that a strong British squadron (the battlecruisers HMS Invincible and HMS Inflexible, the armoured cruisers HMS Carnarvon, HMS Cornwall, and HMS Kent, the armed merchant cruiser HMS Macedonia and the light cruisers HMS Bristol and HMS Glasgow) had arrived in the Port Stanley during the previous day.
The British Squadron less HMS Macedonia, which was patrolling the area to the east of the harbour.
Furthermore, the old pre-dreadnought battleship HMS Canopus was moored near the entrance of the harbour to act as a coastal defence battery.
HMS Canopus. She was so placed as to give her 12-inch guns the ability to engage any enemy ships approaching Port Stanley.
Led by the three light cruisers, the German squadron turned northward ...
The German Squadron on a course towards Port Stanley.
... and were surprised when heavy artillery engaged them from the shore! (It was actually HMS Canopus who fired at and hit SMS Nürnberg. Because they could not see HMS Canopus, the Germans assumed that the British has installed a coastal defence battery on the islands,)
The German Squadron comes under fire.
Despite being under fire, the German squadron continued to sail towards Port Stanley.
At the same time, HMS Kent (who had been ordered to keep her boilers lit so that she could relieve HMS Macedonia) set sail to engage the enemy whilst the rest of the squadron lit their boilers and prepared to leave harbour as soon as they had sufficient steam up.
The British Squadron prepare to leave Port Stanley harbour.
At this point the action began to become intense ... hence the lack of photographs!
HMS Kent and HMS Canopus engaged the Germans, and despite the German light cruisers being ordered to turn away, SMS Nürnberg was repeatedly hit and eventually sank.
The German Squadron comes under heavy fire. By this point the German light cruisers had been ordered to turn away and make their escape so that they could become independent commerce raiders.
By this stage in the battle, the leading British battlecruiser was leaving the entrance of Port Stanley's harbour and had opened fire of SMS Scharnhorst. At the same time, HMS Canopus hit SMS Gneisenau and both German armoured cruisers had begun to suffer significant damage.
SMS Scharnhorst and SMS Gneisenau are hit and damaged by shells from several British warships.
My fellow German commander and I decided that our best course of action was to sail SMS Scharnhorst and SMS Gneisenau towards the entrance of Port Stanley to engage the British ships at close range in the hope that we could seriously damage or even sink one or both of the battlecruisers.
The British Squadron making its way out of Port Stanley harbour.
As it was, we had run out of time and had to pack up and go home ... and the final outcome remained unclear. That said, the two remaining German light cruisers had got away and would be able to raid British maritime supply lines ... and there was always a chance that in sacrificing their two armoured cruisers, the Germans might be remove one or more British heavy units from frontline service.
It was interesting to see the number of regular Dice on the Hill attendees who paid a visit to the battle whilst is was being fought, and we hope to make these sort of wargames a regular part of the group's activities. Probably not every week, but possibly every month or so.
Bouyed up by my recent success, I decided to paint and base some more model buildings. I started with a 15mm resin farm barn that I bought some time ago on eBay. (It was sold as being manufactured by Hovels ... but I am not absolutely sure that it is.)
I then painted two model buildings that I bought during out last visit to Tallinn in Estonia.
I used the same technique that I had used on my previous batch of buildings although I did use white rather than beige as the main colour used to dry brush the buildings.
Note: The left-hand model is based on a real building in Tallinn, the bar/restaurant Peppersack.
I am now looking around for even more buildings to paint.
My collection of Imperial Japanese Navy warships continues to grow. The latest additions are:
IJNS Uranami, IJNS Asagari, IJNS Shirayuki, and IJNS Hatsuyuki (all Fubuki-class destroyer), as well as a Natsushimo-class destroyer (although I’m not sure that the listing is correct as it looks like it is yet another Fubuki-class destroyer to me!), …
(2,090 tons; 38 knots; 6 x 5-inch guns; 18 depth charges; 9 x 24-inch torpedo tubes)
…a Kaba-class destroyer, …
(850 tons; 30 knots; 1 x 4.7-inch gun; 3 x 3-inch guns; 4 x 18-inch torpedo tubes)
… and a Chikuma-class light cruiser.
(5,000 tons; 26 knots; 8 x 6-inch guns; 4 x 3-inch guns; 3 x 18-inch torpedo tubes)
The latter pair of ships were out of service by December 1941. The Kaba-class destroyers served during World War I but were scrapped in the early 1930s. The three Chikuma-class light cruisers were either scrapped before World War II or were retained in secondary roles and didn’t see active service.
I was also able to add a model of the pre-dreadnought USS Idaho which was sold to Greece before World War I and became the Kilkis. She had become a static training ship by 1939 and was sunk by Luftwaffe aircraft in the Salamis Naval Base on 23rd April 1941 during the German invasion of Greece.
(14.465 tons; 17 knots; 4 x 12-inch guns; 8 x 8-inch guns; 8 x 7-inch guns; 12 x 3-inch guns; 6 x 3-pounder QF guns; 2 x 1-pounder QF-guns; 2 x 21-inch torpedo tubes)
Once I had the bit between my teeth, I decided to paint and base some more model buildings. I found two 15mm resin buildings that I bought some time ago on eBay. They were described as being made by Hovels, but I have no idea if they were.
I used the same technique that I had used on my previous batch of buildings, and they ended up looking like this:
I am now looking around for some more buildings to paint.
.jpeg)
