Other People's Stuff: RMS Titanic meets the Martian Tripods!

Whilst at Pendraken Miniatures the other day, one of the Confederate players purchased some SciFi Tripods. 

"Titanic escorted by Rodney trying to escape from the invasion only to be ambushed at sea"

As you can see, Bren has made a cracking good job on them. 

[Of note: Bren has extended the Tripod legs - (Bren explains the process) "The legs are extended with wooden dowls and the joints are thick paper, lots of pva and superglue gel. I concaved the end of the dowels to make it fit and have more contact, would have been a pain* to do with metal I think." - increasing the height of the model and creating a 'knee-joint' on the alien machines.]

*Bren's original choice of word has been substituted with a U-rated alternative, less this blog post be rated as PG-13.

The accompanying ship models are 1/700, HMS Rodney and RMS Titanic.

Miniatures owned by, conversion work and painting done by, photography taken by, Bren.

Gaming at Pendraken Miniatures - 20/04/2024

10mm American Civil War - Battle of Chancellorsville - Altar of Freedom rules

All gamers are members of the North Riding Wargames Group.

[WIP] T-34-85 1/100 Zvezda plastic model - Part 2

Work begins on the Driving Light and it's 'cage'.

What I've done:

Holes drilled out using a drill bit and pin vice. Florist wire (goldy-colour) and paperclip used for conversion. 

What's still to do:

Holes require filling in. Florist wire to be straightened out, and attaching cross-pieces. Sculpt the basic shape of a light onto the paperclip, to be attempted. 

If I can manage to do all of that, it will just leave the canvas cover over the gun mantlet to sculpt.

Again, not 100% accurate but, good enough to play toy soldiers with.

[WIP] T-34-85 1/100 Zvezda plastic model - making it look suitable to use in 1980s gaming

Soviet Armoured Reserve (mobilised War Reserves stock) T-34-85 Model 1953

Pendaken 10mm T-34 (single) fuel drums fitted to rear of Zvezda 1/100 T-34-85, as smoke canisters. Cut down pieces of gun barrels from spare tank models, as snorkels for deep wading. Bit of a bodge representation, rather than 100% accurate.

Still to do, sculpt a 'canvas cover over the gun mantlet' and create a 'night driving lamp'.

Planning to use them in games of 7 Days To The River Rhine (7DTTRR), where they'll be outmatched by near-enough everything they go up against. But, there'll be six of them and two SU-100 tank destroyers (using Homebrew rules/points of 20 points each for a SU-100). So those eight Soviet WW2 relics will only cost 148 points in the game, whereas a top-of-the-line NATO tank is in the cost region of 80 to 90 points each.  The WW2 relics will struggle head on against two Abrams, Challengers, or Leopard 2s, but you get five or more of them hitting a NATO tank's flank armour and the odds are not bad. 

Xenomorph XX121 for Xenos Rampant (rules)

Miniatures: Prodos Games - AVP (Alien Versus Predator). OOP (out of production).

Size: Heroic 28mm/32mm.

Painting standard: Get-them-on-the-table-top-asap, without them looking too cr-p.

Photography standard: Terrible!

Quoting what I wrote on The North Riding Wargames Club's Discord:

""Have painted up 24pts of Xenomorph XX121 miniatures (from the Alien film franchise) using Prodos Games's OOP Heroic 28mm/32mm. Classing all that I've painted, so far, as "Greater Xenomorph" as per Xenos Rampant rules. Still to paint: x1 (big "SMU") Alien Royal Guard, x10 ("Lesser Xenomorph" swarm) Stalkers. For obvious reasons, my Detachment is named the "Black Death". [pictures to follow]

Cr-p 'day light' photos. But people can at least see what the models look like. Vallejo paint bottle for scale. As I said, Heroic 28mm/32mm size. So Games Workshop 40K/Kill Team/Necromunda figures should match up pretty well. 28mm EM4/Copplestone/Hasslefree/Heresy/Foundry and the like, will look small when put against these.

The Alien "Praetorian" (above) is the largest miniature I own from the Prodos Games AVP miniature line. I'm calling it a "Greater Xenomorph" (SMU - Single Model Unit) for Xenos Rampant. In the Aliens lore, I think a Praetorian is an 'evolving' Xenomorph, on the way to becoming a Queen. Might be wrong.""

The North Riding Wargames Club - 31/03/2024

Altar of Freedom ACW, 10mm.

What follows is a brief report of the game's morning turns, written up for the benefit of the Pendraken Miniature's Forum - as the miniatures used were all Pendraken Miniatures 10mm ACW.

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- Additional photo's from Deedle's collection, information provided by [forum member] Roy - one of the Union commanders on the day.

6AM north end of the battlefield, Mercerville and the Potomac River to the right-hand corner of the shot. 

Pleasonton's (Union cavalry) Division is on the outskirts of Mercerville, Meade's Pennsylvania Reserves (Union I Corps) are just next to the tributary stream, then it's Franklin's Corps (Union VI Corps) on the road bisecting Hooker's (Union I) Corps. This was the set up for the Union main attack thrust south towards the cornfields.

Looking along the Antietam Creek, it's Porter's Corps (Union V Corps) at the bridge just north of Pry's farm and the ford. In the game, this corps made a successful demonstration over the Antietam Creek and proved the victors against a couple of brigades of Confederate infantry. 

Of note, however, is the fact that the Union player's forgot all about the existence of the ford over the Antietam Creek, until far too late. A brigade of Sumner's Corps (Union II Corps) were mobilised around Noon (game turn time) and this was to be a feint, along with the demonstration by Porter's Corps that was already over the Antietam Creek. 

6AM looking south to north of the battlefield. The troops closest to the camera are Burnside's Corps (Union IX Corps), and then, next to them in the woods, is Mansfield's Corps (Union XII Corps). 

In the game, the Union commanders, again, went with a limited demonstration attack with these southern Union forces - but it came at a bloody price. Burnside's brigades were repulsed twice while attempting to cross the bridge, eventually Mansfield was ordered forward with William's Division (of Union XII Corps) to relieve Burnside's fatigued troops. The southern end of the battlefield would be in Confederate control throughout the game. 

(possibly) 10AM game turn: [forum member Roy's denim-clad legs show the height difference between him and forum member Skywalker - the Union commanders for the game. Forum member Deedles - one of the Confederate commander's - is talking the photo] looking south to north.

Burnside's (Union IX Corps) makes its second attempt on the southern-most bridge across Antietam Creek, with William's brigade of (Union XII Corps) waiting to either push forward to claim land across the bridge or relieve a stalled attack. At the central bridge towards the west of Porterstown, Sumner leads Sedgewick's Division across the Antietam Creek, these being the second brigade of his (Union II Corps) - in the game Sumner was an immense presense, leading from the front and steadying his boys in the point-blank fighting. By Noon (game turn time) Sumner and Sedgewick's brigade were forced back over the bridge, but this was to be the Union commanders plan, anyway, as Sumner's (Union II Corps) was, again, only a demonstration attack, holding Confederate troops away from the main thrust of the attack by Hooker's and Franklin's Union corps from the north.

The North Riding Wargames Club meet on the last Sunday of each month, at Scruton North Yorkshire. Regular Saturday games are also planned, to be played at Pendraken' games room. 

Some more photo's of the WW2 game at Pendraken Miniature's 02/004/2024

Additional photo's of yesterday's game at Pendraken Miniature's games room:

James "Mad Tin Hatter's" photo's

Dave "Deedle's" photos:

Further information (provided by James) on the Mont Fleury battery:

"The casemates for the battery were incomplete. Two were being built and had no roofs or guns (which were in some woods behind the casemate position). Only one of the casemates seems to have had a working gun."

[Right-click on the following photo image and "open link in new tab" to be able to zoom-in for a better look at the printed image and type.]

D-Day game at Pendraken Miniatures 02/04/2024

Blogger has loaded up the images last to first, so start at the last and work backwards to best view.

North Riding Wargames Group day out at Pendraken Miniatures.