This week in wargaming at WSS, May 11

Guy: With an end to our Ligny project in sight, my mind has turned away from painting French and Prussians for a brief moment and consider what’s next. Curiously enough, I’ve been contemplating even more Napoleonics! I’m due to return to Leipzig soon, for Wave Gotic Treffen and to visit the battlefields of Dolitz and . This means painting Polish (Murawski naturally!) and Austrians (Perry and Victrix) to add to my growing French and Prussian armies. It is true that I never saw myself as a Napoleonic player, but now that I have built two large Napoleonic armies, I can testify that there is definitely something addictive about them! However there are several other projects jostling for attention that I’d like to explore. AWI for one and expand my British and Loyalist forces, although ideally I need a local Rebel commander. Medievals for Lion Ramant and Crescent & Cross is another good choice - as I wish to get my local clubs all playing each other. And then there’s a 15mm WW2 force planned at some point. I’ve started British and German in this scale but as other players are now collecting British, German and Russian, I might go for US as something different. Choices, choices!

Mark: This week I managed to squeeze no less than two games! A rather glorious game of Blood Bowl using my newly purchased (from Salute) Dwarf team. I played against Orcs and won two-nil. The dwarves are great at blocking and once you manage to break a big enough hole, they are hard to stop. They are a bit ropey if their opponents manage to nip through a gap somewhere as they are a bit slow. I hope to play a few more games with them soon. The other game was a WW2 bash using Chain of Command. I led an American platoon trying to capture a strategically positioned farmhouse somewhere in Italy. I managed to grab one of his jump off points and nearly grabbed the other… And then my section rolled 4 on 3D6 and the Germans opened up on them! Those German LMGs sure pack a punch. My attack in the centre went better. I managed to concentrate a squad, a sniper, a .30cal team and an M8’s .50cal all firing on the farmhouse. The Germans started losing lots of men, but managed to cling on and throw back my attack. It was very closely fought and swung back and forth. I’m looking forward to playing more of this too!

Christy: I haven’t got that much to report. Just posted another video, and worked on the cover diorama for WS&S 79. It’s finished now!

Jasper: The first twelve figures for my first Napoleonic infantry unit are finished! It wasn’t as fast as I’d hoped - I’d guess between 15-18 hours work - but to complete 12 figures in about a week is amazingly fast for me. Pretty pleased with how they turned out as well! To further encourage my budding (but spiralling out of control quickly) interest in Napoleonic wargaming, I played a game of Black Powder, inspired on Quatre Bras, with my friends Peter, Jürgen, Robert and Walther. It was meant as a practice run to learn how to deal with French assault columns, cavalry and squares and the like. Very useful it was too, as I’d managed to forget just about every special rule that would’ve been to my advantage. Best way to learn is to get your brigade broken by accurate (they’d clearly all gone to sniper school) Brunswick musketry. I did manage to force at least one battalion into square with my cavalry, and then proceeded to blast it at close range with my horse artillery. It almost worked…