Tuesday night Gaming

Every tuesday night it's gaming day at our local hobby shop. Normally we play Dystopian Wars 2vs2 but this time i played a game with a buddy of mine called 'Axis & Allies: War at Sea'.

A&A WaS is a fast-paced naval wargame with miniatures on a squared-map. It's a very fun & addicitve game. The only downside imo is that you have to collect the miniatures, meaning you must keep buying blisters till you finally got that rare one everybody is looking after. Thank God for ebay! Almost every miniature is available seperately on there. Watch out cause some ultra-rare mini's can be expensive, like the Fw200 Condor, going over 20$ sometimes! I remember paying almost 15$ for the French Richelieu battleship.

Normally i play British while my buddy plays with the Italian fleet. Most sculpt of these mini's are good, some are excellent while others are very bad (HMS Warspite). Movement is square-based. Most ships move 2 squares, and shooting is also square-based.

Be sure to check it out, it's very fun. The starter blister contains about 10 ships i believe, together with maps, damage tokens & rulebook. The rules can be downloaded for free (very low learning curve).

Old Books, New Books!

What would make a good Christmas present for my Father? Of course, a book about the Anglo-Dutch wars. He was very happy to see that Osprey is publishing a book about it. A small book to be honest but i'm sure it will hold a decent amount of information, like all of Osprey's books, together with some new drawings of those wonderful ships. Coming out 20 december this is a must buy for me and my dad.

A book i'm currently reading right now is "War at Sea in the Age of Sail". A good book with lots of illustations and a decent amount of text about the biggest battles. From the Anglo-Dutch wars to the Napoleonic ages. It includes a very nice chapter about Trafalgar. This book also includes 'viewed-from-the top'  battle-drawings from day-to-day.

I consider both books a must read for anyone interested in naval warfare...

Also consider checking out this site . It's about some people who are building a Dutch Ship-of-the-Line, the '7 Provincien'. They're building it without plans but from drawings and sketches from the era. Ships weren't build with plans in those days, it was passed on from father to son. The ship is being build with only the tools used by the people from back then.

The work is being payed for by donations so everything is going really slow, they think it will take them about 10 years to finish it. Ships like this were build in 6 months in those days. One of my fathers wishes is to see this ship sail before he ever lays his head to rest...

My armies, part 1: Dystopian Wars

Greetings all!

This is the first time i'll show some pictures of my armies. First up is my Britannian fleet for Dystopian Wars. I chose the Brits because those ships look awesome. The paint scheme is pretty simple; Grey Iron plating with lots of bling guns and wooden decks. Very WWI-like which i like alot (the bling guns are not so WWI-like tbh).

The British Dreadnought; lots of guns, lots of armour, lots of defences. Add escorts, shield and a fighter CAP and this boat is "unsinkable", just like the Titanic...

Next are the DD's. Lots of torpedoes, Pack Hunter ability & small target. No fleet can run without them.

Last up is the Submarine, this unit suprised me somewhat. Low cost & Ramming, what more do you want? It's a good "finish them off" unit. A little slow but imo they're not a 'Gung Ho' type of unit. Just keep them in the rear and kill anything the comes too close.

Next i will be showing some Flames of War stuff...

Dystopian Wars, Update #1

Greetings from the front...

I've found a nice paint scheme for a Britannian Fleet. To bad my fleet is 95% completely painted. But anyway, Check out this picture... Now on to paint me some Union troops.