Tuesday 30 July 2013

500,000 Hits!!!! for Don't throw a 1




Many thanks to one and all who have visited Don't throw a 1, over the last few years.

My humble slice of  the net has managed to reach 500,000 hits!!!!

Also I've only this week gone up to 700 followers after being stuck in the 690's for months.

So once again a big thank you to you all.

Here's some pics that made me laugh....







Saturday 27 July 2013

15mm FIW buildings


The brush has finally come out of the "I really can't be bothered box" and helped me splash a little paint on these 15mm buildings. Two are from Hovels 15mm ACW range, but I'll be using them for my 15mm French Indian War figures. The first building is 19AC5 and represents Stone House that served as a hospital in both battles of Bull Run. The second building is JR4301 Brawners barn from Manassas made by JR minis supplied in the UK by Magister Militum. The last little building is again from hovels ACW range. 2AC5, Log Cabin with stone chimney.
I'm in the middle of painting more of these plus a few other 15mm buildings, after such a long hiatus in painting, I thought I'd paint something reasonable easy and quick, as well as the fact that they've been sitting in the "Paint me please"box for an age!!

Lastly I've two blog milestones coming up soon, I hope? I'm only 1 away from having 700 followers and I'm only just over 1500 visits away from the magic 500K.






Friday 19 July 2013

Miniature Wargames with Battlegames & The Battle of the Boyne.....



............or Blowin' me own Trumpet!!

Just picked up my copy of Miniature Wargames with Battlefields and I was very pleased to see a photo of the Posties Rejects game The Battle of the Boyne that we put on at this years Broadside show in early June.
You can, if you so wish, find it and 11 other pics from the show on page 75 of the mag, including Clint's Naval game, no4 on the right and Gravesend Wargames Club's AWI game on the left, no12.
Now its only a small one, but small one's always count (so my mrs keeps reminding me?, don't know what she means by that?)
In the pic are the 2nd Battalion of the Dutch Blew Guard, with their orange flags flying high and also the Huguenot regt la Caillmotte who are in column. I've got to admit to being pretty chuffed seeing my figures and the game in a Wargames mag!!!!



Henry also gave a link to his Flickr account, so if you want to see a few more pics of the show click this link here Henry Hyde, I've got to admit there are some cracking photos there!


This is the second time we've made it into a mag, the first was a few years ago in First Empire mag,
we had The Battle of Zakharina a Napoleonic batrep published.


Thursday 18 July 2013

Blog-Con 2013 - Well are you???




Fingers crossed at least 3 Rejects should be able to make it for the trip up north on either 
the 9th, 10th or maybe even both??
 I think (what am I talking about) I WILL be blackmailed into some decorating or some sort of horrid evil work from SWMBO and It'll probably cost me a bloody fortune as well!

What am I rambling on about some of you may be asking?

Well its all to do with the great mind of GI James, the GI stands for Great Idea!
James thought It'd be a great idea to hold a new Wargame Convention for bloggers,
he wrote.....

I am very happy to be able to announce that Wargames Foundry have agreed to host Blog-Con 2013 at their Foundry in Nottingham over the weekend of November 9th/10th.
What I want is for all you bloggers to have a great time be able to catch up face to face and also try out some different games. I would like anyone who would like to bring a game along to contact me with what game it is how much space they will need and how long a game will last. When I have a list of what games are going to be put on I will produce a list, while I do not want to get all formal and do sign up lists I think we will need to give the people putting on some idea of how many gamers want to try their game. My hope is that with a good bit of publicity we may get a few non-bloggers showing up and trying out a few games. If we can encourage some new wargamers then all the better also it would be nice if we can encourage along any youngsters. I have set up a new blog that I want to run as a community blog, anyone who wants to post on it just needs to let me know their email address so I can set them up as authors, on this blog you can tell all about the game you are putting on or maybe the painting/terrain demo you want to put on or simply can offer a lift to the venue. I will be giving the blog address to Marcus and it will be linked to the Foundry Website.
Foundry Miniatures Ltd
24-34 St marks Street
Nottingham NG3 1DE
United Kingdom

For more info check out the BLOG-CON Blog, here

Sunday 14 July 2013

The Slaughter at Tawan - A Russo-Japanese batrep



Eight Rejects got together on the hottest day of the year, (groaaaaaaan!!!!) we all crammed in Posties hot shed and nearly died of heat exhaustion.........

The 1st Japanese army under the command of Gen Kuroki has orders to meet up with the 2nd and 4th armies south of Liaoyang a major town in the area and defended by a large (not large enough!) Russian army. To make matters worse the 1st army has been engaged in fighting a retreating Russian army, the main part of the Russian force has reinforced Liaoyang, but a substantial part has dug in to await the arrival of the Japanese 1st army, just outside the village of Tawan,south east of Liaoyang. The Japanese commander must attack the Russian positions as soon as possible and must not waste time.
Meanwhile the Russian commander Lt-Gen Slutshevski (what a great name) of the 10th European Army Corps must hold his position at all costs, if the Japanese 1st army cannot make the rendezvous the two armies will be seriously outnumbered and defeated and the way will be open to relive Port Arthur.


The Russians in our dug in positions on the hills, I was the Russian CO, I was in charge of the European Russians, while Dave and John had the poorer quality Siberians.



The Japanese were commanded by the jeans and two T-shirted Francis, he complained about the heat all day and says he doesn't own any shorts????? Also on the Japanese side were Ian, BigLee and Surj.
I've got to admit to being worried at seeing the 12 Japanese artillery pieces limbered behind the Japanese lines, we only had 5?



The Russian 10th European Corps
Behind the trenches you'll notice the empty artillery emplacement, there were infact artillery 
in each and every one of these, but the were not placed in the table until we fired. 


A few close up's of our enemy. Most were painted by my good self and they featured Curt's painting challenge the year before last.


General Kuroki


This poor Japanese unit was the first unit to take casualties, as they were the only
 visible unit at the start of the battle.


My Ruskies, they were all ducking down so not to be seen by the Japs.



Bloody hell, there's a lot of 'em!!!!


BigLee was being very cheeky, so got the usual punishment.......Posties girlie 
long nails dug in the head....ouch!


The most excellently named General Slutshevski admires the open field in front of him.


The usual contractual Postie pic!


A quick couple of moves and the Japanese are over the hill and advancing very quickly.


Long range artillery fire knocks a few casualties of the advancing Japanese.


The Russian did have two more battalions of infantry behind each of the hills.


A Russian Machine gun, this only got two fires in the game before being annihilated by the Japanese artillery.


The Japanese  have a lot of advantages over their Russian counterparts, for one,their infantry can fire 30' while the Russians can only fire 20'. You can see the obvious advantages straight away, the Japanese could if we were standing up stay at 21' away and shoot the hell out of us and stay safe, or move into our range and have a 3-1 shooting advantage????


BigLee's troops move off the hill, leaving his 3 and Surg's 3 artillery free to fire at us.


Note the 2 empty artillery positions, the one on the right was completely destroyed, the gun and the redoubt. While the one on the left was nearly destroyed by the guns but was finished off by long range infantry fire.


An aerial view of the table.


BigLee was getting hot and bothered, so he took his t-shirt off, which left him in 
his vest, (no wonder he was bloody hot!!!) He then proceeded to wobble his fat belly for the camera!


Oh joy!! The Japanese re-enforcements arrive....The Guard Corps, no less, with more artillery????
Ian decided to move them up the road towards my already dire looking position.



A great looking pic, but doesn't it look dodgy for the Russians?


Nice and pretty blue lines?


The Japanese move into our range at last, so we stand up and give fire, knocking a few 
casualties off the Japanese, not near enough though.


My left take a massive battering from both the artillery and the infantry. Both support units have now moved up into the trenches, the remains of one of the units can be seen at the back of the hill, while the other still remains in the trenches....but for how long????


A little bit of relief for us Russians, the rest of our artillery turn up and as the Japanese reach a certain place, we unleash the mines we had set, that we didn't know we had set???
These caused more casualties than our artillery and infantry had made the whole of the game. Fran and co were not amused....ha bloody ha!


Ian caused two casualties on our newly arrived artillery from the infantry on the road. 
I don't think we hit a bloody thing with them!!!!


Fran's Japanese Cavalry


A view from the trench....gulp!


And the right hand view from the same trench, note Fran Cavalry, waiting to be unleashed.


Things can only get better....here come their Guard?



Crap, where've my troops gone??


We managed to knock a few casualties off the Japanese, but their fire power was just too good. 
So we threw in the towel and retreated before we were totally wiped out. 
Booooooo!

 This was only our second game with Posties new rules, questions were asked and bits will be changed in the rules, I think we need another few games just to completely iron out all the kinks in the rules, but they seem to work very well. It was a little bit of an unbalanced game, but as you know its hard to get the balance right sometimes.