10mm Trees

My 10mm trees arrived in the mail yesterday and I've finally had a chance to have a look at them.  At first I was a little worried about what I had bought.

My first fear was that like a lot of trees that I've bought from eBay all the branches would be caught up and getting them out of the bag would be a major operation.  Thankfully the trees came out quite easily and I also noticed that there is very little loose flocking in the bag too.  The trees themselves feel quite sturdy and shouldn't mind a little bit of handling.

The plan is to mount these onto MDF like the larger trees I've done, maybe 1" discs with 1-3 trees per disc. 

Here's a few shots with some Warmaster minis and some of my 28mm trees for comparison.  Thinking about it now I should have put a 28mm mini in there for comparison too.

You can see from the above two shots that the trees are simply five or so rings of branches but the look from above, where we should be looking at 10mm trees most of the time, looks quite nice.

I'll see how far I make these go first but after looking at these I'm very tempted to place an order for another pack or two.

Basing the Pendrakens

No I don't have them yet but it's probably not a bad idea to start thinking about this now.  I've pretty much settled on 20mm x 40mm for the bases, I'm sure there will be the odd tank or arty piece that needs a bigger base but the benefit of cutting your own is that you can make the exception where needed.  I'll still try to keep the bases fairly uniform; eg bigger tanks might go onto a 25mm x 40mm and large arty pieces may even push it out to 30mm x 40mm.

The one complicating factor is that I really want to base my miniatures so that I can use them for other rules.  One of the great strengths of any hostorical game is that the miniatures are still relevant regardless of the ruleset, basing pending of course.  The areas where I can see things getting tricky is is with support weapons: MMG, HMG, mortars and such.  I'm thinking that I can base these individually on 20mm square bases and simply put two side by side for Blitzkrieg Commander (BKC).  To make this easier I've bought 200 adhesive magnets:

They are the same size at the bases I'll be using and are 0.6mm thick.  They'll help with storage and will also allow me to make some unit sized movement trays out of paper steel (or something similar).  That's the plan anyway.  They will also help with some of the Warmaster minis which are just a pain to move as a unit (yes I'm looking right at you Carrion).

These are coming from Adelade so they should be here in the next couple days.

Purchase - Even More Pendraken Miniatures

I figured the British will need someone to shoot at so I splashed out (again) and bought some more Pendraken minis before the first lot even shipped.  It's a feel good purchase of sorts, firstly it feels good to buy them but more importantly I now have two opposing armies in the same scale (read that as: a complete game).

I really want to shout out a huge thanks to Dave Pengilley at Pendraken for being so amazingly helpful and an all round wonderful chap.

Anyway onto the shopping list:

The extra, extra bits for the British

1 x BR26 - 75mm Pack Howitzer & Crew (2)

1 x BR55 - Riflemen Slouch Hat

1 x BR56 - Sten Slouch Hat

1 x BR57 - Bren Slouch Hat

1 x BR73 - Churchill crocodile

1 x BR83 - Combat engineers

1 x BR104 - Dorchester command vehicle

1 x BR107 - Commandos mixed weapons

The Germans

BKC11 - BKC Starter German Panzer Battalion (1,985 pts)

1 x GR168 - Command group

1 x GR100 - Sdkfz 253 command vehicle

2 x GR132 - SDKFZ 222 A/c

8 x GR32 - Pz IVG / GR33 - Pz IVH + Armoured Skirts

3 x GR68 - Panther / GR68A - Panther zimmerit (1)  / GR68B - Panther camouflaged (1)

3 x GR84 - Tiger I

BKC12 - BKC Starter German Infantry Battalion (475 pts)

1 x GR10 - Kubelwagon (2)

3 x GR1 - Riflemen / GR2 - MP40 / GR6 - Pz Faust / GR42 - Riflemen with STG44

2 x GR3 - MG34 (2) x3 / GR4 - MG42 (2) x3

2 x GR15 - 8cm GWR34 Motar & Crew x3

1 x GR88 - Sdkfz 251/9 short 75mm

1 x GR58 - Sdkfz 10/4 20mm AA Halftrack

3 x GR12 - Opel Blitz Truck / GR55- Opel Blitz Truck with Canvas Tilt

The German Extra Bits

1 x GR7 - Officers

1 x GR16 - Radio Operators (5)

2 x GR29 - Sdkfz 251/1 Ausf C

1 x GR29A - Camouflaged Sdkfz251/1 Ausf C

1 x GR38 - PAK 40 & Crew (2)

1 x GR70 - Jagdpanther

1 x GR73 - Combat Engineers

1 x GR167 - Sniper

1 x GR190 - Command Trailer

1 x GR191 - Tank Commanders

1 x GR75 - 75mm IG & Crew (2)

1 x GR76 - 120mm Mortar & Crew (2) 

Dave from Pendraken said they usually ship orders within a week and that airmail to Australia (usually) takes 7 days... so with everything going well I should have these here in around a fortnight.

Now I'll really need a *lot* of bases.

Purchase - Pendraken Miniatures

I've just placed an order with Pendraken Miniatures for some of their 10mm WW2 British range and I'm pretty excited.  For a couple reasons really, firstly it's part of a birthday present that I've helped my family buy for me (oh wow how did you know I wanted these).  Secondly it means I can finally play Blitzkrieg Commander and I Ain't Been Shot Mum in a scale that actually works, IABSM works well with 28mm, BKC less so but 10mm is the sweet spot I think.  Initially I thought of 15mm as there's so many amazing minis out there but the price for 15mm vehicles is just too steep and honestly the whole point of playing big WW2 games is to have lots and lots of tanks.  I also considered 1/600 scale too, it's dirt cheap and some of the Osmy range have incredible detail for such small miniatures but the downside is that I couldn't see them working too well with games like IABSM.

So $150 or so later I ordered these.  The point values are for BKC and are from the Pendraken site so I can't vouch for their correctness.  All  I know for certain is that I shouldn't have any trouble fielding a 2,000pt BKC force.

Where multiple product codes are listed after a quantity it means that number of miniatures in total is picked out from across that range of codes, not that many minatures of each code.  Unless stated after the name each entry is one vehicle/gun or ten men.

Without any further delay here's the shopping list:

BKC7 - BKC Starter British armoured battalion (1,285pts)
1 x BR116 - Command group
1 x BR70 - White scout car (1)
1 x BR61 - Humber AC
9 x BR30 - Sherman V (M4A4) 75mm Gun / BR30A - Camouflaged Sherman V (M4A4) 75mm gun / BR34 - Sherman III (M4A2) 75mm Gun
3 x BR33 - Sherman Vc (M4A4) 'Firefly' 17pdr Gun

BKC8 - BKC Starter British armoured infantry battalion (930pts)
1 x BR70 - White scout car (1)
8 x BR7 - Bren Carrier & Crew / BR7A - Camouflaged Bren carrier & crew (2)
8 x BR46 - M3 Halftrack / BR47 - M3 Halftrack + Tilt
1 x BR24 - 6pdr A/T & Crew (2)
3 x BR1 - Riflemen / BR2 - Sten / BR3 - Bren / BR6 - Officers / BR23 - Riflemen Firing
2 x BR4 - Vickers HMG (2) x3
2 x BR9 - 3" Mortar & Crew x3
3 x BR49 - Morris Commercial 3/4 Ton Truck

Some Extra Stuff
2 x BR5 - Piat Team (2) x3
1 x BR18 - Radio Operators (5)
1 x BR28 - 17pdr A/T & Crew (1)
1 x BR51 - Bofors 40mm AA Gun & Crew (2)
1 x BR98 - 'Monty'

So now I need to get a whole mess of bases...

Troops, Weapons and Tactics

For a while now Nuts! from Two Hour Wargames has been my rules of choice when it comes to platoon level skirmish games, and they still are. But what I'm finding is that the scale of the games keep growing and growing as I paint more of my slowly diminishing lead mountain. Nuts! plays nice and fast with around a platoon a side but can get very dice heavy with more squads, especially of there is a situation where a lot of units converge. I know there are option rules that allow for insight tests to be made at a group level but an all or none pass feels a little awkward compared to how well the smaller games flow. So I think Nuts! is best suited for the smaller games, maybe a platoon and a couple support options each.

For the really big games I have I Ain't Been Shot Mum (IABSM) which is a company level game but can be used for smaller engagements with no changes to the rules. The effect of this is roughly the same as the streamlined Nuts! system. Combat is over quickly and the action feels very stop-start, IABSM really needs a few figures on the table to flow well.

The answer, I'm hopeful, comes in the form of Too Fat Lardie's Troops, Weapons and Tactics (TW&T).


TW&T originated from the IABSM ruleset and even refers to itself as "Son of IABSM". The rules are similar and anyone who has played IABSM will feel right at home with TW&T. The structure of the game is pretty much the same:

• Card based activation system.
• Initiative dice are used to perform actions such as spotting or shooting.
• Command and control is implemented by the use of "big men".

Where the two systems differ actually can make a big difference to how you play the game. The biggest change I can see is that in TW&T a unit can only move if ordered to do so by a big man. Units using their unit initiative dice can only spot, take cover or fire. That is fantastic, I can see this causing players to really think their tactics through. Yeah sure you can just put the Lieutenant with a couple fire teams and send them off down the table but you had better look after him or you could find your troops hunkered down waiting for orders.

The rest of the rules look similar to what I've seen in the IABSM rulebook but I'm sure Rich and the guys at Lard Island have a few surprise nuances thrown in there that I haven't seen yet. At £10 it's one of the more expensive rulesets from the Lardies but it's worth every penny... I mean cent.

Like most (all?) of the Too Fat Lardies games TW&T uses a card based activation system. I've mentioned before in discussions about Bag the Hun that I hated the idea but loved the implementation. What can make or break the game though is the cards themselves. To keep the game going nice and smoothly you either need to memorise the rulebook or put the rules on the cards (or at least have page references on the cards).

I had a lot of fun making the cards for Bag the Hun so I'm taking my time with these ones and I'm trying to make something that is functional yet has that wow factor. So far I'm very happy with the results. I'll post the complete set here once I've got them all finished.

It's been a while between drinks

Well it's been a while since I updated this blog, family life and work have been the main reason for lack of updates... well that and I'm lazy.

I've managed to base most of my Black Tree order, there's about a dozen or so figures that are damaged or miscast to the point of being unusable so I might try to make casualty markers out of them. I'm on holidays for the next week with the kids so I'm hoping to get myself geared up to finish a platoon or two and maybe even have an actual game in a fortnight.

Things haven't been entirely quiet on the hobby front though I've made some progress on the model kits and I'll try to get some photos up over during the week.

I just love how publishers are now releasing so many books in PDF format. Cheaper prices (printing costs aside) and being searchable make them my now preferred format.


First up I bought two of the Vehicle Compendium books for World at War. Around $18 each for 60ish pages of vehicles raginf from soft top trucks right up the German Maus. New rules allow for AFV only armies and you can also play using captured vehicles, which is great news for my German KV-2 kit.


I've hearing good things about a company called Too Fat Lardies and after reading a review of their WW2 scenario book called "All American" I just had to take a closer look at their stuff. All I can say is WOW. Most scenario books I've seen have been simply here's a map and a list of two forces, now have at it. These books give you a map (generally in both topographical and gaming table formats), a detailed list of forces (right down to the names of the leaders, big men as they're called in I Ain't Been Shot Mum) but what really impressed me is the detailed histroical account that comes with each scenario. The Anzio book for example is 21 scenarios and 201 pages long! If you play any non-points based WW2 games (IABSM, Nuts etc) then you need these books.


Well after being so impressed with the scenario books I just had to have a look at the rules. The card activation system seems to have most reviews split 50/50 for love hate but really this doesn't worry me (maybe after a few games I'll have a better opinion). What I do like is the use of blinds or tokens to represent units on the table. When a blind is spotted by an enemy unit then the token is removed from the table and replaced with the miniatures representing that unit. What makes things interesting is that there are generally more blinds on the table than there are units in the game. This represents the fog of war, conflicting intelligence reports and the ability of some troops to use stealth tactics. The rest of the rules look good from a cursory read though but I'll comment more after I've played a game or two


While in my purchasing frenzy I also grabbed Through the Mud and the Blood, a set rules for the Great War. I'm so keen to play these but the lack of any miniatures is a bit of a stumbling block. I'm thinking of using 10-20mm minis for this one. It should keep the price down but also allow me to field large forces. I mean how can you play trench warfare without being able to mow down row after row of charging infantry with machine gun fire?