I am working on making sales for 8 Ships for a 28mm Pirates Game to be run with my friend Terry at Cangames 2026 in May. Originally I was planning to make a blue and white stripped sail next but as this WIP coincides with St. Patrick's day I just had to make the green and white sail first.
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| Galley with a crew of Dark Elves and Leprechauns |
Happy St. Patrick's Day!
Here are a couple of new companies (bases) painted for my Fantastic Battles 28mm Dark Elf army: Whelp Master with two Chaos War-hounds. Obligatory sounds effects
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-MK1lLI_zQ
The Dark Elf figures are Marauder Warhammer Fantasy Battle (WFB) 1990 Whelp Masters and Whelp Mistress, and the Chaos War-hounds are also WFB figures made by Citadel but from over a decade later. The asking price for the original Marauder 1990 war-hounds was just too much.
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| My two bases of Whelp Masters with War-hounds |
As you can see the bases still need to be flocked, I will use a mix of brown ballast and green static grass.
This was a Fantastic Battles Defend the Pass Scenario held at my local games club on October 5, 2025. I provided the Dwarf and Dark Elf Miniatures and Morgan provided the Vikings that he played. The Dwarfs played by Morley were the defenders and the Dark Elves and Vikings were the attackers. I played the Dark Elves.
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| Initial deployment turn 1 |
After a recent Fantastic Battles game on October 5, 2025 at my local games club I decided it was time to upgrade my Dwarf Long Beard unit from eM4 (Originally made by Grenadier) and make them Foresters. The Dwarfs were defending a pass against Dark Elf and Viking attackers. The Long Beards looked a lot like Rangers in the rough terrain area with their axes and brown trim on their chainmail so I decided to make them Rangers. The leader in particular (back of formation) needed some repainting and the bases need work.
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| Dwarf Rangers in combat with Witch Elves and Vikings |
I was going through some images from back in January 2016 and found these naval combat pictures from a Naval Fantasy Skirmish game called "Pirates: Miniature Battles on the High Seas, 3rd Ed. by Flagship Games (sold by Scale Creep Miniatures SCM-FGP3) that covers the period from 1400 to 1650 for historical and fantasy battles. The game was introduced to me by my friend John who contributed two ships and some of the figures, I contributed two ships plus figures, the sea mat and hosted the game.
Here is a link to the rules and to Scale Creep where they can be purchased:
https://scalecreep.com/product_info.php?products_id=10000
As I recall this particular game involved ship to ship combat, boarding and finding a treasure chest on an Island.
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| Aft end of my Skeleton ship |
Here are some of the Fantastic Battle cards I have created for relics, spells and strategies, in order to help players avoid having to flip through the rule book to find them. They have proved useful over the last two year or so. You may have noted some of them in my AARs. I also have made some company cards for various races but will post those another time. Although you can see some of the cards (including some of these relic cards) in use in my earlier blog entitled "Fantastic Battles Dwarfs versus High Elves August 1, 2022."plus other later blogs.
Disclaimer: I found these images through an online searches and was
unable to determine if they were copyrighted. No copyright
infringement is intended and if I am informed that this is the case I will remove them from this blog.
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| Relic cards |
This was our annual Christmas holiday game, using Fantastic Battles mass combat rules set this year and its Ambush the Convoy Scenario, a 3 player scenario. It features a dwarf convoy attempting to exit the board with ambushing forces on either flank, made up of Dark Elf and Undead armies, all in 28mm scale.
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| The three armies overseen by Joey |
In keeping with the season I used my tundra mat and snowy pine forests. I played the Dwarf army.
I have run a fair number of Fantastic Battles Games, but it has been about 9 months since the last one and this was the first one I have run at the Ottawa Centre Point Public Library. The game ran fairly smoothly, other than a minor hiccups, involving refreshing my memory on some rules.
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| Overview Turn 2 |
This years Cangames game (May 19, 2024) will be another Doctor Who game, based on the TV episode the Shakespeare Code. The game will be set in London England in 1599 with the Tenth Doctor, Martha and a variety of Elizabethan
characters attempting to foil or expedite the
scheme of six witch-like Carrionites to rewrite the ending Shakespeare’s play
Love's Labour's Won rewording it to cast a spell to free the rest of the Carrionite
race from imprisonment bring destruction to the world. The scenario is based on a two player scenario created for the Doctor Who the Miniature Games Rules (DWMG).
Unlike previous years when I used the DWMG rules, this time I plan to use Pulp Alley rules as I think these rules are better suited to represent this multi-player scenario. Those of you who have read some of my earlier blogs will know I have used these rules for other genres in the past. A short introductory video on the rules by the author Dave, can be found here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tBraL7mwXgM
Those of you who just watched the video will have heard Dave say that the rules are designed for up to four players and I will likely have 5 to 7 players, so some adjustments will have to be made. This includes drawing coloured tiles to determine who moves to speed up the game. Additionally I have kept the leagues small, 3 figures per player.
This will be an "evergreen" post as it will get updated as I progress preparing.
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| Promo picture from TV episode the Shakespeare Code. |
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| Some of the potential figures I may use in the game from my existing collection as of March 1, 2024. |
Below are pictures and maps of my preparations for a Battle of the Bulge game, specifically the Battle of Foy-Notre-Damme-Celles involving British, American and German forces on December 25, 1944. I started working on this in January 2024 but other projects like Cangames 2024 took priority in mid April and the game did not happen in 2024, but maybe it will in the the not too distant future.
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| Overview of Battlefield |
On March 17, 2024 (St. Patrick's Day) at the Ottawa Miniatures Game Club Nick and I had our first Fantastic Battles mass fantasy battle game, with 1,000 points per side with his UNDEAD versus my WOOD ELVES in 28mm scale.
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| Overview |
Making slow but steady progress getting my 28mm sailors in white tropical / Pacific uniforms painted, including two
versions of Vera Lynn, all for Menelduir's the Pulp Alley China Station campaign.
Along with them some RN sailors in blue (Atlantic) uniforms and a Humber
Scout Car, all for Bolt Action.
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| Figures by Warlord, Pulp Figures and Bad Squido |
Sadly no Halloween game this year, but recently I did receive Tim Prow's The Battle For Black Mere kick-starter set of 28mm skeleton figures.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/diehardminiatures/the-battle-for-black-mere-undead-faction
These pictures are from the Kick-starter project and not my work, I have yet to paint my figures. These are by no means all the figures available in the kick-starter, just the ones I ordered.
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| Die Hard Black Mere Skeleton Pikemen |
Now that I am back in to playing 6mm W.W.II (Spearhead and Fist Full of TOWs3) I have pulled some of the figures out of storage including German, French and British AFV and infantry. Although the scenarios I have played recently with the Spearhead rules were set in Normandy in 1944, I have always wanted to play some games set in France in 1940 so it is time to start painting my French 1940 Infantry by Heroics and Ros (H&R) and GHQ. Plus as I will note later some 6mm German Fallschirmjagers (FJ)/ Paratroops that can be used for 1940-45 will be on the painting table soon (I hope).
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| Painted H&R Classic German Fallshirjager with LMGs |
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| WIP GHQ & H&R French 1940 Infantry in Vallejo khaki green |
This was a 15mmSpearhead game run by my friend William at the Ottawa Miniatures Games Club on Friday night February 17, 2023. The terrain and figures were contributed by multiple players, including myself resulting in a bit of an unmatched look The Scenario is called Pushing Forward set in the Summer of 1944 and was a test Game for Cangames 2023 and can be found here.
https://ww2spearhead.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/pushing_forward_1944.pdf
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| Overview |
This is a summary of how I built a 6mm scale prototype forest with a removable canopy top in 6mm scale for second World War games, which might also work for 15mm scale infantry, possibly for War of 1812 games. The finished product is shown below.
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| Top half of photo shows Forest with removable canopy and base |
I decided just to make one forest to start with, figuring I would likely learn by my mistakes, and best to do that with one forest before going into "mass production" of 10 or more.
I was pleased that some new members at my Games Club the Ottawa Miniatures Gamers (OMG) club have expressed an interest in playing Spearhead, a battalion / regiment level Second World War land battle game, reviving one of my favourite micro scale Second World War rules sets that I had not had a chance to play in over a decade at the club. This game took place on Sunday February 5th, 2023 at OMG, it is set in the Summer of 1944 in Normandy with two reinforced British battalions attacking one German reinforced battalion that is defending a town and a nearby ridge line. The scenario is an introductory scenario since both players had not played for some time and with an AGM a the club meeting interrupting the game we had limited time. The game was played in 6mm, 1/285 scale on a 3' x 4' gaming area, a Warzone Homeland - green grass and earth mouse pad mat.
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| Scenario map |
The
map above is based on a 36" wide by 48" deep table where each grid square is 12" in width or 1200 yards. A series
of woods break-up the battlefield and provide cover for both the British forces and the German defenders, whom I was playing.
The scenario called "Battalions Advance" can be found here: https://ww2spearhead.wordpress.com/2012/11/20/battalion-advance/comment-page-1/#comment-292
Here are some pictures of the new Deformable LED light I installed over my upstairs game table. One lamp provides more than enough light to illuminate my 58" x 72" games table. It was only $14 from Lee Valley, is easy to install, removable / portable, uses very little electricity and relatively inconspicuous. It also required a hanging socket with hooks and a long cord from Amazon.
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| The Lamp suspended to the season |
Having slipped on some back ice just before Christmas my back was not up to bending over the standard 29" high folding / banquet table I use for miniature games. If yo think about it these 29 to 30 inch tables are designed for sitting at for dinning. A more appropriate height would be that of kitchen or bathroom counters designed for standing at which are around 34" to 35" high. The early proponents of modern day wargaming like Donald Featherstone and Terence Wise advocated higher tables between 36" and 42" high in their books. So I tested a 37.5" high table for my first Fantastic Battles 1.2 game of 2023 (see separate post in my blog).
The experiment worked well, the table was stable, the risers did not get in the way and there was less bending. The only minor downside was it does limit how far across the table you can reach, a small price to pay for less back discomfort.
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| Table extender & riser combination used to achieve 37.5" height. |
Below is a picture of the activation tiles / counters I use for Fantastic Battles 1.2. I bought them from the Dollar Tree, they costed only $1 plus tax for a packet of 26 in 4 colours (medium royal blue, green, purple, fuchsia) and measure 20mm x 18mm x 5mm.. They are marketed by Craft Medley and I have also seen them in black and white.. I add number stickers to them to keep track of the number on the table but this is not essential. You can of course paint them, and I have painted some of the fushia counters dark red. Sadly I did not see any on my last visit to the Dollar Tree, but they may have just been put in storage to make room for seasonal decorations.
https://www.dollartreecanada.com/
However if you can't find them at the Dollar Tree you can buy a pack of 100 from Amazon for a higher price, but with a different mix of colours (red, orange, white, green and light blue), see link the below.
https://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/B09MZGVSRB/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
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| Tiles by Craft Medly from the Dollar Tree |
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| Tiles sold by Amazon |
