Saturday 6 April 2013

Troops, Weapons & Tactics - Capture the Farmhouse.


We finally made a decision on what set of rules to try out and at last got to play our first game of Troops, Weapons & Tactics. Rob, Andy and myself gathered our mix of terrain and figures and set up a couple of 'playtest' games only to realise that all three of us had only really skim read the rules...


Despite this, after much page flicking we managed to get to grips with the majority of the system and were even able to cram two games into the afternoon. The rulebook itself could probably do with a better layout - as beginners we found the some of the rules too spaced out across the book, meaning all three of us rustling through our copies as we double checked if we had remembered a rule correctly.


The two games were played over the same terrain set up with a central farmhouse playing the key objective in both. We were left with a fairly satisfied feeling with them overall and the desire to use the rules again - hopefully this time with a better idea of what we are doing!


If I can make sense of my notes I will try to post a batrep with some more pics...


Figures in the photos are Artizan, Black Tree, Bolt Action and Crusader.
The farmhouse is from 4Ground.
Roads by Last Valley.
Bocage scratch-built by Andy.

Monday 1 April 2013

4Ground Detached House.

Just built the lovely pre-painted 'Detached House' from 4Ground.

I also picked up the ruined version but have yet to tackle it. As this was the first attempt at a 4Ground building I really had no idea but following the instructions proved to be pretty simple even for me. One thing I would say is that a couple of the pictures on the instructions are not overly clear and I am sure at least one was in reverse! Having said that, it is all fairly instinctive and everything fitted together perfectly. I would recommend a good strong PVA glue (unlike the cheapo stuff I was using) as I ended up using a dab of super glue to fix the outer walls of the roof section.

A few quick pics, with a couple of Artizan British Paras I am working on for scale -

The completed house.

Loft space - plenty of storage.

Upper floor.

Lower floor.

Some Paras investigate...

I opted for the 'no damage' look as I intend to use this for various periods and may well buy another to mix and match with the destroyed version.

The layers come apart simply and sit on little tabs at the corner of each floor. It all fits nice and snug and is quite sturdy on the two lower levels as the walls are effectively double thickness.

There is loads of room inside the buildings but I did find that my 2p based models are not able to stand in the doorways or stairwell. Anything up to about 25mm base size will fit perfectly well though. Good job most of my WW2 stuff is on 1p bases then!

Hopefully it will get to see some tabletop action soon as we are planning to have a first game of Troops, Weapons & Tactics in the near future!