Winter War miniatures

Well I managed to jump onboard another Kickstarter project before even seeing any progress from the Empress one. But then again as a Finn seeing someone do minis for the Winter War in 28mm was too good of a deal to pass.

Baker Company is running their Winter War Wargaming Miniatures Kickstarter to create both finnish and soviet forces for this early WW2 period. At the moment a platoon comes at 60 pounds which might seem a bit high, but the amount of free strech goal minis is quite epic. At the moment I'm going for the Border Assault pledge which give a platoon of both Finnish and Soviet Troops and a few hundred pounds worth of extras for free. I'm a bit anxious though about all the stretch goals and them making the whole project too costly for Baker Company to go through with. But even getting half the stretch goals would still make the whole thing a great deal.

I'm not dead!

...I'm just really damn slow...

It's been a bit over a month since I finally got back home from Turkey and into hobby mode. On the painting side things have been quite quiet, but I've been able to get in quite a few games between all the afterworks, cottage trips and late summer weddings that I've been attending. Hail Caesar, Saga, Warhammer Fantasy, X-Wing and In Her Majestys name have all been on the menu.

In Her Majestys Name is proving to be quite a nice ruleset for a more casual story oriented game. We had a campaign game run through August to hunt for a legendary ruby. Of course my fellas from the Royal British Gentlemens Club had to make sure that the ruby wouldn't fall into the wrong hands, but would instead add even more prestige to the collections of the club. Too bad that I only got images from two of the games.

 

 

The Gentlemen teaching those uncivilized cowboys some manners.

We also played the Battle of Thermopylae using Hail Caesar rules. A very nice game, eventhough my newly painted Hoplites newer really even got into the fight thanks to abysmal command throws.

 A small group of Spartans with their helots holding the pass.

 Captain Ameri... Athens makes his appearance in the traitorous Hoplite regiment

 Greek reinforcements, which started making their way really slowly towards the battle. Apparently they weren't so keen on helping the Spartans.

I also got 4 games of Saga under my belt by taking part in a mini tournament at our gaming club. I won the practice game but lost every single game in the tournament so I think I can come to the conclusion that the game must be very bad :) I need to try some other faction as the Anglo-Saxons that I now used just weren't very resilient as most of the abilities relied on having large units and the loss of some guys really brings down their fighting value.

Now I'll really have to focus on writing stuff here and painting some minis. The hunting season isn't too helpful, but luckily I'm starting my master's thesis soon and that should maybe give me some time for painting as I can work from home and don't have to drive to the office everyday. And we are finally moving to a new apartment! Maybe now I can actually have a dedicated hobby space instead of just a tray that get's moved out of the way everytime the dinner table is used.

Gallipoli trip part 2: Helles

Took a bit longer to upload these images thanks to the Turkish infrastructure doing it's thing again and the internet at the apartment failing for nearly a week. Anyhow here are some of the pics from my second day at the Gallipoli battlefields.

The Helles area was a lot harder to visit as it was far more spread out than the Anzac area and obviously it wasn't as touristy either. Signs and the infoboards were not as common and it wasn't always exactly easy to find places with just the small map from my Gallipoli book.

The difference between the landscape of the two main battlefields is also quite epic with Anzac being steep hills with loads of thick impenetrable bushes and then Helles being mainly low rolling hills with quite open ground. The X and W Beaches were the nicest to visit but might be pretty much impossible to reach without a car and even then the W Beach might need a 4x4 or some walking in the end as the "road" was basically a cart track.

The Canakkale Martyrs Memorial near S Beach or Morto Bay is also pretty much a must. It's the main Turkish memorial and features a lot of statues etc. in addition to probably the most beautiful gravestones I've seen. Then the village of Kilitbahir has also some nice sights including an old naval fortress and then the modern one which was one of the main defences against the Allied Naval attack.

Turkish naval gunner Corporal Seyit, who allegedly carried 275kg shells by himself to his gun when the crane failed due to allied bombing.

View onto X Beach

W Beach with still some remnants of the defences

Helles Memorial

View onto V beach from the nearby coastal battery

Remnants of the coastal battery

The Canakkale Martyrs Memorial

Morto Koyu

Fortifications near Kilitbahir

Gallipoli trip part 1: Anzac and Suvla

Well I spent the weekend roaming around the battlefields of Gallipoli. It really does give you a far better idea of the whole battle when you visit the actual site. Trying to understand the movements of the troops and the fighting locations from maps and reading books doesn't really give you a true idea of what the troops faced.

I do recommend visiting the site if you ever have a chance to do it, and be sure to have at least two days for it. It took me around 6 hours to just go around the Anzac area alone and that was with my own car. With a bus it would probably be impossible to see even half the stuff. Of the two sites, Anzac and Helles, Anzac is far easier to visit as it has already ready made routes and far more info boards scattered around. A lot of readymade tours also as it's the main tourist attraction as most of the turkish people want to see the area where Kemal Atatürk commanded and the huge amount of Australians and New Zealanders there.

The scenery around the Anzac area is just breathtakingly beautiful with all the hills and the sea being close by. Though from the history regarding the area the comment that the terrain was fairly difficult going seems to be quite an understatement. Steep hills, nearly impenetrable bushes with sharp thorns and minimal visibility sure didn't make the job of the Anzacs any easier. Makes you wonder if anyone in the HQ ever even bothered to check what the terrain was like before planning the attack as most objectives seemed very optimistic when you saw what terrain features the troops would have had to pass in quite a short time. There were still some remnants of old trenches and bunkers in the area, but most of the "official" sights were just graveyards and memorials. But with a map it was quite easy to go see the different points of attack just to see how the battlefield looked like from the eyes of the normal soldiers.

 Waist high scrubs and rough ground everywhere, and this was the easiest terrain

 Lone Pine

 Remnants of trenches at Johnston's Jolly

"The sphinx" and the Anzac Cove landing site

View into Suvla Bay

Remnants of old bunkers at the Anzac Cove landing site

Attack route to Lone Pine

 Northern part of the Anzac landing areas