Austin,College Station, Dallas, Ft.Worth,
Houston, Midland, San Antonio, Waco

Here is my latest 28mm Unit for Sharp Practice:

http://basilhare.wordpress.com/

We had 16 players registered and attending. There were a few Soviet forces, but we included those just the same and considered their beach landings to be on the Black Sea. The results  and prizes were:

Axis First Place - Matt Kibbe - Gift certificate and Flames of War Rivers Set
Axis Second Place - Mark Brown - Gift Certificate and 5 Tigers

Allied First Place - Jim Mundt - Gift Certificate and Flames of War Russian Village Set
Allied Second Place - Jason Olson - Gift Certificate and 5 Shermans

Best Painted Force - Sander Trubowitz (and I failed to get a picture!) - Gift Certificate and Flames of War Fortification Set

Here are some images…

SKIRMISH ‘09 GAME DAY
Saturday, July 11th, 2009
Plano Convention Centre
Plano, Texas

PRE-REGISTRATION IS NOW OPEN!
REGISTER NOW TO RESERVE YOUR PLAYER SLOT!

Please join us for a full day of Historical Miniatures gaming at the Fourth Annual Skirmish Game Day, brought to you by the DFW Irregulars.

EVENTS SCHEDULED SO FAR

Flames of War Tournament, Field of Glory Ancients Tournament, English Civil War, Napoleonics, WWI Air Combat (Wings of War), French Foreign Legion, Weird World War II, Siege in Sudan Colonials, War of the Ring Fantasy, American Civil War, Dr. Who, Napoleonic Naval, WWI Trench War, and MORE TO COME!

HOW TO PRE-REGISTER
Skirmish ’09 is an all day miniatures gaming event, play all day from 9am to 11pm for only $15.
Your $15 payment by Paypal will register you for Skirmish ‘09 and hold your spot in the games you want to play. To preregister by Paypal, send $15 to allen.eldridge.tx@gmail.com along with an email telling us which games you want to play and we will hold a spot for you.

SKIRMISH ‘09 DEALERS
Two Hour Wargames, Portsmouth Miniatures , Grenadier Books , TheTerrainGuy.com

FOR MORE INFORMATION AND A COMPLETE LIST OF GAME EVENTS, PLEASE GO TO:
http://WWW.DFWIRREGULARS.COM/

GAMEMASTERS WANTED

Take a look at the game we ran in Big Spring on Memorial Day…thanks for looking…faron.

http://basilhare.wordpress.com/

Scene from our latest Sharps effort

So, I’m working on a set of rules for a “what if” zombie war 15mm miniatures campaign. The North America rules are done and were easy. Now I’m looking for variations in other continents, and then finally a way to link it all together in a massive global war. Does anyone have any suggestions or know of any other rule sets that would account for modern differences in different continents that would affect a hypothetical zombie war? I’ve read World War Z, of course, although I had the idea before that. I have some basics, like fewer guns in Europe than in the US, but castles that could be used for defense, and survival skills in some of the more rural countries, but that’s where it drops off.

Hey, it is miniatures related, and there will eventually be variations for zombie wars from ancient times to WWII and Vietnam… Right now, just have to work out modern continent by continent and global…

Thanks

Finally getting around to editing and posting the photos from our Irish wars game of a couple weeks ago.

Mike Miller kindly ran the game using Chain Reaction 2 and supplied most but not all of the miniatures.

Lance, Dave A. and David Mc took the forces of England, while Everett, Kevin H, Benito, and Nathan took the side of the Irish.

The sleepy little village was at the center of Irish terrorism. Rick O’Shay and Father O’Bother led the gangs into the village to search for a cache of buried weapons. The Brits were aware of this move and were approaching as well to seize the weapons and capture O’Shay and O’Bother. O”Shay and him minions tried to firebomb the Scots armoured car as it approached the bridge, failed, and lost a man in the process. The British infantry dismounted and began an approach through the woods. When the firebomb burned out, the Scots AC advanced again and became entangled with the cart blocking the road. They cleared this obstacle and continued up the road. By this time, the Irish had found the weapons and brought their truck forward to to load them and escape. Kevin H fought a strong rear guard action against Dave A.

The Irish escaped with the weapons and two of their key figures. One Irish key figure was killed, as well as several Irishmen. It was a bad day for Lt. FitzAdder and he will probably have to spend an extended tour of duty in Ireland as a result.

Ok, so we playtested Trafalgar rules this Sunday.

British against Spanish fleets.

The British had a 2nd rate ( 98 guns ), 5 3rd rates ( 74 guns ) and a small 3rd rate ( 64 guns ).

The Spanish had a 1st rate ( 120 guns ) , 5 3rd rates ( 74 guns ) a small 3rd rate ( 64 guns ) and a frigate.

We tried the basic fleet engagement in the rules and Mike Wikan provided some nice islands to make the table a bit more fun.

The Spanish deployed in a perfect battle line while the brits took more of a line of bearing formation, both fleets sailing with the wind behind their back.

( Click to enlarge )

Most ships were Old Glory 1:2400 s

Spanish fleet ( beautiful fleet painted by Comodoro Lanceo )

British fleet ( my ships )

Ajax and Achilles try to run ahead to cross the Spanish line. This is risky since they had to do this downwind they had to sacrifice the weather gage thus exposing themselves to be outmaneuvered by the Dons. The rest of the British fleet tries to cut the Spanish line on both sides of the islands

San Leandro attempts a courageous move to engage the British 74s. In a lucky break Achilles scores a critical hit that brings down the San Leandro’s foremast down, the Spanish crew is very unlucky as the falling mast damages the ships hull !! However the corageous maneuver forces Ajax and Achilles out of Santa Ana’s path allowing the Spanish behemoth to concentrate on the British 98 !

The fleets are now fully engaged in combat

In the middle of the battle the weather turned to rain, reducing visibility to two thirds and helping many flaming ships put out their fires ( at least mine )

Nice close up of San Ildefonso

More clos ups

Unfortunatley we ran out of time. It was the first time we were using the rules so it took some back and forth through the book, plus we had to do a general overview at the start and we also had to balance the fleets as per national lists. We played about 10 of the 20 turns in the scenario. Once we got used to the rules we were flying through the turns so no doubt that next time we will have enough time.

The conclusion was a Spanish marginal victory,  although both sides had lost a 3rd rate each the other british 3rd rates had suffered more damage than their spanish counterparts and the British 98 was in worse condition than the Santa Ana. It seemed that if we had continued  it would have turned to a Spanish major victory.

It was a great game and it looks like even the naval fanatics liked the rules. The movement rules seem to work fine and the interaction with tactical factors such as different gun ranges or wind positioning turn the game into lots of fun. Even the climate change added an additional interesting factor to the game.

I am looking forward to future engangements !!

Cheers,

Francisco

Sent to me by Erik Chase (Gamer from New Mexico and member of our WTWA Forum):

For several months now a few of us have been putting together plans for a three day wargaming convention right here in Albuquerque. We now have set the date and a venue.

I am very pleased to announce that the convention will be the weekend of 2-4 October and will be held at the Elegante Hotel and Event Center.

http://mcmelegantealbuquerque.com

If you are an experienced Game Master we need your help in setting up games (Fantasy and Historical). If you are interested in running a game or even a tournament, contact me at:

Sweels62@yahoo. com or on my cell phone at 505-410-4357.

Address any other convention questions to Dave Lowe at:

phalanxveteran@ yahoo.com

Help us make the return of a gaming convention to New Mexico a reality!

Erik reports that there will be a Flames of War tourney at this convention.

So last week I was on a trip to St Petersburg with my wife and she begged to go see the Aurora ( well maybe it was me doing the begging )

Here are some pictures, the gun crew seems a bit young:

And a SOL anchored nearby now serving as a PECTOPAH ( restaurant )

If you follow this link you can see the pictures of the trip that have a military interest ( it includes some pictures from the Borodino Panorama in Moscow, and also some pictures of the St Ptersburg Naval museum with Russo-Japanese ships, although a bit dark - no flash allowed - )

More Pictures

Cheers,

Francisco

Is Lone Star Historical Miniatures a non profit organization?  Are they affiliated with the HMGS national organization?

Thanks for any information about this.

Ron Hamilton aka LLC

This site has been a bit quiet lately. I know there are many games being played and many miniatures being painted. Allow me to post some recent modeling.

This is a 1/72nd scale model of a Soviet T-35 tank. Many tank lovers will recognize it by the five turret design. With a crew of 11, this 45 ton tank sported a 76 mm main turret, 2 45 mm side turrets, and 2 machine gun turrets. 61 of these monsters were built from 1932 to 1938. Despite its mammoth size, interior compartments were cramped and tiny. It was found to be overly-complicated and easily-defeated. Ninety percent of the tanks were lost due to mechanical failure. Its use dropped off completely after 1941. Yet, the multi-turret design was inspiration for many fantasy and science fiction vehicle imaginations.

The model is from Poland and is made of cast resin. A good many of the resin parts were warped and ill-fitting. Many a boogey wheel was destroyed trying to cut and sand it to the proper shape. I’m sure the cannons and machine guns will snap off soon. No decals or painting instruction were included. Nevertheless, this is a rare subject to find in 1/72ns scale.

Here are a few pictures I managed to capture. Since I was playing in the tournament, and all my games ran long, I did not take the usual care and some are a bit fuzzy.

Tournament results were:

by David McLellan

Here are a few photos from the Field of Glory tournament at Great Hall Games held on February 28, 2009.

by David McLellan

We tried out the Warhammer Historical variant for the Texas War of Independence last week. Here’s a photo gallery of the action.

For the record, the Mexicans were victorious on this occasion.

We played our latest game of TFL’s “Sharp Practice” with 28mm figs. Read the AAR by clicking link below….here are some pics:

http://basilhare.wordpress.com/