What do you mean 'Wargames Butterfly' ?

Although I haven't been doing the social-media.. and actually not been playing too many games.. a moment to reflect this afternoon, and I realise that I have been keeping the hobby juices ticking over. Is that a thing? Can you keep juices ticking? Whatever.

One thing is clear though, is that I have no focus! not only have I been making a bit of a start on a new HO switching layout, (which is now wired and running and entering 'testing' mode).. but I have also unapolgetically been butterflying wargameswise.

Tom and I had a game of Dan Mersey's 'Armoured Storm' using a bunch of 1/285 tanks that I've 3D printed.. I've basically taken the excellent Bergmann models and done a bit of tweaking and shrinking in Tinkercad to create reasonable little tokens that vaguely resemble the right tanks.

Dedicated Measuring sticks for next time!

The game was good fun, and certainly got ideas flowing.. I think scenarios are key to making this work, and as there are no lists or anything, making sure that we pick forces that aren't too unbalanced too. (Tom had outnumbered Crusaders up against a mix of Pz 2,3 and 4 and didn't really stand much of a chance).

We've also played a bit more Xenos Rampant.. I spun up a list using some figures that I've been painting for 'Five Parsecs' - mostly 'Light Infantry' and we played two games last night.. where they were pretty outclassed and outplayed by Tom's Orks.. back to the drawing board! Although I like the theme of this detachment.. a cobbled together force of ship's crew, local starport guards and miscellaneous civilians, supported by one unit of Heavy Tangermarines.

mostly Stargrave crew from Northstar

Wargames Atlantic 'Cannon Fodder'

Sergeant Satsuma steps back as the barrage from orbiting escort falls on his pursuers!

Lightly armed civilians unable to stop the Ork convoy

Lastly (for now) I've also just finished off a long term project, painting and basing 10mm 1848 Danish and Schleswig Holstein armies for playing Neil Thomas 19th Century wargames. I've already got a dedicated fleece cloth that I'd painted up and played before using 6mm 1866, so all set to play some battles!

4'x3' fleece painted up for these rules

Fire and Fury in 6mm

Tuesday night's game was a first for me.. the first game of Fire and Fury in around 20 years (I have the rules, bought them new in 1990 but only ever played them through solo once or twice at best)..Scrivs brought his collection of 6mm ACW and had set up a scenario.. being hopelessly ignorant of ACW and blaming the heatwave for my short term memory loss, I can't remember the name of it!

We rolled to randomly allocate sides and I ended up with the US. My job was essentially to effect a fighting retreat. A line of troops started the day in an advanced position but were under orders to retreat to the south of a point on the table, whilst some reserves arrived from the rear, with orders to advance no further than that southerly point. The rebs, meanwhile, were to come on and basically attack!

It was a very enjoyable game, definitely a close run thing, with total VPs at the end of the game giving the Confederates a narrow victory. I was pleased with the performance of my rather reluctant and average boys overall.. just about managed to get back in some order and form a line before becoming overwhelmed by the Reb advance.

The rules were far easier than I remember them being too, which made the game that bit more fun as I wasn't having to spend the whole game learning the stuff.

We were both on phones, so no great pictures, especially with the armies being 6mm, but a couple here..

US guns making a dash for home, being hotly pursued by the Confederate lines

The table from the Confederate end, the Union forces can be seen  forming a line up near the farm

The far left if the Union line, Stahel trying to get his cavalry dismounted

The Rebs breakthrough on the last turn, much whooping and a-hollering no doubt!