Category: Review

Sarissa Precision Review

On By NuadaIn Review, Terrain, WIP, WW22 Comments

I bought some Sarissa Precision buildings for the upcoming Arnhem campaign that Lucius and I are going to be playing. I’ve managed to get my hands on some of the aerial reconnaissance photos and that, plus the Arnhem campaign in WSS 74 have made it easy to plan for the terrain we need.

In any event, here are the first three builds:

The small house, ruined house, and ruined farm house

These three buildings were fast, easy builds. I have left off the window and door treatments as I’m getting together bits of cast-off MDF to make some rubble piles etc before painting. I am very happy with my purchases of these, especially considering the postage (through Warlord) was free, which isn’t nothing considering Vancouver Island’s distance from most places.

The chateau though, well, had me calling it Sarissa Imprecision and using choice sailor-language (in my mind only, of course). I have built Warbases MDFbuildings (excellent), Terrains4Games MDF buildings (also excellent), and the above buildings. I guess I got spoiled as this kit is terrible.

Let’s start with the ground floor. I put on the door and window treatments (thank goodness) as I figured that they would possibly interact with the construction. The back doorframe prevents the attachment of a whole railing piece and needed to be cut down to size. Which was frustrating and an indication of things to come. When putting the ground floor on the base, the floor wouldn’t sit all the way down. I tried everything, including disassembling the whole thing, but the way it is, there is a small gap at the bottom. Not enough to cause a huge issue as I’m sure it will be covered with flock.

The middle floor was okay, though the walls don’t sit IN the floor (the other kits have two walls sitting in holes, with the others coming on as end pieces so they are much more solid), which makes their placement fiddly. The floor itself though, won’t match up with the walls of the ground floor. The 2mm MDF walls just aren’t true enough and the placement of the holes is off just enough. So I figured I’d have to trim the tabs (I’m calling them tabs/joining lugs for lack of better term) to make it sit flush. Not the end of the world.

Next the top floor with the pretty garbled windows. That is not a typo. I had to use sandpaper and a modelling knife to get the roof pieces fit over the frames. This wasn’t a small misalignment but a major oversight. Fixing it was quite fiddly work and really annoying. If I’m paying $40 USD for a product I expect it to actually do what it is supposed to. I finally convinced the roof to fit on, and used the widow’s walk floor to help keep things aligned. Incidentally, if you want to remove the top and place troops inside, well, bring a lever. I’m not sure how or if this is going to work once this is painted as the roof top is not easy to remove. It may involve me cutting tabs off to make this go.

The troublesome chateau

From a distance, it looks good, but it will need the joining lugs cut on the walls, floors, roof supports. After finishing, I took a look for others with issues, and it turns out that I’m not alone, another blogger noticed the same railing issue. That was enough validation for me to tell me that there are more issues with this kit than with my modelling skills.

So, if you are looking for good MDF buildings, Sarissa’s smaller models are great, and worth the money, but avoid the chateau until they sort out of the problems.

Wednesday War – What A Tanker AAR and Review

On By NuadaIn AAR, Review, WAT, WW2Leave a comment
Lucius and I tried our hand with TFL’s “What A Tanker” ruleset.

The rules looked good and fun, so we grabbed some 15mm armour, threw some basic terrain down and worked our way through two fights.

For the first one, we thought we’d be smart and use cm instead of inches to make best use of the table area. This was a mistake. It was really hard to move into or out of cover.

Nonetheless, I took a troop of Shermans (1 Firefly and 3 Mark Vs) and Lucius threw 2 Pz IVs and 1 Panther up against me.

Ready for action

The Firefly charged bravely out from cover to shoot the Panther… but didn’t get enough movement. The Panther responded, moved into the clear and brewed up the Firefly.

Big Cat charges forward and kills my Firefly…

Oh. My Sherman on the left moved up and missed, while the Pz IV on my right flank found a gap in the trees and brewed up one of my Shermans. Uh oh. My last Sherman on the right bravely raced (or rather crawled in cm) up past its burning compatriot and destroyed the Pz IV that had menaced my right. My remaining tank on my left engaged in a duel with the Panther, damages its optics, as my other Sherman lines up a long shot at the Pz IV on my left and blows it up too. Things are looking much better, but that Panther’s gun… misses. The cat is torched and my troop is victorious!

A swingy fight for sure, but fast and fun.

The second fight had the same forces but distances in inches. My Shermans engaged and hit both Pz IVs right away, but did effectively nothing. The Panther moved up to take cover beside a building and brewed up one of Shermans. My Firefly tries to return the favour and badly damages the Pz IV on my right flank. I move my forces to the left, trying to limit the angle the Panther has on me and concentrate fire on my right flank. The other German tanks move up as my tanks miss and another Sherman goes up.

Crap. My two remaining tanks pour 3 more rounds into the damaged tank, which forces it to withdraw a little but it stays in the fight with one activation die.  The Panther moves up, shooting at the Sherman that is more exposed, but doesn’t knock it out over several shots. Meanwhile, the Pz IV on my left races up the flank. The Pz IV on my right takes even more hits (total of 9 hits from a Firefly and Sherman V) but somehow I can’t seem to roll high enough to do anything to it. The Pz IV on my left rounds the corner.

Uh… guys?

My Firefly traverses left and closes but I am unable to shoot for 2 turns (the way the dice work). My damaged Sherman keeps its glacis towards the Panther and puts two shots into the Pz IV, forcing it back up to the table edge. The Panther and the 2 Pz IVs hit the exposed Sherman, bringing it down to 0 activation dice, which we decide means that the crew has had enough and bailed. Game over. The dice were against me for sure, but the tank fight was fast again.

How did we find the rules? They were clearly laid out but the activation  system left us both in position but unable to fire. It would be frustrating if you only had one tank, but playing with 2 tanks solves the problem somewhat. So not a campaign game or likely to supplant Chain of Command’s armour rules, but a fun pick-up game to be sure.

Lucius is a former armoured officer, and he says the speed and deadly nature of the fight is realistic. But… being restricted in what you can do – rolling all of your dice to move but not being able to fire when you have acquired and aimed is silly. Perhaps an alternate activation system is needed if this is to be a more serious game.

Chain of Command’s strength is that you have to spend your activation resources wisely, in this game it’s a crap shoot. An alternative would be rolling dice to determine how many actions you have and then deciding how to spend them. A simple solution could be a 2d6 system with a tank’s rating. Roll over the tank’s rating (lower rating is better). If you roll under you can do 1 action of your choice. Meet the rating, 2 actions. 3 or more over the rating, you have 3 actions. So you could acquire, aim, and fire in a round. Or move and reload. Or simply beat your crew into slewing the turret the right way. This would allow experienced crews a real advantage. While inexperienced T-34s are dangerous, they would not be able to react quickly to threats. A tank would start with a rating of 6 if a veteran, 7 if trained, 8 or 9 if conscript or with a smaller crew (early war French tanks I’m looking at you)!

Thoughts?

Warrior Miniatures – How I found them and a Review of Naval Warships

On By NuadaIn 1:1200 warships, Napoleonic, Review1 Comment

Wanting to tryout naval wargame rules without a large expense, we turned to simple 2D print outs from the web.

Some of the 2D ships found on the web

As you can see – nothing special, but they worked! Looking at keeping the cost low, I came across War Artisan’s Workshop. It is stunning. So we made three models of a 64 gun ship to try them out. Please note that the picture below is not a good representation of what his ships normally look like! We wanted something robust and quick to get into action the next day. Instead of wire, we used toothpicks, and we weren’t concerned so much about making the ships look tiddly.

Modified War Artisan ships

We were hooked. The games were fun, and we have grand dreams of combining naval and land warfare for a Napoleonic campaign. Seeing that my lead pile had shrunk a bit, I decided to add to it and bought some metal 1:1200 ships. The scale allowed for a bit more room compared to the War Artisan ships. So I searched around and saw many expensive miniature warship manufacturers. I then came across Warrior Miniatures. They are a small company in Scotland who pride themselves on the pricing of their products. There are no pictures of their Napoleonic ships on their site (or weren’t when I was ordering), but other reviews showed them. I was a little worried about some of the pictures, as it seemed like there were some problems with a few of the moulds. Nevertheless, I decided to give them a shot and put an order in for 13 French and British warships and 2 merchant ships. The warships were mostly frigates, brigs, and schooners, but some larger vessels as well to round things out. The total cost with shipping was just over 40 pounds. Now, living on the Far Side of The World, shipping can be expensive, but when you factor it in to the cost per miniature Warrior is still far and away the least expensive 1:1200 manufacturer I’ve seen.

A few emails to arrange payment later (they do not use PayPal), and then my order was dispatched. I have had orders from the UK be delayed, (up to 3 months once for a Warbases order – though it was Canada customs and definitely not their fault) and wasn’t expecting the ships overly soon, but 3 weeks later they landed on my doorstep.

What the order looks like

As you can see, there’s a lot of ship for the money.

The starboard quarter of a 2nd Rate

The detail is quite good. I am not an expert on warship models, but I am happy to have this on my table.

The port side midships has taken some damage

The port side of the 2nd Rate sculpt needed some cleaning, but is not a lost cause by any stretch of the imagination.

A British frigate

The smaller ships are well detailed and seem to scale nicely against their heavier sisters.

Frigate sails

The sails come with some fine details and some more obvious. I am going to be careful priming the sails so I do not obscure the finer details. I can imagine that it is a trade off between realistic and visible detail for the sculptors, but I have no misgivings about these as nothing seems exaggerated or out of place.

Comparison of corvette, frigate, and 2nd Rate with some of the flags and pennants that came with the order

As you can see from the picture above, the ships scale nicely and are supplied with some nice paper flags and pennants. You can immediately tell a ship of the line from a 5th or 6th Rate, and the smaller combatants look quite fragile, which, to an extent, they were. I included the other 2nd Rate to the right so you can see the models as they come. There was really limited damage due to shipping, which was nice to see.

Overall, I’m very happy with  Warrior Miniatures. They are friendly and prompt, and exceptionally well priced. Their product seems to be excellent for a wargamer’s table. I know that there are those in the community who love modeling every ratline and ensure that the anchors are properly catted, but much of my life I have lived with the various details of seamanship being of prime importance, so in my hobby time I’m not fussing about that. I’m hoping to paint these up and throw them into battle and pretend I’m Nelson, Cochrane, and Pellew all in one. Mind you, I’m supposed to be the French… In any event, I’m going to paint some of these up over the coming weeks and I’ll report back with either an After Action Review or a specific post on how I find them on the table.

BT

Review of Terrains4Games Terrain

On By NuadaIn Review, Terrain1 Comment

This is going to be the first of several reviews I’m hoping to do in the coming months. I’m not being paid or given free products so I’m not beholden to anyone when making my comments. If I do raise an issue, I will attempt to do so in a constructive manner and be pleasantly honest with what I write. So without any more preamble…

Earlier this year I ordered some terrain from Terrains4Games, a terrain manufacturer based in Poland.  I will admit to being a bit trepidatious about ordering from a company who I would potentially have problems communicating with, but I have been blown away by the quality, price, and customer service.

After navigating their site, I decided to get some MDF products, as well as some of their premium line of pre-painted/flocked terrain. The prices are very competitive, even factoring shipping over 8,000km.  Please note that if you navigate away after confirming payment your order won’t be processed. You’ll be returned to their site to confirm once again that you’re ordering from them.

The order was split in two, and apparently a little delayed (though I did not notice). As a way of apology, they sent me a handwritten card and a free 15mm Prussian Barn! That is a great way to retain customers and I really appreciate the personal touch.

Here are the two “small” factories in 15 and 28mm. The one in the foreground is their “2nd” generation MDF build. You’ll notice that there are two layers to the structure, so you can’t see any of the joins and there is more depth to the windows. Despite being called small, they are definitely not! Their prices are great, especially considering the detail in this kits. The more detailed 15mm building set me back $16 USD and the larger one $17.50 thanks to a sale at the time.

For scale, I’ve placed my unpainted Tiger and an FJ in the 28mm building. (Some day soon I’m going to finish painting my 28mm Germans…) The construction of these buildings wasn’t difficult, though I strongly recommend dry fitting any of the parts.

Here is the 15mm Prussian barn and a 28mm house with one of the “burned village set.” These paint up well enough. I haven’t applied any weathering, but they look pretty good. The 28mm house does have a detachable roof. The wood framing is separate layer, which makes it easy to paint and then attach to the model. The 28mm house appears to have a small issue with the framing, and I had to cut and move one small piece of wood to fit the door. It was simple work with a hobby knife and some PVA glue and overall didn’t detract from the kit as it added only 2 or 3 minutes to fix.

Here is a field, a hill “Natural Hill II Rocksy”, and a portion of the 60″ of stream I purchased. The hill is not overly steep, and has two distinct levels as you can see here. The side facing the camera is the steeper slope, but is still manageable with figures on larger bases. These are all in their premium line so are more expensive, but not overly so. The field was $2 USD and the hill was $13 USD. Again, there were sales on, but the prices are excellent. The stream did warp a little in transport, but it is hardly noticeable and I’m looking for wargaming terrain, not a modelling diorama.

Here is one of their pre-painted/flocked ruined buildings. I have several of them and do not regret having them around. The detail is great. When considering buying pre-painted or not, I had to think about what my time was worth. Being a busy individual with the ever-growing lead pile and project list I figured that springing some extra money to get my terrain finished was a good decision. Also – not a back-lit photo! I figured this out once I had packed away all the earlier products. Live and learn.

Their large tree base is pretty interesting and very flexible. The trees come with detachable bases (and one objective marker). These bases look great without the trees and the brush-style conifers look good on a gaming table but may not satisfy a model-railroad junky. I like the flexibility this piece gives me and I’ve used in my recent forays on the table.

Overall, I am very happy with these products. There are very few issues, and these are all so minor as to be practically non-existent. The resin pre-painted pieces are fantastic, and the MDF buildings are, in my opinion, better than what you will get from Sarissa Precision and equal to Warbases. If any of you are looking for flexible, quality, well-priced wargame terrain, check them out!