Campaign at Milton Keynes

We are off this weekend to the Campaign show, which is held on both Saturday and Sunday in the middle of a shopping centre in Milton Keynes. We went to the same show last year and had a great time, so hopefully this year will be just as good! It's a very relaxed show, probably because it is in a shopping centre so there is lots for the wives to do while the gamers chat! The other bonus is that there is natural light coming in through a glass ceiling so its quite good for photos.

I will of course post an after show report with pictures next week!

Pictures from Salute 2013

Well we had a really busy day at Salute on Saturday! It certainly seemed to be busier than last year at the show and we met lots of people during the day. I'm posting a few photos of our Miracle of the Marne game below!

On our way to Salute 2013

All packed up now and ready for an early start in the morning to go to Excel London for Salute 2013. Our game this year, called "Miracle of the Marne" is loosely based on the battle for the village of Soizy-aux-Bois, which was fought over for two days in September 1914. And no, there won't be any taxis! That famous event took place in a small part of a very big battle that lasted nearly two weeks - and it's not the part we are using!

This year we decided not to post pictures of the game as we built it, but rather to launch it on an unexpecting Salute without preview! I will however post pictures after Salute (I can't promise to do them tomorrow as it's a very long day) of the game, and maybe some of how we built it as I did take some as we were working. Unlike last year I have remembered to charge my camera battery this time.

The other feature of the game is that it plays out the rule examples given in "Over by Christmas", so people will be able to see the examples being played through.

If any of you are going to Salute, do come along and say hello!

Over by Christmas is here!

Over by Christmas is here and ready for sale from right now!

Traders will have stocks in a little while, but in the meantime you can buy them directly from us if you would like to do so. As a special introductory offer we are selling Over by Christmas, Where the Poppies Grow and Tools of Victory at a cost of £14.00 for one copy, £25.00 for any two copies and £35.00 for all three, all plus p&p. You can contact us by email on crushthekaiser@yahoo.co.uk so don't delay!

Over by Christmas has lots of period flavour, and includes rules for trench catapults, improvised mortars and hand-grenades. In addition to detailed organisations for infantry, cavalry and artillery for British and Empire, French, Belgian and German Armies it includes details for all the aircraft in use in the early part of the war, and in some cases allows for troops to shoot at aircraft of their own side if they get too close!

Over by Christmas

In the past few weeks we have been working hard here at CTK HQ to get Over by Christmas ready for publication and at last we are almost there. It is due to go to the printers shortly and will be available in the next few weeks - we'll let you know here as soon as it is ready for sale.

It is a stand-alone set of rules, so you won't also need to have Where the Poppies Grow (although of course we hope that you do!) and covers the War on the Western Front from August 1914 to early 1916. The new rules include things such as using mounted cavalry and horse artillery in fast moving open warfare, with new special rules for cavalry charges and period weapons such as trench catapults and improvised mortars and grenades.

Over by Christmas includes full organisations for British and Empire, French, Belgian and German Armies and has special rules for each, reflecting for example the British rapid fire of 1914 regular infantry units and the French "attaque a l'outrance".

Just as a teaser, here's the front cover:

Portuguese in the Trenches

As well as working on the fortified farm, I've been doing some work on the first pieces of the new linked trench system from Early War Minatures. This looks to be an exciting range, with trenches with dugouts available now and the promise of both British and German trenches to come. The trenches, which are vacform, link up very well using an innovative magnet system, although I haven't used this as I have based mine on 2mm MDF because I usually artex my vacform pieces.

I have added extra sandbags from air-dried clay, and will do some trench bridges to cover the slight gaps where the trenches join.

Occupying the trenches in the pictures are the first figures completed from my 1917/18 Portuguese army for the Western Front, using HaT British (ok, Canadian!) infantry and Portuguese figures from the range by Lancer Minatures, which are very good too and well worth checking out.

 

Lewis gun team get ready to fire

 

 

 

 

 

 

News from the Front!

Sorry not to have posted for a while! Hope you all had a good Christmas and New Year. Here at CTK HQ I've been working on some scenery for our weekly games. At a show last year I came across the old Bellona vacform The Menin Road - those of you who are of a certain age will fondly remember the Bellona series! Anyway, I picked it up for a £1 as in true wargamer fashion I thought "I can do something with that". And now I have, as I've turned it into a fortified farm of the kind often seen on the Western Front, especially in Flanders, in 1917. It should make a good objective in a game, with one side trying to capture it and the other to hold it. Having first based it on 2mm MDF and covered the vacform in artex to give it some texture I took out the middle of the cellar and replaced it with a pillbox from Ironclad Minatures, which handily takes an MMG and crew. I added some sandbags using air-dried clay, and that was it. I also made some knife-rest barbed wire entanglements out of plastic strip and rod, which were a bit fiddly to do! Here's a couple of pictures. Firstly, to show there is an MMG in the bunker:

And here's one of the knife-rests:

I have also been working on several of the new linked trench system bases from Paul at Early War Miniatures, and hope to post some pictures of these soon too. And of course we've been busy on getting Over by Christmas ready for publication, which has taken a little longer than we had hoped, but we are nearly there!