First of all the bank…

What I really like, is that he actually paints inside! This makes me so happy to see…I genuinely do not get why the rest of you chaps don’t. Also I love that green.

His second project is my favourite MDF building the canteena. He is apparently going to be using this as part of a Butch and Sundance recreation.

If you are desperate to recreate what you’ve seen you can find the buildings here, or if you’d like to read more about Gary’s work you can find him here.

If you’d like to share your work with the Arcane world let us know in the comments or send an email to arcanescenery@gmail.com

Though as a Derby resident I am thoroughly fed up with Florence Nightingale (come on there must be someone else you can make a statue of dear council), but I do have to concede that the attention she drew to the conditions in the Crimea were significant. More soldiers were dying from infectious diseases such as typhoid and dysentry than were dying from being shot, blown up or any other war based injury. And not just a few either, ten times as many. In simple terms that means that for every one man who died from being shot another ten died from essentially poo-ing or coughing themselves to death. Nightingale’s evidence helped to generally improve conditions, but it was no isolated incident.

Siege of Sevastapol

Many a child has been threatened with scurvy and ricketts when refusing their fruit and vegetables, and if you live in the Western world today its pretty unlikely. Heck even your cornflakes have been fortified with a billionty vitamins and minerals. You have to do some studious avoidance to not get a basic supply of vitamin D and C these days, and if you were doing that you’ll probably die of malnutrition first, but for soldiers and sailors long ago this was not the case. From the crusades to the nineteenth century an estimated two million sailors died from something that could be cured with some orange juice. Though the reason behind the curative properties of citrus fruit wasn’t established until the 1930s the benefits of daily limes were long known, just not tremendously practical on long voyages.The journeys that made time to stop off for some shopping, or found other sources of fresh food, such as the French forces at the Siege of Alexandria in 1801 making use of fresh horse meat.

Scurvy wasn’t a killer issue on the Centurion, but its a pretty picture…

During the American civil war one of the biggest threats to the well-being of the troops was not the being shot, but the being repaired. Low knowledge about infection control, and a need to keep the thousands of injured efficiently moving through the hospital system led to frequent reuse of equipment and insufficient bandaging. If the bullet didn’t do for you Streptococcus pyogenes probably would.

Giardia lamblia

Not only was being in hospital a dangerous thing for soldiers, but merely invading can be bad for your health. Most European nations went through a big period of colonial expansion (regular readers may note I have something of a big fat bee in my fine bonnet about this). Apart from the ambitions of twentieth century Germany (and its peverse obsession with increasingly colder countries) , most colonialising has, perhaps understandably, been of much warmer climes. Africa and South America are beautiful resource rich continents. If you wanted to expand your gold, diamond, oil and slave collections they were ideal places to go stealing. Unfortunately for our forebears they are also rich in a range of diseases. Some like giardia (a particularly nasty water borne disease) affected locals as much as the interlopers, but other diseases were a special gift just for visiting. Though malaria does affect residents of African countries, many people of African and southern mediterrannian heritage have a natural defence against it in the form of sickle cells (unfortunately for people with sickle cells it also happens to make you rather ill and unable to benefit from many of the normal qualities of blood). It has been suggested that diseases such as sickle cell anaemia and thalysseamia are evolutionary responses to living in places with a big bunch of blood sucking flies. For early colonialists malaria was a very real problem. During the Boer war lady mosquitos were responsible for sending as many, if not more men to hospital than wounds. Though quinine was used reasonably affectively, until replaced with other drugs during World war 2, it was hard to obtain and risks pulmonary oedema. Which is a particularly nice choice, die from malarial fever and convulsions, or suffocate to death on your own blood.

The female of the species really is deadlier than the male…

Trypanosome cruzi hasn’t made much noise on the war front but its a much more interesting parasite (/removes nerd hat)

One set of diseases which were still of concern to Generals even as late as the Vietnam war (and probably still now) were sexually transmitted ones. In 1494 French troops were busy sieging Naples when Treponema pallidum, the bacteria that causes syphillis, took to sieging them. Evidently an awful lot of people were committed to supporting the medieval troops, as from this initial outbreak the disease killed around five million Europeans. Whilst the round of applause that no-one wants, Gonorrhoea, has been found on the remains of the sunken Mary Rose and was enough of a concern that the English Parliament were making laws to help prevent it in 1611, whilst those much earlier adopters the French were doing banishing people for it in 1256. The venereal films that American troops complained of having to watch repeatedly in the 1960s may have been some shoddy plotting, but they were there for good reason. Though it might rank as one of the better ways of catching a disease they both can result in anything and everything, from blindness and madness to the rather ultimate death.

Gono is man’s best friend apparently, bonus mention for anyone who has named their dog that…

Health problems are not a thing of the past either. There are the problems of local cuisine (which many armies ban their soldiers from partaking in) bringing the delights of salmonella and their ilk. Water and air conditioning causing Leigionnaire’s, parasitic diseases of many and varied glorious types, and then of course those of our own making. Biological warfare is not a new phenomenon. Sixth century Assyrians poisoned water supplies, Mongol troops flung dead rotting animals into cities, and in 1710 the Russians took that one step further by throwing diseased dead people at Swedes. By the twentieth century increasing scientific knowledge gave governments the benefit of a whole new range of tiny killing machines, and bacterial warfare was born. During the Second World War Anthrax, Bruscellosis and Botulism were all weaponised. Not ever in their darkest fantasies could scientists have imagined that fifty years later vanity would drive people to paralyse their faces with Botulism…

This is one of the biggest risks as a modern soldier

Anthrax still plays a component part in modern biological warfare, along with crop pathogens (a starved enemy is a defeated one), and even insect warfare. Research facilities from world War 2 onwards sought more and more creative methods of beliguering the enemy. And if my mother’s tales of her childhood near one such reaserch facility are to be believed giant chickens too…

Is it this sort of thing that caused Gulf War Syndrome? Or the prevention?

The most recent example is the mysterious Gulf war Syndrome. Presenting with a range of problems those afflicted from the 1991 conflict could have enemy Uranium to blame or may well have their own army to thank as other potential causes include nerve gas antidote and organophosphate pesticides.

If you want a more realistic disease borne feel to your game…

Soviet Medical Personnel for your sickly people

Some sickly Prussian Landwehr chaps

or if you want to go all Mongol horde…how about some horses for flinging

Welcome to our second ever Monday round up.

First in we have a rule set which is  causing much excitement in wargaming magazines and the internet: Maurice. The rules are set in the 1690-1790 period, are for 2-4 players, gaming for about three hours. Its a 10-16 unit game and features three specific scenarios in the period. The author is Sam Mustafa, who wrote Grand Armée, Might and Reason, and also Lasalle.  It allows for both small action and big scale.  Maurice is available as book and card set.

From Wargames Factory we have the WWII Infantry Platoon, from the late period. Ignore the boxes, love the figures. Really fabulous 1:56, or 28mm to those who speak in mm,  they are beautifully modelled, and make a really good quality economic means of building an army Also I  particularly like that they’ve listed pretty much every glue manufacturer’s appropriate glue, I like this: no showing favouritism.

From Airfix we have some reissues, with fancy new boxes. There is the 1:72 Curtiss SB2C Helldiver. Which was apparently hellish (boom tish) to pilot, but destroyed more Japanese targets than any other aircraft. There is also the DHC Chipmunk T.10, which disappointingly looks nothing like a chipmunk, it is however a rather dashing 1:72 scale successor to the Tiger moth. And finally  from Airfix the Junkers Ju52-3M a rather large transport aircraft, which also doubled as a bomber.

From HobbyBoss we have the PLA ZBD-05 Amphibious IFV. They don’t half like their initials those military types. If the initials don’t mean much to you it is simply a tank that could go in water. we don’t recommend you take this 1:35 version in the bath we should add! HobbyBoss are one of our favourite manufacturers, and this lovely tank is up to their usual standards.

From the wonderfully named HaT we have a number of new in items: British Light Infantry, Celtic Cavalry, WW1 Austrians, and rather appropriately the amazingly hatted Freikorps and Nassau Grenadiers.

As mentioned in last week’s round up the MIG buildings and teeny tiny plusmodels leaves are now here for you to buy. The resin buildings are  ideal for anywhere from 28mm to 1:48 and work well in both games and dioramas. The teeeny weeny leaves are perfect for adding colour and texture to your scenes.

Till next week!

My friend here is watching you…

There’s a few things that make us different from our fellow animals. You don’t find lions texting “@ plns zebs gon”, there aren’t antelope spending their Sundays in a queue at Homebase, and no swan relationship ever broke up because she found him talking to a duck on Facebook. Among the many things they don’t do is war. Yes the other members of the animal kingdom kill, often, and sometimes a lot more visciously than midweek shiny television documentries tend to show, but they don’t plan, and they don’t decimate a whole other group of animals over a concept, a piece of paper or some imaginary guns. Evidently some folk have felt the animals must have been feeling left out because a remarkable amount of weaponry has been named after them…

Insects
As anyone who has spent more than five minutes watching a nature documentary knows insects are the most numerous group of animals on the planet, and they are certainly well represented in the history of the military.

It may not be a military vehicle per se but the Volkswagen Beetle is one of the few bits of their Nazi history that isn’t illegal to discuss in Germany. An incredibly popular car which is arguably more famous than Ferdinand Porsche’s namesake vehicles. The dream of the Führer it seems was for all his blonde, blue eyed atheletic disciples to drive around in some ugly lumpy thing going on picnics. This is the kind of dream humans kill over and we think we’re the intelligent chordates?

The dreams of dictators eh? (from Bundesarchiv, Bild 146II-732  CC-BY-SA)

The Wasp III unmanned aircraft

Wasps are much better represented in military circles. Though oddly armies seem disinclined to adopt the wasp’s emo kid dress sense of yellow and black stripes. In the air, sensibly, there have been un-manned aircraft wasp, the ABC Wasp engine, the pilotless Queen wasp from WW2, and the Pratt and Whitney Wasp engines. But everyone’s least favourite flying insect has not lacked respresentation lower down with both a HMS and USS Wasp sailing it for the stripey boys. The AGM-124 Wasp may sound like the most awful meeting ever, a bunch of angry fat bottomed men in stripes discussing how to move stinging policy forward, it is in fact a missile which was developed in the early 1980s by Boeing and Hughes. Much like anything called AGM it failed to deliver its 10km promise by being cancelled after testing.

The ABC Wasp engine

 Airspeed Queen Wasp

Other insects also feature prominently amongst military vehicles. The British had a class of ships used in WW1, and some lasted to WW2, known as the insect class, and they were accordingly all named after insects. A couple of posts ago we met one of the longest lasting, and the one which must have caused hysterics and embarrassment upon posting, HMS Cockchafer. The other ships included Ladybird and Cricket. Whilst HMS Bee was an Insect class ship, but was the name of three other boats, and two bases. Hopefully they did not all swarm to HMS Beehive, which was a coastal base in Felixstowe during the Second World War.

HMS Ladybird

Birds
From the smallest to the largest our winged friends are also well represented. Some, quite logically are in the air: Aim-7 Sparrow missile, the Rolls Royce Eagle engine used in Handley Page bombers, the McDonnell Douglas/Boeing F15 Eagle fighter jet, BAE Hawk jet, and the MIM-23 Hawk surface to air missile. Birds have made it to the seas though, including HMS, USS and HMAS Hawks, and HMS Eagle, and onto land with the MOWAG Eagle which is something like a Swiss Hummer. There is the Hawk MM-1 grenade launcher, which shows what I know I thought you just threw the things, and for Apollo 11 when they said the Eagle has landed it wasn’t just some metaphor for the USA getting to the moon, that there bit at the front was called the Eagle.

Mowag Eagle by Patrick Jonatta

Hawk missile and an F-15 Eagle

Rolls Royce Eagle engine by Imnop88a

The F-15 again but the little chap is the Sparrow missile

Sea creatures

The Cobra Eels may well be fictional enemies of GI Joe (at least he got a name, poor old Action Man, ever just “man” or worse “substitute Ken”) but the USS Eel was a planned real submarine. Even the rather unmilitary looking sealions have got in on the act having not only HMS and USS Sealion, but a whole operation. Whether Germany’s pland to invade Britain with Operation Sea Lion included rolling around on the beaches of Bexhill-on-Sea and honking loudly at passing females is unclear.

Mammals

HMS Lion is a very popular ship name in the Royal Navy, eighteen of them there have been. Not all at once mind, that would have been confusing. And the Lion of Babylon is an Iraqui version of the T-72, which last had an outing in the First Gulf War. Lady lions are somewhat less popular with only one USS Lioness, a Union shop in the civil war.

The Lion of Baghdad by ronnie TX

USS Lioness

Left till last is of course the most popular mammal in war. Tigers. They have their stripes copied for camouflage, not terribly persuasively it has to be said. There are troops nicknamed after them, and guerilla forces too. There’s an attack helicopter (which I do hope they nickname rover), countless ships (which sort of suggests that the armed forces really don’t know cats), armoured cars and of course the most popular tiger around Arcane…tanks.

The 10th Armored Division Company B of the United States Army, known as the tigers.

F11 Grumann Tiger and one of the many HMS Tigers

The Eurocopter Tiger by David Monniaux

If you want to start assembling your own mechanised zoo, here’s a few you could start with…

 Tamiya’s German King Tiger 

Blitzkrieg 1/72 Tiger 1

AFV Tiger 1 1/48

Warlord’s Screaming Eagles

The very best kind of tiger…

We have a new range of scenery items from MiniArt, a fairly new Ukranian company. Though young, they are rapidly making a name for themselves with their excellent items and we have the 1:35 size. Perfect for part of your table or a diorama, we have all kinds of scenes from tramline to telegraph poles

From Armourfast, which is part of HaT, we have some fabulous tanks and vehicles in 1:72 scale. Not only are they great little vehicles but each set contains the parts for two, making them great if you want to have your army vehicled-up pretty quickly. We have Stugs, StuHs, and tank destroyers…

For fans of Asian based conflicts from Revell we have WW2 1:72 Japanese infantry …

Whilst also in WW2 we have the HobbyBoss MunitionSchlepper…which is a schlepper of munitions…they are very straightforward those Germans. Specifically this large mover of munitions was used for the Geract 040 Nr.I to VI and Geract Nr.VII, which were giagantic mortars…this in 1:72 so luckily not so giant that it won’t fit on your war gaming table.

From Plus Models we have a series of accessories, they are new to us, so bear with us as the range grows. To start with we have a range of leaves for a variety of trees in both 1:35 and 1:48 scales, but they would work just as well with scenes and figures of other sizes. We will start stocking a range of lead wire in a variety of gauges. The great benefit of lead wire is that it is used for detailing on model railways, but more importantly in our case to represent wires and piping on tanks. The different thicknesses making it suitable across the scales from 1/100 to 1/35. We also have in individual 1:48 bricks, but they would be equally suitable for 28mm, for paved areas and rubble.

We will also be building stock of MIG productions. Starting with 1:48 because of its similarity to 28mm and we will have a few resin buildings in and some resin figures, which will enhance our 1:48 range of kits. Though 1:48 is technically bigger than 28mm (technically 1:56) and this is noticable when figures are put to the side, however, when it comes to scenery and accessories they are very useful.

Now, Mick, Steve and Pete are not Napoleonic Greenhorns, they already play a lot of Sharp Practice and have an extensive collection of 28mm Napoleonic figures. You’ll see a lot of new troops in the images below.

We set up a couple of roughly equal forces, the French were:
Divisional Commander: CV8
Brigade Commander: CV7
4 Light Infantry
1 Foot Battery
Brigade Commander: CV7
4 Line Infantry
1 Foot Battery
Brigade Commander: CV7
4 LineInfantry
Brigade Commander: CV7
2 Hussars
Brigade Commander: CV Unknown – these were not committed
1 Dragoons
1 Cuirassier
1 Horse Battery

The British and Allies were:

Divisional Commander: CV9
Brigade Commander: CV7
1 Line Infantry
1 Rifles
1 Prussian Landwehr
1 Foot Battery
Brigade Commander: CV8
3 Highland Infantry
Brigade Commander: CV8
2 Line Infantry
1 Small Rifles
1 Foot Battery
Brigade Commander: CV8
2 Line Infantry
1 Small Rifles
1 Foot Battery
Brigade Commander: CV8
1 Line Infantry
1 Prussian Landwehr
1 Small Light Infantry
1 Foot Battery
Brigade Commander: CV7
1 Heavy Dragoons
1 Light Dragoons
1 Hussars
Steve and Pete would take the British and Allies and would be aided by Quinton, Mick and I would take the Frenchmen.

The command values were done by rolling a D6 on a 1-4 a Brigade Commander was a 7 and a Divisional Commander an 8 and on a 5-6 were an eight and a nine respectively. As you can see the French rolled poorly for this and the British very well.

Steve, Pete, Mick & Quinton in the pre-game preamble. It’s all sweetness an light now.

The British opened up in true fashion and their Heavy Dragoons charged straight into a unit of French Hussars on the first turn. The Hussars recoiled shaken and the Heavy Dragoons pursued into them only to lose the combat badly, roll really low and be removed.

The French beat the British to occupying the village on the British left, this tied up a lot of British troops trying to clear it.

The British Cavalry was eventually broken by the French Hussars. In the center six British Battalions were up against eight French and the numbers were soon telling.

Valiant French Hussars

I hope that Steve, Mick and Pete had a good first game of Black Powder with us.

Paul’s blog containing the original of this post, and all of his photos can be found at http://scrivsland.blogspot.co.uk/

We’re having a little blog rearrangement. The Friday round up will now be the Monday round up, and mostly the posts that were on Mondays will now be on Fridays…mostly.

We thought we should let you know just in case you thought you were going mad.

“So Chaps, that over there is Mesopotamia…it contains Mesopotamians”
“Sir…Is it true they don’t wear pith helmets?”
“Yes …Yes Chivers tragically they don’t”

From May 2 to May 31 1941 the Anglo-Iraqui War was one such confrontation. The observent amongst you might realise that this date falls slap bang in the midst of WWII. Mesopotamia, such as Iraq was known, had become independent from the British in 1932. But independent in that paternalistic fashion that we colonials are so good at. That is the British agreement included conditions which allowed military bases so that they could still access the shiny black stuff.

By 1939 the British weren’t hanging about Iraq so much, but then WWII appeared. Iraq’s growing nationalist movement had been making links with the Nazis. The Iraqui Prince fearing arrest, and presumably a whole lot more, fled to the nearest British ship. HMS ummm…erm HMS Cockchafer. Stop laughing now children.

Its an Insect class ship. It was not named after the popular sailor’s ailment.

The British were supported by Australia, New Zealand, British India and British Palestine. Along with Transjordan, which disappointingly wasn’t a horde of drag queens. Which would have been much more interesting.

The Iraq forces were supported by Irregular Arabs (I don’t know if they’re as complicated as irregular verbs), the Syrian Committee (who presumably held a meeting every so often), the Nazis and their tag alongs the Italians.

The British won. Somewhat comprehensively. They had few casualties, with only 60 dead, to the Iraqui and Axis losses of 1750 and 500 dead, and lost 28 aeroplanes. The Iraquis lost most of their aeroplanes, the Germans lost 19 and the Italians lost 3.

However, whilst the British successfully reinstated the Prince their relationship with Vichy France fell completely to pieces. Which led to the Syrian-Lebanon campaign…

Have you played a Anglo-Iraq battle? Or other do you have an interest in other WWII era middle Eastern games? Let us know…or even better send us battle reports and photos.

Hello and welcome to the Sturm Uber……………. Blog, a periodical visit to the Flames of War tournaments held at Maelstrom games in Mansfield and strongly supported by Arcane scenary through providing prizes such as the MDF buildings in our range and particularly the popular Zvesda 1/100 vehicles from the ‘Art of Tactic’ game. Not specifically intended for Flames of War but the scale of the vehicles and aircraft is perfect for the game. Sadly, the infantry being at 1/72nd scale aren’t appropriate, unless of course you play FOW at that scale. Just in case you didn’t know Flames of War covers WWII battles mainly intended for 15mm scale but playable in most scales although probably a bit unsuitable for 28mm where more skirmish/squad level rules would be appropriate. The Flames of War ruleset is supported by the vast Battlefront range of figures and army books covering a large part of the 1939-1945 conflict, the book and figure releases come hard and fast.

Sturm Uber………….was originally set up by the lads at Maelstrom when they supported the Battlefront range but some trade differences meant that stopped temporarily. Whilst Maelstrom had a business difference they knew FOW was very popular amongst its club members and wished the players should continue. They invited Myself and Tommy Brown, regular ‘Flames’ players, to maintain their FOW competitions on their calendar. So the ‘ReluctantConscripts’ were born and our first venture was Sturm Uber Europa set in the Mid War (1942-1943) period covering the War in Russia, Western Desert, Tunisia and Early Italy/Sicily.

Considering the theatres and terrain is a considerable part of the pleasure of Flames of War. It has simple but comprehensive and effective terrain rules that allows players to enjoy good detailed terrain without loss of playabilty. Potentially a competitor can find themselves on the open desert or in the claustrophobic horror of Stalingrad. The ideal, of course, is to have the right mix of opponent in the right theatre but competitions tend to spread history somewhat so that isn’t guaranteed.

Sturm Uber Europa in June 2011 was Mine and Tommy’s first joint effort and our aims were to maintain the quality of the Maelstrom events and appeal to the wide competition circuit. Saturday morning saw 30+ players landed at Maelstrom for the weekend and 5 full games. The day always starts with briefing and doughnuts as the draw is concluded. It is always the intention not to have, so called, ‘Blue on Blue’ games where you play the same nationality as yourself. The quirks of army choice don’t always mean a perfect balance but the lads feel that the best enjoyment comes out of historical faceoffs where the uniqueness of each nation/force is brought to the fore. Flames of War cleverly brings out the traits of each nations fighting style, this is further enhanced with particular unit traits.

Maelstrom sorted out the food for us with their expanding kitchen facilities and looked after the drinks side with the very busy bar. I would like to add in a thank you to Maelstrom at this point, not only is the venue excellent for this type of event, the staff on food, at the bar and in the shop are always there to help with Gary Moore and all of them working their b**ts off to look after us.

The event includes awards for best sportsman and best painted army, the competition for these prizes was very close and shows the ethos of most players to make the experience enjoyable for BOTH players. The painting standards were excellent and the skills of all the entrants to be admired. We don’t allow unpainted/unrepresentative figures except in the most exceptional circumstances. Take some time to check the pics of the various forces.

Fierce fighting ensued and here are pictures of some of the excellent armies showcased at Sturm Uber Europa.

Strum Uber Deutschland.

November saw the second outing and Sturm Uber Deutschland continued the WWII story covering the Late War (Late 1943, 1944) with terrain for Normandy, Italy, Russia and Poland. Although this period of the war saw vast distances quickly covered, the hardest fighting had bogged down into city ruins, Normandy bocage and Italian hills and vineyards. The big breakthroughs often came after weeks of gruelling fighting. This can produce some fantastic terrain where the detail is increased as the terrain closed down for these bitter fights.

Sturm Uber Deutschland saw an increased turnout and once again the sponsors had been very generous allowing us to give prizes and a free raffle so that everyone left with something.

Once again, Gary and the Maelstrom crew excelled themselves.

So that was the Sturm Uber series in 2011. We will repeat the June and November events as Mid War and Late War but will start the series in March with Sturm Uber Dunkirchen. The first Early War competition to be run by the Reluctant Conscripts and at Maelstrom

STURM UBER DUNKIRCHEN MARCH 2012

36 Players from all over the UK journeyed to Mansfield to take part in our latest Early War event. It was a great weekend, great players, great atmosphere and great food. This was our swansong to version 2 of the Flames of War rules and it saw us out in great style. We had Polish cavalry demolishing artillery parks, trains chugging up and down tracks, hordes of Italian & British tanks and the surgical strike force of the German Heer.
Steve Charlton won not only Best General but also Best Painted Axis army with his lovely grey panzers. Kevin Brewin won Best Axis General and Jez Evans won Best Allied General. Ian Mann ran away with Most Sporting while Mark Mainwaring won Best Painted Allied and Richard Heath deservedly won Best Play Provided Table with his Warsaw board including poster booths and cars.

Shown above and below are road sets provided for us by Arcane Scenery and they also stock the river shown and the buildings below, manufactured by Sarissa Precision…

The Panzers batter the Allied defence lines

Richard Heath’s fantastic Warsaw city scape

NEXT EVENT JUNE 9/10 2012