Some of the Analogue Hobbies 2014 Challenge Wager Figures.......

 During last years Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge there was a side bet between seven bloggers (Ray, myself, Tamsin, BigLee, Clint, Stefan and Dave) for who would reach 600 points first and the prize was a figure from the losers to the winner.........I won!

Firstly we have Stefan and his rude Scotsmen from Westphalia Miniatures.......

Very rude......

Next from Tamsin a mobster Francis "The Lurker" Lee, arrived at Broadside inside this lovely box.......

Handsome fecker........

Next came BigLee and a Foundry Wild West figure I believe............

Then we had Clint and his Wild West bad guy..........

Beautiful work people and will be added to my fellow painters collection, growing quiet big..........

Still waiting on Ray though ( he has told me to go feck myself so far) and nice guy Dave!

15mm Russo-Japanese demo game at Broadside 2014, The Rejects sweating their crackers off or....

....how BigLee is crap with the dice even when it's a demo game!

We have been going to Broadside for it's last 3 years now and while I thought we would go again but not put on a game! Little did I know that Postie would rustle something up quickly and that it would be impressive enough and beautiful enough to win a prize!

It was hot that day...........

We arrived about 0800hrs for an opening at 1000hrs, took about 50 minutes for it to be put together.....

Little help from the smiling one........

Just more useless advise but every group has one........

The showstopper.........

Russian balloon for spotting and telephoning in Japanese movements........

Sculpted metal base to balance the monster, beautiful work from the little megalomaniac......

Finally set up........

Apart from the Peter Pig building this is all hand crafted too..........

Japanese start their advance....

Russians hide behind their hills, me and Lee started to get suspicious about the Russians intentions in this demo game..........

Very suspicious.........

Siberians in their lovely whites...........

We even have telegraph poles with telegraph lines, sewing thread lines, first one to knock a pole over had to buy the teas, poor old Lee.........

On another note I have been put in charge of advertising, where it says "Posties Rejects" we can add your name or business for a nice little, very cheap, negotiable little fee, I'm hoping for Coca Cola and Burger King to come in first but no offer openly laughed at at this stage.......

How do we win this game now, we had been advancing our figures forward for the effect and as eye candy for the visitors to the show........

All of a sudden the Russians are up and prone and firing at the poor strung out demo advancing Japanese.....

We were more engaged with talking with visitors and trying to keep cool in the fecking heat, we had little time to play a demo game (I hope I'm not saying demo too much Ray!)......

Ray about to release a serious wedge in to the Foundry coffers......

The Milton boys had found a cool spot and were making the most of it.........

I did mention it was hot?..............

Tamsin (fellow Reject) taking a picture of Rays devious and conniving I'm playing a real game face for evidence)......

The Japanese taking a little bit of a hammering in this demo and not a real game......

That observer was a bit of an eagle eyed git..........

International observers too frowned upon the playing style of the Russian side........

A melee for which I cannot find a result as it was not recorded I believe......

We soon wiped the smug faces of these two Russkies when me and Lee went shopping and called a tactical demo draw and headed off....... 

Winner, winner chicken dinner, all down to the little megalomaniac, well deserved too............ 

Next time:    The treatment of metal miniatures, bullying from scary little gits and my Analogue Hobbies Challenge 600 point bet figures start to come home to roost!

The Battle of Megara 25th May 432 BC, Sparta vs Athens........

..........or don't upset the Oracle or trust Ray in a wargame!

"As normal in Ancient Greece peace never lasted long, Sparta has accused Athens of breaking the thirty years peace pact that had been agreed in 445BC. Both sides have gathered their forces with various allies looking for glory and plunder, both armies have met just outside the town of Megara on the Corinthian peninsula.
                                                                 The Game

Both sides can deploy up to a maximum of 20 inches on to the board and you will be allowed only 10 minutes to deploy and discuss tactics. No fart arsing about please you have been warned.

The Oracle will be consulted before battle!"

Kind words supplied and read out by Postie before the game started!
    --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Contractual "Zeus" Picture...........

Six Rejects (Myself, Ray, John, Surjit, Dave and Richard) turned up on Sunday for an Ancient Greek game between Sparta and Athens, names were drawn out.......

Richard: Spartan
Me: Boeotian
Dave: Tegean/Corinthian

vs

John: Athenian
Surjit: Phocian
Ray: Theban

There were some Postie shenanigans before the start of the game, you had to roll for the quality of your general, I was lucky and got a brilliant one, some others weren't so lucky, we also had to roll two dice to see if the "Oracle" favoured us...........we were mostly lucky except for Ray who upset his "Oracle" and had to remain still for the first two turns of the game:D

The other side or the Athenian rebels.......

Ray upset the Oracle, how we laughed.......

All about the Phalanxes, we had 10 to their 11 but 3 of ours are Spartan........

We started to move forward but the Athenians remained firm............

We gave all our skirmish troops to Dave on our left flank........

A picture of Ray not moving...........

Ever forward, ever forward, six inches at a time, bloody Athenians......

Dave was also doing some grading work by this stage waiting on Ray.........

The Spartans...........

These are killing machines if you let them get close, they threw 10 dice in close combat and got 10 kills.......

The action on the left flank starts to hot up with skirmishers skirmishing with each other.....

Life could be over quite quickly...........

Nice piece of scratch built terrain by Postie.......

Light cavalry clash, this would continue back and forth for several turns until Rays luck ran out......

Ever forward, ever forward......

Aerial shot........

Any moment now.........

Finally..........

What happened next was a little one sided with some outrageous dice rolling on our side with a 70%+ kill rate and a 100% rate from the Spartans for nearly two turns, there were some small setbacks but not enough.........

This picture summed up what the Athenians thought of our dice rolling.......

One of the Spartan phalanxes in trouble and would retire but not destroyed......

Things were starting to get a little confusing.......

More charges but we remained lucky with the dice.......

I show this just to show a triple disordered unit..............

The game was called at this point due to Ray withdrawing his troops from the Athenian army and then joining the Spartan army, his colleagues were not impressed, how we laughed.......

Dave won man of the match for gaining the most personal points throughout the game.......

Ray, now on the winning side takes some pictures as he gloats over his former comrades.......

Good game, over by three( it would have been two if Ray had had his way or the Athenians had moved forwar), still we gathered for tea and cake and had a chat among the boys.......... 

The rules used were Posties "Let the Gods decide", the bloody dice Gods maybe..............