1st tournament

So the first SKIRMISH SANGIN Tournament was played this weekend

We all had some laughs, even though it was hard work, five games over a weekend for most of us left us all I am sure a bit dazed and confused. Awards were won, books and figures sold but more importantly interest was generated.

The group of players were all excellent and played hard games that were very narratively based. As with all things not everything went smoothly, mistakes were made and the cramped space made for a bit of manoeuvring on our part. However I think we would all agree it was a success and I would like to publicly thank my two off-siders for all there invaluable help.

• Craig for continuing to build beautiful terrain and managing to ref with a severe hangover on Sunday.
  
• Chris, for helping us with all the set up and for being good enough to play the entire weekend knowing we wouldn't let him win.

I would also like to thanks Ray, and Tom and Chris for lending us terrain.

I am sure the medal winners will wear their medals with pride.

Here is a few images of the event.

Posts from the Sangin Community- 20mm Chinook!

During the Insurgent competition, I got chatting with a few of those who are playing Skirmish Sangin around the world.

One of them, Carvel, got me thinking about 20mm. There are some great manufacturers out there doing some awesome stuff in that scale, and it had never even occurred to me. Perhaps it was willful blindness? While I was doing a good job of resisting yet another scale of miniatures, he did send through some awesome pictures of an RAF CH-47 Chinook he recently finished.

The first shot is of a squad of Royal Marines disembarking from the Chinook- two nice neat, orderly lines.

Carvel used weathering powders to good effect- this Chinook definitely looks like it needs a thorough scrub down!

The last image shows off what I think is a pretty cool basing option. Rather than go for a tall flight stand, the Chinook is hovering just above the ground, disembarking onto a raised area. Although Chinook pilots like to land the aircraft to disembark troops, they are able to hold it at a hover, with the door touching the ground. This is useful when deploying troops into places which don't have enough space for a proper LZ, such as up on mountain ridges.

With cool pictures like these of helicopters (I might be slightly helicopter obsessed), any bets on how long I will be able to resist 20mm? I do like the appeal of having access to more helicopter models!

Don't forget to get in touch with us if you have After Action Reports, game ideas, scenarios, painting or whatever to share, we love hearing from you!

Pooch

Adam- MARSOC- making Berets and Painting Commandos

Armies of Afghanistan has wound down a bit, but Adam clearly hasn't! He has sent through some tips on how to sculpt a beret, along with a few pictures of the work in progress for his MARSOC and Commando force.

Hey there, I've been pretty busy despite the break in school but I have managed to get some progress on this project. I was really stoked to get the minis and had been working on several ideas in my mind as to what to do with my minimal skills to make them look the part.

One was berets, or 'French Hats' as I jealously refer to them as! I needed to get a couple of them to signify NCO's and officers of the Afghan National Army's,(ANA) Commando Kandaks that I am portraying here. Generally they wouldn't be worn on patrol, but these are wargaming miniatures so they need to be representative as well as illustrative. So berets for the NCO's and O's. The minis have either kevlar helmets or patrol hats so some minor surgery was needed. I tried a couple different ideas and this worked the best.

The starting model:

Scalp them.

Roll out a small ball of green stuff, probably smaller than you think, see the pic. Then smash it onto the head and shape it like you care.

You will often find French hat wearers staring at mirrors trying to get that perfect look. Just saying...

Another detail was the lack of pouches and nonsense on some of the minis. Now I must say that they are excellent sculpts as well as castings from Eureka but my Commandos do a lot of foot patrols unlike the modeled Police. So I made a few pouches and packs or water bladder carriers.

Now onto the Critical Skills Operators, (CSO) of MARSOC. I've drafted a Eureka SAS troopie on a quad bike to go with my Eureka Aussie SF motorcyclist.

Chopped the head off the Aussie, swapped it with an ANZAC head with a kevlar from the Skirmish Sangin Kiwis and did a bush cover trim on the SAS boy. Those big floppy hat brims look a bit strange to Marines.

Both of these minis got a few extra pouches by milliput or hack and slash methods.

The Ranger from Pooch was disassembled and repainted a nice light khaki and them washed with Brown Tamiya model wash, I like this stuff though it's the first time I've used it. However, my first bull bar and roll bar attempts have been rejected by quality control, and I am in search of 3mm brass wire.

Everybody got a good old fashioned woodland camo scheme as well as desert boots and Commando patches. Just waiting on final dry brushing, detail bits and basing add ons. (Bases are washers, thanks Andy!)

In the end I've got a suitable manoeuvre element for a Sangin game to complement my other figures or even on their own buffed out a bit. My other Afghan Police minis will be mostly more Commandos but I will keep a couple of them as Police in their grey blue.

Looking great Adam! You will have to keep sending through pictures as the painting continues- I will be very interested to see how the roll bar turns out on your Ranger! For all those who were looking lovingly at Adam's motorbike and quad bike, the rules for them you can find in Despatches II, out later this year.

Insurgents Competition - Results!

Our competition celebrating the release of our first four Taliban (details on how to buy some here) ended last week, and after some time taken to collate all of the results, we have been left with no less than 8 entrants who will be sent a pack of our four brand new Taliban miniatures to add to their forces!

So these are the first four Taliban, painted by Craig. The next wave of Taliban will be available VERY soon (we will let you know, don't worry!), and they will be followed by yet another wave of Taliban after that. After all, what is a game in Afghanistan without some cracking good Taliban miniatures?

Below are just some of the awesome pictures that we were sent of Insurgents painted by people out there in the Sangin Community!

First up is two Empress Miniatures Taliban Motorcyclists, by Steve E. You have to admire the lovely blue and red bikes, such a good contrast to the more muted colours of the riders.

Spyros has sent some Empress Taliban, he has opted for an interesting combination of muted browns, punctuated with some brighter whites and blues. Like before, we have a cool blue motorcycle- Am I sensing a theme?

James of Scotland has sent through two close ups of some Empress Taliban. One rocking a splendid blue dishdash, which I am unashamedly going to copy for my Call to Arms Taliban.

"Can you hear me now? No I don't want to upgrade my long distance plan. All I want is some mortar support! Don't you dare put me on hold!"

Darren has sent through a picture of what can only be described as a horde of Empress Taliban! Those are some lovely browns and yellows on the cloth, Darren has done a cracking job on them!

Pat sent through not just pictures of his Taliban, but also a picture of them in a game! He assured me that the Taliban were completly victorious. Or maybe they weren't, but I choose to remember it as a glorious victory for the Taliban forces!

Check out those sweet sneakers on the sniper!

Matt H has sent through a miniature from Battlefield Evolution, from Mongoose Publishing. Now I can't seem to be able to find the miniatures anywhere (although, clearly I need to try harder). He has painted him up as a member of ISIS, although Matt has complained that he looks too "ninja", I think the black clothing works well!

Peter T went with a different manufacturer, option to bring Taliban from The Assault Group. Peter has done a great job with them, including the Osama figure! Operation Geronimo anyone?

And rounding out our winners this time is some cool 20mm Taliban from Underfire Miniatures, sent through to us by Carvel. Not only did we get cool pictures of the 20mm Taliban, but what Carvel did with the Renedra building is awesome too! I have been resisting 20mm, but Carvel is slowly breaking me down.....

A huge thanks to all those who sent us pictures, we always enjoying seeing what those in the Sangin Community are up to with their games. Don't forget that we are always looking for more content for our books and our blog, After Action Reports, articles, things you have painted, or even just to tell us how awesome we are, don't hesitate to drop us an email, we look forward to hearing from you!

Pooch

Call to Arms Preperation- Javelins and Maths

We are just finalising our Insurgent competition, it will be up here on the blog by the end of the week!

Today's Call to Arms post is a look at the Javelin missile, and at a bit of simple maths.

The FGM-148 Javelin Missile is a US made, man portable anti-tank missile. Guided by a laser, the Javelin is a fire-and-forget weapon, once it has it's target the operator does not need to continue to guide the missile as they would with earlier missiles such as the TOW or Dragon.

You made the sound effect, didn't you.....

One of the cooler things about the Javelin is that it either can be used in a direct attack mode- flying straight into the target, or it can use a top attack mode, flying high, then coming down vertically onto the target. The top attack is designed to defeat the weaker top armour of a tank, as opposed to trying to take on the tank's heavier frontal armour.

According to the fountain of all knowledge, known to mortals as Wikipedia, the Javelin has been used in Afghanistan to:

During the War in Afghanistan, the Javelin was used effectively in counter-insurgency (COIN) operations. Initially, soldiers perceived the weapon as unsuited for COIN operations due to its destructive power, but trained gunners were able to make precision shots against enemy positions with little collateral damage. The Javelin filled a niche in U.S. weapons systems against DShK heavy machine guns and B-10 recoilless rifles; weapons like the AT4 and M203 had good effects but insufficient range, medium and heavy machine guns and grenade launchers had greater range but insufficient effects, and heavy mortars had good range and effects but poor precision. The Javelin, as well as the TOW, had enough range, power, and accuracy to counter standoff engagement tactics employed by enemy weapons. With good locks, the missile is most effective against vehicles, caves, fortified positions, and individual personnel; if enemies were inside a cave, a Javelin fired into the mouth of the cave would destroy it from the inside, which was not possible from the outside using heavy mortars. The psychological effect of the sound of a Javelin firing sometimes caused insurgents to disengage and flee their position. Even when not firing, the Javelin's CLU was commonly used as a man-portable surveillance system

So that is the Javelin, on to the simple maths.

The Javelin has an effective firing range of 75 to 2500 metres. In the Skirmish Sangin rules, the range equates to a maximum range of 1250" and a minimum range of 35". It was Craig who pointed out that the tables we will use at Call to Arms are 4 feet square, or 48" by 48". If you look at the minimum range of the Javelin compared to the table size, it looks like this:

The yellow spot in the corner is the Javelin gunner, and the grey area represents the area on the board which he is unable to target the enemy with the Javelin, due to it being within his minimum range! So in short, if you bring a javelin to a knife fight, you aren't going to be shooting it!

Now, what does that mean for my Australian list?

Well, primarily that I don't think I will bring a Javelin. To use it with any effectiveness on a smaller table like the 4x4 ones at Call to Arms will take a serious amount of forward planning on my part, and no small amount of luck. Plus, now I have put it's major weakness online on a blog which I assume is read by all of the people entering the competition, who now all know exactly how to defeat the weapon in a game of Sangin.....

But what to replace it with?

Looking at my Australian figures, there were a few options.

Option One:
Drop the quality of some of my Australians, and bring a third fire-team. Tempting, because it would give me a lot of numbers, which would more than shock a few of these Taliban forces who are counting on outnumbering the ISAF forces!

I am not so keen on this one, mainly because it is another 4 guys I would need to paint. Could I do it? Probably. Is it the best option? Probably. Am I going to go for it? No.

Option Two:
By dropping the quality of some of the Auzzies, it would free me up some points to bring their transport, a Bushmaster vehicle. A bit of armour, some firepower, but like the extra fire team, a bit more painting than I think I can do before next weekend. Plus my Taliban are already bringing a technical, so I don't want to be accused of repetition!

Pictured: Option One and Two, looking completely unpainted! Crikey that Bushmaster is a bright white resin....

Which leaves Option Three:
I could replace my two man weapons team, with another two man team. Heavy machinegun is an option, but I lack a good fixed MG model, one that looks different than my 2 Minimi gunners (because I will forget it is a gun team if it isn't!).
The most appealing option for me is to replace my 2 man javelin team with a 2 man sniper team. For those who were looking closely yesterday, they would have actually spied the sniper lurking in the background of the photo. I have got the camo done, and last night I did the undercoat on all the Auzzies' boots and skin. And did no painting on the Taliban. But I am still making progress right?

The sniper is the standard figure from Empress, but I was short a single Auzzie helmet (even after the guys at Empress gave me some more!), but with a brain wave, I remembered I had some spare USMC heads wearing boonie hats! While it is not a slouch hat, it looks more than suitable for an auzzie sniper in my mind!

So the Sniper Team will be Two Veteran Australians (150) wearing Body Armour (20) with a Sniper Rifle (10) and an Assault Rifle (10). I had ten points spare in my basic list, so I have enough points left to give them both a grenade each as well.

Right, back to painting. Hoping to have some progress with these guys tomorrow, and really need to have some progress with the Taliban. And wasn't I building a technical?

Pooch

Call to Arms preparation- Progress?!

The Insurgent painting competition has closed! We are collating all of the images which were sent in now. We will show them off, along with announcing our winners later this week. A big thanks to all those who entered, keep an eye out for the images!

As for my Call to Arms forces....

All of the Australians had made the painting table, unfortunately the two fire-team leaders have lost the aerials for their backpack radios.

As a simple solution, I used a drill, greenstuff and a spare metal pike from one ancients army or another (I mainly use these to pin with), to make some radio aerials for my fire-team leaders.

While not as perfect as the aerials that Empress provide, these will be a whole lot less fragile, and will still look the part.

Now as to painting, this is where I have got to so far on the Australians:

All of them have their camo done, now it is just skin, weapons, detailing and basing.

Here is a close up of one of the squad leaders, showing off how the Crye camo currently looks:

I am hoping to get the detailing done this week.

And as for the Taliban?

Well, progress is being made, all of them have got the base colours done on their clothing, now I need to ink/highlight that, then do the skin, weapons, webbing, beards etc.

And I still haven't started on the technical.

But still, progress is progress!