McWinter of '79

You don't have to wait till 2025 to carry the fight north of the border with the Winter of '79. Rolf at RH Models has released this nice armed civilian support pack wearing iconic Scottish headgear.

UrbUKsupscot; 3 Brens, 3 Stirling, 2 GPMG: £4.00

A bit of a SITREP is in order..... in the run up to Christmas we are going to publish no less than four Winter of '79 themed mini games on this blog. A homage to The Sandbaggers, the cracking 1970s TV spy series with Roy Marsden; an operational level 'Ops Room' game; Join The Professionals is a tongue in cheek Cold War era military career gamette; and speaking of Professionals, if you ever fancied being behind the wheel of a silver or gold Ford Capri, or even a Ford Consul GT, chasing 1970's bad guys in Rovers and S type Jags, then this Christmas you can entertain your friends and family with our fun car chase game. All that plus some more urban tabletop action too.

Cheers

Mark

SD Mouldings: Trouble At Mill

Abandoned buildings make a great patrol objective on the rural tabletop. This OO scale, run down mill, was located on eBay and available from Scalebuildings4all.

Kevin, behind Scalebuildings4all sells reasonably priced, OO scale, home cast and painted buildings originally marketed by SD Mouldings. Fully 'assembled' and painted buildings come in at around £14 each. Though be warmed that the mill is a substantial rural building and as such pitches in at £21.

During the summer I built up a nice collection of buildings over several weeks, enabling me to create a typical stone Cotswold/Dales village. Kevin religiously refunds any excess postage costs and has proved himself to me to be one of the good guys on eBay.

Cheers
Mark

Elhiem: What A Carry On!

No. Stop Messin' About!  Seriously. We are kick starting the Winter of  '79 engines this winter with a quick look at Elheim's new Early Cold War British from the 1950's armed with the SLR, which was adopted by the British Army in 1957. Winter of '59 Anyone?

"Don't you think this is a trifle out of date in a world bristling with H-Bombs, Sergeant?"

Right now, the  photos on the Elheim website  aren't clear enough to view details so I have to assume they are wearing WW2 era Battledress. Also can't quite make out if they are wearing WW2 era tin lids or the Cold War era MK IV? However, the poses are good, the SLR armed blokes in ECB01 are IMO better than the similar 1970/80s BAOR11, who look like their mess tins can be heard half way to the Kremlin.

 Elhiem Early Cold War British (ECB01)

For Winter of '79 I'd use these guys straight out of the pack as militia/paramilitary types, possibly exchanging the helmets for  bareheads and berets to give them a more irregular feel. I'm actually thinking of an 'Iron Column' of ex-Cons in blue prison battledress. There's also two support packs, each with 3 squaddies armed with a Sterling, Bren.and bazooka (the M20 'Super' Bazooka).   

IRE02 Irish GARDA Police Plain clothes armed with UZIs

More immediately useful not only to our Winter of '79 games, but as 1970's European terrorists, undercover operators and special forces in mufti are IRE02 Irish GARDA Police Plain clothes armed with UZIs. 

Cheers
Mark

Sci Fi Saturday: Scatter Terrain by Karl Alexander

That's the article and supporting material for Wargames Illustrated done! I think it's only fair at this stage to extend both my gratitude and thanks to Wayne at W.I. for his assistance and friendship throughout the process.

Behind the scenes, Wayne has created a buzz about Winter of '79 with manufacturers that you all may benefit from and that alone has made the effort worth it! We'll be back to blogging with all Sterlings blazing next week!

Today, perhaps not surprisingly, I'm taking a short break from all things Winter of  '79, to share my latest Sci Fi scatter terrain find from ebay seller Karl Alexander of Boomer Designs (seller: karl7582).

 Scatter Terrain from eBay seller: Karl7582

Karl kindly painted these crates and drums for me in order to capture an 'Aleph' feel but also specifically match the new Infinity Hephaestus Scenery Pack.

It's also a bit more Mass Effect orientated than the original choice offered by Karl which is in a more military grey/green colour scheme, as shown below.

In the set there's a mix of 32 barrels and crates in the set for around £15.00 plus postage. I've suggested a yellow/red scheme to Karl as well and where practical, he'd be happy to oblige anyone who wanted a bespoke colour combination. I've bought several sets of crates from Karl in the past and he's always been great to do business with.

I have to admit I was vaguely interested in the new Beyond the Gates of Antares boxed starter set Xilos Horizon, but Maff did me a favour and talked me out of it. Instead, I'm keeping an eye on Icarus Miniatures and wishing them all the best. I'm really hoping some of their alien concepts get into production as they would be perfect for AE Bounty and similar skirmish/adventure games.

Cheers
Mark