CHELTENHAM WARCHIEFS

Specialist Games












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The CWC play a variety of Specialist Games which can be found on this page.
 

Specialist Games is the collective title of the non-core (Warhammer Fantasy Battle and Warhammer 40,000) games of Games Workshop. The website can be found at (www.specialist-games.com). There as 8 to choose from:

 

·    Battlefleet Gothic – star-ship combat in the 40K universe

·    Battle of Five Armies – battles with armies from the end of The Hobbit using 10mm figures

·    Blood Bowl – fantasty American Football (Grid Iron) using 28mm figures

·    Epic – large scale 40k battles, using 6mm scale figures

·    Inquisitor – skirmish level game, using 54mm figures and set in the 40K universe

·    Mordheim – skirmish level game, using 28mm figures and set in the Warhammer world

·    Necromunda – skirmish level game, using 28mm figures and set on a planet in the 40K universe

·    Warmaster – large scale Warhammer battles, using 10mm figures

 

Of these choices, Bloodbowl, Mordheim and Necromunda are played most often.

 

Within the Cheltenham Warchiefs, it has also come to encompass other games as well, namely:

 

·    Warmaster Ancients - large scale historical battles, using 6 or 10mm figures

·    Legends of the Old West - skirmish level game, set in the Wild West (really?) using 25/28mm figures

·    Legends of the High Seas - skirmish level game, set in the Caribbean using 25/28mm figures

·    BlitzkreigCommander (and ColdWarCommander) - large scale modern (1936+) battles, using 6, 10 or 15 (or even 20!) mm  figures

·    Victory At Sea – World War II fleet-based naval warfare

 

The first three are from Warhammer Historical (www.warhammer-histotrical.co.uk), Blitzkrieg and ColdWar Commander are Warmaster variants written by Peter Jones (www.blitzkreig-commander.com), and Victory At Sea is from Mongoose Publishing (www.mongoosepublishing.com).

 








































Victory at Sea (1:3000th Scale WW2 Naval)

vascover.jpg

Andy's British Royal Navy
(Atlantic Northern Fleet)
 
Once again....scouring the web for info on the British Navy I was able to choose vessels that I both liked and that fit the historical background of the force i was creating. I was keen that my navy should be true to the history. So i have 3 Naval Combat groups which use the following class of ship -
 

3 Heavy Aircraft Carriers

2 Support Escort Carriers

3 Battlecruisers

6 Cruisers

5 Battleships

6 U Class Submarines   

6 T-Class Submarines

1 Submarine Support Ship

1 Hospital Ship

2 Monitors

2 Minelayers

8 Destroyers

8 Escort Ships

12 Merchant Marine Vessels

 

Fleet Airarm

 

Carrier Flights:

 

Super-marine Spitfires x 20 Flights

Fairey Firefly x 5 Flights

Blackburn Barracuda x 15 Flights

Fairey Swordfish Float x 15 Flights

Fairey Fulmars x1 Flights

Fairey Martlets x1 Flights

 

Land Based:

 

Lancaster with bouncing bomb x 3 Flights

 

 

I decide to base the ships on 3mm plastic sheets, covered with Valejo Water Effect gel. After undercoating with black spray, I painted the ships according to class, whether they have an armoured deck, etc. The same was done for aircraft. However, the aircraft needed attaching to their supports which i did by very carefully drilling with my trusty Dremmel drill. The aircraft were then carefully painted using colour photos as a source of inspiration.

 

Unfortunately I am still waiting for 5 flights of Supermarine Spitfires, and 15 flights of Baracudas from the supplier. Once I have those the fleet will be complete.

 

If you would like to join us please do not hesitate in contacting me or any of the other players.

 

'Rule Britannia, Britannia Rules the Waves...'

 

 

 

  






The Cruel Sea - Wargaming the Cold Seas of World War 2
By Andy Culham
 
During a debuched evening of drinking and eating cheesy chips, myself, Sedge and John H discussed the stae of wargaming at the club. Although we deeply enjoyed the games presently played at the club we felt that there was something missing. The thre of us agreed that we wanted to play something different - something that did not invlove men, monsters and tanks. Also we wanted a game that was easy and quick to pick up, cheap to put together and stirred the imagination.
 
Both John and I were keen to look into playing some galactic space battle using giant starships and vipers. So I started to look around and found Babylon 5 as a potential contender to appease our thirst for galactic conquest. However the models were expensive (nearly £10 per model!!), but the ruleset was simple, quick and fun. The same publisher of Babylon 5 (Mongoose Publishing) also produced  a WW2 naval combat game using the same rule system as Babylon 5. Excitedly John, Sedge and myself decided to order the rule books and invstigate models. The game is entitled 'Victory at Sea'
 
I scouted the web looking for models and decided upon 1:3000th scale models mainly due to their inexpensive and well cast character. Skytrex produce these models for all the major fleets of WW2 (British, German, USA, France, Soviet, Japanese and even the Dutch!) For aircraft i decide to use 1:1200 scale models to symbolise flights of aircraft.
 
By this point (within a week of discussing over cheesey chips) we had other members interested in joining us on the high seas.
 
So began the scrample for sides!
 
  • Andy - British Royal Navy (Atlantic Fleet)
  • Sedge - German Kriegsmarine
  • John H - Imperial Japanese Navy
  • Scott - Russian Baltic Fleet
  • Doug - British Royal Navy
  • Graham - Imperial Japanese Navy
 
So we all ordered our models, putting together our fleets. One of the great things about the game is you can play formally (ie using points to put a fleet together) or you can play informally just by bringing what you want to the table with the agreement of your opponent.
 
So thats where we are.......
 
 
 
 






Blitzkrieg Commander, Warmaster Ancients, Warmaster Fantasy

Warmaster, Warmaster Ancients, BlitzkriegCommander and ColdWarCommander are all related games, in that the first one inspired the other three. There are also Medieval,  English Civil War and Napoleonic variants available. Warmaster Medieval will be released by Warhammer Historical sometime this year, and the others are available from the Yahoo Warmaster group. The key feature of these games is command and control, rather than how good or bad units are. This means that the player has to be able to cope with the fact that his troops may not do want he wants, when he wants! They are all fairly easy and quick to learn, but take a few games to appreciate the subtleties, and to get used to not being so concerned with the abilities of units. I have yet to have a game of BKC that I haven’t enjoyed (and I have yet to win one!)

Personally, they have a great ‘feel’ to them, as they capture the grand scale of battles – in Warmaster and Warmaster Ancients you are commanding whole armies, and in BKC/CWC you are commanding regiments or battalions, depending on the scale you chose to play at. The default unit scale in BKC/CWC is a platoon ( approx 30 men or 4-5 tanks), but will cope with units as sections or individual tanks.

Another couple of pluses for these games is that a) there is only one book (except Warmaster Ancients, where there two), so there is no need to buy a continuous stream of supplements; and b) due to the small size of the figures, armies don’t cost too much. A 1000-point Warmaster Ancients army will cost between £30-40, depending on where you get the figures from, and a BKC starter force is about the same.

Wild West & Legends of the High Sea

Legends of the Old West and Legends of the High Seas are a blend of Mordheim and Lord of the Rings games. They both are skirmish level games, involving a ‘gang’ consisting of Heroes, Henchmen and Hired Swords, but uses the LOTR combat system. Figures-wise, there are few manufactures that make suitable miniatures, and one of the best would have to be Black Scorpion Miniatures (www.blackscorpionminiatures.com).

Mordheim & Necromunda

Mordheim and Necromunda are similar games, the main difference being the former is set in the Warhammer world, and the latter in the Warhammer 40K universe. Each player has a warband or gang, and fight various skirmishes to improve the skills of the warband/gang members, and to increase the rating of the warband/gang as a whole. After each game, income is acquired and can be spent on recruitment, weapons or equipment. There are some subtle differences between the two games, In Necromunda, gang members are all individuals, where as in Mordheim there are Heroes (individuals) and Henchmen (groups of 1 or more lesser mortals). In Necromunda, skills learnt are determined by dice rolls (dependant on gang type and the type of gang member), whereas in Mordheim they can be chosen by the player. Both are good games, and can be played in under an hour, meaning you can squeeze in a couple on a club night! Both sets of rules can be downloaded from the Specialist Games website for free.

Bloodbowl

Blood Bowl is a great game. Loads of fun, entertaining, the rules are available online for free, and only takes at most 2 hours to play. You will only ever need a maximum of 16 figures (the maximum size of a team), and a pitch to play on. It is essentially American football, but with loads more carnage (team members can die – especially if they are Halflings or Goblins!). It can be played as a one-off game, or in an on-going league system, provided someone is prepared to do the (minimal) book-keeping this entails. In my opinion, it is the best game Games Workshop have made!

 

There are several members of the club with teams, and a league was run a couple of years ago. Time to dust off the boots and polish up the knuckle dusters!








































 

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