It turns out that I may have had my first wargame in one year on Saturday. I am sure that I have had more, but in fact I have only had one game. What a depressing thought ! I suspect while I have talked about war-gaming this may not have been the case but this has been one of the reasons for my recent change in focus in the last few weeks.

Geoff kindly organized a 15mm game at his house and I took part on the British side (Fighting my own figures no less). The French\Prussians (Geoff and Andrew) held a ridge-line with a steep escarpment which we (Ross and myself) had to somehow assault.

With my typical dash and bravado off I surged forward however it was not until later I realized that I made a very serious error, perhaps one of the most basic. While the escarpment could be handled I negated, in my enthusiasm I suspect, to check what the right ring of the British Army was doing. While I raced forward in column to assault the hills, I did not notice the right wing was advancing in line and also had a river to cross. This can be seen in the below showing my forces racing ahead.

 This left a conundrum as I had advanced too rapidly but needed to tie down the flank while waiting for the other wing to close up. However, up the hill we went but alas, my dice rolling was not that great and while I did knock around the French to a small degree I simply took a pasting. By then the right wing had descended but was easily repulsed.

A good game though and nice to be back in action. I suspect I shall sell my Prussians (and 28mm Russians) as they simply are an odd fit to the forces I have (Peninsular).

While I was there Andrew showed me his laser cut and hand crafted fleet for Lepanto. Seriously brilliant modelling and painting, these ships were magnificent and photos do not do them justice.

ACW Basing options

Wow 21st of Jan and I have made 6 post already - I'm really enjoying this burst of enthusiasm and activity. I'm deep into another Saxon unit and will have that finished tonight - I usually paint  50 figures in anyone go but I cut that back to 24 for this last two Saxons as I have other things to do. Once these two are complete I have two French Regiments to do which will take my grand total of French Infantry to 3 units (out of 25). Then its the French cavalry's turn to be re-based (and horses painted properly).

A brief interlude into ACW.

I have been looking at Regimental Fire and Fury recently and then at my current figures. Those that survived my original ACW armies were based matching Archduke Piccolos rule-set (Blue and Gray I think) on 35mm x 15m bases. Since most of the forces destruction I have purchased new figures but I have noticed that fitting the older style base is an issue. Airfix and Esci figures fit fine as they have smaller bases but other brands and the poses suit those bases. Some Italeri, Revell and IMEX however have larger bases or the poses often seem to be facing forward so the base is width wise instead of the old classic height wise (Firing figures like the red shirt rebel on the right hand base)). This results in only certain figures fitting together well on a base.

So a new plan is needed I think as I'm not happy with the way the bases work on the new figures.

The following picture is of 3 different basing option (using some unpainted figures).

Right is the original 35mmx15mm, middle is 35mmx30mm and left is the F&F 20mm recommended size 1 1/4 " x 1".

 

The newer options really only have 2 figures frontage that I think works well space size, but it simply blows away my current units. My units are all individual Regiments from the War (eg: 10th Alabama) so moving to a F&F basis of stands will take away that individual basis and also wreck havoc with my current organisation. I could aim for a default F&F unit size of say 6 or 10 stands but this then causes issues.

eg:  10th Alabama is 24 figures (8 ranks of 3) currently

Options - 

• Do nothing and just trip the figure bases to fit (For F&F two older bases can combine into 1 FF base.

• If I re-based for Fire and Fury - I could go for an average size of 6 stands (24 figures) to keep the individual feel and then have a load of generic stands to plug the gaps if larger units are needed or simply go for units of 10 and adjust\remove per ruleset used.
• Bases ESCI\Italeri on the old bases (making figure combos fit) and then use the IMEX\Revell figures for FF bases for a small force.

It is something I shall have to ponder over as it seems like a lot of effort.

All packed up and nothing to do.

So we are almost out of the house and living in Limbo. To add to the joy of moving I managed to contract Food poisoning and spent the entire time ill. As all I ate for three days (Ill and moving days)was 3 bananas so I am feeling a trifle tired at the moment and have come to work for rest

In the spare hour I have a day I haven't done a great deal. The laptop has also crapped itself so I have no internet access at the temporary lodgings until it is fixed (Power supply is toast and while I am a software genius, electrical areas are not my expertise), I have no figures to paint so have mostly been reading the Piquet Les Grognards Rule-set Les Grognards 2 I received recently, playing Xbox Fifa12 soccer and sleeping.

Why Les Grognards and Piquet for Solo?

This rule set I would be using for my solo ramblings so I was looking for a set with suitable Solo\FOG appeal. The internet is a wealth of ideas on how to achieve these, but currently I don't have the motivation to make my own set of solo mechanics so I will simply use a printed set for the time being. I do have an extensive library of solo mechanics picked up from various sources (Lonewarrior, blogs etc) so one day I will make my own. The ruleset is also card activated so it takes a lot of the I see and control all aspect out of a wargame.

I am tempted by the mechanics that SmallWorldProductions posted some time ago using counters for a solo campaign to generate battles using the rules he mentioned, as well as adding my own (Random events\Rebellions etc) to get some solo games going, simply to test out my mechanics.

My main aim is to be able to do  a solo peninsular campaign (or part of it - 1808) and the British "brought forward) invasion of Denmark in 1807 (It was in 1808 but I fancy the Cuesta's Spanish being there and on the French side). These games I can just do when I feel like when no other game opportunity exists.

I'm an avid fan of Tabletop Diversions solo dungeon campaign. When I started Historical wargaming in the late 1980's I never saw myself doing D&D\RPG but I have used Labrynth Lord myself for simply playing about and quite like the ruleset (they are very long though). Though my own dungeon delves so far have resulted in each party being wiped out really quickly !

As we are living with the in-laws I now have a bountiful supply of baby sitters so I plan to get some actual gaming going as well hopefully.

Cheerio

2014 Goals

2013 Review.


I have painted a lot of figures this year - mostly 15mm and 6mm. I haven't  done too much gaming, a few games at the start of the year plus some odd solo games on the kitchen table. I've also been sick for a great deal of this year, and also travelled for roughly 2 months for work which has really caused me all sorts of grief. However, as I spent 6 months not doing anything at all game\paint-wise as I really enjoy painting figures I should count my blessings.
 
2014 Goals

I need Goals as I've been in a bit of a drought, a bit like West Ham - wandering aimlessly through the year only talking up big but suffering humiliating defeats to Fulham.

Plans

• Complete 28mm WSS Spanish Army 8x18 figure Battalions, 12 Cavalry and some guns.
• Start 25mm HOTT army (Fairytale What goes bump in the night army - Goblins,Gnomes, bogeyman,ogres,heroes, princes blah blah)
• Finish 15mm French Army (200 odd figures)
• Finish 15mm Prussian Army(150 odd figures)
• Finish 15mm Warrior Heroes armies (Elf, Dwarf, Roman) - 100 odd figures
• Rebasing 28mm Napoleonics (Re-base current French and allied Armies to bigger bases to ease movement of figures)
• Finishing 28mm French army (I still have 6 units, 4 cav to complete)
• Finishing 28mm Russian and Prussian Armies (Still have a good 8 or so units to complete)
• Start 28mm British Army (8 Bns to do)
• Finish WW2 Desert Armies - 1/72
• Finish 6mm napoleonic armies (For quick solo games at home)
• 1/72 18th Century Imaginations (Get the ball rolling)
• Ignore trademe and ebay (and TMP, and tabletopgaming news)

Oh and some terrain would be good.

What's the common theme (Apart from OCD\ADHD with a splice of Hording )! - Napoleonics - I simply love it and have armies in 3 scales. What a nutcase !

The amount of time I spend painting I firmly believe that I can complete the above - I average 2 hours painting at least a night.

 My biggest issue has always been space, as currently I have to unpack everything and repack it at night (So little hands cant get my "pretty horsies" and "daddys little men") and this takes time. Hopefully soon (As we are homeless in 2 weeks for a month) when we have a new house I can have some decent space for a game as-well as to leave things out. I have not rebased the 28mm Nappies as it would mean getting them all out, glueing them and then putting them all away in one night - I simply havent had the motivation to do it !.

Happy New Year To all.

Trade Me

Looks like the Wargames\Other section of trade me has a seller auto-listing 14 pages of items, I can't see a way of blocking these listings (Single auctions for a single paint pottle for an entire range) and I'm pretty much over going through every page so I guess I'll just have to not bother.

If anyone in ChCh  is interested in some 28mm Black tree WW2 Germans and Russians (and 76mm AT gun) let me know.

In greater news I  need to have my nose reconstructed so I'll be off for two weeks at some point so I'll have to find myself something to do while I am taking it easy. I have a feeling it will be painting..........I could always buy a T-55 online.

Walcheren fever

Where have I been............I have been in Australia on and off over the last few months which has coincided with  a downturn in wargaming\painting hobby itself. I was going to take part in the ACW Gettysburg refight in Christchurch this weekend but I had to pull out as I needed to be in Australia yet again for work. I have also sold a TC3 property (after some lengthy process as the buyer turned out to be one of the biggest idiots I have ever dealt with), changed jobs and run a half marathon.

However, I am not in Australia I am home (in NZ) in bed with pneumonia and have been in bed since Thursday morning. It looks like I will be in bed for a few days yet as I am trying to avoid going into hospital as they are such frightful places and Id rather stay here drugged up to the hilt, reading about Astronomy on the laptop and playing Napoleonic PC games. I got sick as I was tired from constant travel, dealing with idiots, the fact its horribly cold in nz at the moment and general lack of sleep due to children, work and coughs.

To amuse myself I found a Napoleonic add-on for a game called mount and blade warband - which is extremely entertaining. Its a first person shooter and you can be one of several troop types per nation and it is multiplayer, so every person in the game is another real person.

It also has musicians so you can play regimental music for the host nation, and also play pianos

But enough of this silliness !!
Anyways hopefully once the lurg has gone I might look at getting fernando enterprises to paint some figures for me to get a project going asap.

Take care all.
Paul

The Twitch !

What is happening at the moment. Not a lot, I seem to be suffering some sort of nervous twitch in my left thumb which makes painting and holding figures steadily almost impossible. I did try however, but I would go to paint an Ansar’s rifle, twitch just as brush bristles touched led and then end up painting brown on his clothes. I had to revert to basing  (for spraying) and  undercoating new figures and painting the base coat on completed bases but based figures suck up a lot more space than when they are new in a bag so I’ve actually run out of storage boxes. There has also been some grumbling in the camp by my civilian camp followers about the space I am taking up in the kitchen, and I have been warned that a mutiny may occur.

Before the dreaded twitch I was going all out to finish my 15mm Zulu and Dervish armies and I made some headway, but alas I am now laying low until I can’t paint twitch free again. The Dervishes are Peter Pig and they are such a nice figures, I  whinged to myself that one of the figures had flash on the front and back (I’ve never seen flash on a PP figure before) so got out the old knife and pruned away. I then decided to engage my brain and realised as this particular tribesman was nude, then perhaps the “flash” at the front was actually his crown jewels and so I only pruned the flash at the front. I guess I just assumed it was flash and didn’t really have my 15mm figure penis check mind set on.

So I am currently just reading blogs and doing paperwork for solo campaigns I intend to run. One of those campaigns is to redo my Jaxonia Ubongo campaign as the last time I did it I seemed to have tremendous luck. On rereading the rules I found I had made a few mistakes and left out jungle encounters completely, but as I now have a bag of Jungle animals from Irregular Miniatures it looks like gorillas, crocodiles and various others beasts will also pray on the poor soldiers.

Its pretty boring with a twitchy thumb !