Christmas Surprises

So November 4 I ordered another box of Perry 28mmm ACW from caliverbooks, Until I received this order I held off on the ACW painting (Added of course by my shaky thumb), a week later I was also tempted by a Peter pig 20% discount and some Irregular Miniatures 15mm Jungle animals. These were my xmas presents to myself and I left it at that.

Peter Pig arrived promptly as always, Irregular arrived but no Perry............so I placed it down to a small delay certain parcels get from time to time. I then took advantage of a mightyape.co.nz deal and ordered some Flames of War desert buildings - they contacted me and said it would be 2-3 weeks until they could send - which was fine for me - I'd get my ACW and then after Xmas some FoW - Everyone is a winner or so they say :).

They are pre-painted, yes its a little lazy of me but that's what money os for.

Mmm Dec 7 and still no Perry...........so I contacted Caliver and they apologised as my order was processed but nothing happened to it - BUGGER. Then a knock at the door and there was a FoW Desert Building package from mightyape being delivered 4 DAYS after ordering - HUZZAH. So I guess the Positive and Negative forces of wargaming luck have shown themselves today.


So I now need to make another Caliver order for some ACW and a box or two of 28mm plastic WSS figures that two people talked me into getting (well to be honest they only mentioned it, I talked myself into it very quickly.)

I have also tonight done a nights painting with no shakes - things are looking up. Hopefully I will have some pictures up.

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 !

First ACW based and 15mm Altenguard Army.

So seeing as though have a tonne of stuff painted but not based properly I thought I'd spend the next session sorting some of this stuff out. First off I found the 28mm Russian 1812 Horse Artillery, filled my paint tray with dark brown and then proceeded to drop the first figure in head first - %&$^&!.

Then I did it again (%&$@! x 2) and gave up on the Napoleonic as I needed to clean two figures and it gave me the hump.

So I have based the first four bases of the 29th Pennsylvania. The standards are in the post at the moment, and when they arrive I will finish the pole as well as sort out Officer and NCO chevrons etc. I've gone for a plain old grass scheme with a few weeds and clumps of brush, typical sheep country !.

So I have another 20 figures to paint from the first box and the second box to go.

I then moved onto a 15mm Rally Round the King Army - Altenguard (basically based on 100YW English) - lots of bows, a few men at arms and a commander, I based the Brethren (Religious Paladin types) Knights as well as for some reason they were in the wrong box.

 I also noticed that the spears\spikey points all need fixing - yay. I also need to adorn the pike with a standard of some type.

Unfortunately I was a bit robotic now and accidentally based 3 Goblin Archer stands in the same grass theme so I called it a night there as I wanted to give them a rock\cave based theme. Looking at the RRTK boxes I have the following to finish.

Goblin (Bases to be flocked)
Border Kingdoms (Norman)
Elf
Dwarf
Imperium (Roman)

If less is more, then more must be awesome.

So onwards and upwards. I have been quite busy on the painting table, but rather lazy taking photos.

I have started to paint the bases of my 20mm Japanese, and then realised I have never done jungle bases before so will need some different decor. This is quite good timing as I need some tufts and flowers etc to make the lads below look pretty on their bases. The figures (16) are only 60% done as I still have to add the final shade\highlight layer, blanket rolls, brass n boots and head wear to go. The faces will also get a slight wash in some places, especially elephant man on the far left hand side.  only 56 to go :). My blues are quite light, but I'm happy with it, I have spent some time in museums around the USA in my traveling days and that good old blue uniform did vary considerably. I spent a lot of time in Alabama too over the course of a few years but rue the day I didn't buy that kepi in that trinket store.

And you can never have a Napoleonic 15mm army without Italians ............

So hopefully I'll bash out the rest of these Unions lads over the next few weeks, and I need to finalize my Peter Pig order. I've often wondered why he never seemed to advertise specials, but now I seem to have been in on a lucky discount draw and have got a hefty discount for one order only - HUZZAH !

Magpie !

My daughter ended up with Viral Pneumonia which meant a few days in hospital, then lucky for me I was then sick over the long weekend with said virus. So finally after 10 or so days off I have got the paints out again. I also squeezed in a game for the Rechburg Dynasty (http://rechburg.blogspot.co.nz/2012/10/battle-of-ulrichstein.html) in which I tried my hand at carrying a positions with the bayonet enforce. The only thing I carried was  a crap load of crap dice - I was rolling 40 odd dice in a turn and was getting maybe 2x 6's, while Barry '6's' Taylor seemed to not get anything apart from a 6. Such is life - I took a chance and relied on luck and ended up with a bloody nose.
Painting
I shall endeavor to finish off these ww2 Japanese, I thought I needed figures but found a large bundle of SHQ 50mm mortars so was able to finish the first battalion. Below a 4 Company battalion, with attached weapons company and Regimental assets (MMG and 75mm gun). The figures are a mix of Airfix, Esci, Italeri and SHQ. I also need to plan how I decorate the bases as it will be jungle themed which I have never done before.

 I have split the figures into two types of uniform - a jungle green of sorts and the good old "Japanese uniform\ochre. So far I have only finished the Jungle green outfit, I should have enough for a full regiment (3 battalions) all up and then I can start on the KNIL\Aussies.

 What ho ! I found this stand in my Napoleonics - I cheeky vignette of a Aristocrat and his buxom Friend. I need to sort out my pirates and get some games on (Job number 1000000 in my list of things to do)

 Talking of things to do - what are these below............

The Rebel Barracks team are planning a 28mm Gettysburg Re-fight next year and I am tempted to join in. I don't plan to have a 28mm ACW army (as 6mm, 15mm and 1/72 are enough !) but I have always fancied these figures (Its those bloody Perry\Victrix Napoleonic that started this) so I purchased a box to see how they fare. Just like the Napoleonic Perry - very nice to paint (of course my Napoleonics are sitting half done after 2 years cough cough). So I'll paint a box for the entertainment ;)

Take care.

Pickup game and blogger issues

Blogger 
I've spent the last 24 hours re-following quite a few blogs that seemed to get wiped off my list when I upgraded to the latest version. It was a pain in the ass but as blogger is free I wont moan too much but it was fun reconnecting and seeing what others are up to(Was also a good reminder to renew my Lone Wolf subscription).

But the new Kaptcha routine is manure extraordinaire. I can barely read anything and I have excellent vision ! but I guess my dated laptop doesn't help things.

Game
On Thursday evening Barry and I played a pickup game to test out fighting in horrible terrain, as well as try out a pint value system for the VLE Ruleset.

I created  a mixed Spanish force based on the First Division at Bailen with highly inflated morale states though. My goal was simple, advance straight ahead and slog it out on the hedgerows, which turned out to be pretty hard. Below is the table, lots of hedges, fences, walls and hills and wonderful 15mm troops of Barry and my own collection.

 Barry's Bavarian Division advances towards the Spanish Guard.

My attempt at a killing blow, I managed to concentrate 3 brigades at one point and all that was facing them was a sole French battalion. Even the Spanish couldn't stuff this one up.......

 Which they promptly did. We simply couldn't seem to hit anything with musketry\shell so 3 brigades simply charged the French lines. This then prompted some severely bad dice rolling on both sides in which we were rolling 8 or so dice each and not getting a single hit. However a Spanish battalion near the northern farm got a little wobbly, and then ran for the hills. Several battalions around it didn't take this as a good sign and motivation dropped and my attack stalled and then in the next two turns some fancy french artillery fire broke several units and I retreated. All the while it was a good game, attacking bad terrain is difficult but even if you make it you are then a poor dice roller things are not going to end up very well.

Command Decision

So I was trying to find a hedge-trimmer charger in the garage that I thought was on a shelf next to the wargames storage area and low and behold I find my CD rulesets in a box. I have the good old 2nd edition that I enjoyed for many good years (not that 3rd Ed that no one seemed to like) and a large tonne of figures of various nations that I have stored away for some future date.

So rifling through a few blogs I find some OOB for the Early War pacific (KNIL, AIF and IJA) and I notice that I have all the figures needed for some units. So as I paint the SYW figures up I will do a few ww2 figures at the same time. The good thing about CD in the pacific is that the forces were so small and armour are so rare that I don't need to make 50 odd vehicles for a single game !.

The bad thing is all those nifty plastic Aussies, Esci Japanese are out of production :( so I cant readily get anymore.

While I was looking I also found 28mm BTD Germans and Russians,  some Panthers and about 3 unmade 1/72 StugIII, 2 Pz III that I should really sell or trade as I need to odd infantry gun for the IJA and KNIL.