TwoThreeSixMM

New Dossouye Novel by Charles Saunders

2012-02-08T10:29:00.005-05:00

The next installment in the adventures of Dossouye, that war-bull riding heroine of Charles Saunders, is now available at Lulu. This is a full novel, rather than the collection of short stories of the first installment (also available at Lulu).

Here's the sweet cover art:Although technically her world is different than Imaro's, I'm going by the 1970's map and keeping them together for my 2mm and 10mm fantasy Africa projects. 2mm is my mass battles project using Advanced Legendary Battles, 10mm is my skirmish project using Eureka's cool figures (including war-bulls!). I just need Eureka to come up with more stuff (rhino riders, etc.).

I ordered my copy of Dossouye II last week, it should be here today or tomorrow. I'll let you know what I think. Charles' website is: here

Painting Table Update

2012-02-05T18:12:00.004-05:00

This is the second of two belated blog updates I'm posting, although this one is doubly belated as I was defeated in an effort to post it yesterday. These are some photos, already somewhat out of date, of my ongoing practice painting in 25/28mm.

Some of my old D&D heroes, including Ordant of the Five Hands (second from left) and Swerlin the Magician on the right. The lizard king's been finished now, with some nice yellow eyes and dirty toenails.

Three dwarves:

A couple of elves centering a bike-riding ape. For some sort of sci-fi or post-apoc gaming, haven't quite decided what to do with my monkeys, particularly as I'm doing more in 15mm now. So post-apoc is in the lead at the moment. Plus they're fun!

And here's another shot of my practice Earthman on Mars figure. I need to work on the flesh a bit more, but I'm happy with it so far. Eyes, not so much. In fact, that's one reason I've been avoiding painting, I really hate doing the eyes!

In terms of my New Year's resolution, I'm still obviously working on 25/28mm painting before finishing up the 6mm that's on the table. I hope to only spend another couple of weeks on these test projects.

I'm supposed to be wrapping up cardboard terrain, and should in the next day or so. I gave myself a bit more time since for most of January I was only home to sleep, shower, and change clothes. Next up on the B table is prepping aircraft.

Blasters and Bulkheads Game 3 - Raid on the Rabid

2012-02-05T17:11:00.006-05:00

Hmmm, this took longer than I had planned, but I have a couple of back to back blog updates that have been sitting on my camera for over a month. January is a busy month for travel for me in the real world, so the last few weeks of not much happening in terms of painting etc. wasn't surprising, but this game of Blasters & Bulkheads is from early in the new year.

As you'll recall, in the first game Chewbacca was a casualty and captured by the Imps. In the second game, the rebels successfully captured documents telling them where Chewbacca was being held. So in this third game two task forces, one under Luke, one under Han, raided the Imperial frigate the Rabid to rescue Chewie.

The ship tiles are from Fat Dragon, and most of the 3D props are too, though some are from WorldWorks and others from Micro Tactix. One of my goals in this game was to try out the Essence (aka Force) rules, using Luke. I also gave the rebels a randomly determined secondary goal of having R2D2 download data from one of the computer terminals throughout the ship. Other possible secondary missions included rescuing the other prisoner, capturing an officer, stealing a shuttle, and disabling the engines.

This first pic is from the end of the first turn, the rebels have entered the Rabid at two (randomly determined) points, on the left is Team Skywalker, working towards the engine room, on the right is Team Solo, working towards the prison cells. The Imperial patrols' direction had been randomly determined, and they were programmed to move in that direction until an alert had been given.

A close-up of Team Skywalker - Luke, R2D2, C3PO, another wookie, and a team of troopers:
Team Solo - Han, Leia, and a team of commandos:
By the end of the second turn both rebel teams have been spotted, and the rebel troopers have been whittled down in Team Skywalker. Han did a good job wiping out most of the Imperial naval troopers guarding the bridge, but there are a team of stormtroopers still coming up behind them and cutting off Leia.

At the end of turn 3, things are getting worse for the rebels. The stormtroopers won their showdown with the rebel commandos, and two patrolling stormtrooper NCO's finished off the rebel troopers in Team Skywalker. Somehow the wookie in Team Skywalker was unable to do anything to a simple naval tech in hand to hand combat!

Things are pretty much done for the rebels now, despite Han wiping out another naval patrol. The wookie is down, and R2 and C3PO have retreated back to their ships, and Luke is just finishing off his combat before retreating too.
So the rebels are in deep trouble now, the heroes barely got off ship before it entered hyperspace, and Chewie is still a prisoner.

I think I made a few mistakes in setting the game up. Because I hadn't statted up individual stormtroopers, the stormtrooper patrol consisted of two NCO's, who are better quality than typical stormtroopers should be. The techs in engineering were in the same boat, they should have been done up as henchmen. The end result was there were way too many Fate Dice in play for the Imperials.

I haven't figured out what my next game will be, I'm moving towards playing some Songs of Blades & Heroes fantasy next, and need to spend some time building some more cardboard terrain. But somehow, Chewbacca must be rescued!

15mm Sci Fi from Rebel Mini's

2012-01-04T14:28:00.003-05:00

I had my order from Rebel Miniatures arrive yesterday, I'd placed it during their pre-Christmas sale in mid-December. It was mainly a 15mm sci fi order, although I did get their pulp Cabras pack, which I'll use as a gargolye/demon sort of thing for Solomon Kane and Cormac Mac Art historical fantasy gaming.

Of the rest, I got the Earth Marines and the Earth Armored troopers, which I like as Traveller-esque Imperial Space Marines (better than RAFM's). I'm not sure what I'll do with the Earth Marines proper yet.

I also got the Magistrates pack, which I like as being Cobra-esque, in the GI Joe sense. I also got the Black Widow mercenaries, the Scourage (terminator robots), and the Sahadeen, which are sort of like lower tech rebels. There were also some vehicles in the mix.

So, given that in 25/28mm I have Star Wars, John Carter of Mars, Space 1889, faux-Space Marines/gothic sci fi, Star Trek, and post-apoc. stuff going on, what the heck am I doing in 15mm? Well, like I hinted at, Traveller. I love Classic Traveller, but will probably not be playing it as a RPG again (I'll always tinker with stuff though), so this will be a way to keep the love going. I'll pick up some RAFM Traveller packs later this year, if RAFM does a sale again, and I've learned that Critical Mass does some nice additional Vargr-alikes.

I may do some other things here or there as opportunities arise - Starship Troopers, Firefly, or the Star Risk novels (very Traveller-esque) for example, or just generic sci fi. It may even work for Battlestar Galactica, with the Scourage as Cylons.

2011/2012

2012-01-01T20:51:00.002-05:00

One day into the new year seems like a good time to review last year's resolution, see how I did, and try to come up with a plan for 2012. Assuming the world doesn't end in the meanwhile - we survived the end of the world twice in 2011, and while the Mayans were probably more on the ball than modern apocolypse cults, I'm pretty sure we're ok.

So first to review some of what I said at the end of 2010 (in bold):
The review is pretty simple: Lots prepped, not much painted!
Yeah, that can some up 2011 too, although I did finish the Vietnamese project I had on the table, and some terrain got done, there was too much chasing of butterflies. So after the review, I'm proposing (to myself), my plan to be more focused.

No more cleaning of figures until the backlog is cleared, with a few exceptions:
By "exceptions" of course I meant everything. Mainly it was a couple rounds of 6mm fantasy enthusiasm that caused problems, plus some aircraft prep, and one diversion for Star Trek ships.

Purchasing will be scaled back
It was, for about 3 weeks in October. I actually did scale back relative to 2010, but still spent too much. At least this year I didn't do any stupid purchases (1930's Car Wars, anyone?). 15mm sci-fi isn't stupid, and I lasted until mid-December, so there. Hopefully my plan to maintain focus will let me scale down my purchases in 2012.

Well, ok, two new projects may be allowed – 3mm ACW Terrible Sharp Sword, now that it’s released, and 6mm Hammer’s Slammers, IF they ever get released by Old Crow.
Check and check, at least I followed through on those. Some of my Ground Zero Games purchases have been in support of the Hammer's Slammers project.

Terrain purchases will include a space mat, an aerial mat (overland, already have naval), some 10/15mm pieces, 2mm Irregular, and 3mm from Simply 6 (via Picoarmor).
All good there, except for the aerial mat. And I want a different scaled space map for fighter actions. Unfortunately it looks like Simply 6 is out of the game for 3mm terrain.

2mm purchases for SYW India, my two fantasy projects (Kull, Imaro), Star Wars, and Land Ironclads.
Good there too, except the 2mm fantasy projects seem to have fallen off my mental wayside.

Star Wars capital ships from Studio Bergstrom (falling under the “completing a project” exception).
Again, good! Except I need one more Victory I Star Destroyer, and four more Mon Cal ships. And a Super Star Destroyer from Shapeways.

Then I'm good.

Some more Pulp Figures, particularly if I manage to make the Hot Lead convention in March and PF is there with a booth.
Well, Bob Murch wasn't at Hotlead, but I was. And I bought some of Artizan's pulp line, and some of Blue Moon's pulp cars. And some more pulp vehicles from Recreational Conflict.

And I still did a mail order purchase from Pulp Figures. They're still allowed for next year too. Of course, late this year Splintered Light Miniatures came out with 15mm pulp awesomeness, but I'm not that dumb. Thanks for not asking how many scales under 10mm I'm currently during the American Civil War in.

If Brigade (US version) has any sales, I’ll pick up some ERB Martian figures and VSF skirmish stuff.
If Brigade (UK version) has their summer sale again, I’ll pick up some Aeronef and Land Ironclads stuff – I hope you all admire the way I didn’t spend any money during their Xmas sale.
Yes to both. And I've avoided Brigade (UK)'s Xmas sale this year too. Despite their 15mm sci-fi, 6mm sci-fi, and great spaceship line. And aeronef, land ironclads, and Iron Stars stuff. I hope to be strong during their summer sale.

Splintered Light Miniatures have a few sales during the year, and I expect they’ll have some cool new Splintered Lands mini’s I’ll need, plus I have some of their 15mm stuff in the pending pile.
Yeah, they had sales. More of their 15mm Dark Ages stuff, their not-Firefly crew in 15mm, and a dragon to use in 6mm.

In January I expect to put in an order to round up WWII over the Pacific, there are 6 mini-starter packs that will do me, plus some spares for China. And some modern odds and ends. And I found I need another pack of D.XXI’s for the Finns. But THAT’S it.

Except that wasn't it. Some of the madness were Oddzial Osmy's Italian and French aircraft, but much of it lately has been the ongoing awesomeness of Roman, Arun and Roe, three designers on Shapeways, who've been doing 1/288 WWI aircraft for me (Roman, Der Kampfflieger) and 1/600 WWII-modern aircraft (Arun - Objects May Appear; Roe - Tinythingamajigs). Now I'm waiting for Dom to get some of the modern-era packs put together for me, so I can finish off WWII and the moderns (mostly).

At some point I’d like to place a small order with H&R for 1/300 WWI a/c, I have some gaps in my lineup, and they’re the only ones with a reasonable collection of interesting Interwar a/c.
Didn't get this one done. Am holding off on the interwar stuff in 1/300, as the Shapeway guys might get to it in 1/600. Will have to see how does the coolest stuff fastest. I'd like to wrap up WWI from H&R in one swoop, to get their 40% shipping cost out of my life.

So, my plan to focus more on painting this year is to limit the other stuff I get into - cleaning and prepping, building, etc - by fixing it to a strict schedule. I'll priortize painting projects too, but not put them onto a schedule, just work through one and then onto the next.

Painting Priorities:
1) Continue practicing on 25mm figures.
2) Finish the 6mm stuff that's been on my painting table half-started for a stupidly long time (I think I have a friend who'll paint the rest of my 6mm WWII stuff on commission for me).
3a) Vietnam air.
3b) VSF space (it's on the same tray as the Vietnam stuff).
4) Actual 25/28mm figures - VSF characters and non-Space Marines for my Gothic Earth project.
5) Star Wars fleet scale.
6) Actual 15mm's - Splintered Lands, India skirmish, dark ages, whatever's primed.
7) WWI air.
8) Star Wars fighter-scale.
9) WWII air.
10) Modern air.
11) 2mm fantasy and sci-fi.

Terrain can be done as prepped, and for the record, my definition of 'painting' includes priming.

Other projects, by month:
Jan. - Cardboard terrain
Feb. - WWII plane prepping
Mar. - Base texturing (for all the stuff I based in 2010)
Apr. - VN terrain, including hills
May - 2 and 15mm India miniature prep.
June - 2 and 3mm terrain, mainly texturing bases (India, Europe, sci-fi, ACW)
July - 6mm terrain (fantasy, WWII, modern, sci-fi)
Aug. - 3 and 6mm ACW prep. (and any Vietnam leftovers)
Sept. - Take 2 at cardboard terrain
Oct. - Build terrain from 3D puzzles and other wood things (e.g. birdhouses)
Nov. - Build 15/28mm sci-fi terrain (include the Naloomi's workshop stuff I have around)
Dec. - 6mm fantasy prep.
Bonus: Finish prepping my 1/72 marines in Vietnam.

Leftovers
If I get ahead of schedule, I'll just bump up the next month, which will help because I also have on my list:
- Modern aircraft prepping
- WWI aircraft prepping
- 15mm Indian terrain
- Spaceship prep. (Battlestar Galactica, Iron Stars)
- Basing/mounting/assembling aeronef and land ironclads
- Other 2-6mm figure prep. (may need to do some 6mm WWII prep. so I can get them off to be painted)
- Other 15-28mm figure prep.

The last two are all my lost projects: retro sci-fi, War Rocket, 3mm Cold War and Blitzkrieg Commander, 6mm moderns, 1/72 WWI, more VSF, modern spy skirmishing, more pulp, 2mm Ogre, tons of 15mm, 28mm gothic sci-fi, 2mm ACW.

Planned Purchases:
- 2 and 15mm India
- 2 and 15mm ECW (skirmishing/Solomon Kane for the latter)
- aircraft (all eras)
- mats
- 3mm fill-ins for Vietnam and ACW (e.g. the new Zouaves!)
- cardboard terrain
- a few big Star Wars and Star Trek ships from Shapeways
- Pulp Figures (a birthday present methinks)
- use my forthcoming Ground Zero Games Xmas coupon for some more 6 and 15m Sci-Fi
- Microworld's awesome 6mm dwarves should be released this month

A busy timeline, but if I can keep to that and actually finish some projects, or at least make a first dent in some of the huge ones (15mm gaming, for instance), then 2013 will let me get to all those lost projects, while actually using more of my toys. Right now my Star Wars and fantasy pre-paints, a few WWI aircraft, and my Vietnam project are all that I can play with.

Important to all this as well is resisting things that have tempted me repeatedly: ACW naval gaming (other than what's needed in 1/600 for Terrible Sharp Sword), pre-dreadnought and WWI naval gaming, 1/6000 modern naval ships (as targets for my a/c), 2mm big scale Napoleonics, the rest of the SYW in 2mm, ancients x50 projects, etc. etc.

Right, so off now to practice my big fig painting on those old 25's, and work on that cardboard terrain!

Run Through the Jungle

2011-12-31T20:48:00.005-05:00

Before I head out for the evening, here's an AAR for game two of my Blasters & Bulkheads Star Wars experience. This was a variation of Scenario 3 (without a vehicle), where one side has to go from corner to corner through a forest/jungle.

The Imperials were the runners, the rebels were the ambushers. Since Chewbacca was knocked out, and (in my head) declared captured, the rebels also wanted to capture or kill an Imperial officer in order to find Chewie's whereabouts.

The table at game start. Luke, Han, Leia, a Wookie, and a squad of troopers are in hiding, awaiting the arrival of two Imperial field officers, a stormtrooper officer, stormtrooper NCO, and a squad of scout troopers (upper right corner). The yellow poker chips denote potential hiding spots for the rebels. They're labelled 1-10, and the five rebel characters/units are off-tabled marked 1-5. They'll be revealed either of their own volition, or if the Imperials successfully spot them. Three of the markers are in the tops of the big trees (fancy tea light holders).

Two main trail options were given to the Imperials, with one of them branching off into another side trail. Their initial plan was to get to that side trail and take it, based on where the potential ambush sites were.

Billy the Bronchosaurus is in the upper left corner, and he was supposed to wander randomly (and placidly) through the scenery, but he randomly ended up off table and I gave up on him after a few turns.

The end of Turn 1. The wookie was spotted on the Imperials second attempt (by the NCO) but wasn't initially hit. On his turn he popped out from behind the tree, shot down three scout troopers, and got in behind the tree. Unfortunately the rest of the Imperials dropped him in turn.

Luke was also revealed, in his perch in the big tree. He put a few hits on one of the field officers, then escaped down the tree to get into the action (despite being on the table in this picture, I ruled it'd be two turns to get down the tree, so he's in mid-slide at this point).

The end of Turn 2. The rest of the scout troopers have been wiped out by Luke, and the Imperials have made their initial choice of what trail to take. The rebels got their troopers on the move, to get them into a new position.

The end of Turn 3. The Imperials are progressing down the trail, spotting as they go (the other two big trees have been found clear of targets, and Princess Leia has been outed). The rebel troopers are getting into position behind a downed column of the Ancients, and Luke is trying to catch up but is hampered by the slow terrain. The red marker near Luke was the impact point of a stun grenade thrown by the stormtrooper NCO.

The end of Turn 4. Han is now in the game, and Leia has moved to her backup position (behind one of the planet's plentiful purple rocks). The stormtrooper office is prone behind some bushes, and the rest of the Imperial survivors are playing leapfrog behind terrain. You can see where the rebel troopers flurry of grenades landed (red marker between stormtroopers), but no one got hurt!
The yellow markers just indicate who moved first or second in the turn, as in the game they get bonuses. Eventually, with better (permanent) character sheets, there will be a way to do this off-table.

The end of Turn 5. The table's really getting busy now. Leia is hurt badly, Han has taking some burns, and the Imperials are still dodging from shrub to shrub. Way in the back, Luke is finally about to get free from the forest terrain.

The end of Turn 6 - we have a princess down! Now Han is really mad, and is charging along the side trail the Imperials decided not to take when they found Leia and Han in wait down it. All four Imperial characters are still in action.

The end of Turn 7. But now there aren't four surviving Imperials. The stormtrooper officer was taken out by the rebel troopers repositioning themselves, and one field officer was shot in the back by Angry Han. He's exposed to the stormtrooper NCO, but he's also going after that last officer before he can escape off the board.

A nice "movie" view of the same scene.

The end of the game (after turn 8). The officer got off board, and the NCO pretty much got surrounded and I ruled he surrendered, since he knows rebels don't shoot their prisoners. Of course, after some subsequent counselling from Han, he gave away Chewbacca's location...

And here it is, a teaser for my next game. The rebels are launching a boarding action on the Imperial customs frigate "Rabid" before it goes to hyperspace. Chewbacca is in one of the frigate's cells. The tiles and props are from Fat Dragon, with some Worldworks and Micro Tactics thrown in. This game will have Luke the Jedi Apprentice make an appearance, so I can get in some Essence (Force) powers.

The bridge of the "Rabid".

Tomorrow I'll post a review of my 2011 actual production vs. my resolutions, and a plan for 2012.

Battle at Starport Omega (Blasters & Bulkheads)

2011-12-29T18:21:00.006-05:00

Had a chance to try out the Blaster & Bulkhead rules yesterday, after getting some paper terrain (Micro Tactix's Starport Omega) made last week and statting up some Star Wars characters and henchmen after Christmas. Statting everyone up was rather straightforward, although I'll need to think if there's any real difference between say an Old Republic soldier and a Rebel trooper and a New Republic soldier (probably not). I still have more to do, but will be doing that in an Excel spreadsheet rather than by hand, albeit not a spreadsheet that calculates things automatically, just one that will be neater than my handwriting!

I played out Scenario One from the rulebook, a simple three turn stand up fight. I didn't use any Jedi or Sith, just to keep things simple while I learned the rules, and things like grenades, vehicles, and mounts are for another day.

I made one miscalculation during set-up, since I don't currently have space for my larger terrain mat, I used a 3'x3' mat instead of the 4'x4' recommended for larger figures (I'm using the collectible pre-paints). However, I didn't then reduce the point totals by 25% to account for the smaller space, and the table was pretty crowded. The battle ended up being a bit of a bloodbath, rather than seeing much maneuver or brilliant generalship.

I also made a couple of slips during gameplay, usually forgetting to give a side their Attack or Defense re-rolls, but I think it balanced out. There may have been other rules I didn't catch here or there, but it went pretty smoothly for a first game.

The scenario had a force of Rebels, led by Han Solo, Chewbacca, and two NCO's, square off against an Imperial detachment under an Imperial field office, stormtrooper officer, and stormtrooper NCO. The rebels had four squads of five henchmen, one with a heavy repeating blaster, the Imperials had three stormtrooper squads, two squads of naval troops, and a scout trooper squad (all of five). One Stormtrooper squad had a missile launcher.

Both sides were basically out to inflict as much damage as possible, although I had tasked Han and Chewie to get into the starport office and up to the balcony, to get a height advantage on the Imperials. One squad of naval troops was assigned to get into a hangar and surprise the rebels from in there. We'll see how those two tactics faired...

Anyway, here are some pics:

The table at game start. While most of the terrain is Micro Tactix, the crates are from Worldworks. The vegetation is Xmas trees converted for warmer weather, fake grass mats, and some homemade stuff using aquarium plants. I also had three civilians around the shuttle in the middle, and another two in the starport office (middle left building), and I'd control them randomly (basically, they'd either run away or drop prone, maybe to crawl away later).

The rebels are to the bottom, the Imperials at the top.

A close-up of our heroes as the game began. The squad with them was supposed to provide cover as they charged towards the offices, then get out of the way and let the HW squad own the firing lane. We'll see how that worked...

A close-up of the Imperials, the naval troops in a line across the back were assigned to get in through a back door in the hangar and come out the front, surprising the rebels. We'll see how that turned out...

The end of Turn 1. Han and Chewie, with their squad, are charging towards the office door. The Imperial HW squad was blown away, except for the guy with the missile. They'll pay for missing him... The rebel NCO on the right (behind the beacon, in a brown uni) also single-handedly took out a squad of stormtroopers, leaving the Imperial field officer all by his lonesome (in white jacket, to right of hangar). The other rebel NCO, hiding behind the crate by the shuttle, took some damage from the other naval trooper squad, however. He would get his revenge.

Meanwhile, behind the other hangar, a Mexican stand-off was developing.

Big hole here for the Imperials, with most of a squad gone, the office, NCO, and second squad are rushing up to fill the game. The second naval squad is also taking some hits.

End of Turn 2. We have a Wookie down! The lone HW team member still had the missile launcher, which he fired and managed to not do any damage to the rebel squad he was aiming at. However, both Han and Chewbacca were in the blast radius, and took the max. 2 hits. The other stormtroopers then pummelled them with blaster fire, not doing any more damage to Han, but KO'ing Chewie. For cinematic reasons of course he had to live, but he ain't going anywhere at the moment.

The rebel squad on the far right also took damage, losing three team members behind the hangar. With things in a bit of a mess, and their firing lane not clear, I decided to bring out the rebel's HW squad, coming up behind one of the NCO's to offer some support.

You can see more clearly here that the naval squad that ran through the hangar sprang their surprise...but without a real target. For simplicity's sake I removed the hangar once the Imps opened all the doors, exposing the interior.

By the way, the civilians lying down are just prone, not dead, although the one near the beacon (green shirt) has taken 5 hits for his troubles (being too close to the rebel NCO behind the crate). He crawled out of the way this turn.

The dead pool after Turn 2. Looking good for the rebels so far...

The table at the end of Turn 3. Not sure who won. The rebels had the squad in front of the office wiped out, a second squad is down to one man, and Chewbacca's on the tarmac for the surviving stormtroopers to pick up. On the other hand, the naval squad in the hangar is toast, and the last surviving stormtrooper squad has lost a couple of its members.

And Han has made it into the office, and is about to get into the elevator to take him up to the second floor, giving him a nice shooting perch. The two civilians here are hiding under their desks.

The final dead pool. Twenty dead Imps, 12 dead rebels, plus a downed Wookie. Probably a very minor rebel victory in terms of points.

All in all it was a fun game, and I look forward to getting into it more for Star Wars, and maybe some of my other sci-fi projects (15mm Traveller/Firefly/Starship Troopers, 25mm Star Trek). I'm working on the character sheet spreadsheet and a QRS, there's a lot of page flipping going on right now. I had only a few questions about the rules that I'm going to ask on the Goalsystem mailing list.

In particular it was nice that B&B is already weighted towards Star Wars, there wasn't any heavy thinking to stat anybody up based on the movies (the original ones!) and literature.

Even though I have a few rulesets I'm happy with for pulp, retro sci-fi, and Victoriana, I think I may pick up the other Goalsystem rules for those eras.

Next up is a foot-bound version of Scenario 3, a running gun fight through a forest (don't have a vehicle to do the proper scenario). I'll try out grenades during it, then next up is a fight aboard a spaceship using Fat Dragon's Starship Tiles. For that I'll bring Luke the Jedi Apprentice out and try Force (Essence in the B&B rules) powers.

Works in Progress

2011-12-29T04:08:00.004-05:00

Well it's still been a while since my last post, and I'll be returning to Star Wars again shortly (like tomorrow), but with some time off between the holidays, here are some pics of what's on the painting table.

First are yet another set of old (1980s) 25mm fantasy figs that have been waiting 25+ years for their moment of glory. Instead, I'm using them to practice my big fig painting skills, trying out different techniques I've read of. The one exception is one of Parroom Station's Earthmen on Mars (the daft looking one), who's getting another couple of painting techniques tried on him.

Swirlin, the magician in purple, was one of my first two D&D characters, he died on his first adventure, and was replaced by Zerlin, who also died on his first adventure. Twirlin and Verlin were subsequent replacements, all dying on their first adventure. D&D was hard on first level mages!

In the purple fez is Ordant Five-Hands (the latter name coming from an angry barmaid), a later magician who actually survived several adventures. His greatest claim to fame was when the party was surprised at night by orcs. While the rest of the party was arming up, he cast his one ready spell and killed the orc leader. He promptly got clubbed unconscious and awoke to find the battle over and the orcs in retreat. His interpretation of events left him as the hero, which he re-told, and re-told, and re-told to his rather annoyed companions.

My other first D&D character was Rolstun Goldaxe, a dwarf, who survived everything, became wealthy, and was retired before something bad happened to him. I have his figure, but am saving it until my skills are better and he gets a worthy paint job.

Here are the rest of the guys I'm working on, sorry for the crappy photo but the "mostly white" paint jobs don't show up well in the flash. You can see the Liberace on Mars character with his flesh painted, a lizardman (who looks really good in the photo, better than I think of him in real life), a priest or prophet, and a guard. All are still in progress, it's slow painting characters rather than armies, it's always requiring switching paints and brushes.

I picked up a lot of Xmas trees last year from craft shops, department stores, and dollar stores. Most are winterized (i.e. coated in snow), but these ones weren't other than a white base. So I painted the base up to make them spring/summer/fall trees, and will add some flocking later. They'll crop up again in my next few posts.

I picked up some paper mache craft houses last year, and am working on these two (I have about four more of the same models) as 15mm village pieces. Rather simple looking, but they'll do cheaply for now until the rest of my stuff gets proper treatment. They'll also work nicely for Splintered Lands (anthropomorphic animals) gaming.

I also have a bunch of Creatology's tudor house wooden puzzles on the table. The three on the left are for 15mm gaming, the first two as Tudor houses, the third as a stone church. The one on the right will be a 28mm stone house (it has space left for a bigger door). A fifth one isn't here, it's going to be a 15mm wooden block house (sort of North American in style, for FIW gaming).

The roofs (rooves?) of the same from a different angle. I tried different techniques on them.

Star Wars Timeline

2011-11-21T17:56:00.002-05:00

There's been a lot of discussion about Star Wars, where Lucas went wrong (if anywhere), and how people game the setting. From past posts it's obvious I love Star Wars and have plans to game it in 2mm (big battles), 28mm (skirmish), and fighter-scale and fleet-scale space battles.

However, I am a fan chiefly (essentially exclusively) of the original trilogy and assorted fluff that came out from that, up to and including Timothy Zahn's sequel trilogy (which chould have been filmed, if anything, as episodes 7-9) and some of Michael Stackpole's Rogue and Wraith Squadron series.

The prequel trilogy just had too much wrong with it, both from a movie-making point of view - I still can't figure out some of the plots going on - and from a backwards continuity point of view. Anakin Skywalker was too young, the Clone Wars would have been AGAINST the clones (not with), and there's no way Anakin/Vader had an idea he had twins, much less had a past on Tattoine.

So working with the canon timeline as a starting point, I've written my own timeline and incorporated it into my rules conversions, just as a refresher as to what's going on. I will even do some gaming in pre-Episode IV periods, but according to my feelings for what was going on.

So, for what it's worth, here's my history, starting with the birth of Chewbacca. BE = Before Empire, NO = New Order (Empire's founding), BBY = Before the Battle of Yavin (= 19 years, 4 months after Empire founded), where a number follows a slash, that is the month of that year.

181 BE – Chewbacca born on Kashyyyk.

55 BE – Palpatine born on Naboo.

52 BE – Obi Wan Kenobi born (71 BBY).

50 BE – Palpatine joins the Jedi Order as a padawan apprentice.
50 BE – The Old Republic has become stagnant, complacent, even corrupt. The reputation of the Jedi has become tainted by their association with politicians and politics.

48 BE – Obi Wan Kenobi joins the Jedi.

37 BE – Anakin Skywalker born (56 BBY).

32 BE – Major advances in cloning made, initially can grow adult clones in two years, later (by start of clone wars) this increases to 6 weeks. Initial successes tempered by instability in the clones, either physiological or psychological. Some improvements made, by never entirely eliminated.

30 BE – Palpatine elected Sectorial Senator, representing many systems, and resigns from the Jedi Order, discovers secrets of the Sith and begins to explore the Dark Side of the Force and restoring the Sith cult. He later uses the cover of Darth Sidious in some of his clandestine meetings, but he is not a true Sith Lord, preferring his own path to power.

28 BE – Anakin Skywalker is discovered by Jedi Knight Qui-Gon Jinn, who recognizes his strength in the force. Over the opposition of the Jedi Council, including Yoda, he becomes Jinn’s padawan. The other Jedi warn that Anakin is too emotional, too temperamental, despite his great power with the Force, to be a Jedi. When Jinn is killed shortly thereafter, Kenobi takes over as Skywalker’s master.

26 BE – First mass-cloning facilities built, intended to create soldiers for the Old Republic, reducing the need for citizens to serve. First military units available shortly thereafter. Templates for clones taken from existing Old Republic soldiers and officers, as well as mercenaries (Mandalorians) and bounty hunters.

24 BE – Palpatine takes Darth Maul as his apprentice in the Sith.

23 BE – First coup attempt by a Republican general empowered by his massive number of available clones. Coup is stopped by the Jedi, but this unleashes the clones themselves, now self-lead and rebelling all over the Old Republic – the start of the Clone Wars. The clones are able to reproduce and reinforce themselves quickly, having first secured all major cloning facilities. The clones regularly commit atrocities, from massive orbital bombardment to death squads, as their mental instability dominates their behaviour. Palpatine covertly aids the clones, hoping to eventually step in and gain control of them. Their souless-ness however, hinders his ability to control them with the Force and he does not overplay his hand.

21 BE – Senator Palpatine is elected Supreme Chancellor of the Republic.

19 BE – Obi Wan Kenobi is made a General in the Old Republic (Grand Army of the Republic). He and Anakin Skywalker serve together.

17 BE – Clone Wars end with the victory of a much-weakened Old Republic (36 BBY). All clone vats and clones themselves destroyed, but both individuals and facilities do escape.
17 - 0 BE – Fall of the Old Republic (36-19 BBY) as a weakened Jedi Order and Republican Senate has difficulty controlling the outer fringes of the Republic as well as internal power-plays by worlds and corporations. Violence, trade disputes, political deadlocks all follow. Later in the period, the Jedi are increasingly discredited through a propaganda campaign orchestrated by Supreme Chancellor Palpatine. The order starts to fall apart, with fewer recruits, fewer resources, increasing “disappearances” and other losses to its membership. It is, however, still a force to be reckoned with.
17 BE – Anakin Skywalker first approached by Palpatine and given hints as to where teachings on the dark path to greater power could be found.

16 BE – Han Solo born on Corellia.

0 BE – Skywalker twins are born after Queen Amidala is spirited away from Anakin Skywalker by Obi Wan Kenobi and those loyal to the Old Republic. Amidala is hidden within the Royal Household of Alderaan, in Bail Organa’s family’s service as a nursemaid and servant (tutor). The daughter is kept as Bail Organa’s “daughter”, the son is taken by Kenobi back to Tattoine to be raised by Owen and Beru Lars; Owen Lars is a cousin of Anakin Skywalker. Kenobi stays nearby to protect the son, but Lars’ isolation as a farmer works well. Anakin was only vaguely aware his wife was pregnant, as he was busy serving Senator Palpatine and saw her only rarely. She had also concealed she was pregnant with twins.
0 BE – Anakin Skywalker finishes his fall, becomes Darth Vader after he and Obi Wan Kenobi battle at Mustafar and he is thrown into the lava pits. The massive damage he sustains leaves him dependent on his protective armor and life-support, and limits his powers in the Force.
0 BE – Empire declared, with Palpatine becoming Emperor, now year 1 of the New Order (NO). Emperor makes Darth Vader the Dark Lord of the Sith, his special agent to deal with the Jedi and ensure the security of the state. Palpatine renames the Senate as the Imperial Senate, with limited power and controls.

1 - 10 NO – The Jedi Purge, orchestrated by Emperor Palpatine, conducted by Vader and Imperial forces under his control.
1 NO – Queen Amidala, living under the name Padme, dies on Alderaan.

2 NO – Stormtroopers, using armor based on those of the clones during the Clone Wars, appear as the new standard line unit in the Empire.
2 NO – Eye of Palpatine station begun, later destroyed.

7 NO – Ghorman massacre, Captain Tarkin promoted to Moff as a result.

11 NO – Darth Vader finally has time to search for his lost child (not realizing there were twins), finds no trace and dismisses the search.
11 NO – Death Star design work begins, Grand Moff Tarkin in command.

16 NO – ISD design finalized, orders begun.
16 NO – Death Star design finalized, completed prototype components joined, construction of remaining sections begun.

17/6 NO – Corellian Treaty signed, Rebel Alliance is formed, first HQ is on Chrellis.
17/6 NO – Mon Calamari ships ordered to be constructed in secret for the rebels.
17/8 NO – X-Wing plans stolen by fleeing design engineers, turned over to rebels.
17/9 NO – Construction of first SSD’s begun.

18/4 – Rebel HQ moves to Orion IV, then begins moving every 6 weeks or so, until it ends up on Dantooine.
18/6 NO – First ISD’s received and operational by the Imperial Navy.
18/7 NO – First X-Wing fighters completed by rebels.
18/10 NO – Death Star plans stolen.
18/12 NO – Death Star plans uploaded to consular ship Tantive IV by rebel spies.

19/1 NO – Princess Leia and Tantive IV captured by Darth Vader; he reports it destroyed with all hands lost.

Still Here

2011-11-21T17:46:00.002-05:00

Have a longer, themed post to do next, but wanted to actually talk about miniatures before I put it up. The last month has been busy with work, weekends away and women. Well, one. So there was a pause, but some figure prepping was done (despite being against my resolutions for 2011) and the last two nights saw some actual painting done. The 2mm Star Wars stuff was painted to a point where I could safely pause, and then I got onto a priority - practicing my 25/28mm painting so I'll be in shape to do some Xmas gifts.

I am also working to cross everything off a list I prepared of all the half-started or nearly finished projects lying around. I want to get them done before anything new begins...

A Tale of Two Parcels

2011-10-26T16:14:00.002-04:00

So back in early September I sent in a large-ish order to Irregular, mainly for some 6mm fantasy armies, assorted 6mm extras, and 2mm terrain. It was large-ish enough that even with international surface shipping (20%) I was paying $50 shipping or so.

Normally it's about a 3 week turnaround to mail in the order and get it from Irregular, but this was a large order and it was surface shipping, so I didn't fret as mid-October rolled around.

Then last Wednesday (19th) I get a parcel from Irregular with the interesting additional label supplied by somebody (Royal Post) I presume, reading "Mis-sent to Australia". Australia!?! The label rather clearly says "Canada", how'd anyone miss by two continents?

Upon opening the package, I see a note from Ian that my order was coming in two parcels. So, hmmm, this one went from the UK to Australia back to the UK then to Canada, and it's here first? The shipping stamp said it was sent Sept. 19th, so it spent on a month on its world travels, but now I'm worried about the other half of the order.

Did it go to Australia too? Did it go even further? Antarctica? Mars? Or did it just get an everyday sort of lost?

I was going to give it a few more days, probably till the end of this week, before I checked in with Irregular. Then this morning I check the front door before work, as parcels often arrive before 9, and nothing's in between the doors. I open the outer door, as sometimes in their infinite wisdom the mailmen leave the parcel sitting in the open on the porch, but there's nothing there.

Then I notice my blue recycling bin is sitting about a foot away from the wall, and somethings behind it. Lo and behold it's Parcel #2. But I just had the blue bin out Monday night for recycling, putting it back on the porch last night (Tuesday) after getting back home from work, and I swear nothing was there then. So it must have been delivered this morning and the mailman decided to really mess with me and hid it behind the blue bin.

I don't think there's a moral here, though I am happy to have my package. But 5 weeks to get here and the mailman has to hide it on me? As the kids say, "What up with that?"

2mm Star Wars Works in Progress

2011-09-26T17:22:00.003-04:00

I've shown off some pictures before of my 2mm Star Wars project as I've been working on painting the bases. I'm still working on the green bases (for temperate worlds), and a few test runs of the snow bases, and to keep my enthusiasm up, I've dabbled with painting some of the figures themselves, "as pilot projects" mind you.

Here are some of the works in progress. The bases aren't finished, and I'm not entirely happy with the texture of some of them, but like I said, I needed a break from two weeks of painting one shade of green and one shade of white!

The Rebels at least have the sense to camouflage their speeders on temperate worlds. I still have to do the detailing - cockpit, blasters, engines, but the camo's done, just a simple two-greens scheme.

The Stormtroopers of course just challenge you to shoot them, in the "we're so dangerous we make it easy to see us, fool" school of camouflage (c.f. Cylons). Besides tidying up the bases, I need to add a simple black line to show where the rifles are. It's actually easier to see where the rifles are supposed to be after the wash (black) and drybrush (white); before I couldn't even figure out where the front of the base was.

Gaming distance shot:
The AT-ST's also don't believe in camo. I've painted these a lighter shade of gray than the snow AT-AT's and AT-ST's, as you'll see below. I thought it contrasted better. Still need to detail these:
And the snow walkers:The base coat needs another application, then I can get into detailing and drybrushing.

I think I'm almost out of the green phase other than touch-ups, just a bunch more of the Hoth units and then I can paint the figures en masse (unless I get distracted...).

Battle of Novi Photos

2011-09-19T17:29:00.004-04:00

This past weekend was the "Big Game" weekend at the 6mm Napoleonics (and FIW, AWI, 1812) club I play in. Both days were separate re-fights of the Battle of Novi in 1799, using modified Polemos rules that are slated for eventual production. I was only there on the Sunday, assuming the role of the heroic, if slightly tardy, Russian commander Derfelden. There were two other Allied commanders, one playing Kray, the other Suvorov/Melas (a fourth commander didn't make it). Against us were a lot of Frenchmen on a hill under four commanders.

I only remembered to take photos prior to game play, and towards the last few turns, so this is a potted, Russo-centric history of the battle, which ended a minor Allied victory. I've annotated some of the photos, I suspect the French will disagree with some of them... You can click on the photos for larger versions with more readable annotations.

Here's the big view, with the initial Austrian forces off-screen to the bottom left:

However, here are those Austrians:
They bore the brunt of the fighting for much of the game. As they'd gained some initial successes, the overall commander continued to feed them Tempo Points (initiative), even when my veteran soldiers with plodding commanders finally started to arrive:There was a gap between some of the French forces to start, but they used the lull before the Russians arrived to pull forces from their right to try to fill it. My initial orders included the command to get my Cossacks up into the gap to raise a little hell (but not actually fight anyone if possible). As it turned out, the gap wasn't so gap-py by the time I got there.

Straight up ahead of my units was the town of Novi, to the left before the hill/terraces was the start of the rather extensive vineyard (portrayed by trees,but really vines) seen above.The vineyard was rough ground for movement, but didn't prevent the French from cannonading my troops whenever possible.

In the meanwhile, with some inspiration from Bagration, my heroic Cossacks got into onto the hill, only to promptly be surrounded on three sides by French cavalry, and attacked on two of those sides.

However, like the drunken smelly buggars they are, my Cossacks threw back both attacks, escaped the trap, and went and hung out in the vineyard for the rest of the game, occasionally getting cannonballs in their direction. I like to think the French commanders were briefly traumatized by the affair.

Eventually the rest of the Austrians started to show up on our left, but things were winding down by then. The French had a battery facing them down the road, but just as things ended it ran into some supply problems and was vulnerable.

So here's how far my troops got. You can see they occupied one arm of the vineyard and were working towards popping a hole in the French line where they didn't have any ready artillery support. I actually had a second French battalion driven back by the time the game ended. Not enought to do anything yet, but with some Tempo Points over the next few turns I like to think I could have widened it further.
However, our victory was mainly because of what was happened on the right, which was a real bloodbath but with more French blood than Austrian. I've drawn a line showing roughly how much of the plateau was Austrian by the end, but things were still heated up there.
And to show you how much blood was spilt, here's the French dead pile:Curiously, the Allied illustrators forgot to portray the Austrian dead pile.

For more information on the club, here's the website (it's a bit dated, but you can contact Glenn through it).

B is for Beer

2011-09-14T16:54:00.003-04:00

A few years ago I started coming across cool individual WWII plane identification references for the RAF like "B is for Beer" and "R is for Robert", although I'm sure I've come across them before, but never consciously noticed them ("beer" probably got my attention this time). Early attempts to find the complete list failed, but recently I found the entire 1942-43 RAF phonetic alphabet online, so here it is:

A Apple
B Beer
C Charlie
D Dog
E Edward
F Freddy
G George
H Harry
I In
J Johnny (Jug)
K King
L Love
M Mother
N Nuts
O Orange
P Peter
Q Queen
R Robert (Roger)
S Sugar
T Tommy
U Uncle
V Vic
W William
X X-Ray
Y Yoke (Yorker)
Z Zebra

Land forces at the time were using the Abel, Baker, Charlie etc. system, replaced in 1956 by the modern NATO system of Alpha, Bravo, Charlie etc. (ain't the internet wonderful).

So now when I add ID codes in decal to my British and Canadian planes, I'll make sure I know how to translate them.

On the Table(s)

2011-09-09T16:19:00.004-04:00

Right now projects are spread out over three different tables, and I'm trying to clear off at least two of them to get my efforts in synch, rather than the usual "start something, get distracted, leave it on the table for four months".

All photos can be enlarged by clicking on them, as usual.

Of course, yesterday my Brigade Models UK parcel arrived after their Land Ironclads and Aeronef sale, so I promptly used some of the new big textured bases I got to mount some of my 2mm alien army:Some are purchased shells from the dollar store (have a bunch more for terrain) while the various snails are from a local beach. I've turned the bigger snails 90 degrees so they have an obvious front.

I'm not sure what these aliens will be in my VSF world, they don't really fit into my Wells+Space 1889 visions of Mars and Venus. Maybe from outside the solar system, maybe the wildlife of Mars, maybe Martian bio-units. I'm going to try painting a hole underneath some of the snails so they'll look like they're worms emerging from the ground.

I've finally gotten some progress on various wooden birdhouses and Creatology puzzle that I'm converting for various uses. The two on the left will be Tudor-esque, the one of the right more of a North American wooden construction. Two got fancy roofs, the leftmost will just be painted up.

Some 2mm forts and castles. Front and back are for India, in the middle is a Vauban fort for 18th century Europe.
Star Wars + 18th Century India here!To the left are some Indian units I'm painting up the bases for. Snowspeeders are in the background. The AT-AT's (and one AT-ST) are for Hoth, so I'm trying for an ice planet paint job by going white, then blue wash, then white wetbrush. I've gotten through two out of three...

More Star Wars 2mm in progress. These are the green world forces (sand world and ice world are the other two) for both Rebels and Imperials. You can also see in the background a Roland two-seater I'm working on for WWI.

Decal Day

2011-08-24T16:29:00.004-04:00

I know things may seem a bit crazy, what with two blog posts in one day, but last night I got caught up* on decalling (or is it decaling?), and here are the results:
The Halberstadt CL.IV is from CinC, the other two are Goblintooth's.

Close-ups of some:

My patrol boats for Vietnam got their stars:

And some of my 25mm foot knights got aligned (kind of randomly, I liked the decals):
* I didn't do any Vietnam helicopter decals, as I realized I don't have the low-viz decals some helicopters need, and nobody makes "UNITED STATES ARMY" decals in 1/600. I've put in an ask to Dom's Decals, hopefully they can be made, otherwise I'll have to just go ahead and pretend they're there. They were pretty low-viz anyway (black on olive drab), so maybe no one will notice, specially once the rotors are in place.

English Civil War in 2mm Plans

2011-08-24T09:54:00.002-04:00

For the past while I've been planning to get into the English Civil War in 2mm, and landed on the Polemos rules, although I'm keeping some options open to use others. After doing a "buy one of everything in the Renaissance range" order from Irregular last spring, here's what I landed on for 2mm figures. All go onto 40x20 (inf. and cav.) or 20x20 (command, artillery) bases.

Shot: 3 x BG31
Shot Heavy: 3 x RBG-3
Mixed: 2 x RBG-6
Pike Heavy: 2 x RBG-9A + 2 or 3 RBG-12 + 2 x RBG-11
Pike: 3 x RBG-9
Cavalry (Swedish): 2 x 2 x RBG-16/18
Cavalry (Dutch): 3 x 2 x RBG-17/19
Cuirassiers: 4 x BG-11
Scots Lancers: 4 x BG-10
Mounted Dragoons: 4 x RBG-22
Dismounted Dragoons: 3-6 x RBG-11 + RBG-35
Artillery: 2 x RBG-29 or 30 (if needed, limbers of BG-25/26)
Commanders: RBG-24 and/or 25
Clubmen and Levies: BG-23
Irish: RBG-11 + BG-3 + BG-23
Highlanders: BG-3 and 23
Scottish Archers: ABG-12
Scottish Horse: BG-11
Frame Guns and Very Light Guns: 2 x RBG-26

Now for another order to Irregular! I'll start with some basic forces for each side, rather than jumping into one of the bigger battles. So 30 cavalry and 30 infantry bases per side, plus artillery, commanders and a few odd units. The Scots Royalist and Covenanter forces will have to be a future effort.

Now Charlie Can Surf

2011-08-22T15:50:00.005-04:00

A blitz over the weekend got my NVA base forces done. Now the NVA, VC, and Americans all have companies ready, and I can live without mortars and a few other bits and pieces for a while. Once they're sealed I'm at the next stage - actually playing with them! This is the first real project I've gotten to the gaming stage.

The whole company as seen from above (can you hear the Wagner?):
The company head on:
The company HQ (left) and Commissar (right). As the biggest Big Men in the company, I added the little red badge to their sun helmets. But no more!

A bunch of views of the various squads/fire teams:

And some views of the MG teams (one blurrier than the others):

Snipers and a two-man base (another Big Man or to turn the LMG into a HMG):
The rocket teams:

Sneak Peak:Still a work-in-progress, but the first Indian artillery piece is underway. The gunners need to be painted, and the dirt needs a wash in brown. The redoubt is meant to be portrayed as a hasty redoubt, made of dirt and wood. The redoubt as Irregular makes it is better suited for a permanent (stone) position, but I don't really see that for 18th century India.

Just Like Harvesting A Bison...

2011-08-11T16:25:00.002-04:00

I didn't let anything go to waste on these thrift shop corduroy pants (Old Navy pants at that!). I was in to scrounge around to miniatures stuff, found a diecast 1930 truck perfect for pulp gaming, and these pants - perfect for 3mm plowed fields. Normally corduroy seems like like 15 or 28mm terrain, but these ridges are really small and tightly spaced.

I figure I'll use them bare for plowed earth, and with a bit of flocking for low-lying crops. I have a whole 'nother plan for corn.

The photo above is what was left of the pants after cutting off the legs, pockets, pocket flaps, etc. etc.

Craft Store Elephants

2011-08-04T15:35:00.002-04:00

In a fit of madness, two posts in two days! Here are some craft store paper elephants that I've done up in two different styles:

Gate guardian elephants for India, either my 15mm 18th century project, or 28mm pulp. Now I just need a gate!

And of course, what temple, palace or ruin would be complete without a sapphire-eyed golden elephant. Maybe it's just gold plate but filled with gems (or vipers), maybe it's solid gold, but that's for the adventurers to find out.

The figure is a 28mm post-apoc guy from EM4 - he was handy for showing a sense of scale.

Hey Joe, Me Paint You Long Time

2011-08-03T17:46:00.004-04:00

After a ridiculous period of being ignored on my painting table, I finally finished my 3mm American forces for Vietnam (for eventual use with Too Fat Lardies' Charlie Don't Surf). All I had to do was their webbing, gear, grass highlights, and then shrubberies, but that took a year. Well, it only took about 6 hours, but it took me a year to get to those 6 hours.

Anyway, here's the outcome. As always, you can click on the image to see a bigger version, although be forewarned, like other small scales, these don't necessarily look better when viewed unnnaturally close up.

First up is an overview of my US company. It's still missing its mortars some additions for the Marines - an additional fire team per squad and bazookas. I have them, borrowing from O8's WWII US packs, but they are only prepped at this point, not mounted. So here they are on parade:
Here's the command unit, lead by Captain "Duke" Spaulding with his black hat and swagger stick, along with a FAC team (big base), sniper (lone fig. on small base, pointing his rifle at you), and FO (small base):
Next are the MG teams, five in firing positions, three on the move. If you look closely, you should be able to see the brass of the ammo belt sticking out here and there:
One shot of the medic teams. Each platoon gets its own base, and when representing the Marines, they get a company level medic (big base). As I mentioned long ago in a Work-in-Progress update on them, I've painted them as a bit of a diorama, each soldier is wounded a bit differently.
Although I wonder a bit if I didn't go too far and make them a bit bloody.
Here's the 2nd Platoon, from the helicopter view:
2nd Platoon head on:
1st Platoon:

1st Platoon showing the coding system I use on the back of the bases. 1st Platoon is "white" and then a second colour for each squad. Each squad consists of two bases.
Additional forces - spare two-man teams to turn the MG bases in to HMG's or squads, a spare squad, and three more Big Men.
Last year I ordered some civilians from Microform Models. As they're used in architectural modelling, they came with a peg in the bottom that was about as big as these figures themselves. That works for architects, but I needed to cut off the pegs, and ended up using them as figures! These are two views of the same three bases:
I painted them differently than my VC units, just to distinguish them a bit, although I realize in reality the VC deliberately dressed like civilians.
My first, and still only, O8 palm tree, designed as the "Lone Palm Tree" to play some role in the "Affair of the Lone Palm Tree" someday. More terrain bits are coming when the figures are done.
And for a change of pace, before clearing the decks for Vietnam, I did a first coat for my 2mm Cathedral:

What's up next? Well, I started on the NVA last night, got their flesh added, and figured out which paints work best as their uniform colours. I hope to do them in less than a year!

I also have to add to the three main forces - VC need a couple Big Men, NVA need Big Men, mortars, HMG's, D-30 howitzers, and the US needs the aforementioned bazookas, mortars, and some vehicles (already based).

Then I need to get into terrain, finish up my jungles and bamboo forests. I'm also hoping for some more Vietnam pieces from O8 - gun trucks, bunkers (American sandbags, VC/NVC dug outs).

I also have enough pieces to do a ARVN company, and a CIDG/A-Team unit, although but there's no rush on them right now. I actually feel like figuring out my 3mm Civil War plans...

Yay Pictures!

2011-07-08T16:29:00.004-04:00

I finally took some pictures of what's on the painting table, as I've again skipped resuming work on my 3mm Vietnam project in favour of more scenics and terrain. As always, you can click on the photos for a larger image.

First up is an overview of 2mm and 3mm scenics, the 2mm bits in front are being prepped for SYW India in the northwest frontier (or double duty in the Middle East), and the 3mm pieces at the back are for Middle East tank battles.The 2mm pieces are from left to right: Irregular's castle, being done Crusader castle or Afghan fort style; Middle East town; Middle East village. The 3mm bits are the resin buildings by a company I can't remember (and is out of business) available from Picoarmor (NOT the SPC Wargames Scenery stuff). They aren't very good, but servicable for a battle-scarred landscape. I have some of their Vietnam boats and F-106 (or was it the 102), and the resin is pretty poorly cast, with lots of work needed. Picoarmor was good with this though, and some items were so bad they eventually refused to sell them when they couldn't get good casts.

Everything has been given a couple coats for the "sand" and at least one coat for the roads and town centres. The sand will be drybrushed later with the lighter coat used for the roads. I've also given the windows a quick hit with grey so I remember where they are once I start painting the buildings.

Here's another view of the 3mm pieces:
And here are some bridges from SPC Wargames Scenery (or whatever they call themselves now, they used to be Simply 6):I'm not quite happy yet with the paler grey used to paint the tops of the railings, I need to darken that a bit. The road on the grey bridge got a bit messed up when i tried a wash, so it needs some help too. The red brick bridge will be for 3mm ACW, the other one will be for ACW or Europe, as needed.

In the background you can see my first 2mm castle, still awaiting final touches. I have a third, to be painted in an Indian Red Fort of Agra style. I also have a couple of Irregular's Vauban fortresses mounted and primed, one to be done for India (red stone), the other for Europe (grey stone). You can see one of them in the back right in the first picture above.

The church on the left you've seen before, but it's now done. It's shiny because it's had a coat of Future Floor Polish, but not Dullcote yet.The ruins are a work in progress still, hence why the church hasn't had a final Dullcoting. I have a bunch more individual ruins or intact houses primed, they're just awaiting space on the table.

And finally for today, some Afghan mercenaries for my 2mm SYW in India project (seen the last time I posted pictures). They've had the sand coat, and are awaiting dirt and grass.

Wins (football) and Wins (OOP Ospreys)

2011-06-18T21:39:00.002-04:00

I was downtown in Toronto today for a football (Canadian) game (we won) and afterwards hit the World's Biggest Bookstore ("it's just a name") and discovered they may have the World's Biggest Osprey collection. At least it left me in awe, and I've seen a couple pretty nice ones elsewhere.

However, as the WBB is now part of our national bookstore empire, the bricks and mortar prices are about 25% higher than what I can get online.

But...

I've been trying for six months to get the Campaigns: Assaye book. Our national bookstore empire (online edition) tried and gave up after a month, Amazon tried for 5 months, and then I gave up on them, because I found Osprey direct had it listed. Until I told Osprey's website that I lived in Canada, when it mysteriously became unavailable in North America ("but we're still part of the Commonweath - the Queen's on my money (well, most of the big bills, anyway)").

So my first walk through of Osprey heaven didn't turn it up. I wandered away, Osprey-less, and checked at a computer linked to their online store - still listed as unavailable. I went back to the Osprey aisles, mainly because of consternation around an issue I'll bring up below...when I saw Campaigns: Assaye!

So I am now stupidly proud of owning a copy. After my SYW in India project, I plan to roll along into Wellington in India, re-using what I can. Some of the units will get later period paint jobs, the only real new units will be EIC/British cavalry, although I'll probably eventually do two rank EIC infantry.

So why else was I consternated in the store? I found both volumes of Fighting Ships of the Far East, which I've long wanted. Problem: I've long had one of them...but couldn't remember which one! I spent 15 minutes walking around trying to remember which one I had...couldn't do it, and since I didn't want to make a return trip downtown (two hours or so) to return one, I skipped on them. But I now have an order in to the online empire, as they say they can get one, and cheaper.

I also got some VSF/steampunk inspiration: the Steampunk I anthology (I picked up Steampunk II a while ago, couldn't find #1 locally). I also completed Edgar Rice Burroughs' Venus series by finding Pirates of Venus. Now to find suitable miniatures...

I also picked up Russian Amerika, the first book in a series, of which I picked up the second last weekend (Alaskan Republik). It looks like a Crimson Skies sort of thing, with the Russians still owning Alaska, an independent California an Texas, USA and CSA. Mainly though it was the wicked paint jobs of Mustangs on the covers.

So now pictures again...but I'm doing a lot of gluing, basing, and gessoing (or is it gesso-ing?), so nothing sexy to look at. I did pick up some VSF figures from RAFM during their recent sale, once the stupid postal labour dispute is over, I should have them here.

I'm also being distracted thinking about Cold War Commander and Pulp Figures. Um, not at the same time, separate projects!

Rumi-nations

2011-06-13T00:44:00.002-04:00

I'm entertaining myself with the cleverness of this post's title yet have the sneaking suspicion there was probably a better way to use it, as this post doesn't really have any tie-in with Imagi-nations. But since I'm up late unable to sleep after an unintentional 4 hour nap this evening, I thought I'd ruminate about a project idea I have had for a while that does at least cover many nations.

And for a change I don't have to buy anything or spend 100 years painting new stuff to undertake this project - I'll be able to do it as I finish my existing 100-year projects.

What my idea is, is to take an existing "most famous" battle and then refight it using its basic principles across multiple periods and genres. So an obvious couple are Waterloo and Gettysburg, but instead of Britain+Prussia vs. France, or North vs. South, it would be:

Seven Years War - France and Indian allies vs. the East India Company (2mm)

Seven Years War - Prussia vs. Austria and Russia (2mm)

Seven Years War - France vs. Hanover/Britain (2mm)

Victorian Science Fiction - say Germany vs. Britain (2mm)

Union vs. Confederates - but at Waterloo! (2 or 6mm)

Napoleonic France vs. Britain - but at Gettysburg! (6mm if the club goes for it)

Any variety of ancients - Alexander vs. India, Mongols vs. Poles (6mm)

English Civil War (2mm)

WWII - company vs. company (6mm)

WWII - division vs. division (3mm)

Cold War - division vs. division (3mm)

Vietnam (3mm)

Star Wars! (2mm)

Fantasy - Acheron vs. Valusia (2mm)

Fantasy - Naama vs. Cush (2mm)

Fantasy - traditional orcs vs. dwarves (6mm)

I've put the potential attackers (French, Confederates) first in the above list, where obvious. For some, it could go either way...e.g. the NVA assaulting a US ridgeline, or an American push to drive out the VC.

The "basic princples" would be the terrain layout, situation (attacker, defender), objectives, relative force strengths and proportion of arms (as best as can be done when translated over time), reinforcements, random events.

Anyone with forces ready to go should feel to steal this idea and let me know how it goes. Any other interesting battles to try this with?

With Clive in India in 2mm

2011-06-05T01:13:00.002-04:00

As mentioned in my "Hmmm" post, I've been working on a 2mm SYW in India project. Actually I think I've been mentioning it for a while! I have been processing my first batch of figures recently, and have most of them mounted. It's amazing how I'm managing to not order enough of so many things - battalion guns, organ guns, brigade and wing commanders, etc. but I'm happy with the progress so far:

Some of the native units - mobs of paiks (melee-only levies) in the front, Afghan mercenaries (mounted and foot) in the middle, and Arab camelry (dismounted and mounted) in the rear.

Native artillery in various varieties - platform guns (heavies) in the front left (see below), the princes' super-heavy guns ("Moghul Monsters") in the left-rear, backed up a heavy gun in a redoubt. In the front right, with two elephants for their limbers, are everyday heavy guns, and back-right are field guns, with a variety of limber combinations - elephants, elephant+caissons, elephant+2 caissons, elephant+field of rock

A close-up of the platform guns (heavies). The "horses" will be painted as oxen (as I will for most limbers), and the gun's base will be painted as a wooden platform. I imagine the guys at the back of one base are the official elephant pooper-scoopers... To make this, I put a standard artillery base on two uncovered wagons. Here's the inspiration, from a relatively local 25/28mm collection. I played in their Pondicherry game last March and my fellow commanders had to face this in the centre of our line.

Native organ guns are the three bases in the middle-ish, otherwise at the top/back of the photo are some caisson/supply trains, with English (with caisson) and French (limber only) guns in the foreground. The French artillery often had supply problems, so I've depicted that by not showing their ammo caissons on the limber's base.

A whole slew of bases, at front centre is my standard infantry battalion, with officers to the front and battalion gun on the line's left. The unit beside that is a specific one without a battalion gun (others to the rear are just missing theirs). Front right is the French (Compagnie des Indes) volunteer battalion. The square-ish bases with three-horse figures are wing, division, etc. commanders. Behind them are three units of hathnals - elephants with big guns - that may or may not have been at Plassey, but are too cool to ignore. Towards the far back, behind the infantry, is a unit of Rajput cavalry.

More stuff. CdI and EIC dragoons/mounted infantry are front left and centre, with more of the regular, company, and sepoy battalions behind them. Further back-centre are command stands, the native ones with elephants. A unit of native bodyguard cavalry are back-right.

As always, you can click on the pictures for a bigger version.

I have a few more to mount (mainly cavalry) with what I have on hand, then another big order goes in to Irregular. I figure this is about 1/3 of what I'll need in total for the project, which will include an Afghan army, variations of a native prince's army (Moghul, Mahratta, Mysore), and the French and British. I plan on later extending it into the "Wellington in India" and Sikh War eras.

Hmmm

2011-05-14T19:17:00.002-04:00

So over six weeks have past since my last post, but it hasn't been an unproductive period, just a scattered one (and no real pics). My land VSF forces are now awaiting their Dullcoat protection, more 2mm terrain pieces are prepped for painting, another 40 aircraft are primed, another dozen (big 'uns) have been mounted, and a ton of SYW in India forces are about to get mounted tonight.

I also got some nice books on TYW, SYW and WSS uniforms, for another set of 2mm projects.

I even gamed Star Wars skirmishing over Easter with a brother and sister-in-law (their damn rebels won).

But it is April/May/June, my busiest and most tiring period for real life work, so pictures and more coherent posts will be scattered.

Hotlead and Empty Wallet

2011-03-28T17:27:00.002-04:00

I'm back from Stratford and the 2011 Hotlead Convention, as mentioned my first. I had a great time, staying in nearby Kitchener at a brother's place, then making the short (30 min.) drive to the convention each morning.

I didn't take any photos, but other people did, and here's the first of the galleries available.

I played a game in all five timeslots, starting with "White Terror" Friday night, a 15mm Russian Civil War game using the TooFatLardies' Triumph of the Will rules. This is actually a picture of us early in the game, I'm the only one without a Justin Bieber haircut sitting at the table, looking pensive. Thanks to my heroic White Russian MVI tank, which pretty much single-handedly took out the Reds' armoured train, we won the game in memory of the Czar. My opponents and team-mates were all teens from the Warhammer/Warhammer 40K crowd, but they were nice kids and had a lot of fun. So much fun the Red players preferred shooting their buddies' infantry with the train's cannons, rather than my tank!

I spent Saturday morning losing the English Civil War for the Parliamentarians, using 28mm figures and Field of Glory-Renaissance rules. They were really nicely done up figures on both sides, with appropriate poodle-loving or poodle-hating banners.

Saturday afternoon I got into the Battle of Pondicherry in 28mm, using Warfare in the Age of Reason rules. No pics are up yet, but they will be (lots were taken). The figures were really popular at the 2010 convention, and I'd been aiming to play in this game since I saw those pics, as the SYW in India is a period I'm getting into. When the pictures are up, you'll be amazed at my generalship (well, colonel-ship, maybe major-ship) as I held the left flank for the British, saving India in the interest of tea profits.

I had the most forward BEIC position to start the game, marines and sailors and one gun in a rebout, and the French and allies decided to try to flank us rather than overrun us, and I was able to get the rest of my command up there in a perfect L shape, eventually joined by the rest of the BEIC (except for our unfortunate Indian allies, who alternated between stalling and running away). When the French allies finally got through the jungle onto my flank, my two battalions there sent them reeling back. The redoubt with the gun and marines survived 3 charges by Mysorean mobs, either the cannon or musket fire driving them back before they could get into melee range.

In the evening I saved Rome from Hannibal and his elephants, with help from the two Daves. Actually the two Daves did most of the work on the flanks, while sending negative reports about me back to the senate! I had the good troops in the middle, and once we had one unit of elephants rout, my legions were already closing the trap as time ran out on the game (still a late Roman victory). The rules were Might of Arms, which I also want to get into, so this was a chance to learn them in the heat of battle.

Sunday morning I was into another TooFatLardies ruleset, Sharp Practice. The scenario was Ottomans vs. Hungarians, and I was the right flank of the Ottoman attack. These pics are from earlier games (it was run 3-4 times over the weekend), but you can get the gist of it. The figures were awesome, the terrain nice, and the three other players great to play with, as was Steve the umpire. A good fun game, even though the Ottomans got spanked! I had a chance for a last minute heroic charge, but my charge was negated by the Hungarians having the one counter-charge card!

In terms of shopping, I bought some nice Artizan pulp figures, including the all important Casablanca, Kelly's Heroes, and Dirty Dozen packs, as well as two Blue Moon pulp cars. At the Bring-and-Buy I got four Ospreys for $20 - two on modern Soviet forces, one on US mech. inf., and one on Alexander's Army. Later I got two other Ospreys for $10 apiece from one of the dealers, Queen Victoria's Southern African enemies (useful for Imaro) AND Fortresses of India. I'd been looking for the later for the last several months, it's OOP and all the online dealers were just teasing me about its availability. Suckers, I don't need you now!

I also bought some Reaper Chronoscope figures, for 28mm VSF, and a Mk. IV (female) tank for WWI and pulp gaming, and some 1/72 terrain bits for Vietnam skirmish. I could have spent more if I wasn't trying to play in every game session, there wasn't much time to shop. Maybe next time I'll pace myself better.

The 6mm club I play in in Toronto had a game Saturday morning, I was there before the games began and didn't make it back, but it sounds like it was well-received. Most of the club guys I play with regularly were there, and I met some new people as well, there weren't any negative experiences (other than the one vendor who kept wandering by the RCW game to offer suggestions on tactics!).

So thanks to all the game masters and convention organizers, as a newbie I had a great time and looking to come back next year, and maybe hit one or both of the fall conventions (MIGS and Council Fires). Cangames in Ottawa is close too, but May is a terrible time for real-life workload, and I usually prefer sleep on the long weekend.

Off To My First Convention

2011-03-25T10:21:00.002-04:00

Well I hope to escape work this afternoon and head to Kitchener/Waterloo (site of my bed for the weekend) and then Stratford for Hotlead 2011. I want to get in a game tonight, then plan on being there for the whole weekend, through to noon Sunday.

I hope to get my first taste of some rule systems that I have, but have yet to play - "Might of Arms" and "Triumph of the Will" by TooFatLardies; the latter will be my first foray into any TFL rule system.

I also want to get in a game of Impetus, and there's a Pondicherry game Saturday and given my SYW India project, it's a must see for me!

I'm also looking forward to the Bring-and-Buy and venders, it'll be a chance to fondle miniatures in person, rather than always ordering online.

Mostly VSF

2011-03-16T23:38:00.004-04:00

I'm out of town for a few days, so here are some shots of things that have progressed over the last couple of days.

The Ottoman and Imperial Chinese land ironclads have progressed to the touch up phase, with some muddy tracks added to liven up the bases a bit. The bases need the most work at the moment.

The French fort-house has also gotten to the touch-up phase, although the main door needs some work. I was trying for a massive timber beam door look, and instead I got a Caramilk bar gone wrong. The windows also need their frames.

Two of the French Victorian SPG's are done except for windows and doors on the cab, and touching up.
The 2mm Hoth ion cannon piece is also at the clean-up stage. I went with some metallic pipes and wiring, not exactly well-camouflaged, but it breaks up the white, and I can see the piece being needed for double duty at some point.
And finally, for fun, I started painting up some of the 3mm Microform Models cars I got back in the summer. These are for 3mm Vietnam, but will be for other eras as well. On the left is a hatchback, in my mind it's a Pinto, the middle two are VW Beetles, painted up as my parent's first two cars. The overexposed one on the left is a baby blue colour. And on the far right is what I'm calling a '57 Chevy Convertible, in a turquise base colour. I have another couple on hand, one for a AK-47 dictator's personal ride.

6mm Hammer's Slammers Arrive

2011-03-16T10:24:00.002-04:00

Old Crow Models finally came out with their initial offerings in 6mm for David Drake's Hammer's Slammers, and my order arrived yesterday. There was yelling and dancing all around.

I won't post pics, the Old Crow link above does as good a job as I can do. The blowers are bigger than I expected, they'd squash a M1. The combat cars are neat, the body is resin but the crew area is a metal bit that drops in, with 3 gunners and suitcases and ammo crates on the roof.

Before Xmas I picked up the infantry and skimmers from GZG, as well as some opposition, so whenever the painting table is cleared off (2012?), I have another project nicely self-contained. For rules I have Dirtside II and FUBAR (both free) to decide between. Dirtside II was always my intention, but FUBAR looks like it'll be a bit easier to get into and play. I may end up using both, DS2 for "heavy" gaming, FUBAR as a casual game.

Hopefully tonight I'll get some more VSF pictures up, the killer gingerbread house is just about done.

Missed one!

2011-03-14T15:11:00.002-04:00

In my pic parade last week I forgot this in-progress picture of Irregular's 2mm castle:This is painted up as a generic medieval/fantasy castle, it's actually a light gray, not white. Some of the interior buildings will be wood, and I need to fix the lip on the road where the piece's base meets the wood bases. I also need to work on dry-brushing this, there are some finer features in piece that don't show up well.

I've got a couple more on order, one to do as a red fort from India, the other more malicious-looking.

Sometimes Insomnia is a Good Thing

2011-03-11T00:40:00.010-05:00

Sometimes not being able to sleep can work in your favour. Before going to bed last night, I decided to put in an hour painting some Land Ironclad bases I'd mounted previously in my usual green base colour. The ironclads were from "Objects May Appear" available via Shapeways, mounted on Brigade Models UK's 40x40mm bases. After getting all the bases coated once, I decided to putter around with painting the actual ironclads, since they aren't overly detailed, just nice simple shapes.

Once I got started I couldn't stop, at least in terms of doing some colour trials, so I now have my first land ironclad units almost ready to go:These are indigenous ironclads from the Ottoman Empire. Pretty crude compared to other nations', but effective (and cool looking). I painted the armour in a "metallic black sequin" colour, which may just really be a glossy black. Hopefully it holds up after varnishing.

The second (anti-aeronef) turret is an add-on from the pack of accessories availabe from Pat and Walt's Starship Emporium on Shapeways.

Another view. There are 2 more ironclads in the unit, awaiting paint.

As it turns out, the Imperial Chinese Army has bought "export models" of the same ironclad from the Ottomans. The export version has cheaper armour, and as the Chinese could only afford three, they'll all be slight unique in appearance, basically in the colour of the little roofs. One is completely done, other than finishing the base's green - which is where the whole process started to begin with!

The French Republic also has some ironclads from OMA, in particular this self-propelled artillery piece. I have four in total, two will be done with this wood chassis paint job, the others will be spiced up in nationalistic colours.

To defend their borders and coasts, the French also have their Victorian version of the Maginot Line and Atlantic Wall - killer gingerbread houses!This is still in a test phase, as I try out colours on it, but I like the gunmetal grey for the turrets and stacks, an antique copper for the smokestacks, and a metallic white for the "marble" balacony.

Since these windows are really about 3 stories high, I'll paint in some panes to break up their size a bit. Plus having an armoured building with massive windows is silly enough as it is! I still need to figure out the stats for this beast in land Ironclads.

Still in VSF, last fall I used some spare insulating clay to build up a couple of terrain pieces, including this volanco. I'm finally starting to paint it, got the basic rock done and the first coat of lava. The cork patches will be painted as the trunks of trees, then green scrubbing pad glued on top.
Back to my town and village for eastern India, I've puttered around a bit more on them - almost done!

My North American 18-19th century fort has also gotten a bit further ahead, I'm just on the touch-up stage now.

Ditto for my North American windmill piece:
And then switching to 3mm, I've painted up one of SPC's stone churches as a brick church for my 3mm ACW Terrible Sharp Sword project. Still a work-in-progress:
And I've been messing around with SPC's original 3mm ruins set, these are four identical pieces, two being done up in white, two in grey concrete, mainly intended for Vietnam. If you look closely, you'll see the ruin with the story that was painted/wallpapered blue has a picture frame hanging crookedly on the wall - now I need to figure out what picture I can paint inside that frame!
As always, all the pics can be seen in a larger size by clicking on them.

Hangar 18 Scenics

2011-02-25T21:14:00.006-05:00

A while ago on The Miniatures Page a link to some photos of some cool new spaceship/airship lines was posted, followed later by news they were available. The company is Hangar 18 FASA and once they were in business I placed an order and it arrived yesterday.

My first order included some from their Sky Kings WWII range, sort of a Weird War II thing, but also a lot like the board wargame Hard Vacuum, or the brief RPG Rocketship Empires. I picked up a scattering of ships from that range, without a real plan in place, I have both HV and RSE, and I had at one point started a Starmada conversion of RSE, although I now think Silent Death is better for that universe. I just need some Space Spitfires!

Along with the ships though I also got one of the line's bases, a power generating station, for use with my 2mm Star Wars project - yes, for Hoth.

Here's what it looks like out of the box:
The casting is good, hardly any work will be needed. Not sure what to do about the steep jigsaw puzzle sides; I'll probably mount on a base and use polyfil or the like to make it a natural slope. It looks like a pretty good fit for 2mm, I'll probably get more for other Star Wars or 2mm sci-fi projects; but the pieces are bit too modern for VSF - pulp is probably the earliest I'd use them for.

On the other hand, I also got one of his Flash Gordon terrain pieces - Vulcania - specifically to try with VSF (Land Ironclads, Aeronef). Here's the naked shot out of the box:
There's actually a separate piece that adds to one of the buildings, but I'm not sure I'll use it, it looks ready to go to me. I think I'll use it for my VSF Venus, which uses a lot of Space 1889's Mars (my Mars is like Wells'). This could be the fortress or palace of a Venuvian king. It's slightly too small for proper 2mm, but would work as an objective to defend or capture for Land Ironclads; you wouldn't want troops fighting on top of it. For Aeronef though it's perfect.

All in all, yet another place to spend money! Rob from Hangar 18 does have a rewards program, which makes it an even more compelling place to shop at. I'll post some pics of the ships once done, but his site does a good job of showing what you'll get (lots there for you War Rocket fans too).

2mm/3mm Terrain/Scenics - Works In Progress Update

2011-02-14T01:12:00.007-05:00

Well I've finally shut down the cleaning and prepping station, and am now just basing and painting...for the rest of 2011. Honest.

I've finally picked up some paint brushes again over the last week, continuing with some terrain and scenic pieces that have been blocking the production line on the painting table.

Here's where things stand:

The front view of a couple of SPC Wargames Scenery (ex-Simply 6) streets/manors. The one on the right is being painted as a French plantation manor for Vietnam, although the washing process muddied things up more than I wanted. I was trying the "magic wash" method, and I don't think I pre-coated a thick enough coat of Future to prevent the paint from grabbing the wash. It worked on the grey one though, which has now been finished with drybrushing. The white one has had the roof shingles drybrushed but needs the rest done.

Rear of the above.

A lousy photo (stupid white on white!) of my Indian (Irregular's Middle Eastern town) town, painted in a souther/eastern Indian style. The mosque has a dome, honest!

Another view of the same. Still a lousy photo!

Irregular's Middle Eastern village, being painted up as an Indian village, southern/eastern style. I'll be ordering some more this month to paint up in a more Northwestern India style (i.e. sand coloured).

Another shot of the above. Windows, tree foliage, well water, doors, flat roof tops are done.

The wizard's castle from before, finished except for a matt varnish. Although I'm thinking I over-did the drybrush on the hills and may need to do something to tone it down.

Another view of the castle.

The ion cannon for Hoth, not much changed from last time, just cleaned up a bit.

I have one of Irregular's windmill pieces, and I was going to do it in a European style for SYW, ECW and TYW projects, but in the end I went with a North American paint job. Hopefully the varnish tones down the red brick of the miller's house. I'm pleased with the actual windmill housing's paint job, I was trying for an aged plain wood look, with multiple greys. I based with a medium-dark grey, painted some verticle stripes in lighter and darker grey, then muted them with a wash/daubing job of the original grey.

A fort for North America, still in progress. I tried for a variety of painted buildings within the fort, representing different ages of the structure. Fresh, lighter wood; darker brown main structures, built at the same time as the wall; and one original grey/aged wood building from the trading post that was originally on the site.

And of course I forgot to take a picture of the work-in-progress 3mm church from SPC Wargames Scenery, which is nominally a European stone church, but I'm painting it for the ACW as a red brick and green roof (white trim) North American church. Seems to be working ok, although I'm hoping my matt varnish darkens things a bit, I don't quite have a proper red brick paint, but I'm close to the sort of church that still stands and I drive by daily. I have another copy of the church coming that I'll paint up proper as a stone church.

I've also got some background posts up for my 18th century Imagi-India project, over on the Mahindya 1750 blog: January's posts and February's.

The Shelving Wars (not actually to do with any wars)

2011-01-23T01:08:00.004-05:00

A few weeks ago I completed the overhaul of my miniatures area and office/games storage room, both to reduce clutter and prepare for the day when I have more completed miniatures to store. So 7 new wall shelves went up, plus a new workshop-style standing shelf (those flimsy steel things for garages and the like) and one more respectable looking bookshelf (with classy new antique bookends).

So here's what I got now:
The main painting area's down at the end, under the Fokker Triplane photo. To the upper right are plastic animals and creatures for 28mm VSF, pulp, etc., to their right are a billion GHQ 6mm mini's waiting for some love.

To the left are shelves for works-in-progress, and some materials storage (Fimo clay for example). The paint rack is hopefully self-evident.

This is the most significant outcome - my big cutting board is essentially clear again, no more works-in-progress on top of it. The white shelving unit is mainly a bits box - have lotsa bits.

The office, reduced down to a desk now really, and most of the shelves, as the room becomes a storage unit for stuff waiting its turn, or has been completed. The curtain hides a big ass old window, that no set of shades would cover without engineering or expense. I don't have the patience for the former and too many goodies to buy for the latter, so it's kinda jury-rigged.

Otherwise I've been finishing last month's to-do's on the table - wrapping up the cleaning of miniatures so I can devote 2011 to painting. Alright, so now it'll end up as the 11 months of 2011, but the shelves made me miss my December target!

Statistics and Damn Statistics

2011-01-11T17:39:00.002-05:00

Following my great planning pronouncements, I've promptly spent almost no time working on actual miniatures, other than wrapping up my 2010 cleaning of figures. I have, however, now got a great shelving system that has freed up workspace for actual work. Not only that, but I've trashed stuff that was filling up desk drawers, giving me even more space. I'll try to take a picture of the new Storeroom 2000 when I get a chance. I've even protected the room from the sun, so I can leave stuff out without sweating over fading paint.

In the meanwhile, I thought I'd start 2011 with a survey of the neat new stats I found this blog provider offers. I'd perused it last month, but made some notes this time. One thing I found is that I was probably influencing the stats with my own visits, so I've changed the settings so that won't happen again. In my review I've tried to account for myself.

Most popular posts:
Microform Models Review
One of my Vietnam posts
And another Vietnam post
My very first "real" post
My take on the Thurian Age (and most relevantly, maps)

Where are people coming from? The US and UK are #1 and 2, then Canada, but that's probably me, then Germany and France. Australia, Spain, and Brazil are also the homes of my visitors.

How do people get here from Google? Besides TMP posts and others' blogs, searches for Pat and Walt's Spaceship Emporium, Oddzial Osmy, and "Thurian Age Maps" are bringing people here. The latter explains the popularity of my Thurian Age post, since there are only a few maps of Thuria online. This reminds me I need to get back to my review of Thurian Age nations (as well as my neglected Imagi-Nation blog).

How many people visit? Well, I don't know. But there are 750-1,000 pageviews a month, I'm probably half of those, so at least I now some people do visit.

2010/2011

2010-12-31T02:01:00.003-05:00

Right-o, I think it’s time for an end of year review and a broad plan for 2011. The review is pretty simple: Lots prepped, not much painted!

So I hereby declare that for me, 2011 will be the “Year of Painting and Terrain”. What does that mean? Well, I’ve scratched out a few themes and resolutions.

(1) No more cleaning of figures until the backlog is cleared, with a few exceptions:

Assembling, mounting, and priming figures already cleaned in 2010 is ok (need to get them on the painting table)
Figures needed to complete a project (e.g. Vietnam), SYW India skirmish, air can be cleaned etc.
Terrain is fair game, as it’s the other half of the year’s theme.

(2) Purchasing will be scaled back, I did my piece for the world economy in 2010; in particular, no NEW projects! Well, ok, two new projects may be allowed – 3mm ACW Terrible Sharp Sword, now that it’s released, and 6mm Hammer’s Slammers, IF they ever get released by Old Crow. Otherwise it will be:

Terrain purchases will include a space mat, an aerial mat (overland, already have naval), some 10/15mm pieces, 2mm Irregular, and 3mm from Simply 6 (via Picoarmor).
2mm purchases for SYW India, my two fantasy projects (Kull, Imaro), Star Wars, and Land Ironclads.
Star Wars capital ships from Studio Bergstrom (falling under the “completing a project” exception).
Some more Pulp Figures, particularly if I manage to make the Hot Lead convention in March and PF is there with a booth.
If Brigade (US version) has any sales, I’ll pick up some ERB Martian figures and VSF skirmish stuff.
If Brigade (UK version) has their summer sale again, I’ll pick up some Aeronef and Land Ironclads stuff – I hope you all admire the way I didn’t spend any money during their Xmas sale.
Splintered Light Miniatures have a few sales during the year, and I expect they’ll have some cool new Splintered Lands mini’s I’ll need, plus I have some of their 15mm stuff in the pending pile.
In January I expect to put in an order to round up WWII over the Pacific, there are 6 mini-starter packs that will do me, plus some spares for China. And some modern odds and ends. And I found I need another pack of D.XXI’s for the Finns. But THAT’S it.
At some point I’d like to place a small order with H&R for 1/300 WWI a/c, I have some gaps in my lineup, and they’re the only ones with a reasonable collection of interesting Interwar a/c.

Hmmm, so that looks like two rules and about 20 exceptions, but at least it’s a plan!

I’ve spent the last few days working on re-jigging my hobby area layout, and added 7 new shelving units to the house – 1 fancy bookcase, 1 utility shelf, 3 pairs of big wall shelves, 2 pairs of little wall shelves. Some of it’s to deal with my book overload, but I also want to get work station #2 back to being a work station, right now it’s a storage area for in-progress terrain. I also waste a lot of time trying to remember where stuff went, because it’s a pain to access much of my collection. This should put things out in the open, in a less jury-rigged fashion. Now hopefully I don’t move come spring…

Hope everyone’s had a good Christmas, and is heading towards a good new year.

CJR

Fighter Fleets on Bare Metal Parade

2010-12-20T18:30:00.007-05:00

As mentioned, here are some of my fighters, all Studio Bergstrom, after cleaning and mounting. The 1" fighters are on magnets, the fleet scale ones are directly onto pins. The Battlestar Galactica ones are all done, the Star Wars ones are still in progress, besides having a lot more types, the 1" TIE variants and B-Wings require assembly.
The fleet scale alone:
Some plant bases for planetary skirmish gaming, many are Woodlands Scenics DIY's, the rest are various dollar store and pet store plants:

Yay, Happy Birthday to TwoThreeSixMM

2010-12-20T05:13:00.002-05:00

I was just checking in for any comments when I realized that it was December 20th of last year that I made my first blog post. Time sure has flown, looking over my month-by-month breakdown for 2010, it was easy to tell when the slow and busy times at work were.

I should have a few more posts this month, later today I'll post a bare-metal shot of my space fighter fleets, and maybe some interplanetary terrain I'm rushing together to try to get in some Star Wars/5150 gaming over the holidays. I finally found a glue that works on aquarium plants!

CJR

Pulp Monster Robot

2010-12-17T11:17:00.003-05:00

While doing my Xmas shopping for my nephew (only 2 months old, too young to introduce to miniatures...yet), I found in the clearance section a T-700 toy from the last Terminator movie. After hemming and hawing, I decided it would make a good giant Nazi robot for pulp gaming. Here it is, with and without its gun, with the Shadow (from Pulp Figures) for scale:

If not the Nazis, here's another classic story it could fit into: The Spider: Robot Titans of Gotham

More from Shapeways

2010-12-15T17:25:00.002-05:00

It's hard to tell if I should place the blame on Shapeways, for giving me a one-day 10% off coupon a few weeks ago, or Steelonsand for his recent blog posts about his Battlestar Galactica project. Anyway, now that I've switched to sci-fi mode and have two tables covered with spacehips - fleet scale and fighter scale - I'll post some stuff in revenge.

While searching for new items from the Shapeways/Star Ranger crowd of companies, I found a new shop doing not-Trek stuff:These are the basic Heavy Cruisers of legend, and are pretty sweetly detailed. The "alien heavy cruiser" has already had its basecoat applied, I find it helps somewhat with the slightly roughness of the White/Strong/Flexible material (which is still way cheaper than the other materials). Coincidently, Klingon Armada and Romulan Armada (licenced Starmada variants in the Starfleet Battles Universe) just made their way to the E23 Warehouse for digital ordering, so now I have a game to go with them, although I'll be tweaking the ship stats to bring them more in line with the TV series. The Armadas are set in the General War (SFU)/post-movie (TV) era, and I'd like to scale them back.

And then for my super-VSF project, using Iron Stars, I picked up Objects May Appear's Gothic Space Fortress. It's an expensive bugger, but the discount helped, and it's awesome. I think the Germans are getting it, but I'll see.
And then for Land Ironclads, also part of the VSF-unity, I picked up (from left to right) some self-propelled superguns (going to the French), a monster ironclad, going to the Turks, and well, the gingerbread house from hell. I'm going to make it the largest possible ironclad in the game, all tricked out with options, but of course it'll be stationary, so maybe some sort of battlefield HQ.
So all this madness, and the fact I'm spending so much time prepping and so little painting, has made me consider establishing a theme for 2011 around painting and terrain, and that's it. Only a few essential purchases (mainly terrain), and no more prepping until I've cleared the backlog that's currently prepped, for a year. More on this in a future post, as I establish my rules.

Jealousy Will Get You Nowhere

2010-12-07T11:40:00.004-05:00

There's been a lot of blog posts and tutorials etc. about using CD's as bases for terrain and scenics, and I've been trying to collect CD's where and when possible, including making the sad decision that some of my computer games from the early 1990's were never going to get played again. However, even after that cull, I still had less than 20 CD's to get to work on.

But problem solved! During a re-carpeting at work, someone mentioned that during the clean-up to get his office cleared, he'd thrown out a couple of hundred CD's of an old annual report. I immediately raided the garbage, and am now set up for terrain bases for life! Life, I tell you!And I think the storage towers can be used as a scenic in their own right, with a bit of work.

Mars and Spears

2010-12-06T01:50:00.007-05:00

So at least this time Mars and spears could have some relationship, but in this instance they actually don't, other than being what I spent a chunk of the weekend on.

On the Mars front, I scored big this weekend at a local used book store. I had most of Edgar Rice Burroughs Mars series already, but was missing 4 novels in the middle of the series. I went to the store on a hunt for a few items, and asked the clerk on hand if I could go through the "Burroughs crate" - some prolific authors get their own box rather than go on the shelves. Going through the crate there were the usual bazillion Tarzan novels, which I read as a kid and still have a bunch of, and some Pellucidar stories I was missing, which was a minor score, and some one-offs that look cool. But no Mars novels and no Venus novels (I was short the first and the last of that series).

However, as I was going to pay, the store owner came back and was there to ring me up, when he saw I'd been through the Burroughs crate, he said he had a new box of Burroughs that he hadn't even inventoried or priced yet, and was I interested? After the polite version of a "hell yeah", I got my mitts on the new arrivals, and found ALL 4 of the Mars novels I was missing, and the last of the Venus series (The Wizard of Venus).

Conveniently enough, I've been prepping some 28mm "not" John Carter of Mars figures, mainly from Parroom Station, but also new arrivals from Tinman Miniatures. Here's a sampling of Parroom's White Ape, Banth, and John Carter, and Tinman's Woola.You can see in the background some of the other stuff I've been prepping - apes on motorcycles, not-Space Marines, pulp figures, and 18C India for skirmishing...

Which brings me to the spears. I have Freikorp's 15mm History of India range on the go for that skirmish project, and the generic spearmen need spears. After some reading on TMP, I tried to make my own with some brass wire (I had florist wire on hand as backup) and I was surprisingly successful, they actually look like spears!As always, the pictures can be clicked to bring up larger versions.

2 and 3mm Scenics (WiP)

2010-11-27T19:28:00.013-05:00

The last few weeks have been spent basing some 2mm Star Wars and 18th century India figures (possible the the widest gaps in interest one can imagine), but on the painting table my poor Vietnam project has been pushed to the side, literally, for some scenic pieces from Irregular (2mm) and Simply 6 (3mm). These are still being finished, but here's an early peek at them.

Since the manor on the right is actually intended as a plantation house for my Vietnam project, I guess the little guys can't complain too much.The one on the left is for some TBD European project.

And I also have some 3mm ruins from Simply 6 for city-fighting in Vietnam, still working on how to achieve depth to the rubble. There are four in total, these two are to be "concrete", the other two will be the typical white buildings that seem to be common in pictures of Tet (or at least the Osprey version).
The Star Wars project gets its first piece with an ion cannon base for the Battle of Hoth:
And for good measure, a missile base for a temperate world...
On to 18th century India, for which I'm using both of Irregular's "mid-east" pieces as a town and village respectively...
I plan on getting two more of these and doing them in more of a Northwest Frontier paint scheme. These two are for more tropical India.

I also have a cathedral and castle from Irregular underway. The red base around the cathedral is an attempt to show red cobblestones, hopefully drybrushing and a wash help pull out the details. Interestingly, while searching online for photos of a cathedral to base a paint scheme on, I found which cathedral this seems to be based on - that of Cologne.
And finally, here's a couple shots of a fantasy castle, in near-2mm scale, that came from some knick-knack store a long time ago. I think I remember what town I bought it in, but I'm not really sure of what store. This was way before I took up miniatures again, and before I even knew of 2mm as a scale, I just picked it up as a trinket, along with some little dragon figurines. Realizing it could serve a better purpose as a scenic bit, I stuck it to a base and am giving it a go. The hills and grass need some work, as do the boulders in the stream, otherwise I think it looks pretty good. And has given me a whole new appreciation for knick-knack stores...need to do some hunting for some of its brethren!

Well, in a fit of something, possibly stupidity

2010-11-14T22:52:00.004-05:00

I started another blog: Mahindya 1750 for my 18th century Imagi-nations set in a fictional Indian sub-continent.

The introductory post there pretty much explains everything. I set it up separately so it would have a clear lineage, rather than the clutter that is here. I may have to do this with some other projects too, eventually - Kull comes to mind.

I also made it separate to give it a different look and feel. I was actually trying for more of a newspaper look, but maybe I'll save that for more contemporary projects, AK-47 Africa or Back of Beyond stuff. The look now does have a sort of old-world feel, me thinks anyway.

3mm Works in Progress (and some targets)

2010-10-24T02:01:00.007-04:00

Well some of the pictures are crappy, but here are some painting projects that have been going on lately. Most are 3mm Vietnam, but a couple of bases are targets for 1/600 air gaming - 1/2400 truck convoys. One for the desert, one for Europe. The trucks still need to be painted obviously.

I had another 10 LVTP-5's to get into action, so after basing I painted the bases green for jungle on 3, giving me 8 on that terrain. The other 7 I'm putting on the beach, so after messing around with various colour permutations, I just settled on Americana's "Sand" as the colour. It looks better in real life than this picture shows:
All the rest are US forces. These are just a sample - FAC base (4 guys), half-squad (5 guys), medic station, and MG team. Uniforms, flesh, and guns are done on all. I remembered I wanted to add flak vests on a couple of guys way after the fact, so today I gave a couple of guys on FAC teams and one gunner's assistant their vests. The guy on the far right of the FAC has one. Most references showed the vests as beige, so I went with that. On the MG team you'll see a hint of gold, representing brass cartridges; later Dullcoate should tone down the shininess.

My big "decision" was to go with black (leather) boots on the guys who's boots you can see - just the MG teams and medics and their patients. The beige jungle boot would be more representative, but after trying it, I realized that at this scale it just made them look rather ridicuously barefooted. I think the black contrasts nicely with the rest. This particular medic station has a couple of patients with bleeding wounds, one in the lower leg, one in the gut. I wasn't planning on doing it this soon in the process, but I needed to cover up a mistake while doing the boots, and deep red did the job nicely. Most patients will have bandages with or without blood.

Although painting has been slow, it's been a productive month for me - lots has been cleaned and based, including some new terrain pieces from Irregular and Simply 6. I also have been scoping out SYW and ECW projects in 2mm, and should have the SYW (in India) started by next weekend.

Trenton and Trenton again (1776 version)

2010-10-03T18:16:00.003-04:00

Last week the club I've been playing with in Toronto (current name is "The Napoleonic Brigade - Toronto") had its big annual weekend of games in 6mm. This year was the Battle of Trenton, played thrice on Saturday and twice on Sunday (some test games earlier made it 7 games total). The third game Saturday followed a quick end to the second game, after the Hessian commander's boldness didn't pay off).

I was only there Sunday, playing in both games. To make the game fair to the outnumbered and surrounded Hessians, there was a 3 hour time limit on each game. The first game got to a late start, which made my job easier as I was the Hessian commander (Rall). I traded space for time and we slowly got pushed further into the middle, doing more damage than we took, and when the clock struck we were ahead. As we had to wait for lunch to finish cooking, we played a few more turns and the Hessians also got cooked as their perimeter collapsed.

In game 2 I was one of the American commanders (Greene), looking after two forces coming in from the north west (to the right of the American battery on the hill). The Hessian strategy in this game was to try to escape to the east, using their free set up of a half battalion of skirmishers to harass one American unit from the rear, holding the door open while the rest tried to scamper out. The skirmishers did a good job the whole game, and one wing of Hessian infantry ultimately escaped (with guns).

However, once the Hessians in Trenton itself got turned around to mosey on out, my forces got across the river and threatened them from the rear, so they had to turn around yet again, and this allowed additional converging forces from the northeast and south to hit them from all directions, and everything in the centre was destroyed.

All in all, a good time was had by all. Playing the Hessians was challenging, but fun. I seem to have a talent for delaying actions...

Here's the table set-up before the gaming began. The Hessians occupy the centre area, under fire from American guns on the hill, and basically threatened on all four sides.

More pictures from another attendee (Andy) are available here:
Game 1 and here: Game 2

Funky Colour Schemes

2010-09-23T18:23:00.005-04:00

This link was posted on The Miniatures Page today, it's a forum for plastic aircraft modellers I guess. This particular 46-page thread is about what-if paint schemes the members have come up with, either photos of models or illustrations, mainly for modern planes.

The link is to the last page, but it's worth the time to go through more or all of the site.

Some schemes are just modest variations of what's out there today, others are of special one-offs (final flight planes etc.), but some are right out there.

Which means they're great to "borrow" for some of my other plans - sci-fi sure, but mainly Victorian Sci-Fi, and Aeronef in particular. Maybe Iron Stars spaceships, but I picture them as pretty serious; maybe Land Ironclads too, but ground vehicles get pretty beat up in the course of a day.

But a tiger-skin painted zeppelin? Or hot green with hot blue with more serious blues and greens? Definitely worth trying out! I'd already come up with some national schemes while doodling around, now I'll see about integrating with some of my favourites from this site.

Mimi Redux

2010-09-22T17:41:00.002-04:00

More shots of the Screamin' Mimi, showing her business end.

Canopies Complete, World Continues Spinning

2010-09-19T23:38:00.006-04:00

I finally got the last touching up done on my first large batch of helicopters for Vietnam. These have been kicking around in previous posts for a while, but I'm now down to a coat of Future, decals, sealing, and rotors.

Other stuff has been going on in the meanwhile, some of it's below, but a ton has just been prepping mini's for the usual billion other projects going on. Some mounting got started last week, including 28mm sci-fi, more 25mm fantasy, and some 2mm Star Wars.

So with only that brief intro, here's some pics (as always, click on the pic for a bigger version):

The big shot of everything.

Huey Hogs, Frogs, and Snakes, with some OH-13's on the side. Two 13's are for Vietnam, the two medevac ones are for any Korean gaming I do. I still have 4 more of the things primed, I'm holding them back for AK-47 or some other odd side-project.

The other half - more Hogs and Frogs (back), OH-6 and 58 (back at either end), Slicks and CH-46's (middle two rows), more Snakes, including a pair in the Widowmaker paint scheme.

An even slower moving painting project finally got done too. These HH-60's have been sitting around for 18 months, part of a test painting project before I realized I was actually ok at painting these small things. Two are done for the navy, the rest for special forces.

And those of you with good eyesight might have picked out something odd at the back of those helicopter pictures above. As mentioned/promised previously, here's my secret painting project for Vietnam - 80's TV favourites.

The trio.

You have to figure the A-Team got their van's paint scheme from somewhere, so here's a OH-58 done up for clandestine missions. Obviously Murdoch is flying this, so I guess I need another secret project for the rest of the team...

And of course TJ was a pilot in Vietnam before making it to Hawaii, so here's the first Island Hopper...

Last, and most obscurely, Screamin' Mimi from the less remembered Riptide. I haven't watched the show since its original run, but I liked it, and always remembered the Mimi. The red scribble is actually "Screamin' Mimi" in script, but yes, I cheated, it's just a scribble.

My US infantry bases have also been progressing, flesh and uniforms are done, details and weapons are next. Here are a few work-in-progress pics:

I've also been testing my painting skill at the larger scales, using some old (literally - some of these have been kicking around for 25-28 years) figures from D&D days. I have more of these in line, including some that I and my brothers tried painting, and gave up painting, back in the day, and others that have a bit of sentimental value to me, as they represented my favourite RPG characters - Rolstun Goldaxe and the Swerlin/Verlin/Twerlin lineage of disposable magic-users.

Anyway, here are some pics of my first tests, the mummy I winged, the foot knight in red was done using the army painting guide from the D&D Battlesystem book, the elf archer from the advanced techniques guide in the same book, and the foot knight in green was done using a TooFatLardies mass painting technique from one of their specials.

I Steam, You Steam, We All Steam For Elephants

2010-08-31T16:16:00.006-04:00

So over on his Steelonsand Blog, Steelonsand has been working on a project to create the airship of Jules Verne's Robur. It's a pretty cool project and has gotten me looking for the books (Robur the Conqueror, Master of the World). Until I did some research I'd forgotten I'd seen the movie with Vincent Price, which was a mishmash of the two books.

I've also been on a Edgar Rice Burroughs kick, specifically around the Mars/Barsoom and Venus books, a result of a month or so of puttering around on VSF stuff.

So last weekend I decided to hit a used bookstore near me that I knew had a Burroughs' crate in the back, mainly hoping to find the first book in each of the Mars and Venus series, I have a bunch of the rest but haven't started either series since I couldn't start at the beginning..

So I did score Princes of Mars, and some Tarzans (the lost city type ones), but I hit a nice motherlode of Verne as well. Michael Strogoff, Up the Niger Bend, and Master of the World (so I'm still stuck looking for the beginning of a series!). Also there were two books, Demon of Cawnpore and Tigers & Traitors, which more in-depth reading of the back blurbs revealed to be the two parts of one novel, The Steam House.

This is a long-winded way of getting to the point: I now have a book about a steam elephant! Not just a steam elephant though, I was planning on doing some of those as Contraptions for Land Ironclads anyways, in fact someone on the Wessex Games VSF mailing list has already statted some up.

This is a steam elephant pulling a caravan of "steam houses".

This is steam-nerd heaven to the nth degree. And I never knew. Now I need a proper land ironclad version, or two in miniature.

So while I just got into a few pages last night, the internet has proved useful, and I now have some initial musings to post.

This is the edition I have:
Kind of small, I'll try to get a scan or photo of my book, but it shows an elephant-like elephant pulling an Indian-esque palace on wheels. The howdah is circular and has a couple of old school bombards sticking out the side. I'm liking this direction.

But not this one:
This looks like Mecha Godzilla or Robo-Kong, a 1930's or 1950's Art Deco steam elephant. No sense of Victorian style. So I ain't doing this version.

I'm back on track with this, from Wikipedia:
Gives a bit more detail, still a round howdah, but no signs of cannon. The trunk with steam coming out is awesome, and I found a perfect 6mm model with Irregular's MP22 Successor Elephant (top picture in the link). The rein thingy will either get cut or turned into a steering cable.

I'm going with 6mm since I want it to look behemoth-like (in the book apparently the beast is called Behemoth), and bigger than the steam elephant contraptions I'll do with Irregular's 2mm elephants. A 6mm elephant should be about 11-12mm tall, or about 3-4 stories in 2mm scale.

This also helps, although I'm not sure what happened to the rest of the caravan...
Or why it's surrounded by elephants! Maybe they're in rut and got confused.

As a backup elephant I might get a couple of Irregular's African elephants with howdahs, and I'm thinking 6mm Hussite wagons may be a starting point for the rest of the caravan, with findings etc. as decoration. I have some coupons for next week to see what I can find. I may just end up scratch-building the caravans.

I don't think I'll mess around trying to make the howdah circular though, unless I find something that's an easy fit. I'll probably just file down the figures sticking out from the top, put on a minaret-style roof, file off one shield hanging from the side and turn the other one into a gun mantlet.

Lardcam

2010-08-24T17:59:00.003-04:00

Well since painting and prepping are continuing on without anything sexy to photograph, I thought I'd post a link to some fun stuff that's come out from the Too Fat Lardies gang - their own Youtube channel.

In three parts they describe the basics of Sharp Practice (Napoleonic skirmish) and play a few turns showing off the system. Beware the sound sometimes goes in and out when they switch camera viewpoints, so keep the volume dial handy during episode one, but they're working on this for their next videos.

While I have Sharp Practice, a lack of mini's for that period are keeping me from trying it. However, I was able to pick up the game's basics pretty quickly from one viewing. It may have helped already being familiar with TFL games, but I think this video will help anyone interested in the rules.

In other news, the painting table is again dominated by helicopters and their bleedin' canopies. I finished the US flesh and uniforms, so per my plan then switched to the copters.

The green-tinged top windows turned out nicely, only a few touch ups needed, but I really buggered up on the gray. I'm using gray for windows on open doors and blue for everything else, and for some reason I concluded I wanted dolphin gray, as I'd used that before on my UH-60's. What I wasn't paying attention to was that I'd used dolphin grey for THE FUSELAGE of a couple of UH-60's, and a darker gray for the windscreens. Idiot, idiot, idiot. Eventually I realized the windscreens looked kinda white and repainted what I'd done, but still.

This is when you have to remind yourself "punch pillows, not walls."

On the prepping front, I've started on the Microworld fantasy mini's - really nice stuff, I'd recommend them (and for all you non-continentals, worldwide shipping is only $4 US!).

I've also been on a real VSF funk and have prepped some aeronef and land ironclads, as well as gotten to work on the setting again (it helps avoid painting canopies!). My VSF is set after Victoria (1938) but still has a real Victorian feel, with all the steampunk changes not much has changed other than the Queen's in the ground. I actually don't remember why I went that route initially but I'm good with it.

I also spent my August money on Brigade Models' summer sale, picking up more stuff for three of the four VSF angles - aeronef, land ironclads, and aether ships. Only the navies got neglected.

Anyway, hopefully some helicopter pics soon!

Martian Rocket Test Launch

2010-08-06T10:29:00.004-04:00

Last week I gave one of my new Shapeways arrivals a paint job to see how things turned out, volunteering the Martians' rocket (actually an Earth R-Rocket from Pat and Walt's Spaceship Emporium) as it was going to be a pretty simple colour scheme, and would let me test out some of my silver paint.

I applied the paint straight to the WSF (White, Strong, Flexible) surface, which is the default (and cheapest) material the Shapeways products come in. As mentioned in my previous post, it is a rougher surface than metal or resin, but should look ok from standard tabletop distances.

So here's a close-up of the result (prior to sealing):

And another:
I used two different silver paints, and one metallic gunmetal paint (darker rear portion). One silver was used for the body, wings, and nacelles, the other (cheaper) for the middle portion and nacelle fins. From close up things seem a bit "sparkly", rather than a polished metal, partly because I was using craft metallic acryllics, but also because of the bumpiness of the surface.

And then a long distance shot to see what the result is from a gaming distance:
I think things look ok from this distance. I have bought some better metallic paint to try on my next volunteer.

My main lesson was I'm going to prime these, not to help with the surface but to minimize bleeding at the edges, as the material (and all the Shapeways materials, according to reports) absorbs a lot and it is hard to get hard edges on the first or second coats. So letting the primer do the bleeding will save frustration later. At least that's my theory...

Other updates...the current batch of helicopters are done except for the bleeping canopies (and decals). The next batch of helicopters and ground support planes have been prepped and primed - 39 more! F-4B's, Dragonflies, Broncos, Mohawks, Chinooks, Choctaws, UH-1B's (inc. medivac), T-28's, and probably more that I've forgotten. The Chinooks and Choctaws are the bulk of them. Some will be done as the South Vietnamese Air Force, others Marines or US Army as appropriate.

In the meanwhile, I'm taking a break from the canopies ("issue avoidance") for a couple of days to get started on the US ground forces. Last night I finished painting the bases (dirt, fallen trees, shrubs) so I'll begin with faces and hands. My research turned up about a 9:1 ratio of white troops to African-American troops, so roughly 1 soldier per squad will be black. I'll vary it from 0 to 3 to keep things interesting. Then I'll get helmets and uniforms done, then return to the canopies (and get some UH-60 canopies finished that have been in purgatory for a year), then back to the infantry. There, I've said it publicly, so I have to do it.

I also based a bunch of civilian vehicles for 3mm, once I get some sand applied to a second round of LVTP-5's, I'll prime them this weekend if the humidity stays down. My other big prepping project has been a ton of WWI aircraft. So far a bunch have been cleaned, but need to be assembled and mounted.

Then to top things off, this month's splurge was on some 6mm fantasy troops from Microworld Games. I know, I know, what happened to my 2mm fantasy projects? While they're still good, and I'm continuing them, but for more traditional fantasy, where 6mm can do the job too, I've decided to go for the larger scale. I've never been a fan of Games Workshop's practices and sometimes too-gothic tendencies, but their fantasy setting is way cool and in particular the Gotrek and Felix novels are enjoyable (I've read 4 as of about 2a.m. today).

So I ordered some of Microworld's really nice Undead and Orc troops (check out the mammoth skeleton!), enough to get started on some armies. Another thing moving me in this direction is that my rules of choice (Advanced Legendary Battles) seems to have been designed as an alternative to GW, and the army lists are pretty WHFB-esque. So for a change I don't have to mess around with things.

I also picked up one pack of their dino-riding sci-fi line, the raptor-riders. I haven't figured out what to do with them, but they're so damn nice. Ideas for them include a 6mm sci-fi faction (Hammers' Slammers is due out in 6mm so it could fit in there), weird WWII, or VSF/Land Ironclads. Even though they're 6mm, I think if you bronzed up the weapons pods, they might work at 2mm (except of course the pack I ordered, which has riders that would obviously look out of scale...sometimes I don't think things through).

Charlies Edges Towards the Water

2010-07-21T16:12:00.007-04:00

If you've noticed most of my recent posts have been about new arrivals, rather than any progress on projects, it's been because I've had a mass of vehicles on the table for 3mm Vietnam (Charlie Don't Surf rules). It's been slow, getting a bit done on all of them every night, but I've now wrapped most of them up, and have some pictures to show off.

As always, clicking on the photos brings up a larger version, really recommended for some of these.

Here's everything en masse:

The NVA get their armour at last, some T-55's (top) and PT-76's (bottom):

I think the T-55's are some of O8's nicest stuff.

The riverine forces are starting to get ready too, here are 5 PBR's, the first one is South Vietnamese, the rest will get American stars as decals later.

I should have done a second one for the South Vietnamese navy, but I do have a sixth PBR that I forget to prep the first time around (everything else comes in 5's, but the PBR's in 6's - it was an honest mistake!).

M60 (top) and M48 (bottom) tanks. Some of the M-48's are done on urban bases, for Hue.

Some of my M113's and MCAV's, I need to do another 10 of each, but need to order them first.

Mortar carriers, can work for either M106's or M125's.

M109 SPA, LVTP-5's (have another 10 to do), and some trucks. Trying to decide if I should paint road lines on the pavement bases.

Some of the jeeps, some with RR's or MG's. They look better from a bit further away.

More trucks.

And I've also been working on the US helicopter fleet, but it's still a work in progress - weapons, unit markings, canopies (I hate canopies), and decaling are still needed.
Everything on the table right now.

Front row: OH-6, 2 Frogs, 2 Hogs, OH-58. Second row: 8 x UH-1D's. Third row: 6 x CH-46 Sea Knights. Fourth row: 2 x 2 Cobras.

Four OH-13's, 2 Cobra's in camouflage, 2 Frogs in camo, and 2 Hogs in a different colour scheme.
Nice close up of some of the slicks.

I also have to begin on some follow-ups for the air fleet - Chinooks, UH-1B's (medevacs, command ships, more transports), Choctaws, and all the close support aircraft. I also have some surprises coming for fans of 1980's TV.

And the next phase is now underway. After touching up my bases for all the above, I used the spare paint on the palette to begin the bases for my US infantry company.

Bad Pictures of Good Mini's

2010-07-20T22:01:00.007-04:00

All of my recent orders have been coming in on top of each other, today's arrival was a test batch of ships and things from Shapeways, a Dutch company that does 3D printing on demand for other companies. That probably doesn't make sense, but basically, someone uses a CAD-like program to create an item in 3D, such as oh say a spaceship miniature, then uploads it to Shapeways, who handles the printing (using one of those expensive rapid prototyping tools) and delivery, and the creator gets to set his own commission as well.

A bunch of guys have started creating miniatures through Shapeways, there may be others, but I've only come across the spaceship ones. The Star Ranger site also provides a good listing of what manufacturers are around, and now includes the Shapeways companies.

So I placed a test order from most of the companies, in the basic material (white strong flexible), which I knew going in does come with a kindy of grainy texture that apparently is ok once painted and viewed at a normal distance. Have seen the texture in person now, it is kinda like the feel of a sugar cube. There are other materials, but they cost more, and I spend too much on this stuff already!

There is generally very little flash, maybe a bit of sanding along edges is all a couple of them need. It seems like they really come ready right out of the box; apparently you don't even need to prime them.

So the project these mini's are going to is my own VSF universe, which is to include Iron Stars for spaceship gaming, Aeronef for aerial gaming (as well as some Sky Galleons of Mars), and Land Ironclads on the ground. Most of this order was for space, but I also got some ironclads, as you'll see.

The setting combines a few things, a lot of Space 1889, but with that setting's Martians moved to Venus, and Wells' Martians occupying their proper planet. There are Moonmen, really from other star system, Jovians (white ape-like sentients), and a mysterious murderous race from beyond (tentatively GW Ork-like).

Once I got today's order, after the obligatory fondling of the miniatures, I tried taking some pictures, and now see that they mostly suck. I forgot to put on the close-up option, but I think the real problem is how white and reflective the material is, they have a lot more detail to them than these pics show. Anyway, till I get these painted, here's what I got:

Two shots of a gothic destroyer from "Objects May Appear". He actually has some bigger ships (BB and CV), but I thought they might be too out of scale with my Irregular Heirs of Manacus and Uranus ships. I can probably go bigger, but this is a nice ship. I was going to make it German, but seeing the pagoda-like structure on top, and relative simple lines, I may make this style belong to one of the Chinese factions in my universe. Probably Imperial. Oddly enough, when sketching out my universe, long before I saw these ships, I'd noted that the Chinese ships had castle-like lines with buildings on the "deck".

I picked up OMA's Ether (left) and Air (rightx2) frigates as well. Unfortunately as the store images suggested, they're very similar, so I can't use the "Air" line as one faction, and the "Ether" line as another. I'm going to go with the Ether line, if I get any of the Air ones I'll call them sub-variants. I will get the Air SSBN though, as my universe calls for the French to have sub-like ships. These frigates will belong to the URA (my universe's USA - there's also a CSA).

This is "Irrational Designs'" Belter Attack Cruiser. I'm not sure which nation will use it, I'm leaning towards the Ottomans, but the Austro-Hungarians are still with a ship line (since I canned the "Air" faction per the previous paragraph).

At the top is ID's Jovian Schild Cruiser, which will either go to Germany or the Black Nippon, a militant Japanese splinter group that disappeared into the ether years ago, and supposedly left the solar system and came across some very high tech. But since I took away the Gothic Destroyer from the Germans, they need something as they're a major faction, and I like the look of this.

Below is one of ID's Martian ships, but I'm giving it to the Moonmen, who came from another star system hundreds of years ago, crashed on the moon, and have been there every since, enslaving the local Selenites. Now that they've run into humanity, they're getting back out into the stars (since some humans are conveniently trading with them for raw materials).

Although I gave away the Martian's saucer, they do get this rocket, from Pat and Walt's Starship Emporium. This is a small R-rocket. I'll get some bigger ones as needed, I wasn't sure how this big this would turn out to be.

AOTRS only makes one in the line, and it is pretty cool. I think it's kinda Japanese looking, so either for Japan proper, or the Black Nippon rebels.

Pat and Walt also have their Mulcien line, which I'm giving to the unknown aliens from beyond. The main fleet will be bigger than this, as with everything, I was testing sizes. The holes in the side of the ship, as well as some other depressions, take the weapons parts shown here as well.

The weapon and comm equipment on sprues are really neat. If my math is right, 112 bits came in the order, 8 of the large 10-item sprue, 4 of the 8-item sprue (there's some overlap between the two). Besides outfitting my X aliens, I'll be using these bits for other projects:
- secret VSF project "New London"
- orbital space fortresses (I got some small space stations from OMA too, but this is for some Battlefleet Gothic type stuff)
- armored WWII trains (see last week's post - this wasn't even planned but now I have turrets!)
- the satellite dishes are PERFECT for 3mm Vietnam firebases; I was wracking my brain as to how to do one myself...

And then finally, some land ironclads. Maybe Russian, maybe German (the gun is a German thing). These are from OMA, there's some other stuff in the range, but nothing quite as cool as these.

So all in all an interesting future direction for miniatures, at least in part. I think the output would be too soulless for figures of humans or creatures, but certainly for mechanical things this is great. Hopefully more people start offering product this way, who may have never done so via traditional lead or plastic. I don't want to see those disappear, but for those odds and ends that would never be profitable to sell that way, here's an option.

And if anyone is reading this who wants to do 1/600 and 1/300 aircraft this way, have I got a wish list for you...

Microform Models Out of the Wrapper

2010-07-16T16:04:00.007-04:00

A year or more ago I came across a link to Microform Models on GHQ's forum, they're an artchitectural model company in Massachusetts who make models in a multitude of scales. Scales relevant to the smaller scales are their 1/20" (really 1/240, which I'm testing vs. 1/285 and 1/300 as their 1/25" line is small), 1/50" (1/600), 1/100" (1/1200), 1/200" (1/2400) and 1/500" (1/6000) lines.

After procrastinating for a year, I finally put in a decent sized order to see what things looked like at all those scales. I was mainly thinking of civilian background vehicles or targets, but I had some military conversions in mind as well.

One reason for the size of the order was they ship via UPS, and I knew I was going to get nailed with a brokerage fee, so I had to add that into a shipping estimate. I don't mind paying the taxes too much, and for a courier I could even live with the $5 they charge to collect the taxes, but can someone explain the other $36 they need to collect (it wasn't the shipping fee)? Even the post office doesn't do that.

Anyway, I'm going to ask before future orders whether USPS is an option. It's not like I'm in that big a rush. Shipping was fast though, and my order was actually packed even before we spoke on the phone to finalize the credit card info. To order, I prepared my shopping list in Excel, so I could calculate costs, pdf'ed the final version, e-mailed it to them, and they called shortly to get the cc info. Easy as pie and nice people.

All in all they look pretty good. They're a bit low on detail compared to say Oddzial Osmy's pieces, but I knew that going in (and Marcin spoils us with his work anyway). Anyway, at this scale, a decent paint job will make this look really good.

So I'll start with the pseudo-6mm stuff, which I calculate to being about 7.5 or 8mm.

Here are they are up against a GHQ Sherman. They don't look too bad, a bit big, but I can live with it. On the left is a bus for modern battles, and in the middle is an SUV, which I think could also be painted up to look like a WWII era car too.

Next up is all of the 3mm (1/600) stuff, for Vietnam and some fictional African countries for AK-47. This is an overview shot (click on it for the full sized version) of some of the figures, I have a lot more:
On the left is a tractor trailer, next is another bus, in the middle are a couple of favourites - a VW Beetle and a convertible. I picked up multiples of these, so some will show up on the streets of Saigon, and the convertible (pink, I think) will also be a warlord's personal vehicle for AK-47. Could probably also double for a WWII Mercedes convertible. Not shown here are the civilians and patio sets I got for a Saigon sidewalk cafe, but these cars will be parked beside it for some urban action. For scale a Walker Bulldog is next in the photo, and then leaning against the stickypad is a bulldozer, which will serve as Rome plows for Vietnam. Finally there's a tramp freighter for AK-47, which will go with the Skytrex coastal pieces I also got this week - quay, warehouses, Nissen huts, etc.

The bulldozer is leaning against the stickypad because some of these pieces come with little pegs on the bottom, presumably for architectural models they get popped into the base. I'll have to cut or bend these off, but the metal is soft enough to work with (not as soft as say Irregular, but easier than O8's white metal; maybe Tumbling Dice's metal is the closest).

A close-up of those vehicles. I think the Bug will be metallic red, like my parents first car, and the convertible will be a sky blue for Saigon.

I also picked up some targets for 1/600 gaming (and even 1/300 WWI I supposed, but I haven't thought that far ahead). For low-level tactical attacks, strafing and the like, I picked up enough pieces for 6 1/600 trains:

- modern passenger train
- modern freight train
- two WWII freight trains (need to add smokestacks, I guess architects don't need retro trains!)
- Russian armoured train, with turrets etc. added
- German armoured train, also modded up.

Pictured above is one of the WWII freight trains, with a Tumbling Dice Typhoon for scale. I'm actually using their diesel-electric locomotive model as the caboose (far right).

I also got targets for medium (1/2400 trains) and strategic/high level bombing (1/6000 trains and ships). The 1/6000 trains are those two little strips, the one on the left is on its side, the one of the right is right side up. I plan on creating a little railyard base, with these two trains on it. The 1/6000 freighters (I got 4) will form a dockyard. The 1/2400 train is between the Typhoon and Lancaster, for scale. The full sized version of this picture will show more detail of the small stuff, you can tell the flat cars from the tenders from the locomotive from the box cars on the 1/6000 train, pretty cool. I might make the paint job a bit more colourful than historical just to show it off better.

I got two 1/1200 freighters to see if they'd fit in with the 1/1850 Axis and Allies War at Sea miniatures I've been collecting, since the A&A auxillaries are a right pain to find. This is the Microform freighter (foreground) against the German freighter from A&A (background). It looks pretty good, just a bit wider than the A&A ship.

Here are my three freighters side-by-side - 1/600 for AK-47 (some warlords treasure ship), 1/1200 for Bag the Hun over the open seas, and 1/6000 for a dockyard in a port.

I also picked up some 1/1200 train engines that I'm going to add legs to, to turn into walkers for Land Ironclads like I saw in one of the GURPS steampunk books IIRC.

Christmas in July

2010-07-02T10:56:00.003-04:00

This morning, while contemplating getting out of bed or having another 9 minutes of sleep, I heard the outer front door slamming, suggesting a parcel being placed between the doors! Bounding downstairs, I found a small, but heavy, package with Royal Mail markings - my latest Irregular order had arrived!

Risking being late for work, I spent some time fondling the new arrivals at the breakfast table. This order was my biggest yet, and was all over the map in terms of projects (hence the ridiculous label list for this post). Actually it was so big and spread out, I can't even remember exactly all of what I ordered until I cross-check the codes with the master list.

But, some early comments and plans...

VSF in Space - I like the Iron Stars rules, but have never been jiggy with the miniatures; to be honest, I've always liked the look of the Battlefleet Gothic ships for VSF. But not their prices. So I picked up the Heirs of Manacus (and expansion) and Heirs of Uranus fleets - look good! There's a new maker of ships in plastic (via Shapeways) of Gothic ships, hopefully that can be a third fleet for my VSF in space ideas.

Star Wars in 2mm - I got a bunch of the basic WWI/WWII infantry and MG/missile stands for troops, and some of the 2mm sci-fi support weapon stands too. I picked up the two and four legged walkers, and I think I'm going to prefer the Ground Zero Games/Germy walkers. Irregular's two-legged walkers look good, but are bigger than the GZG AT-AT clones, so they wouldn't match up (would be ok as AT-ST's on their own though). So I think the Irregular walkers will join the land ironclads I also ordered for some Land Ironclads gaming (they'd look good bronzed up).

WWI in the Air - I picked up the 1/300 WWI aircraft Irregular makes that no one else does, and some others that were just cheaper. This is a case where I can't remember just what that was though, although the Taubes were pretty obvious!

WWI on Land - Picked up some 2mm WWI tanks, either for a future If the Lord Spares Us project, or to trick up for Land Ironclads.

WWII on Land - To supplement my GHQ and CinC stuff, I picked up a fire engine as background fluff, and the steam train, it looks pretty sweet. I also got the doors, windows, roofs, stairs scenics pack, to try making some of my own buildings.

19th Century - Picked up more artillery for my fictional setting, but also for...

18th Century Imagi-Nations/SYW in India - I'd like to do the SYW in India (maybe in Europe too) in 2mm, so I picked up British and French SYW army packs to get me started. Also picked up additional artillery pieces, the army packs tend to be a bit short on that. I plan on using the King of the Battlefield rules, though I also picked up the new pdf of Might and Reason recently too, more for bigger 18th Century battles in Europe though, not India.

Kull and Imaro - Finally, I ordered a ton of codes to get further ahead on my 2mm fantasy projects. Lots of elephants and war mammoths, and infantry. Will have to make another larger order (e.g. 70+ of some codes, times two or three figures per code...) later this year. I messed up my polar war chariot order though, forgot the wolf chariots are single items, so only ordered 3, when I need 6 (see my There's no basing like sno' basing post for the start of the stands). Some of the elephants (the non-Howdah) ones are going to be converted to gunkwu's, I'll see how that goes, it's going to involve a fair bit of chopping.

Anyway, happy, happy!

July's order will be some more Splintered Light Miniatures (they're having a sale), some Calvacade samurai dwarves (another sale), and an order from an architectural model supplier, for 2-6mm civilian stuff (cars, small trains for targets, transport trucks).

Charlie Starts Surfing

2010-06-20T23:30:00.005-04:00

Some of my stands for Charlie Don't Surf are finally coming along, so I thought I'd post the current state of affairs as a Work In Progress. The US vehicles are done except for sealing, the VC units need to be touched up then drybrushed on the base, then some shrubberies added.

I've thrown some other scenic bases I've been working on into the photos as well, they'll be used on top of felt to either identify terrain (e.g. open fields) or exceptions to the underlying terrain (e.g. an opening in the jungle).

As always, clicking on the photo brings up a bigger image. It was tough getting good shots, so you'll have to excuse some fuzziness.

The US vehicles en masse, 5 Bulldogs, 5 Sheridans, 3 M577's, one done up as a first aid vehicle.

The Sheridans and M577's closer up.

The Bulldogs closer up, also doubling as ARVN vehicles.

The VC forces en masse - one company of 3 platoons, plus MG's, RPG's, snipers, and commanders.

The nefarious VC Captain So Wat, showing off the spiffy grey Mao jacket he picked up on his last trip up north. I'll be the only one who ever sees this, but I painted him clasping his hands behind his back (manical giggling couldn't be portrayed).

One VC platoon, and a bit of another. The Dullcote seal should take off some of the shininess from their weapons.

Somewhat fuzzy RPG teams, peering through the brush.

VC LMG's, with a HMG denoted by the extra two men attached. At least until O8 makes some proper heavy AA MG's.

A rear shot of the VC, showing off their webbing and rucksacks.

Another angle of the US vehicles, plus what's up next. More US vehicles, plus some PT-76's for the NVA. The grey bases are those vehicles that will be gamed on pavement.

Another shot of the to-do collection.

Vietnam Palette

2010-06-11T11:10:00.005-04:00

Back in the winter I collected public domain pictures and maps of Vietnam in preparation for making terrain for Charlie Don't Surf, and I'm posting here my collection as a couple of PDF's for others in the same, um, sampan:

Vietnam Palette

Hopefully they turn out ok in Google Docs, I'd suggest downloading the file, I think you get better images. (edit: had to switch to the original Powerpoint file, the pdf's looked lousy after being converted to pdf then to Google's version of a pdf - sorry for the large file size).

Tank Saturday

2010-06-06T21:08:00.003-04:00

Over the Victoria Day weekend I learned Oshawa (Ontario, Canada) has the Ontario Regiment's museum, which includes a decent number of tanks and other vehicles. Better yet, during the fair seasons, on the first Saturday of the month it hosts "Tank Saturday" and runs one of its vehicles for our viewing pleasure.

Yesterday was one such Saturday (the second of the year) and for me anyway promised to be a treat, as they were running their M4A3E8 Sherman. So I drove the hour or so down to Oshawa and caught the day's second running of the Sherman as well as purusing the rest of their vehcile collection and their static displays.

The museum is very much a labour of love and a working restoration facility; it ain't what you'll see in Ottawa, but in some ways is the better for it. The staff are all volunteers, many of the older ones are vets (the day's MC was a post-war Sherman tank commander), but we also saw younger volunteer mechanics working on some of the other tanks - Saturdays are the museum's main work day. For the 90 minutes or so that I was there I'd estimate there were 50-60 visitors, including a lot of children, and the volunteers seemed very pleased with the numbers.

The museum could use a gift shop or something else to help support it, I think everyone visiting would have been willing to pick up something, I know my wallet was loaded for bear.

Some of the highlights of the static displays are an impressive collection of medals, dating back to the late 18th century and including one from Waterloo. There is also a good amount of weaponry, including German war booty from both WWI and WWII. The vehicles include about everything Canada has used from WWII onwards, excepting a Ram Kangaroo (or a regular old Ram for that matter, but I doubt any exist anyways) and Leopards.

Here's a selection of snapshots from my tour, strictly of the outside tanks and other AFVs. I took more pics, but they were for painting purposes.

The running Sherman, before the festivities.

Side shot of the running Sherman.

It was quieter than I thought. Or perhaps, "not as loud as I thought" is a better way to phrase it.

The museum's other Sherman, more of a gate guardian now. Took this pic to remember the rear markings.

The museum's Centurion - man is this a big tank.

One of the M60's.

The other M60. Different camo pattern with four colours to it.

Abbott Self-Propelled Gun.

Lynx with interesting colours, that's an actual white with green.

Ferret from the front.

Ferret from the side.

Sheridan, the funkiest tank.

Silent Death Stats for Original Battlestar Galactica

2010-06-04T22:34:00.003-04:00

There was some discussion last weekend on The Miniatures Page about BSG stats for Silent Death, and while some exist online for the new series, I never could find much for the old series, which I prefer. So I used my dusty collection of BSG notes to start statting up the ships while on a space kick last December. I also started Star Wars at the same time. Both are about 2/3 done, mainly the larger (Warhound-sized) ships are left to do.

So for those interested, here are Silent Death stats for the old school BSG fighters:

Cylon Raider
Template: Lt. TPAC
400t
30 Slots
3 Crew
36 Hits
Drive: 12
DV: 12
DR: 0
PD: n/a
Decoys: n/a
DC: 1-2
Twin Splatterguns (lasers), Fwd Arc, Infinite Ammo
1 x Mk. 30 Torpedo Launcher, Fwd Arc, 10 Ammo
Poor Structural Integrity
Poor Reactor Design
Critical Design Flaw
Cargo: 2 Units (10 slots)
Cost: 33

Cylon Scout Raider
Template: Mdm. TPAC
600t
50 Slots
3 Crew
54 Hits
Drive: 16
DV: 12
DR: 0
PD: n/a
Decoys: n/a
DC: 1-2
Twin Splatterguns (lasers), Fwd Arc, Infinite Ammo
Poor Structural Integrity
Poor Reactor Design
Critical Design Flaw
Cargo: 2 Units (10 slots)
FTL (5 slots)
Cost: 29

Cylon Control Raider
Template: Lt. TPAC
400t
30 Slots
3 Crew
36 Hits
Drive: 12
DV: 12
DR: 0
PD: n/a
Decoys: n/a
DC: 1-2
Twin Splatterguns (lasers), Fwd Arc, Infinite Ammo
1 x Mk. 30 Torpedo Launcher, Fwd Arc, 10 Ammo
Poor Structural Integrity
Poor Reactor Design
Critical Design Flaw
Cargo: 1 Unit (5 slots)
Control Unit (Cost 20, 5 Slots): Can’t fight while controlling shell fighters, can only evade; also requires 2 crew (1 per 3 shell fighters) to operate a 6 shell fighter flight. Control unit counts as two weapons for damage tracks.
Cost: 45

Cylon Shell Fighter
Template: Lt. TPAC
400t
30 Slots
0 Crew (crew hits count as ability loss) Pilot 1, Gunner 1
36 Hits
Drive: 12
DV: 12
DR: 0
PD: n/a
Decoys: n/a
DC: 1-2
Twin Splatterguns (lasers), Fwd Arc, Infinite Ammo
Poor Structural Integrity
Poor Reactor Design
Critical Design Flaw
Receiver Unit (Cost 5, 5 Slots): Counts as one weapon for damage tracks.
Cost: 18

(later) Cylon Heavy Raider
Template: |Mdm. TPAC
600t
50 Slots
3 Crew
54 Hits
Drive: 12
DV: 12
DR: 1
PD: n/a
Decoys: n/a
DC: 1-2
Twin Splatterguns (lasers), Fwd Arc, Infinite Ammo
1 x Mk. 30 Torpedo Launcher, Fwd Arc, 10 Ammo
2 x Mk. 50 Torpedo Launcher, Fwd Arc, 6 Ammo (each)
Poor Structural Integrity
Poor Reactor Design
Critical Design Flaw
Cargo: 1 Unit (5 slots)
Cost: 76

Colonial Viper
Template: Lt. SPAC
100t
9 Slots
1 Crew
10 Hits
Drive: 16
DV: 14
DR: 1
PD: n/a
Decoys: n/a
DC: 1-3
Twin Splatterguns (lasers), Fwd Arc, Infinite Ammo
Armored Cockpit
Poorly Shielded Drive
Cost: 14

Colonial Viper (Improvised)
Template: Lt. SPAC
100t
9 Slots
1 Crew
10 Hits
Drive: 16
DV: 14
DR: 1
PD: n/a
Decoys: n/a
DC: 1-3
Twin Splatterguns (lasers), Fwd Arc, Infinite Ammo
Armored Cockpit
Poorly Shielded Drive
Poor Mechanical Reliability
Cost: 12

Colonial Asp
Template: Lt. SPAC
100t
9 Slots
1 Crew
10 Hits
Drive: 19
DV: 15
DR: 1
PD: n/a
Decoys: n/a
DC: 1-3
Armored Cockpit
Poorly Shielded Drive
Cost: 13

Colonial Azure Viper (later)
Template: Lt. SPAC
100t
9 Slots
1 Crew
10 Hits
Drive: 17
DV: 14
DR: 1
PD: n/a
Decoys: n/a
DC: 1-4
Twin Splatterguns (lasers), Fwd Arc, Infinite Ammo
Armored Cockpit
Cost: 14

Colonial Scarlet Viper (later still)
Template: Lt. SPAC
100t
9 Slots
1 Crew
10 Hits
Drive: 17
DV: 15
DR: 0
PD: n/a
Decoys: n/a
DC: 1-4
Twin Impulse Guns, Fwd Arc, Infinite Ammo
Armored Cockpit
Well-Shielded Drive
Shielded Weapons
Cost: 15

Colonial Shuttle
Template: Shuttle
400t
15 Slots
2 Crew
40 Hits
Drive: 10
DV: 10
DR: 1
PD: n/a
Decoys: n/a
DC: 1-2
Cargo: 6 units (1 bay)
Cost: 19

- torpedoes are strictly air-ground or anti-ship in nature, not anti-fighter

Back on the Table Again

2010-06-04T16:12:00.003-04:00

Had a good night last night working on 3mm Vietnam bases, the first time in about 6 weeks I'd been at the table, due to the previously mentioned work overload and sleep underload, and a bit of lack of focus. Finally broke open the DAS bag to model some terrain on the heavy weapons bases; the figures look a bit lonely kneeling in trenches or behind trees that end in the middle of nowhere. So I used the clay to extend the trees and trenches/berms, or convert the trees to trenches. I even managed to simulate tall grass with one base, matching the figure.

Less scary and time-consuming than I'd thought, although I had to break open two bags of DAS, as the one I think I bought in the late 1990's had gone bad, the newer one was fine.

I got so far along I even started up some more terrain bases on pennies. Since most of the Vietnam scenarios will feature large stretches of similar terrain (e.g. jungles), I'll use felt to delineate the terrain, then small terrain pieces to give the felt some feel. However, when I want to show something other than the background terrain, I'm working on small terrain pieces on pennies. So for example, a clearing in the jungle would be some yellow grass on the penny. Or as I worked on last night, some huts and a lone palm tree.

Pics to come later.

Berry Berry Quiet on the Front

2010-05-29T11:48:00.003-04:00

Well it's been six weeks since I last posted, and in one sense things have been pretty quiet on the miniature's front, as April and May are my busiest periods for work. I don't spend much time at home and I'm usually about 10 minutes away from nap-time when I am, plus this year I had the added pleasure of breaking a finger (a pinky finger, so no threat to painting etc.!).

I've also been slowed down as I've had a slew of Vietnam stuff on the table, and I hit a bit of a wall in terms of maintaining momentum when it's the same old stuff to do every night. In this case, doing a bit of sculpting on some bases where figures are in dugouts or behind fallen trees. However, in my first bit of news, Charlie Don't Surf has now been released by Too Fat Lardies, along with a scenario supplement (Surf's Up), so I should get moving again.

And while things have been slow on the painting table, that hasn't stopped me from spending money like a drunken sailor on new mini's. Some birthday money helped on that front, and I had two large orders filled by Dom from Dom's Decals (a fine purveyor of Tumbling Dice mini's). I finished Vietnam both tactically with helicopters and aerially with North and South Vietnamese aircraft, as well as the USAF, USN, and USMC.

I also got the 1960's/70's Indian and Pakistani starter packs, and a ton of modern Warsaw Pact stuff. Of course now that I have it, I'm trying to remember what my plan was! I think it was to work on a modern Chinese air force, as that's a future conflict I'm most interested in trying out on the table.

Going further back in time, I also got some early WWII aircraft, France, RAF, Luftwaffe, Poland, Finland, and Russia. I also got some early war FAA aircraft and extra German aircraft to play out some naval aerial action under the alt-history that the Graf Zeppelin was completed. I've been picking up some Axis and Allies' 1/1850 ships to serve as targets, and with the GZ available, I wanted to be able to defend her. So some Ju-87's will serve as the two proposed naval equivalents, Bf-109E's will play 109T's, and then the poor Fairey Fox will defect to serve as Fi-167 torpedo bombers. I'll probably use some 109G's to act as Bf-155's (or whatever it was), although they don't really look alike; but then nothing does.

I also got some late war RAF to go with my late war American and Soviet forces, as part of my hypothetical East-West war in 1945+.

I should be done painting everything sometime in 2150.

Still on my airforces, I made my first order with Heroic & Ros, under the new ownership of Andy Kirk (I'd never placed an order with the old ownership so I don't have a comparison). Everything just arrived yesterday and looks good, it took only 10 days or so to get here from the UK. This order was for the basics of WWI aerial gaming, I'd been buying a lot of stuff unique to CinC during their sales this winter (including a STUPID amount of Nieuport 11's - so every nation could have their allotment). Now, I have all the classics, as well as a good representation of heavy bombers. Future orders with Irregular and H&R should round me out shortly, I'd like to have everything in hand by the end of the year.

But since there is the well known axiom that once you have finished buying or painting all your miniatures your lifespan is measured in mere seconds, I have started on some new fronts.

15mm Freikorps (QRF) "History of India" figures for skirmish gaming using Songs of Drums and Shakos by Ganesha Games. I ordered through a nice new US company, Miniature Armies. I've begun rating the figures in the SDS system, just working on fine tuning them.
I've been on a space kick lately, and while I have avoided buying new mini's, including some of the nice new ones available in plastic via Shapeways, I have started on notes for a campaign using Starmada and Victory By Any Means. I figure I'll use my billion Starfire counters to start, and have actually made some good progress in converting Starfire's (3rd Ed.) tropes to Starmada; I always liked a lot about Starfire's background and tech levels, just not the mess of rules.
I also almost got into Star Trek (TOS) gaming, but the apparently terrible state of ADB molds has put me off. Of course, I also have a billion Starfleet Battles counters from my one purchase of the Captain's Edition rules, so I could use Starmada and the counters. There is an authorized Starmada conversion (Klingon Armada, Romulan Armada), but I figure I can do it my way easier.

There are also some great new Splintered Lands miniatures out or on their way to production, so that may occupy a summer purchase, but a multi-project Irregular purchase is next on the list.

Doing my best, doing what I can, I get them ready for Vietnam

2010-04-11T18:33:00.009-04:00

With apologies to the Ramones (and while a catchy tune, I'm still not sure what "Commando's" about - and I'm a Ramones fan). So the last few weeks have been busy getting 3mm forces ready for "Charlie Don't Surf". I had most figures already on hand, but needed more infantry and some vehicles. The reinforcements just arrived Friday and many are now in progress.

I've based a company of US forces (at this scale interchangeably Army and USMC, as well as ANZACs), one of NVA and one VC. I've also got most vehicles based, and most helicopters are primed. Next up is finishing the few remaining vehicle bases, and then texturing all the bases. A few that are going to be really muddy (M109's in position) or on pavement (some jeeps and M48 tanks) were textured before mounting the vehicles.

So, while still a work in progress, I thought I'd show off what's been going on in the couple of weeks since my last post.

An overview of everything on the table, all 3 companies and vehicles.

Half of the US forces. M109 self-propelled artillery, M60A3 tanks, LVTP5 carriers for the marines (I have another 10 but need to think about basing them for beaches and/or in-water), M113 (couple types), M577 command track, M106/M125 mortar carriers, jeeps (with and without weapons), M60 LMG's, and infantry. On the fly I decided to put the M113's on smaller bases, as they looked lost on the pennies (and base size doesn't matter); I kept the mortar versions on pennies as they'd be likely dug in with a small base around them. Two of my M577's were like this too for the same reason.

The other half of the US's forces. Trucks, some based for dirt roads (left) and some for pavement (right), also M48 tanks, also based for both on- and off-road. Also some medic stations, more jeeps, more infantry, and command stands.

A North Vietnamese Army company, including RPG's and MG's; plus some spares and 5 T-55's.

VC company.

Most of my US helicopters - Huey Slicks, Hogs, and Heavy Frogs, AH-1 Cobra's, OH-6's and OH-58's. Chinooks and some Huey 1B's that I'll use for medevac and command helicopters are on their way from Dom of Dom's Decals. Click on the picture for a full-sized version with better detail.

Marine CH-46 transport and supply helicopters. These guys have been primed for a while and finally have some brethren to sit with on the painting table.

Recently arrived OH-13's, very early observation helicopters in Vietnam, famous for their role in MASH (so I guess I'll save some for Korea then).

What's on the table to be filed and then soaked (I use vinegar for a couple of hours) - PT-76's for the north, in between Sheridans (left) and Walker Bulldogs (right).

Sphinx Jr.

2010-03-28T23:54:00.003-04:00

For Steelonsand, here's a couple of shots of the nearly done Sphinx Jr. (aka Sphinx for 2mm). I've also included a shot of the pyramids that came with the set, however, the fact the Sphinx towers over them suggests they aren't quite Cheopian in scale, so I've declared them to be Cushite (or Kushite) funeral pyramids, rather than Egyptian or pseudo-Egyptian colossai. Both will be background scenery for fantasy or alt-historical games.

They came from a Safari Toob pack, the rest of the goodies in the pack will make 25/28mm scenery pieces - various statues and sarcophagi. The sphinx and pyramids were a bit of a bugger because while painted, the paint job had picked up a stain that wouldn't wash off, almost like they'd been covered in chewing gum. The rest of the toys don't need any work, but I had to prime and re-paint these, which did let me do them a bit differently.

As always, clicking on the photos brings up a larger image; the first sphinx picture in particular gives a good close-up.

This shows off sphinx jr. relative to the pyramids, and you can see in the background some of my elephant grass project. The taller grass is for 1/72 gaming, the shorter stuff for 3mm. Some 2mm riders are in the foreground for scale.

Inevitable Return of the Great White Dope

2010-03-25T20:05:00.002-04:00

The last few weeks have been hectic, with a conference and trips all over the map. So my home time has been pretty idiot-proof, catching up on sleep (finally happened last night) and not challenging my brain or dexterity.

I have had a number of terrain pieces on the table and have minor progress through them. I'm almost done about 75 elements of elephant grass for 3mm Vietnam. I also have a few other grass pieces done with static grass.

Then there's the odd situation of having both a 2mm Sphinx and a 28mm Sphinx on the same table. The 2mm Sphinx, and pyramids, came from a Safari Toobs package I picked up on sale.

The Splintered Lands ship is ready for painting and is in the line-up. I also got all the VC/NVA figures cleaned up and ready to base. US forces are next.

So then amongst all that mucking around, I got distracted by the AK-47 rules for post-colonial Africa and have them on their way from the UK. I figure on doing them in 3mm, lots of figure and vehicle options and it's a scale where I can dabble without blowing the bank. I'm not sure if I'll use the AK-47 in their entirety or just use the campaign rules and then swap in B'Maso by Too Fat Lardies.

And so it goes.

Bamboo U, Part the Last (III)

2010-03-08T01:45:00.007-05:00

Ok, so another hour of playing around got these two test stands done, except for the sealing (which could be where I blow it - I've blasted foliage off trees before).

To sum up, I'm pretty happy with these. These pictures do kinda make them look like broccoli, but they don't from a distance (e.g. the chopper-view pictures below). I also really need to get some jungle trees done, without the reference I keep thinking these are proper trees. The 'proper' trees will be at least half again as tall, with grey-brown trunks. It's just a mindset thing.

Changes to my method, now that I'm done:

Paint the tops of the pins a dark green, so any pin peeking through the flock will look like foliage.
No need to do ground cover in the interior of the impassable bamboo! Just focus on the edges of the stand, if you want again (again, appears to have been highly variable).
Can probably ixnay the brown trunks, it causes me mental confusion with trees, and slows things down to switch paints over. Maybe for any special stands, but for mass production I'll fill with "fresh foliage". On the plus side, for other genres brown would work for proper trees in 3mm.

Shaky view flying in on the chopper...

About ready to land, hope the bamboo tree-line is empty...

Grunt's eye view of the passable bamboo stand, with room for 3 fire teams.

Grunt's eye view of the impassable bamboo stand.

Bamboo U, Part Doo (II)

2010-03-07T22:48:00.004-05:00

The next step in Project Bamboo was painting. Did the bases, then the bamboo shoots (trunks?). The only thing left is flocking some ground cover, then seeing if my plan for the top foliage works.

A top view of the impassable bamboo. You can see in a horizontal line through the middle my tests of different paint colours for bamboo. I left them in because I wanted to see how it looked finished, and whether some variety would help the finished product. I'll go with two at least, a typical green and then a brown representing dead or mature bamboo.

So starting from the brown trunk on the left (passed the test, will be the standard brown trunk), there's the near-yellow "Lemonade" that I thought would be my standard green/yellow trunk...but it failed. To its right is a green that wasn't bad, but is choice #3 of my greens. Then there's a brown trunk in the middle (leaning), that was too close to the base brown. Then there's the green that passed the test ("Fresh Foliage"). Finally another, flatter green that would have been ok if I didn't have Fresh Folliage.

Side view of same.

Side view of passable bamboo, meaning I can fit bases (pennies) onto it. I left room for three pennies all told.

Still also have to figure out what shapes to build the production stands. Narrow strips to border the bamboo forest, then using felt in the interior, or rounds like the above. Some rounds will be useful to include in the interior in any case.

Vietnam Heavy Weapons Figures (3mm)

2010-03-07T22:34:00.004-05:00

With help from Marcin of Oddzial Osmy (aka O8), I've sorted out the figures that come with the US and NVA/VC heavy weapon/command packs, and I've prepared some labelled pictures below.

The US comes with 3 types of sprues: two of individuals that can be separated (one of 3 figures, one of 5), and one that has both an aid station and a positioned M60. I didn't include a photo of the latter, as it was hard enough getting photos of the other sprues and it should be easy enough for anyone to tell the difference between the two.

The NVA/VC come with 2 types of figures, a sprue of 5 individuals, and one of two heavy weapons. The sprue of 5 does come with a variation, at least in the current collection, as one figure has a leg that isn't visible in some of the sprues (the other leg is), giving a standing appearance, as opposed to running. I didn't even notice the lack of the leg until it was pointed out to me, I just figured it was an upright dude.

Anyway, the sprues are as follows:

US "3"

US "5"

NVA/VC "Heavies"

NVA/VC "5"

As I mentioned, these were tough to photograph; it took about 30 pictures to get 4 that were halfway in focus. An issue with my photography skills more than the miniatures. There is a lot of detail here that will show up once painted.

Bamboo U, Part I

2010-03-04T21:58:00.010-05:00

There's been a lot of discussion on the TooFatLardies Yahoo group about making bamboo lately, in scenic anticipation of the forthcoming Charlie Don't Surf Vietnam-era company-scale rules (an IABSM offshoot). What we're all trying to model is this:

To the sides we see what an "impassable" stand of bamboo looks like, with a handy trail through the middle.

This shows some of the top foliage, which will be the trickier part to get right. It looks generally like it's only at the top, but it does run down a bit. This would be "passable" bamboo.

A distance shot of a bamboo forest, showing that from further away the foliage seems to be clumpy at the top, which I think will be my main objective in getting right in the end.

Most of the ideas have been for 15-20mm scale terrain pieces, which has been helpful to me in thinking of what to do for my 1/72 (20mm) bamboo for FNG skirmish-scale Vietnam gaming. But for CDS, which I'm doing in 3mm with Oddzial Osmy's Vietnam range, I've had to go smaller.

So after realizing toothpicks were too big and my cheap plastic plant material was also out of scale for bamboo (good for elephant grass though), I scaled myself down to trying pins. Armed only with a 40% off coupon and my steely nerves, I made my way into the needlework section of my local Michael's and picked up 800 13mm sequin pins. They aren't really different than regular flat-headed pins, just a bit shorter and maybe a bit sturdier than your usual "new shirt pins".

I've started with just a test project, using the following proof-of-principle method:

Cut out a suitable base shape in corrugated cardboard (I'm using a lot of odd pieces that are lying around).
Dab white glue randomly around, at higher densities for "impassable" stands and with much more room for "passable" stands (for my figure basing I'll need to fit pennies on the base).
In each dab, stick a pin through the top of the cardboard, being careful not to stick it all the way through! For variety, stick some in at angles, or curve the pin, or cut it down (from the pointy end). Also for variety, stick in two or three pins into one dab, with some of them angling off to the sides.
Use some polyfill to patch up the sides and add some base texture.
Prime with spray paint.
Paint the base brown, with some green.
Paint the pins a very light green (I have a green called "Lemonade" that I'm going to try). Maybe some trunks can be mustard yellow-brown (first pic above) or a near-white (second pic above) too.
Flock some ground cover shrubs/low-lying trees, or not (it seems highly variable, with denser stands having less).
Add glue to the pinheads, and in some cases down the body of the pin to get the effect seen in the second picture above.
Roll the pinheads through flock, either a grass or maybe some extra-shredded shrub or tree flocking material. Or both (clumpy for top, finer for lower down). Definitely want a light, bright green though.
Seal.

So far I've gotten the first three steps done, so here's my work-in-progress:

Top view with 3mm US command figures for scale.

Side view.

With Oddzial Osmy's palm tree in for comparison. Despite my fingers, the tree is set so it is at the height it would be on an actual base. 08's trees actually have a little pin in the base, which gave me the idea of sticking things into corrugated cardboard in the first place.

If painting the pins once mounted turns out to be a real bugger, a smarter method might end up being:

Cut out base and texture with polyfill or basing material of choice.
Prime the base, paint, and flock.
Prime and paint the pins loose, even if it means dipping the pins in paint.
Add glue and pins as above.
Flock pins as above, and seal.

It's a bit overkill for 2mm, my usual forest method (cork + scrubber) would work, but some may want to try it. Here's the bamboo stand with a handy 2mm Acheronian chariot beside it; probably the only chariot that made it to Vietnam in the 1960's...

It also works ok for 6mm too, but one might want to try bigger pins. GHQ has a pretty good Vietnam line, and I suspect other companies produce appropriate pieces too. Here's the bamboo stand up against a 6mm Russian field piece; the gun crew is crouching/kneeling, so it's not a proper comparison, but it'll give y'all some idea of what it would look like.

There's no basing like sno' basing

2010-03-02T23:39:00.004-05:00

I guess it's kind of appropriate that I had a warrior from Thule in my last post on 28mm Thurian Age figures, as I've been working on painting the bases for my initial 2mm Thulian forces. I have a complete unit of reindeer-pulled chariots, a polar bear chariot leader unit, and partial units of polar bear chariots and mammoth howdahs.

Since Thule is the one real northern nation in the Thulian Age, and their mounts all have a basis in the snow and tundra, I decided to do up their bases differently than the others, trying to capture a wintery environment.

So I spent January and February looking out on the landscape as I drove or trained around. These are some pictures of what I've come up with, the bases have gone through a bit of a process of doing and re-doing things that didn't quite work. I'll give my "mostly final" method down below.

So to do these bases, my method was:

Mount figures on base.
Glue some spots on the base and add sand (my usual basing method).
Where the base was still bare, add polyfill (spackle, what-have-you) for the snow drifts.
Prime.
Paint the sand areas a medium brown ('Mississippi mud' for me), representing dead, low ground cover.
Paint the snow drifts (polyfill/spackle) an off-white (I used a 'winter white'); this will take a couple of coats if you prime in anything other than white.
Dot and sponge white over the brown, representing vestiges of snow. If you have any flat areas (bare base, basically) in the sand areas, paint this white too.
If you put in wheel tracks, run white along the track (when the wheels beat down the dead vegetation, they expose the snow underneath).
Dot and sponge with a different brown ('spice brown' is my default dirt colour) anything you want to be muddy.
Drybrush a dull yellow (I use 'antique white actually) the brown sand areas, representing taller dead vegetation (long grasses, corn, shrubs), which stays yellow during the winter.
If any of your dotted and sponged white sand areas look like they could be improved, drybrush either your medium brown or dull yellow over them, representing the dead vegegation sticking out of the snow. This can be tricky, because I found that either the brown colour was now not dark enough (being on top of a white base) or I was painting the snow, rather than the sand bumps. Try somewhere, and see what your results are before going in whole hog.

Other than fantasy, or maybe some Viking uses, the only time I really see this basing method being useful is for 2 or 3mm WWI or WWII East Front stuff. Or the Winter and Continuation Wars of the USSR vs. Finland.

Now I just need to paint the blasted figures on the bases!

New Figures for the Thurian Age (and a completed snake statue)

2010-03-02T23:23:00.003-05:00

At long last I have some things completed, rather than in half-finished states, although there are still lots of those projects lying around upstairs.

As mentioned previously, I had ordered some more D&D Collectible Miniatures Game figures for the Thurian Age, to fill in some gaps and add more snakemen and skeleton options.

At last - Thulsa Doom, although this shot doesn't do his skull face justice. A nice miniature, although it really matches the Thulsa Doom from the version of Riders Beyond the Sunrise that was completed by Lin Carter, rather than what we see of Thulsa Doom in Delcartes' Cat. But beggars can' be choosers, and he is cool looking.

Also as mentioned earlier, I was awaiting a new figure for Thelo CurKail, one of my new Thurian heroes, for skirmish games. This is the new Thelo, the old one has been relegated to tavern villainy.

A massive piece and the blue hair and skin don't quite match up with my version of Thule and its mammoth-riding warriors...but it'll do for now.

I've also finally completed one of the wooden Creatology puzzles I've been picking up for props. This is the snake statue for the Temple of the Serpent:

After spray-painting with flat black, then a satin green.

Finished, with details and ruby-eyes added, then coated with crackle medium paint to age. The final product, after being coated with Future Floor Polish, actually tones done the silvering you see here, which I'm going to call cobwebs if you see them from a distance.

A close-up of the final product.

Still on the table - cog, castle, tower, dirt cottage, dragon statue, sphinx.
Sill in the box - more birdhouses cum Splintered Lands buildings, Temple of Heaven puzzle, pirate schooner puzzle, another castle puzzle.

Jungle Love

2010-02-16T23:35:00.005-05:00

With the pending publication of Charlie Don't Surf by TooFatLardies, I've been picking up miniatures (3mm Oddzial Osmy's from Picoarmor) and terrain bits for Vietnam. At another scale, back in January I picked up FNG by Two Hour Wargames, a skirmish-level Vietnam game I'll do in 20mm (mini's are on their way). Charlie Don't Surf is company level, similar to I Ain't Been Shot Mum.

On the terrain front, and also to help with 28mm VSF or Colonial skirmish gaming, I've been picking up some aquarium plant pieces, and today hit up a local dollar store (Dollarama) to see if they had anything. I did find aquarium plants, as well as regular plastic plants, that will do awesomely for the landscape of Venus or lost worlds on Earth (maybe even Vietnam too), but my real score were these for $2 apiece:
They're about 10x10", with 100 plastic grassy bits (elephant grass or maybe bamboo) per matt, snapped onto the underlying mat. I picked up 3, will probably go pick up more...they can be taken apart for customized stands, or I think the mat itself can be chopped up to create fields of elephant grass.

This will obviously work better for my 20mm stuff, this is a handy 25mm figure for scale. For those doing Charlie Don't Surf in larger scales than I, hopefully this is out there for you - going by the tag in the first pic, it seems to be a Dollarama special.

It will dwarf my 3mm guys, but perhaps I can call it bamboo and chop it down a bit, saving the cuttings for more scenery.

Welcome, my pretties

2010-02-16T22:58:00.006-05:00

As mentioned, my order of D&D collectible miniature pre-painted plastic figures arrived yesterday (Monday). Mainly intended for adventures in the Thurian and Hyborian Ages with Warrior Heroes by Two Hour Wargames and Songs of Blades and Heroes by Ganesha Games, they can be used in other periods as well. There are still more to find - there's a better Thelo figure out there, and the best Thulsa Doom and a dire (grey) ape were out of stock when I ordered.

I'll supplement these with painted figures, I have a lot of old 25-28mm stuff around from the 1980's, plus I'll fill in with new stuff as needed (e.g. a better Brule will have to come from somewhere else).

Anyway, now for your consideration, I present:

Kull and Brule - yes, I know Brule carried a sword...and wore a kilt...and probably wasn't bald except for a ponytail...but this is as good as I could go in the mainly bi-racial (caucasian and asian) D&D lines. Kull is more the primitive Kull here, I imagine he's about to chop one of the stone tablets that stores Valusia's lengthy marriage codes. If needed, either of the two Conan figures below can sub in, I'm sure no one will call me on the eye colour...

Some new Thurian Age hereos: Thelo CurKail - freed gladiator (not his final figure, just a stand in for now), Dolyn from the Hills - soldier in the Royal Army, and Tjia the Half-man, double-sworded Thuranian freelancer (and runaway bride, of sorts). These all started life as RPG characters, so I'll present more background later.

Forces of the snakemen, using both lizardmen and snakemen from the D&D lines - the difference between a lizardman and a snake that walks seems pretty minor (unless your a snake or a lizard), so I'm using both freely. The bulkier looking lizards I'll call snakemen priests, i.e. the poorer fighters. The snakemen proper will be, well, snakemen warriors proper, a bit better with their skills (nunchuk skills, bow hunting skills, etc.).

Of course the snakemen need their leaders, from a snakeman chieftain to a high priestess to the Serpent that Speaks hissssself to an angry snake demon.

Some other forces of evil, leaders and sorcerers.

Not all their enemies will be of flesh or scales, some will be of bones (need more of dem bones tho).

Some of the creatures I picked up - armoured apes, an angry giant ape, and a demonic minotaur type guy.

Two versions of Conan (and backup Kulls) - his barbarian form and his soldierly/kingly form.

More characters, Conan liked his swordswomen.

And some others, including the four guardsmen on the left who will serve as Red Guards for now, even though they aren't too red. I like the swashbuckler, need to find some more of those.

My first battle will probably be a small re-creation of the battle between Kull and Brule and the snakemen from The Shadow Kingdom. Kull and Brule each add up to being their own warband pretty much, and I'll use all my snakey legions against them.

My Only Wish Is To See Far Acheron Again (with apologies to Jim Morrison)

2010-02-15T22:57:00.005-05:00

...well, actually I wouldn't like to see Acheron again, but Valusia would be a trip. However, since I'm still in the middle of a bunch of terrain pieces, today sees my notes on Acheron go up.

Acheron is the remaining lands of the Old Race (aka Giant-Kings), who once ruled all of Thuria and have "100,000 years of history". The Old Race are long-lived wizards, with demon-tainted blood that gives them claim to be descendents of Set, the Serpent-Lord. They worship the rest of the Old Ones as well, and do so differently than their human subjects, on more of a personal relationship. However, their worship and black sorcery does require human blood and/or sacrifice to work (Note: this is all fiction, in case that wasn't clear).

Humans are their subjects and slaves, and have been since the beginning of time. The original humans they encountered (not the modern Thurians) at the dawn of time worshipped the Great Serpent (aka the Serpent That Speaks - not Set), and the humans have since merged the two religions and the Giant-Kings haven't really noticed. The humans under their rule also worship the Giant-Kings as blessed by Set. Despite being near-gods, the Giant-Kings haven't avoided getting jiggy with their subject women, resulting in hybrids identifiable by their height and pale complection, and talent with dark arts.

The human and hybrid populations grow much faster than the Giant-Kings and do much of the land's grunt work, leaving the Giant-Kings to rule, practice their dark arts, and lord around as living gods. The Lost Lands that separate Acheron from the Seven Empires (and anywhere else of note) have helped the Giant-Kings slip into myth and legend, but these myths and legends are still active and still plotting. They have spies and agents in Valusia (e.g. Guron, high priest of the God of the Black Shadow) and elsewhere, with the aim of regaining their former glory. The current ruler is King Ahotep.

Their capitol city is Luxor, on the Sea of Snakes. Additional cities are Sabatea, Erkulum, and Qarnak. The main river in the country is the Nilus, which later becomes the Styx, post-cataclysm. Their architecture is monolithic, some of the Hyborean Age colossal pyramids of Stygia are theirs. In most cities their architecture is sort of a suped-up real world Egyptian - stepped pyramidal apartment complexes for temples and the middle class. The poor live in block hovels, the true elites live in single pyramids. In other cities, their architecture is Petra-like, built into the sides of cliffs and hills. Generally their buildings are of black stone, but others are sandstone in colour, and all have towers or spires of a dark purple.

Their military has an Assyrian and Hittite flavour, with elite units of four-horse chariots, followed by spear-wielding cavalry, supported by mounted archers. On foot they have light, regular, and heavy spearmen, the first two being from the city levies. They also have light and regular foot bowmen, and the levies also raise slingers. The foot elite are the guardsmen of the king, armed with sword and carrying a shield.

***

In other news...last night was spent wrestling with polyfill, today I've been spray painting some other pieces and am about to go for a re-match with the polyfill. Had some good news this evening - today was a provincial holiday butI forgot that means the post office (federal) was still at work - so when I opened my front door to take out the recycling, what should I find but my order of pre-painted plastic miniatures (from the D&D line). So a future post will be on those - Kull and Conan and various friends and enemies.

Mysterious Thule (not that Thule, you cultists!)

2010-02-14T03:07:00.003-05:00

This is the Thule of the Thurian Age, a mysterious land in the northwestern tip of the continent. We don't know much about it from the source material (they fight cave-savages and snow apes, and have fabulous ice caves), so I've had a freer hand making things up.

The residents of Thule are a generally dark-haired, Viking-like race, with an architecture of stupas (domed brick/stone buildings), and nothing larger than a town - and only one of those, the capitol of Skalauk. Otherwise it's comprised of villages with a temple, tombs of past village chiefs and storehouses all of stone/brick; everything else in the village is of timber. The political structure is feudal, with small armies and no national leader.

Militarily, they sure look impressive - the elite warriors are armoured with plate cuirasses and helmets, and armed with swords. They ride in chariots or war-sleds pulled by domesticated polar bears (smaller than our modern polar bears) or reindeer. Some also ride reindeer, and the real heavies of the Thurian Age are their Imperial Mammoths. Run of the mill warriors of Thule are armed as axemen, spearmen, or bowmen.

Thule was up next for my tour of the Thurian Age as I've been busy basing some units with a snowy theme. I've been taking pics along the way, but have one more step to do before I post anything. Otherwise I'm in the midst of a bunch of other terrain bits - snake statue, dragon statue, sphinx, Splintered Lands house, tower, ship and castle.

Pirates on the Sea of Strangers (and homeless birds)

2010-02-12T00:44:00.004-05:00

I believe I mentioned my cog finding in a Michael's, and I got around to putting it together last night. It took about two hours, some bad words, glue, and plastic clamps. I think it looks pretty good for the Splintered Lands setting (or at least my take on it):

I'm looking to get another one, but for now this one will be done up as the good guys' ship, with a darker brown base colour and light brown decks. I'll spray paint the base coat, so I'll lose the plank and cut-outs the puzzle comes drawn with, but there's no way I'm painting in between the lines for all of this! I thought of spraying a lighter coat to let the lines show through, but I don't think I can keep that consistently applied.

The ship comes with sails, but I'm not going to use the mainsail (but will attach the yardarm later). I'm going to print new banners doublesided on cardstock and then trace the outline of the original banners onto the cardstock, allowing me to customize this for the fleet of Riversend.

The bad guys' pirate version will be mainly black. Some MegaMini's rowboats will also come in handy, for in-harbour boarding actions.

I figure I'll base my Splintered Lands minis on pennies, so I tested out how much room the deck of the ship has - it held these 10 pretty easily, so I think a decent fight could be had.

On the pirate ship I'll probably cut down on some items - the spindle will go, for one thing.

I also tried the ship out with some 25mm figures sitting out for priming (testing Gesso) - they look ok too, so I figure up to 32mm will be ok, allowing me to use in other settings (e.g. I have Kull and Conan lookalikes from D&D's collectible miniatures games coming).

My default 40-42mm test, these guys are too big, they make it look like a racing sailboat.

Earlier this week I went looking for a rocket-shaped birdhouse I'd heard was at Michael's, and while I didn't find that, I did find this:

Only $8.50, and if I had the patience I could have held out for a 40-50% off coupon, but there were only 3 on the shelf and I didn't want to lose it. There was also a log cabin that might work too, but it was pricier and there was a perch or two that would need cutting off.

I figure this will be a bad guy's remote fort for the Splintered Lands setting. I'll add an upper story door (sort of like a Dutch door thing), and a door and iron bar gate for the lower entrance. I'll coat with textured stone spray paint, except the roof tops, which will be done as wood. Now I need to decide if I need the two I left behind in the store...

How to spend a lot of money at an NBA game...

2010-02-07T18:40:00.002-05:00

...stop in at craft and hardware stores on the way home. After avoiding $10 beer and $7 hot dogs, I stopped in at another Michael's to look for that drat sphinx 3D puzzle - and found it. I also picked up snake #2 (decided there was another way to do snake #3), a dragon puzzle (another statue project), and a cog.

Or, as the packaging says, a kogg. This looks like it will do nicely for the Splintered Lands setting, I think I may want another as it may look a bit silly having a boarding action with only one ship. I was doing rapid scale calculations while standing in the aisle...at about 15" long, at 25mm (1"=6' more or less) that would put it at 90', which is about the size of a real cog, if memory serves. Not sure about deck space yet for fighting on, will try to build it this week.

The sphinx is going to take a bit of work, it looks like layers of wood stacked on top of each other...which is what it is. I think some polyfill or plaster of paris or something will be needed, I'll have to do some reading to find a good material. I wil probably leave some of the wood exposed as it could be painted up as the blocks that form the core of the sphinx. I might even put in the doors that are rumoured to be there (or maybe are there, my sphinxology is a bit behind). Maybe need a second one of these too, one painted up more strangely than the other.

Also sorted out my tile plans, which you'll recall from a previous post. I decided to use a different (way cheaper) tile type for anything I'm going to paint over, like a savannah skirmish board set, or red Mars, or urban areas, or the moon (etc.). I got 45 12"x12" tiles for $15. I may use these for 6'x4' tables as well, but it starts to eat up spray paint and at a certain point I might as well buy a professionally done game mat.

The nice, quintupally (sp?) expensive brown tiles will be for the desert and Mars skirmishing, and I picked up enough of those today for 3'x3'.

So my terrain basing set-up so far looks like:
Europe-esque (inc. beaches) - Terrainguy mat with beach and water OR pale green bed sheet from remainder bin
Savannah skirmish - Yellow and green painted tiles
Savannah big battles - pale green bed sheet (for now)
Mars/Desert skirmish - brown tiles
Open seas - blue bristol board

Getting a hex map for air wargaming is my next objective, but not an urgent one.

I liked the castle so I bought the snake...

2010-02-06T20:49:00.006-05:00

The Creatology 3D puzzles have come up for discussion on The Miniatures Page message boards, and last post you saw the Creatology 3D puzzle castle I was using for 18mm anthropomorphic fantasy, which I'm quite happy with for my purposes. The TMP thread started with a post about a sphinx puzzle, so today I went to my local Michael's store to see if I could score one, with the additional intent to buy some gesso to try as primer.

I didn't find the sphinx, but I did find a skeletal snake for $1.50 that I've sussed out three uses for (now I gotta go back and buy two more of the things though!). The first use will be as a full model, representing a statue that can be used as a scenic piece either indoors or out.

This is the thing head on, and below is from the side, with our 40mm lady again standing in for scale.

I'm thinking of trying to paint it a jade colour, maybe starting off with black spray paint, then green, then maybe with some lighter highlighting afterwards. It came with googly eyes, but I'm going to use some plastic jewel pieces that you find in craft and dollar stores, my plan is for red (ruby) but may have to go with clear (diamonds).

If you just look at the head, I can think of two things I'd like to do with it on its own. The easy one will be to use it as an idol hanging from a temple wall (Kull anyone?), maybe done up in brass (ruby eyes would look good in that scenario), with a blood-stained altar below.

The second option will be to have it as part of the external entrance to the temple or some subterranean cavern, the sort of thing where you have to walk into the snake's mouth to gain entrance, with steps leading down once you're in.

Hmmm, now that I think of it, a third use would be to use the two pieces that make up the "bread" in the head sandwich and turn them on their side, so the tip of the snout meets in the middle, sort of forming an arch...guess that means three puzzles to buy tomorrow!

Now what to do with the bodies? I'm thinking with some strategic cuts, they'd make good "bleached bones of an ancient leviathan" scenices, for everything from 2mm fantasy up to 28mm skirmish. One scenic piece of the bones stretched out in the desert, another of them half-embedded in a cliff wall, maybe covered in loam in some dark forest, that sort of thing.

In other purchasing adventures, I picked up some 1/72 Airfix WWI infantry for the British, German, and Americans, so I guess I've started a "Through the Mud and Blood" project too... I also picked up a 1/720 model of the Hindenburg, for WWI and pulp aerial adventures.

Song of a Splintered Focus

2010-02-05T20:18:00.007-05:00

I need new projects like I need new holes in the head. But I've always had an interest in anthropomorphic animals, probably due to (a) being nearly-named after a character in a much-beloved childrens' series, (b) loving the Wind in the Willows and the Reddy Fox stories (and others by Thornton Burgess), (c) being taken to see the WinW offshoot, Toad of Toad Hall (a play) as a kid, and (d) the Planet of the Apes movies. Oddly, I'd only run across the Redwall series recently and had avoided reading them.

So when I came across Splintered Light Miniatures' Splintered Lands range, I resisted as long as possible. One reason to resist was as a biologist I didn't like the all of species X (usually carnivores) are bad, everything cuddly is good. However, before Christmas, while in a skirmish mood, I picked up the well-regarded Song of Blades and Heroes rule set, then while accidently cruising through SLM's website again, I noticed the Splintered Lands mini's were matched with a sourcebook for SBH.

That got me thinking in the background while I worked on some other projects, and then I came up with the idea of using the mini's for more than a single species (e.g. hares being painted as a couple of species of hare/rabbit) and creating a background storyline of invading species, a real world biological concern. I also ditched the goblins, kobolds, and dwarves from the scene, but kept the minotaurs, satyrs, fauns, and lizardmen; the first three now belong to the invading side, and the lizardmen also being split based on the species I will paint them as. It will get a bit complicated with good deermice vs. bad housemice, but the starter kits provide plenty of variety.

So five more books for SBH later (I picked up the three expansions plus Splintered Lands PLUS the Mutants and Death Ray Guns ruleset), with $100 of well-armed animals on the way and a bit of doodling on paper, followed by hexmapping, we have:

To the north are what I'm just calling the Homelands, village-states with most villages being the home of one of the good native species (some villages are polyglots though). Across the Sea of Strangers lies the Empire of Horns, source of the Invaders - geckos, European hares (the Homeland is NE North American centric), Norweigan and black rats, housemice, swift foxes, shorttailed shrews, minotaurs, fauns, and satyrs (and more). The area of the homelands outlined in red is what the Invaders have conquered to date. Each hex is a couple of miles across.

While starting this new project up, I was in Michael's using up a coupon, when I came across their selection of Creatology wooden 3D puzzles. I'd heard about them before, but decided to flip through them to see if anything interesting came up. For $1.50 Cdn. I bought this castle and with some textured stone spray paint turned it into a facade for Highcastle, home to the deermice. It can't really be fought in or on, but can be fought in front of.

This is after spraying, I still need to do some touch ups, base, add some features (e.g. moss/vines climbing the sides) and then roof. I want to seal it really well, the textured paint has turned out to be kind of wussy even after drying a couple of days.

This hopefully gives some indication of scale. The lady is a Crimson Skies hero clix figure, so about 40mm. Way bigger than the 15-18mm animals, but it gives you some idea of size, I think the Splintered Lands figs will fit in nicely.

These are the roof pieces (they fit onto the pointy bits in the previous pics). The wood came with brick markings, which got sprayed over on the main structure, but I've painted them over here in black, then filled in with cranberry wine for the roof slates.

I'm not going to fool anyone that I've recreated Helm's Deep, but I think it should look great as a fairy-tale terrain piece.

My tip to give you the edge is paint after assembly; I tried to be efficient and just spray the boards before punching anything out, but needed to re-spray everything anyway.

There's a London Bridge puzzle for $7 I'm thinking of now; just not sure how often I'd have anyone skirmish on it or near it.