Yesterday, all our troubles seemed so far away...

(note: I started writing this on Monday night, but didn't finish until after midnight.  So "yesterday"= Sunday)
Yesterday's March Madness Melee went off with barely a hitch.  Although I'd been worried about a lack of tables, there was no sign of the large Warhammer 40K game, and most of the players in the DBMM campaign were also no-shows, leaving us plenty of tables.  We started the day with 5 players, with two more turning up at later times (one due to work shifts, the other claiming family commitments though I suspect a hangover may have also come into play!) and a third who popped in to say hello but couldn't stay.

The terrain all came together nicely, and we got quite a positive response from the MAWS "Black Panthers" who were busy with their own impressive Napoleonic game in the main hall.  The brick walls that I'd hastily thrown together held up well enough on the day and the building interiors saw quite a bit of action during the game.

The one black spot for me was that sometime in between dividing up the forces and the end of turn 1, one of the players managed to drop the turret off the Brass Coffin model, breaking it into three pieces, but annoyingly didn't say anything about it at the time.  When I noticed that they were using the turret's cannon as a smokestack and that the hatch was missing, they then admitted to dropping it but insisted that it had never had the hatch on it, which I know wasn't true.  In the end I had to press them to tell me exactly how and where they'd dropped it, and after thirty seconds of scrabbling around on the floor I found where the broken hatch had rolled behind some pipes.

It's not so much that a model I'd worked hard on got broken within minutes of being handed over to someone, as at the end of the day accidents happen and it should be repairable (worst case scenario, a whole new turret would only be £3.50), but (a) not saying anything at the time it happened and (b) then lying about the hatch, well that was just shitty behaviour in my opinion.  And shitty behaviour will be remembered long after the superglue is long dried.


(Yes Saul, I used the shit-word.  Don't tell your mum and dad, okay?) 

Anyway, rant over, on with the battle report.

The Battle of Aldershot, 188x

Following the Russo-German invasion of Great Britain, fighting along the southern front had ground into something of a stalemate, with neither attacker nor defender able to make any significant headway (most of our previous games ended fairly inconclusively, with both sides able to claim partial victories)

In a last desperate attempt to break the impasse, German high command ordered a deep strike against the military town of Aldershot.  Britain had just begun fielding a new class of heavy landship, the King Henry VIII class, and the objective  was to capture the secrets of its construction.

This is the view from the British side.  The grey building on the extreme left of the board is the slightly relocated Chobham Armour Factory.  You can see a partially built King Henry-class landship on the rail flatbed.  The other objective is the Ministry building with the red roof just to the right of centre.  This is assumed to hold a set of technical blueprints for the King Henry class.  With two Leman Russ models in mid conversion, I decided that they would be painted up based on whoever held those two objectives at the end of the game.  So if the Germans managed to capture both the Factory and the Ministry, both models would be painted as German vehicles and be available to them in future games.

Here is the view from the German side.  As you can see, not only were the roads aligned on the diagonal to the table , but we took great pains to offset the roads so that the lines of sight didn't extend across the whole width of the board.  That way the vehicles wouldn't simply enter on turn one and then start firing immediately on turn two, but would have to do some manoeuvring first.

Roads in a built up area effectively limit the lines of advance for vehicles.  This layout had two main routes, but the open square in the middle allowed some crossfire between the two.

 I was very happy with how the square came out in the end with the park and the statue.  Not surprisingly this became a focal point of the battlefield, but more on that later.

One house-rule (ish) I implemented for the first time this game was to borrow the wound system from Adventures and Expeditions by GASLIGHT for Main Characters.  In case you don't own that book or the Compendium, Main Characters have a number of wound levels (Unhurt, Wounded, Seriously Wounded, Mortally Wounded, Dead).  On a failed Save roll, the character knocks off the current wound level, and must then make another Save roll, continuing until either a successful Save roll is made, or the Character is Dead.  This rule allows Main Characters to last a little bit longer in battle, allows them to be wounded but carry on, but still has the chance of them dying from a single shot.

The battle started fairly conventionally, with the Kings Own Borderers and the light tankettes HMLS Elizabeth and HMLS Beetle deploying to protect the factory, while Major Roger D'Ars (hero of last year's Big Birthday Bash) led a platoon of regulars through the alleyway towards the square, supported by a Royal Horseless Artillery Gun-Truck.  The King Henry moved up the Eastern road to watch their flank.

Meanwhile, on the German left, Professor Wilhelm von Pugh was struggling to control his Tigger Mk II Springenpanzer, which suffered an early malfunction (for fun we decided instead of simply not moving on a failed Sustain, it would spring off in a random direction, which nearly resulted in it bouncing off the table on turn 1)

The leader of the Evil League of Evil, Dr Rebecca Henchwoman (promoted after the alleged death of Dr Vesuvius in the Big Birthday Bash) took up a position on the roof of one of the tall residency buildings, alongside her former nemesis, Hilda Brecht, She-Wolf of the 2nd Reich.  In the street below, the Brass Coffin (after pausing for field-expedient repairs) advanced to the corner and did its best to hide behind a lamppost, while the Masked Minions pushed forward towards the square.

The German heavy landship "Gotterdammerung" advanced down the main street on the German right, along with a unit of regulars, Baron von Guttstein and "Grosser Otto", the Clockwork soldier.  Gotterdammerung fired the first shot of the battle, not an enemy soldier or vehicle, but at the brick Gasometer in the Factory grounds.  The first shot from the Gotterdammerung's Lightning cannon arced out and shorted on a nearby chimney stack, but the second shot shortly afterwards triggered a massive exposion.  Luckily the only casualty was a special weapons trooper for the Special Aether Service who... we can neither confirm or deny was present for the battle.

The Borderers and... some soldiers from another regiment whose identity cannot be confirmed, managed to make it to the factory building itself where they setup defensive positions.  The two light tankettes moved up the main road in the vain hope of delaying the heavy German landship.  But that Leviathan was shortly joined by another vehicle, the Prussian Armoured Pullman "Heimdall", with its forward mounted flame cannon.  HMLS Elizabeth also came under fire from a Ludwig quad walker across the square.  The cannon blast knocked one of Elizabeth's tracks into reverse and she was stuck turning to the right.  She managed to get off a couple of shots before turning past the enemy.  HMLS Beetle tried to shield Elizabeth, but a blast from Gotterdammerung's Lightning gun shorted her control systems and Beetle charged full speed out of control into nearby building where it was stuck for the rest of the battle.  Heimdall took the opportunity to smother both the light tankettes in fiery death, resulting HMLS Elizabeth exploding in a small but spectacular fashion.

The German regular troops were the first to make it across the square and formed a screen to allow the Masked Minions into the Ministry building.  Major D'Ars and the British regulars fought a quick and bloody skirmish against the Germans and routed them, then the survivors charged headlong into the ministry building to battle the Evil League of Evil minions.  A fierce and bloody battle ensued in the hallway of the Ministry, and although the British platoon was all but wiped out, the Minions' nerve broke and they fled the building, leaving D'Ars in control of the vital plans.  The next turn, Baron von Guttmann entered the building, accompanied by Grosser Otto.  The one remaining trooper was killed, but Major D'Ars fought on alone, managing to kill Gutmann with a saber thrust.

The Professor von Pugh managed to bring the Springenpanzer under control and leapt over the building into the road , right into the sights of the British landship HMLS King Henry.  A blast from the King Henry's main cannon narrowly missed the Springenpanzer, setting fire to the building behind it.  The Springenpanzer leapt again, this time onto the roof of the Ministry building.  The King Henry tracked its turret around to follow the target, but as it did so a round from the Brass Coffin tore through the turret causing the gun to misfire.  The blast tore through the ground floor of the Ministry building, narrowly missing Major D'Ars and hitting Grosser Otto, which exploded in a shower of clockwork sparks.
(note: this might not be exactly how it happened in game mechanics terms, but narratively it makes a lot more sense than what actually happened, which was the Henry's round had no effect, while Otto was KO'd the following turn in close combat by D'Ars)

Shortly afterwards, King Henry hit the Brass Coffin and knocked it out with a critical hit.  The blast nearly killed off Hilda Brecht, who had come down from her sniping position on the rooftop and had been hiding behind the brass and burgundy vehicle.  Recovering from the shock she sneaked her way into the Ministry building without anyone noticing.

It was at this point that somebody woke up Hauptman Blitzmann, the German "hero".  Sleeping off the effects of the previous night's carousing, he was late to the battle, and led his platoon of Zeptruppen forward with all the dash and elan of a Galapagos tortoise.  Pausing only to importune a nearby maidservant, he settled into the safety of a building across from the Chobham factory, found a quiet corner and then proceeded to do nothing for the rest of the battle.

Hauptmann Weber, the Zepptruppen officer looked at his "superior" asleep in the corner and assessed his position.  The British were well forted up in the factory, and attempting to charge across the road in an unsupported assault was likely to be certain death.  The rest of the German troops were held up along Main Street and focussed around the square and would not be able to support them any time soon.  He then hatched a plan so fiendish, so diabolical, only a beastly Boche would ever think of sinking so low.

Weber grabbed the maid from where Blitzmann had cast her aside and roughly manhandled her out the front door into the street.  Waving a white flag, he called out to the British defenders.
"Zere has been enuff blutshett today.  Let us settle zis matter as officers and gentlemen.  Single combat betveen your champion unt ours."

Never one to shy away from a challenge, Colour Sergeant Davis stepped out from the factory gates, stripped down to his shirtsleeves.  Weber had expected to face a fellow officer saber-to-saber, but this common NCO was coming towards him bare-handed.  He would show the wretch the error of his ways.  Drawing his blade, he essayed a quick salute then lunged lightning fast, catching Davis in the right shoulder.  Looking down at the red stain spreading across his shirt, Davis looked up and said "You'll 'ave to do better than that, lovey-boy."  Weber never even saw the right upper-cut that lifted him two feet into the air and dumped his unconscious body onto the cobbles at the feet of three-times Regimental Boxing Champion, Colour Sergeant Davis.

Be off, you 'orrible little Boche.  You is messin' up my nice clean street.

(for the sake of the duel, I gave Weber the wound track, even though he wasn't an unattached Main Character.  But Davis had the Tough advantage, giving him an extra free wound level.  Both characters hit in the first round of combat, Davis failed his first save but made his second, while Weber failed all four saves on the trot to be taken out by a single blow)

A platoon of Grenadier Guards approached the square to try to join up with Major D'Ars in the Ministry building, but they came under fire from the Gotterdammerung and the Ludwig walker before facing off against a unit of German Jaegers and were routed ignominiously.  The Jaegers then forced their way into the Ministry building and surrounded Major D'Ars.  The plucky major fought for all he was worth, but eventually his luck ran out and numbers overcame him.

Main Street was turning into a landship graveyard.  HMLS Pinafore had come up to challenge the two German machines, but after first getting itself snagged on a lamppost, it took a hit from the Gotterdammerung that knocked its furnace offline for the rest of the battle.  The RHA Gun Truck, still nestled into the alleyway beside the Ministry, fired across the square and caught the armoured pullman Heimdall on its side armour, which exploded sending one last fiery ball of incendiary doom up Main Street.  The Ludwig quad walker crossed the square and headed up Main Street, while HMLS Mikado had come up behind the disabled Pinafore.

At the same time, the men of the Special Aether Service... or not... probably someone else entirely... had decided that the Borderers could hold the factory by themselves and had headed out across the street to the same junction where the Ludwig and the Mikado were converging.  At the same time, Lord George Fox, another latecomer to the battle, had successfully requisitioned two passing wagons and was trying to use them to quickly bring his platoon of men forward to the battle.  Finally, the Springenpanzer had leapt from the Ministry building onto the roof of the building... yes you've guessed it, overlooking the same junction.  It sent a couple of shells from its Steam Dynamite Cannon towards the factory, but with no effect.  Von Pugh then saw the SAeS troopers.... I mean bystanders, entirely innocent civilian bystanders... crossing the junction below, and raked them with his gatling guns, killing two of them.  The surviving ... civilians... opened fire with their new experimental Cone Rifles (heavy caliber weapons firing rocket-propelled explosive rounds) against the Ludwig walker, which promptly exploded, sending a fireball directly ahead.. straight into Lord Fox's improvised wagon convoy.  The bloodshed was... frightful, and only Lord Fox survived.

In the closing shots of the battle, the Jaegers in the Ministry building took some casualties from Gatling fire which sent them running from the building.  The only person left was Hilda Brecht, who was able to secure the secret plans, hide them about her person, then escape in the confusion disguised as a maidservant.

The Zeptruppen held to Hauptmann Weber's deal with the British defenders of the factory, which remained in British hands at the end of the game.  So the final result was yet another draw, with each side holding one objective.  Consequently one of the two landships currently in conversion will be painted up to go into German service as a Beutepanzer (Did you know.. that in the First World War, the most common tank used by the Germans was... the British Mk IV? They captured so many damaged or broken down British tanks they were able to repair and re-equip them for their own use.)

The Aftermath - the Campaign

As a result of the failed push on Aldershot, the mighty German war machine ground to a halt, unable to push any further towards London.  Seeing an opportunity, the British launched a counter-offensive in Wiltshire, aimed at cutting through the enemy lines at a weak point.  The route of attack was across the open landscape of the chalk plateau north of Salisbury, perfect countryside for the new landships to demonstrate their performance in open battle without infantry to slow them down.  Historians would later call it the Battle of Salisbury Plain.

The Aftermath - the game

Everyone seemed to enjoy the game.  There were a few moments where the rules let us down a bit - for example one vehicle penetrating hit description read "The vehicle fireman takes a hit." without really explaining what that is supposed to mean in game terms.  I found myself a little dissatisfied with a lot of the damage results we got - penetrating hits that pass through and do no effect, critical hits triggering a weapon to fire, in our instance killing an enemy contraption but otherwise doing no effect.   The morale rules also gave us some funky results - and in practice when units failed and were scattered to the four winds, most players were inclined to just consider the unit completely lost. I keep thinking I need to rewrite the GASLIGHT rulebook, (a) to incorporate our house rules (b) to clarify where the current rules are a little unclear and (c) make things a little more to my taste in places.

When I broached the idea of the next game with all the players, they seemed a lot more keen on the idea of an all-landship game than the "Battle of Llandudno" game idea.  On the bright side this does give me a break from working on buildings and city terrain.  I quite fancy knocking up a small circle of standing stones as a terrain piece for the "Battle of Salisbury", but that shouldn't take too long.  I'm going to have to sit down and take a good look at all my vehicles & contraptions to see how best we can field two fairly evenly matched forces.

The Aftermath - the project

.. you know what? It's later than I thought and I needs me beauty sleep.  I'll post about what I'm going to work on next later in the week.  But in short, I've got a hankering to take a short break from 28mm VSF and do something a little different.  Watch this space.

The Eve Of The War

It's the night before our first game with the city terrain.  I've just finished printing out the record sheets for the Main Characters and the new vehicles that are debuting in this game.  I spent most of today working out how to pack all the vehicles and troops into as few cases as possible.  One thing I'm going to have to do after this weekend is take another look at what news cases I'm going to need for all the recent vehicle acquisitions.

I'm a little nervous about tomorrow.  We'll have between six and ten players, but unusually MAWS is expecting a particularly busy Sunday session, and there's talk of rationing tables.  Normally I'd postpone the game, but despite my having enquired how busy the club was going to be a couple of weeks ago, it only just this week came to light that there would be not one but two campaigns being played on this Sunday, plus another Big Game (TM) of 40K, and unfortunately this only came up after I'd sent out the final invitations.  Ten of us could find ourselves crammed around a very small table, and we're almost certainly not going to be allowed a side table for setting up and paperwork.

Bah!  Worrying never fixed anything.  Time to chill out for a couple of hours, try to get a good night's sleep and be up early to get down there and stake an early claim to our table(s).

And he marched them up to the top of the hill

I may not have ten thousand men, but occasionally I take cheer from the fact that I've got so many figures painted up for 28mm VSF these days, more than enough to do a "proper" battle.  Then I see someone on an "old school wargaming" blog somewhere talking about the 150 figs he's working on for a new unit and I look at my weedy 10 man units and cry a little inside.  Or Tim from Saskatoon who seems to be able to paint more figures a day than I can in a week.

But this week something just clicked, and I hit the painting table at a run, metaphorically speaking.

Sixty-one Olley points, or rather forty infantry, sixteen artillery crews, four guns and a Prussian Mechanical Soldier.  For some reason I just waded straight through the British in two days, then the German Zepptruppen (Wessex/Over the Wire Games from their England Invaded range) were very easy - black Army Painter primer meant all I had to paint was the jacket, skin and detailing - they took about a day's worth of painting spread over two.  And yesterday I came across the Irregular Miniatures artillery teams that I'd bought for last years Big Birthday Bash and decided to finally get them painted up, which hapened in the space of a day.  Finally the mechanical soldier, a trooper from some long forgotten science fiction range, took shape in little more than an hour. Overall I think this is a record for me for a week's painting (and it's not even including the Scotties who were finished off on Monday)

For me this is three major milestones.

1) Now that I've got the army painting techniques down pat, I'm no longer afraid to sit down to a 20 man unit, whereas when I first started, even completing a 10 man unit seemed like a daunting task.  I'm still not ready to face the Big Battalions in the Grand Manner, but it's a step in the right direction.  

2) I've now enough figures to field 20 man units for all my infantry types i.e. a unit of 20 Guards, two units of regulars, 20 Scotties (the only exception are the Special Aether Service figs, and I've no plans to increase their number beyond the original 10.)  Using 20 man "companies" instead of 10 man "platoons" is one way to approach larger battles, and I have several rulesets designed for units of that size (Soldier's Companion, The Sword And The Flame, Colonial Adventures).  So from now on I'll be purchasing and painting infantry in 20 man units, though with the same proportion of officers and NCOs so that they can be broken down for GASLIGHT if required.

3) With the addition of the artillery I can now put on a half decent, entirely non-VSF battle, featuring Horse Foot and Guns.  This is something I've been wanting to try for a while, and with the addition of some extra cavalry, I've got my eye on a refight of the Battle of Hook's Farm.

Moving up to the painting table I have a unit (20 man) of Naval Brigade troops, which will bring the number of British troops I can field up to rough parity with the Germans.  After that, I have ordered two more units of cavalry for both British and Germans, hopefully a little more heroic in scale than the current Irregular Miniatures horsemen.  I've also finally managed to track down a manufacturer of late 19th century Gurkhas in 28mm, Pontoonier Miniatures from Newline Designs.  I've always had a great respect for the Gurkhas in real life and long wanted to portray them on the tabletop.  Although it's a little bit of a stretch to have them fighting in the Invasion of England 188x, I couldn't help but order a unit.   And after that, or possibly in parallel, I'm going to have another go at my beloved Fenians, or possibly the Russians.  Both of which are primed and should be quick to paint.

But in truth, priority should go to preparing the terrain for the March Madness Melee.  We're now only three weeks away and the baseboards have yet to be completed.

I like smoke and lightnin'...

And finally the last product of this snowed-in weekend.  The modified Brass Coffin from Ramshackle Games.

Credit for the design of this build has to go to PapaMidnight of the Lead Adventure Forums, who first came up with this alternate build, which I've shamelessly copied with a couple of variations.

The default design of the Brass Coffin is unarmed and comes with two large wheels and two small wheels.  It costs £9 and is a hefty piece of resin in its own right.  It's one of the more detailed sculpts from Ramshackle, full of intricate steampunky detail.  It manages to convey the impression that this is an intricate yet slightly bodged together invention that may start shedding transmission parts at any time, rather than a more industrially produced vehicle.

I've added an extra set of large wheels (£1), the chimney from the Huntsman Spider Tank (£1) and a turret from a Liger tank (£3.50) bringing the component cost of this model up to £14.50.  Still good value, I think, as it towers over most other steam tank models.

All those detailed greeblies and rivited plates just cried out for the burgundy and gold livery of the Evil Genius faction.   The Brass Coffin will debut at the March Madness Melee, where the Evil Genius forces under Dr Rebecca Henchman (who was promoted after the death in battle of the man everyone believed to be Doctor Vesuvius) will be allied with the German invaders to counter-balance some of the new British units.

Also over the course of this weekend I managed to finish off the second unit of lowland Scottish troops that have been haunting my painting table for a while.  I also decalled and finalised the Heavy Landship from Black Pyramid and the Prussian Armoured Pullman from Scheltrum, both of which now sport clear German (or Prussian) insignia.

My current paint queue looks something like this

Infantry
1 unit (10 figs) of Guardsmen from Ironclad Miniatures
1 unit of British Home Service Infantry (also Ironclad)
2 units of German Zepptruppen (Early German Infantry from Over the Wire Games "England Invaded" range)

Vehicles
Medium Landship (from Black Pyramid - headed for German service)
Mobile Gun (a small Armorcast vehicle mounting an unfeasibly large cannon - Evil Genius)
3 Scotia Grendel dwarven steam tanks (one heavily converted Iron Drake, plus the Rapier and Ironclad - Evil Genius)

Terrain
Seal edges of baseboards and paint
Airbrush/Drybrush Sarissa Cityblock buildings (not decided on technique yet)
Finish scratchbuild slum terraces
Paint windows and doors of  Warbase buildings (terraces and tenements) and tile & paint roofs.

I'm hoping to get all the infantry, as many of the buildings as possible and at least the Medium Landship, completed for the March Madness Melee in a month's time.  It's unlikely we'll get to use all of it, but I'd like to have plenty of troop and terrain options available on the day, as well as plenty of eye candy to try to get people enthused about VSF gaming.

Heavy Metal Thunder

A long time ago, in a galaxy far away.... you may remember me talking about picking up a couple of GW Leman Russ tank models at Britcon in Manchester which would have been...what back in August of last year. The intention was to return those retro-sci-fi tanks back to their roots and convert them into steam tanks/landhips

The boys are back in town!

Now, nearly six months later, it is my great pleasure to unveil the first two units of the King Henry-class landships, HMLS King Henry and HMLS Lionheart.

These were both picked up at the Britcon bring & buy for the grand sum of £5 each.  King Henry (with the mudguards) was painted in a dazzle arctic camoflage and absolutely smothered in stowage, machine guns and 1/48 crew figures.  The other sported a more modest grey paintjo

Both vehicles were placed in a bath of Dettol to strip the paint awy and the main turrets removed and discarded.  The side and front weapon sponsons were also removed and disassembled, with the original weapons discarded.  One of the side guns was so firmly glued in that I wound up damaging the top armour by removiung it, and despite taking extra care I managed to lose one of the sponson pieces and had to carve a replacement out of plasticard.

Front Towards Enemy

 After a few months kicking around my project table, re-assembly begun.  I scratchbuilt some simple Gatling-type machine guns for all the sponsons and re-fitted them.  Holes caused by removal damage and the replacement piece were patched and filled with green stuff.  I replaced the angular Leman Russ turret with the Scrap Tank turret from Ramshackle Games' "Tridlins" range, which was just larger than the existing turret ring hole.  A 25mm round slottabase was glued to the underside of the turret, which fit inside the turret ring hole and helps hold the turret in position while allowing it to freely rotate.

Baby got back!

You can't have a steam tank without steam, so to help break up the familiar lines of the Leman Russ I added a boiler and smokestack to the rear of the tank, from the Heavy Landship Boiler add-on from Black Pyramid Gaming.  Their range also includes some Aether weapons which would have been another option for the sponson guns.

Both the turret and the boiler cost £3.50 each, so at this point we have a heavy landship model with a material price-tag of £12.  Not bad when it's double the size of a similarly priced model from Ironclad Miniatures!
The models were spray-primed black using Krylon Fusion Camoflage paint, which is apparently designed to adhere to plastics.  I then gave both tanks a white basecoat using my new airbrush - its first test (as mentioned a few posts back) The result was an imperfect, slightly blotchy coating which was just the effect I wanted.  The tracks were painted black and drybrushed silver, and after picking out a few other details in colours, it was onto the decals.

I picked up some laser printer decal paper last year and had used it with some success on the vehicles for the Big Birthday Bash game, but after watching a video by the guy from Gruntz 15mm I had a new trick to
try.  Micro-Set and Micro-Sol are two components of a single system designed to improve the appearance of decals.  Before the decal is placed, the surface is painted with Micro-Set, then after it has been placed and dried at least partly, the decal is then overpainted with Micro-Sol.  Both products are designed to soften and thin the decal material, allowing it to conform better to any irregularities on the surface and giving the decal more of a painted-on look rather than stuck-on.

Well I don't know how the products work or what-does-what, but the overall result is good.  After several coats of Micro-Sol, the edges of the decal start to disappear and blend seamlessly with the surface of the model, and the only tell-tale is that the decal surface is glossier than the matt paint below, something easily fixed with a quick spray of matt varnish/Army Painter "Anti-Shine".  The extra effort was well worth it as it just kicks the decals appearance up another notch.

Once the decals were finished and thinned, I gave the tanks a thin black wash to pick out some of the detailing on the models, and also dirty them up a little bit.  I finished with a very light silver dry-brush over all the painted bodywork, just enough to pick out the raised details a little.  I was originally going to do a bit more weathering with the airbrush, but since I'm still not used to using that, and I'm happy with how the Landships look without it, I'm ready to call these boys done.

I've heard some people argue that GW vehicles are so distinctive that it's difficult to convert them for use as something else.  A 40K fan might still recognise where the main hull has come from, but since its original design borrowed so heavily from those early WWI/interwar tanks, personally I think the added resin parts and scratbuilt guns change the lines of the Leman Russ enough that it doesn't look out place on a Victorian/Edwardian battlefield.

The King Henry-class landships will be among the new vehicles making their debuts at what I'm calling the "March Madness Melee", which is the game we'll be doing at Manchester Area Wargames Society on Sunday 4th March.

Knee-deep in the hoop-la.

So this afternoon, mi hermano del gestor de proyecto Jonesy came by and we had what could best be described as a relaunch meeting for the Victorian City terrain project. If you've been following the blog for a while, you'll remember last year we were working on some scratchbuilt Victorian slum buildings, after which I kinda went a bit mad with the credit card and bought a whole load of buildings from PMC, Sarissa Precision, Warbases and Ziterdes.  Well my primary goal for this year is to get this city terrain completed and on the table.  Since there was now way too much for one poor fool to keep track of, I asked Jonesy for help.

We started by unboxing all the buildings that I'd acquired and fit as many of them as possible onto my 4 ft square wargaming board.

The Great White Whale in the foreground is the fantastic Ministry Building from Amera Plastic Mouldings, the dark blue-grey primed buildings are Sarissa Precision laser cut MDF, the plain MDF on the right is the Warbases corner tenemant building, the sandstone buildings in the furthest corner are PMC resin models and finally the left and right corners are occupied by Ziterdes hard foam buildings.

What's scary is that this isn't even all the buildings we have.  There's another Warbases tenement and terrace, the Amera church and all the scratchbuilt buildings we had been working on.  But this was the first time I'd had so many of the buildings on the table together with any street-like spaces between them.  Despite the buildings being of different materials and styles, I was pleased with how well they seemed to work together, clashing and contrasting but in the way that real city buildings do.  The overall effect did seem suitably Victorian.

Between us, Jonesy and I thrashed out all the design decisions that had been rattling around my head, and then we developed a plan.  The Ministry, epic as it is, will be backburnered for now as constructing it will be a major project in its own right.  The Ziterdes buildings, while they will benefit from a little TLC, don't look too bad in their raw state on the tabletop, so for now we'll use them as is.  The PMC buildings are also ready to use and need no work, although we did note that they might benefit from a repaint later to make them fit better with the rest of the buildings.  The Warbases buildings can also more-or-less be used as-is.

Our main focus is going to be the Sarissa MDF buildings.  We agreed the Wolf Grey I'd primed them in was a little too blue, so at the very least they're going to need some heavy drybrushing to tone it down.  I've also been tasked with getting new baseboards made with the improved cobblestone texture paper I'd found.  These are going to be three 4ft by 2ft boards of 3mm MDF, plus the two half-boards that I'd already cut.  That gives us up to 8'x4', with the option of breaking up the shape with the half-boards.

The important thing is that we've decided to put on a GASLIGHT game at the local club with this setup for the first Sunday in March, so we're committed to having at least the baseboards and the Sarissa buildings completed by then.  Remember when I posted yesterday that working towards a deadline was the best motivator for getting things done?  Well Jonesy reads this blog and he quite rightly reminded me of it.  I think the target's we've set are achievable, though I think I'd like to see if we can get a quick win with regards to polishing off the WIP scratchbuilt slums as well as the Sarissa buildings, and maybe roofing the Warbases terraces (which are otherwise 95% complete)

And of course, finish the remaining British figures on the painting table...

And a couple more from the Steam Tank queue...

<sigh> If only someone would invent the 48hr day?!!!