Fun With Flags

No, not like this:

What I've been doing is making up some flags for tomorrow's Imjin War game. And some other bits and bobs for the game.

I actually started these yesterday. In the campaign (played out on email), I've had the role of Hyujeong who was the leader of the Buddhist monks' Righteous army of Sangha. And we've managed to cause a bit of a stir. I realised that none of my units have flags yet, so it was time to make some up. I also needed to do some flags for my Korean regulars (easy enough - the Perry's have downloadable pic files on their website).

For my monks though, I'd need to be creative. So yesterday I came up with various slogans and used Google Translate to get them in Korean Hangul script. Then it was a case of setting up a table in Word and pasting in the various slogans. Some of them are fairly general, some refer to campaign events and others are praising or insulting various other commanders.

I printed them out last night and was in the middle of cutting them out when I got an email from the umpire. Bad news for the Sangha monks - two of the brigades are extremely unlikely to be part of the battle as they are too far away; the third might make it, but that will depend on certain other events.

Drat and curses! I can't really blame anyone other than myself - I'd volunteered them to scout/scour areas on the flanks of the main Chinese army in case any Japanese were lurking in the woods and hills to catch them when they march out. The third brigade, well. they might (or might not) be up to something very important.

There will be two units of Righteous Army in the battle (it might actually be two or three simultaneous battles played out on different tables), but they are with the Korean field army led by my enemy, the cowardly traitor General Eon Go-baek. As I was doing flags anyway, I've done a couple for them. I just hope that the player commanding them can't read Hangul!

OK, so what can you see here?

back wire - Perry flags for the regulars (the pointy ones) and some large flags for the Sangha

middle wire - flags for Eon's righteous army units (they all have the same text in different colours on different fields)

front wire - normal sized Sangha flags

I should point out that the wires were liberally greased with Vaseline before the flags are glued  around them to avoid sticking.

As for the other bits, I was on a bit of a roll yesterday and thought it would be nice for all the participants to get a little something. I figured that it would be cheap and easy to give them each a little "plaque". Cue Google Translate again to generate some messages, create a new table in Word, fiddle about with the formatting, print and cut them. The plaques are double-sided - everyone gets the same reverse, but a personalised front.

Today I hit the 40x60 MDF bases with red primer using the airbrush. I also primed the "wall" you can see (which I glued together last night). I'll talk about the wall next. This afternoon I glued the messages to the bases, then left them to dry. This evening I hit them with a spray coat of gloss varnish to seal them.

OK, the story of the wall. In the last campaign briefing document I received (and possibly also received by the other Chinese/Korean commanders) there was mention of graffiti appearing on walls in occupied Seoul, some of it referring to a place called Kyoha-ri where they may have been a battle. Which might have involved my monks. Who might have killed nearly 400 Japanese troops.

So, the wall was put together, primed and allowed to dry. This afternoon I used some fine black pens to write various items of graffiti on it (including "Kilroy was here"!). This evening I sprayed it with matt varnish. I'll be using it for sledging the Japanese players tomorrow.

On Parade: 30YW Army So Far

As promised yesterday, here are the pics of all my 30YW troops together.

All together

Four regiments of Cuirassiers, screened by the Red Dragoons

Artillery battery and the Green Regiments of Foot

The Green and the Red Regiments of Foot

The Red and the Blue Regiments of Foot

The Blue Regiments of Foot and the other artillery battery

Three regiments of Harquebusiers/Reiters screened by the Blue Dragoons

I didn't take many pics this time because Gordon and I wanted to crack on with our game.


Edit to Add:

OMG! This was my 250th post! Yikes! Errmm, given how soon this is after my last prize draw, I think you'll forgive me for not doing one to mark this milestone! *smiles and flutters eyelashes*

And the winner of the prize draw is....

....Dux Humunculorum!

Congrats Dux - pleas email me via the KontactR link underneath the Postie's Rejects logo so we can discuss what I'll be painting for you.

WIP Updates

The muskets and pikes for my foot regiment upgrades were primed this morning, along with the ECW dragoons I'm painting up as part of Andy' prize from my July draw.

I also did a little bit of work on my musket only units - black undercoats on musket barrels and officers spontoons and swords, followed by Oily Steel dry-brush. I also did black basecoats for the jacket of one officer, breeches and shoes of one drummer, boots of one standard bearer and hats of the other 3 command figures. I then lightly-dry-brushed the black with Black Grey, then highlighted with a 50:50 mix of Black Grey and Neutral Grey.

I'll probably do a little bit more work on the musketeers tomorrow and see if I can finish all of the command figures.

I'm doing this to reduce the number of paints I need to take with me to the TUC. The musketeers of one regiment will be getting Hull Red jackets, those of the other will have Dark Prussian Blue jackets.


A Couple of Teaser Pics

I took all of the 30YW figures I've painted up so far along to the club tonight. This was for 2 reasons:
1) I had an 800pt game lined up against Gordon
2) It was a good opportunity to take some pics of them all together

I'll do a full post tomorrow with all the army pics, and will write a separate brief AAR (I forgot to take pics for most of the game)

In case you're wondering, the "hills" in the background are Gordon's cloth scrunched up - looks pretty effective doesn't it?

A few turns into the game, before things started to go very, very, very badly wrong on my left flank.

We hadn't actually finished the game when we realised that it was coming up to 11pm. At that point I'd had 5 of my 13BGs broken, Gordon had lost 2 from 15 or 16. However, I was about to break another units and capture his 2 batteries of guns on his left flank. In the centre I was about to break one of his musket/heavy weapon foot units and then would have pursued into the rear of a couple of his other foot units. He might have taken a few more points off me but the question we'd both probably have broken each others' armies at the same time, so we called the match a draw.

Oh, and the magic of tuftiness did seem to work it's wonders on my cuirassiers and they didn't break as quickly as they might have done.

30YW: Danish Army on Church Parade

Well, it's Sunday and Christian IV had summoned his army to attend a tedious, long-winded, dull and boring morally uplifting and inspiring Lutheran service outside the walls of Copenhagen.

The seamstresses of that city have been very busy over the past few weeks and have turned out a huge number of standards, banners and pennants for the army. The Lutheran pastor has given them appropriate blessings and now Christian IV wishes to present them to his loyal troops.

The commanders ride onto the field to inspect the army.

L to R: State Flag, Chief of Staff, Royal Pennant, Royal Standard

The commanders of the infantry regiments receive their standards first

The Green-Blue Regiment of Foote, having been "Unit Of The Match" on the army's first outing, are given the honour of parading in front of the whole army.

Christian IV, pleased to note that the cuirassiers (despite initial reluctance) have seen sense and adopted the successful tactic of "tuftiness", presents the tin-cans-on-glue-ingredients with their standards. In a very generous move, he has even given the German mercenary cuirassier regiment a standard, even though they have not yet seen battle.

Hopefully pride in their standards in combination with the magic of tuftiness will provide a much-needed boost to their competence and performance.

The Red Regiment of Cuirassiers (having been the last to break in their first battle, and therefore the most successful) are invited to form up and demonstrate their battle skills.

To provide some encouragement, one of the generals joins them in attacking some captured enemy dragoons, in the open, unsupported and with their gunpowder having been replaced by coal dust. 

The artillery, including the newly formed 2nd battery, also received flags. The gunners were slightly worried about having been given 3 flags each - "In Original Hands", "Captured By Enemy" and "Recaptured By Own Troops"....