Wednesday Update 06 September

I've had quite a relaxed-but-busy day. This morning I headed into central London to pick up some sheets of latex foam - more on that later. As I was nearby, I thought I'd pop into Orcs Nest then realised they don't open until 11am. Oh well, a quick coffee and croissant, then on to Foyles for a browse while killing half-an-hour or so. Books may have been purchased...

I got to Orcs Nest just as they were opening and made a couple of purchases, then headed home. About 10 minutes after I'd got back and unpacked my goodies, the doorbell rang - a parcel of goodies for me.

Today's goodies:

The Norman Knights are the start of a planned winter project - a 28mm army for ADLG. As for the dragon, well, it's a dragon! Why not?

There was another book (Alfred Bester's "The Demolished Man") but that wasn't wargames related so I didn't include it in this pic:

What inspired me to buy these? Well, I had been thinking about what else I could use my jungle terrain for and came to the conclusion that Burma and the South Pacific campaigns of WW2 would be interesting to do.

Ahh, but what's in that box? Well, I'm sure you can make out the branding and will relaise that it's from Shapeways so it must be the TIE fighters I ordered at the weekend. Here are some close-ups:

TIE fighters

TIE interceptors

The lot - 24 pegs of fighters, 12 pegs of interceptors

Seven Years War Russians

I finished painting the grenadiers yesterday and brushed on a coat of matt varnish last night. Today I did touch-ups where appropriate with gloss and satin varnish. Once that had dried I popped them off the sticks, sorted them into groups of six and glued them onto their bases:

I'll be adding the basing gunk and flocking when I've finished the dragoons. Speaking of which, last night I started on them, getting the basecoats and washes done on the horses. Today I've added the black bits to the bays, done the face and leg markings and painted the tack:

Tomorrow I'll start work on the riders. I should be able to get a decent way through them and finish them on Friday.


Some Terrain Bits

On top of all of that I've also done some terrain-y stuff today. First port of call was cutting the latex foam into suitably sized shapes for ADLG terrain markers that are light and easy to transport to the club. I particularly needed some rectangular* pieces for fields, plantations and villages, but also decided to do make some small lakes and forests. And a few road sections.

*the rules require those to be rectangular - before today, none of mine were!


Tomorrow I really will write up those AARs in between bouts of painting.

Army Review: 28mm Normans

After that brief interruption for new shinies, today I return to the series of Army Reviews and move onto my 28mm collections. There aren't as many of these, both in numbers of armies and numbers of figures.

I'm kicking off the 28mm with my Saga Normans:

Warriors

Warriors with crossbows

More Warriors

Mounted Warriors/Hearthguard

Hearthguard

Levy archers

Warlords and standard bearers

The Dux

I really should tart him up with some trim on his tunic and saddlecloth

All the figures here are from Conquest Games - mostly plastics but some metals (archers, crossbowmen and the Dux).

As I very rarely play Saga these days, I'm actually thinking about rebasing one or more of the armies for ADLG. I haven't decided which yet though.. One possibility is to keep the metal figures here for Saga and rebase the plastics for ADLG. Of course, then I'd have to buy some metal Normans for the warriors and hearthguard...

Norman Dux

I don't think I mentioned it in my posts earlier this week, but I've been painting up my Norman Dux from Conquest Games since finishing Simon's Spetsnaz. By the way, I handed them over to him on Thursday night at the club and he was mightily pleased with them.

Anyway, back to the Dux. I went for a full-on 3 (or more) layer approach for most of this and finished painting him last night. Then I made the mistake of doing a Klear/ink coat which has obscured some of the highlights and shading. IT still looks good though. Today I've sprayed with matt varnish, then used brush-on satin varnish on the horse flesh and some of the metalwork. Then I finished off the basing with tufts and flocking.

So, some pics.

I had planned to go to Warfare in Reading yesterday or today. Yesterday I was still tired (very busy week at work) so intended to go today instead. Unfortunately I seem to have picked up a cold which kicked in late last night. I was no better this morning, so no Warfare for me. There were a few things I had wanted to pick up, so I'll just have to order them online.

Next up on the painting table will be the Seleucid elephants, followed by the Xystophoroi cavalry.

Sunday Update

Koreans

All the figures are now prepped and primed. So, that's 168 foot plus 12 artillery crew and 4 guns. These will be painted over the next few weeks once I've finished painting Donogh's miniatures.


Donogh's Prize Painting

Having stripped the paint from my original stalled effort, these have now been primed and painting has started. As you can see, I've made pretty good progress so far this weekend:

I've still got a lot of highlighting and detailing to do, but they should be finished by next weekend.



Gaming This Week

I'll be at the club twice this week. Tomorrow I'll be taking part in a refight of the first day of Gettysburg using Fire & Fury. We'll be starting after lunch (well, some of us will - the rest of the players will be joining in later on) so I've booked the day off work.

On Thursday a few of us will be playing Saga. This time I will try to get some photos of my Normans in action.

Challenge Entry #'12

Although I'd sent them in as two separate entries, Curt combined them into a single post last night. My 44 Norman infantry scored me 242 points, whipping me past Ray, JohnM and IanW into 5th spot behind Fran. So, here you go with the pics!

First up, 2 warlords, 2 bannermen and 8 dismounted knights:

And 32 sergeants:

The sergeants have the same shield designs as the mounted knights I'd done previously - well, any knight who could afford to go mounted to battle with his lord would surely be expected to bring a couple of foot soldiers as well.


Prepping the Swiss Pikemen.

The figures I prepped yesterday have been rinsed, dried and glued onto painting sticks. I just need to glue the pikes into their hands now, and riders onto horses (figures for the command stands were in that batch). I'll probably be able to prime them tomorrow evening.

Today I've carried on with figure prep. I've fully prepped 36 pikemen so far and have another 32 that just need to have their hands drilled. The 120 unarmoured pikemen have had their bases filed flat, so they will just need to have any flash/mould-lines cleaned up and their hands drilled.

If I really push on with prepping and priming, I should be able to start painting the pikemen this weekend. Now, you could call me crazy, but I've got this slightly mad idea of trying to paint up all 256 pikemen for my 8 pike units in one go. That would take me well past my 1600 point revised target. If it looks as though I won't make it in time, I can always scale back on the number I'm doing.

Sunday Update

Challenge Painting - The Remaining Norms

Having taken Thursday and Friday night off from painting, I finished the first 12 of the Norman infantry (2 warlords, 2 bannermen and 8 "knights" on foot) yesterday. I was in two minds whether to wait until I'd finished the whole lot and submit them together or to send them in as two entries. And then I noticed that my next entry would be the 12th and it seemed appropriate to send in 12 figures for that, so I did. Hopefully the pics will go up on Curt's blog this evening.

I cracked on and finished painting the other 32 figures yesterday, then matt-sprayed and flocked them this morning. I've sent Curt the pics of these as my 13th entry.

What's Next?

Right now I haven't got any figures ready for painting (well, I do have some Swiss pikemen, but I'm waiting for those 23 figures I forgot to order to arrive). So, this afternoon I decided to prep some of the other Swiss in my recent big order - 24 crossbowmen, 24 handgunners, 12 artillery crew, 4 artillery pieces and some bits and bobs. They are currently being washed in warm soapy water. Later on I'll rinse and dry them. I might be able to put them on painting sticks and prime them tonight if things go well.

I will start prepping the pikemen I do have though, so that I can make a quick start on them once the missing 23 arrive. If I've got them prepped and primed by the time I finish the artillery and skirmishers, I'll be able to make a start on these bad boys. I might do them one rank at a time.

I'll also be base-coating a bunch of bases this evening and over the course of the week.


I won't be getting any/much painting done tomorrow as I'm going to the club to play Saga - the first outing for my Norms.

Quick Update; Challenge Entry #11

Quick Update

I've finished painting the warlords, bannermen and mailed infantry and they have had their coat of Klear/ink. I've also made good progress on painting the 8 infantry in gambesons and the 24 without any armour. If I'm lucky, I'll have got everything done on these apart from the shield designs by the end of tonight.

I'm in 2 minds as to whether to send them in to Curt all as one batch or to submit them as two entries. Read on for the reason....


Challenge Entry #11: 15mm 30YW Reiters/Harquebusiers and Hakkapeliita

These should have allowed me to jump ahead of Ray, but he'd sent in a batch as well, so is still 2 points ahead of me. Grrr! I'm hoping that my Norman infantry will give me a good lead on him which I can maintain!

Curt posted these yesterday, but here they are on my blog for you pleasure.

First up, a unit of 12 Harquebusiers.

Next up, "Hack them all!". Yes, the dreaded "Hakkapeliita" of the Swedish army. These were Finnish cavalry, whose name comes from their battle cry "Hakka pella" which means "Hack them all!", not a threat to sing without musical accompaniment. They gained a fearsome reputation on the battlefields around the Baltic.

The regiment had its origins in the Nyland knights which became the Nyland and Tavestas Cavalry Regiment in 1629 under Lt Colonel Torsten Stalhandske. At the battle of Breitenfeld (1631) they were on the right wing of the Swedish army and were commanded personally by Gustav Adolf.

The flag is homemade. I had trouble finding the flag they used in the 30YW - I think this one is from late 17th/early 18th century, but it probably hadn't changed greatly in that time.

Hope you like them!

Surveying an Old School for Updates of Norman Knights?

Phew, that's a rather long and possibly confusing post title for you! To explain, it's because there are 4 topics to today's post.

Wargaming Survey

Mike Whitaker of Trouble At T'Mill posted this the other day. A student at Kings College London has put a survey about wargaming up on the web for part of his thesis. If you can spare 20-30 minutes to fill out the survey, that would be great.

Old School

An interesting post on Steve's Random Musings about what defines "Old School" wargamers. This follows some of the comments and speculation surrounding the news that Miniature Wargames and Battlegames are to merge with Henry Hyde as editor.

I subscribe to both magazines for different reasons. MW is great for colour pics and eye candy; BG is good for the more practical side of gaming - articles on painting and terrain making, tabletop tactics and suchlike. Combining the best of both into one magazine makes a great deal of sense.

There have been numerous comments about BG being all about "old school" wargaming. Taking a flick through the last 7 issues, there are only 2 or 3 articles (out of about 70) where there is anything specifically old school, but even there it is only that they happened to have used old school type rules - the games in question could just have easily been conducted under "new school" rules.

So, what is "old school" and is it something we should tolerate politely like an embarrassing relative or something we should embrace?

I think of old school as being the willingness to research the period and armies, write (or adapt) rules that reflect the warfare of the period without being overly complex and which result in good fun social games. There's nothing at all wrong with that. If anything it is something we should all try to live up to. Does it preclude enjoying the fancy new rules with the latest gimmick for simulating a particular aspect of warfare? Absolutely not.

There are others worried about what will happen to SciFi and Fantasy coverage in MW under Henry. Looking at the last 7 issues of BG again (and knowing Henry's own eclectic tastes in gaming) there are two quite long scenarios in the Sci/Fant sphere. I'd say that if anything, Sci/Fant will be even better served in the merged mag.

Painting Update

The reiters/harquebusiers and Hakkapeliita are finished and the pics have been sent off to Curt. I'm hoping that they'll go up tonight so that I can swap places with Ray and be in 7th place on the table. Of ciurse, that assumes that he hasn't sent something in as well!

I've started work on the Norman infantry. Yesterday I got common colours done across all the figures:

Basecoats - clothing and shield faces in yellow ochre; spear shafts in cork brown; flesh and shield backs in light brown; gambesons (8 figures) in tan earth.

All the above areas apart from yellow ochre received a brown ink wash.

I then got on with the mailed "hearthguard" and command figures as they would have the bright colours for clothing. I got pretty much everything done above the knee, including the shield designs. Tonight I'll be doing dark washes on the cloth for these, then working from the knees down to (hopefully) finish them. Tomorrow I'll be able to get going on the other 32 figures.

Challenge Entry #10 - 28mm Norman Knights

You can see the pics and blurb here on Curt's blog, but I'll show the pics here. These earned me 187 points which would have been enough to jump past Ray and Fran on the table. However, they'd also sent stuff in so I'm still behind them - not far behind Ray, but Fran's submission scored him a whopping 444 points so I don't think I've got any chance of catching him.

Anyway, that's more than enough of me wittering away, here are some pretty pixels for you: