And so that was January. Poof!
Gone.
It hasn’t been a terribly
productive month – painting-wise. Even though the family was away for a week
and a half! Usually I crank through about 100 28mm foot in a month – especially
during the winter when I don’t get out as much as I perhaps should… but the
unending renovations…
Here is the latest…
(Remember: click on the pictures for a bigger version):
These are for my second Sohei Buntai. All the miniatures are
from
The Assault
Group. This is a bit more than 400 points worth of stuff as I am still
tweaking this force, so I’ll be doing another post in a day or two with the
force that will be used in the campaign.
The Grand Master and his two Senior Sohei.
Four Sohei with naginata
Four Sohei with yumi (bow) though one has hair, which is
annoying because I'm pretty sure all monk shaved their heads... When it first
arrived I thought I might add a bit more of a cowl with green stuff to cover
the offending hair... but I didn't... call it laziness.... or call it panic -
because I still have three more buntai to finish in the next three weeks!
Some figures that I thought I might use as initiates. Again,
some of them have hair.... maybe they're SO new to the order they haven't had a
chance to shave their heads...?
This next bit might be a bit of a shock to those that have
followed the blog a while or have known me personally...
I've been playing Neil Thomas' Wargaming Nineteenth Century
Europe and really enjoy it. I noticed he had a set of rules for the Napoleonic
Wars, and figuring it would be about the same I picked up a copy. It being
quite similar to the other rules I thought it might be fun to play and not a
lot of stuff is required. I have half a British force already, so I thought I'd
pick up enough stuff for a French force to oppose it.... and I happen to be
ordering stuff from Perry Miniatures for the Ronin campaign... so I ordered
this gun and crew....
I really know next to nothing about the Napoleonic era - and
even less about the French. I find the myriad of different uniforms and
combinations of equipment a bit dizzying at times... but after studying the
sample on the Perry website, a few napoleonic Line Artillery plates I was able
to find on the web, and Curt's fabulous example - in the
Analogue
Hobbies Napoleonic Gallery! I sloshed some paint on these fellows and
hoped for the best...
Hopefully the results and my cavalier and purely amateurish
attitude won't offend any of the hardcore Grognards out there...
Finally I finished painting up a batch of minis for my
friend
John
These are old 25mm figures from Grenadier Models made for
the DC Heroes Role-Playing Game by Mayfair Games.
Silk Spectre II (Laurie Juspeczyk) and Doctor Manhattan (Dr.
Jonathan "Jon" Osterman)
Nite Owl II (Daniel Dreiberg) and Rorschach (Walter Joseph
Kovacs)
Ozymandias (Adrian Veidt) and The Comedian (Edward Morgan
Blake)
Hooded Justice and Captain Metropolis (Nelson
"Nelly" Gardner)
Also included in the boxed set were Moloch The Mystic and a
considerably smaller scale Owl Ship - which, not being "heroes" I
didn't feel compelled to get done in time for the bonus round as I have more
pressing things to paint!
Because the last poll got spammed or something voting has to
be done through posting comments…
In other news…
…and I went a little overboard…
There’s some Napoleonic French Infantry to join the artillery above. I’ll need
a few more units of infantry and some cavalry to finish up the force, but none
of that’s really a priority at the moment. There’s also some British and French
Napoleonic Colonels there (on horseback). I also picked up 16 Sikh Riflemen for
Great War in East Africa (and potentially other colonial conflicts – real or
imaginary!). Finally I grabbed a few packs of the Atomic Café 1957 figures;
some zombies, the Soviets, the Michigan State Bowling Team(!?), and some Civil
Defense types in NBCD gear.
I’ve been listening to A Game of
Thrones audiobook for the last week or so while staying up much too late
painting after the kids have gone to bed. It’s got me thinking about Hordes of
the Things campaigning again… I’m not sure what form this will take? Perhaps I
could run another summer campaign weekend? Or another online/email campaign? Or
even an ongoing campaign with the locals - get together once a week and play
out a season or two once a week. Anyone interested in getting in on any of that
action?
I’m also planning on making some
new terrain for the upcoming Ronin Campaign/Tournament. I thought I’d make a
half dozen dedicated terrain boards approximately 3’x3’ (they’ll actually be
90cm x 90cm) I’ve been thinking I should make them so that they could match up
with other terrain tiles I’ve made (or could make in the future) – so any roads
or rivers would exit at the middle of where a 30x30cm tile would line up with
it.
The big question that’s been troubling
me is whether I should stick with the size of the old terrain tiles or start
afresh and ditch the old ones?
I have the equivalent of about
24 tiles at present. So matching with them ould greatly add to the
possibilities of what I could lay out. Unfortunately when I made the very first
of them I didn’t give nearly enough thought to what I was doing and made them
with some scraps I had on hand. I had a bit of 3/8 plywood and a bunch of 1”
Styrofoam. So I used the 3/8 plywood as a base and cut 1” batts for the sides
out of 3/4” plywood or MDF and filled the area with the 1” Styrofoam. So I have
tiles that are 1 3/8 thick and when I made the second and third batches I
followed suit – even though I’d had a better Idea of how to make them.
Ideally I’d like to make new
ones with ¼” MDF bases and use ½” Styrofoam to fill them – that way the rivers
needn’t be so deep, nor the banks so steep – which have caused troubles in many
games. Also slimmer ones would be easier to store…
But to build anew would mean all
these old ones will be… well… less useful…
Hmmmm….
Yeah…
I’m kind of leaning towards
starting afresh…
Anyone want some old beat up
terrain tiles?
[sorry already taken!]
Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog: