More Tiny Steps

Long COVID is a barrel of laughs. I think I am having a good day then LC says forget that and pay attention to me. I did get some stuff done and then the wall said hello again. Suddenly I don't have the energy to change the channel on the TV. It can't be a bad day because I now have the energy to be upright. Two posts in two days says something else.

So I managed to prime about twenty minis including three Battletech mechs and some stuff for Sludge. I was planning on carving some raised terrain for Battletech and got one piece carved out of the twenty or so I had planned. On top of this I managed to put some things in the right place so I can finish some more hexes. Not for Battletech. 

Now I am hoping for some more energy tomorrow. Past experience says that is probably not going to happen. What I will get s another wall and a lot of brain fog. Still that will be better than the last few months.

Progressing With BattleTech

Having picked up the brush for the first time in a year, I am making some progress. I just can't focus for long periods of time anymore. So I will take what I can get. I wanted to keep up the tempo with the BattleTech stuff.

I have acquired another two mechs. These were classed as painted. Lots of grey in the nooks and crannies but it's a start.

They are still a little way off being finished. I am working on some transfers but need some clear gloss acrylic varnish before I can do that.

Whilst not the best work I have ever done, let's say I am out of practice, they look better than a lot of what I am seeing online. 

Still it has given me the urge to start posting again. I doubt I will get back to a post per day, but a post a month would make me feel a bit more in the game again. I have a load of Sludge stuff to do. Not to forget the Grey Legion.

Unexpected Projects

I now have an almost pathological avoidance of games my friends want to play. Over time I have been drawn into many expensive projects that have been shelved before my first purchase has arrived. Many of those that don't fail for a variety of reasons like suddenly moving away or making a decision to buy every Napoleonic army in 6mm.

Still at the blobby stage

So a couple of my mates are playing Battletech. I've played it in the past. Almost forty years in the past. I had been thinking about it in much the same way. I have to admit I was wrong. They actually like the game and want to keep playing. As a birthday present I got a couple of box sets and some random extra mechs.

Suddenly I am back to painting. For the first time in months. Trying a few different things. Not least is a leaning more towards contrast types of paint. Then I've taken moulds of some mech bits and used greenstuff to make base scatter. 

I have some of my mojo back. My painting area is now back up and running properly after almost a year. I've even got a proper wet pallet as I couldn't find my home made one.

Once I've done the mechs, I think I have twenty four of them, I am going to move onto Sludge, and finish of the stuff that has been waiting for final touches for a year. 

6mm Wargaming

6mm wargaming? Well I used to do that quite a bit. Going back thirty years, it was practically all I did. Timing is becoming my thing at the moment, so this is about a month out of date but I went to the Joy of Six recently. It's not really my thing now but a few of my mates, and one in particular, are still keen. So having done my duty in the morning, the thought in my head was "what the hell". It was on the cards anyway.

I enjoyed the show. Some pretty stuff there. I got several ideas. More about the terrain than the figures. I spoke to a lot if people from the world of internet wargaming. So had a nice time there. 

For some reason I did not buy anything aside from food and a drink. I was looking at the idea of brigade games' Imperial Skies. If I got two forces I could probably find another player. As my paint queue of 28mm stuff is at least four years, if I only include what is painted and based. I would to think how long the rest would take.

Given that I am more into the idea of gaming in a more compact area, 6mm has a lot of appeal. There has  been a lot of growth in the area and it now covers a number of areas I am interested in. Skirmish is still winning, I have pretty much everything I need for that but I am always open to a change. The fact that I still need two armies kind of puts me off.

Polemos rules seem pretty good to me. They have worked for Napoleonics and I imagine they will be fine for the other two mass battle periods that I like the idea of, ACW and ECW, would probably also work. Give that I like the idea of making everything smaller I would like to make the 60mm square bases smaller, 40mm or 30mm. As I am working on the premise of using skirmish sized tables, this would allow me to get biggish battles on the table.

The last gaming that involved 6mm was a Napoleonic game. The plan was to refight the entire The Napoleonic Wars using a boardgame of that name as a campaign structure. That might sound impressive, if not stupid. The plan was big but the forces involved would not have been that high in reality. I was going to be the French and I was figuring £200 would have given me absolutely everything and a few allies. So I spent most of that. I think I was a bit light on artillery but that was about it.

So I started painting. After arguments about rules and basing we started to make progress. Then it petered out. Every now and again I paint a few more bases. Just to keep my hand in really. It's something I wouldn't mind going back to. I play about with the idea every couple of years and I drag a few minis out for some out for painting. As I recall it's the Hussars that have the most interesting uniforms so they get the most attention.

Somewhere there is a part of me that would love to get back into this scale. The idea revolved around using the boardgame, The Napoleonic Wars, as a background. It's already a pretty enjoyable game. I play Napoleon so I do pretty well all the way along, right almost to the end. We had played our way through this a couple of times. This wasn't going to be an every week game but it was an opportunity to get together and make an event of it. Personally I could have see this going on longer than the actual war. Everyone was picking a side, getting the figures. It just kind of fizzled out. 

Bitching Helps + 6mm Napoleonics

I spent some time bitching yesterday. It has to be said that I will be doing plenty of bitching today as well. On top of that, in the long term bitching forecast I can see the bitchathon continuing with a good chance of a severe weather warning, high UV and a pollen count that will make even the hardiest reach for the antihistamine. My other half has a number of suggestions to resolve my problems but the underlying problems remain regardless. Which is a shame because I thought the underlying problems were beginning to work themselves out. Instead of things getting better, things look like they are going to get significantly worse as my mum is now ill. At least it means I get to spend some time with her.

But I have some pictures. As a way of over compensating for a bad day, I did some painting the other day. After finishing off two units of French Napoleonic Dragoons, I moved on to some fantasy stuff. Then back to some more 6mm Napoleonics and have now all but finished my first unit of infantry. One down nineteen more to go. That's just the stuff that I own at the moment. There are about forty bases to do in the packs that I have. I have done about a third of them (in I think eight years of owning them.

Strictly speaking I would say this isn't my fault as we play a game, say we will do more and then nothing happens, I have a GHQ WW2 US army that cost £150 for Blitzkreig Commander that we agreed to play that has never been used ). I have plans to buy more French and some Spanish (and Wurtemburgers, Bavarians, Duchy of Warsaw and some Brunswickers) tor round out the stuff I have. Then maybe we will get round to playing a game over even a campaign.

I guess the fact that I buy all the stuff and then it just sits and festers is part of the problem. I like the idea of doing something, no one is interested in it so I have to buy all the armies and still have no opponents. I do what somebody else says is going to be the next big thing, spend a wad of cash and then they forget about it. It's a conspiracy.

As an extra bonus, the weight loss program starts in the morning.

However, I am now downloading the first episode of the new Red Dwarf so things could be a lot worse.
   

More Napoleonic Cavalry

Even more Baccus 6mm Napoleonic Hussars. I like the Hussars on one level because they are nice and colourful. On fairly mundane (but not drab) battle fields, the Hussars have a bright and snazy uniforms. Anyway, this is the mornings work so far. Still a bit more to do.

They are about right but again it is hard to find all the details you actually need. Still some more detailling work to be done but will do that as a batch when I am ready.

Large Scale Battles...On A Smaller Scale

I am feeling the urge a lot at the moment. No not that urge. I have an itch that only painting seems to scratch and I am feeling that I want to have a bit of variety.

Baccus do really great figures, or so I am told. They are way to tiny for me to to tell. Anyway, I have found some stuff I started just after finishing another unit. I am pretty sure that they are meant to be the 4th Hussar.  I was looking at some of the Warlord 28mm figures and feel happy that my mates chose 6mm instead. Once they have been finished off and inked up, they should be a little darker

I am pretty sure that I got some details wrong so I am not really interested in anyone who is a Napoleonic expert telling me where I got it wrong.

Odd Little Things

I used to go to a lot of wargame shows. These days, not so much. Most of the time you see just exactly what you would expect. Every now and again you see something that makes you think you've picked the wrong scale. Well maybe for a minute. Angel Barracks is one of those manufacturers.

These were a bit of an impulse. They are called Drill Worm Nests according to the website. I didn't have a clear idea of what to use them for at the time. In truth I guess I still don't but they look scary enough to make the players think twice about going anywhere near them. They look nicely alien so maybe it's some sort of infestation or maybe something like  shrieker mushrooms from the back of beyond. Maybe something for the X-Com wargame or the Fallout and modern horror RPG games that I run.

They are notionally 6mm figures but I can see uses for them in 15mm and maybe even larger scales.

So I am working through the resin mountain. I am picking my way through what I can find to do. I am now scratching my head wondering what I can do next.

1st Anniversary

I just realised that it was the blogs first anniversary a few days ago. So just thoght I would say thanks for reading. I am happy that I have kept this going. Often things just seem to melt away into the background in time. So, all in all, I am almost proud of myself. Even if I haven't done much painting lately I still want to keep this up so I am almost looking for things to do. I have a few games lined up and Triples is just around the corner and I think that is going to be a busy weekend for gaming.

One thing I am not proud of is the state of my workbench.

Slow Time

It's been a slow month on the gaming front as April has been really busy month for other reasons. I did some 6mm Napoleonics. This was a lot if fun. It looked like the French (my side) were about to get drubbed. The game we were playing requires you to write orders in advance so decided we should pull back. The turn the orders were written, we became suddenly successful. After a major success (which gave us a real opening and put us in charge range of some pretty poor soldiers that we should have routed) we pulled back. Ho hum.

The last RPG game I was in reached a climax and I missed it due to problems at home. I've now signed up for a Traveller game. It's the first time I've played a Mongoose Traveller game and I quite like it. I was thinking I could get some figures out and get some pictures. The referee doesn't use figures so that was a bit of a downer. The game is quite good though and I am enjoying it. It's nice to play a game in someone else's take on Traveller.

I haven't done much painting. I have spent an afternoon doing some 28mm stuff last weekend. I forget how long it takes to paint them. In the time I have spent on ten 28mm figures I could have painted fifty or more 15mm figures, I almost feel discouraged. I usually paint 15mm figures in batches of 20-30. If it's a really simple paint job (like the GZG Phalons) I can do thirty in an afternoon. I've spent twenty hours on some wild west figures and not only have I not finished them but my mind keeps wandering off. Most of the figures are pretty good but there is the odd one that has a face that looks like I made from plasticine when I was seven. Some of them are lovely though.

Napoleonic cavalry

This is what I have been working on over the last week or so. I said I would get round to posting some pictures. Four bases of Napoleonic heavy cavalry. The first three are curiassiers and the last one dragoons.

 Lots of colours means lots of time and I have had a lot less time than I expected recently. I was expecting that I could paint about two bases per day but it seems like I was a bit optimistic.

There is also a fair bit of time spent on research to get the uniforms right. I wouldn't want any wargamers with OCD telling me I had missed something or painted the cuffs the wrong shade of pink. The figures are from Baccus who do easy to paint minis.

6mm The Napoleonic Wars

It's a little off topic today. I had was 6mm. It was 6mm WW2 US and it was back in the early 1990s and now it's Napoleonics. I don't want to start another blog about it just yet so I might change the blogs raison d'etre again.


The trouble with Napoleonics is that there is just too much of it to take in easily. There are enough Osprey books to take up a long shelf. More to the point, I am finishing of a unit of cavalry that is going to have pink lapels. Pink? On a mini? Where am I really? Mars? Ash's blog?

Martin, Spike, if you read this we need to talk about the rules and organisations.

When I was playing the Napoleonic Wars we discussed using the game as a scenario generator. As the game covers the period 1805 to 1815 so this could be a lot of scenarios. I suggested that it would end up finishing some time shortly after I retire. I don't expect to be retiring early either. I kind of like this.

This is the way thing seem to work with my mates. Me Spike and Martin come up with an idea. We buy some figures. Then Spike and Martin go tangental and (and poop on) everything ends up on hold (with the odd exception). Then a few years later we pick things up again and put them down again. The only thing we seem to consistently play is D&D (or dad as I call it) and Idon't much care for that.
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So I have been painting some more French cavalry.

I get to play the French because of my superior tactical skill and my ability to put up with getting picked on by my mates. They do not have my broad shoulders and will learn to love the taste of defeat (he said laying the ground for an EPIC FAIL). After last weekend I know Martin knows how to roll over and play dead. :-)

I wouldn't have pegged myself as a Napoleonic gamer a few years ago but I am having a change of heart.

I'll post some pics when the figures bare painted.