Attacking the lead and paper mountain

The last two years have seen me buy stuff but generally not much chance to paint it or read it.  Now that things have quietened down on the domestic front and I'm no longer so tired from lengthy car journeys to and fro the Midlands I've started to sort it.

First the lead and resin mountain:

Bins labelled - Samurai, VBCW, ECW, FIW, Force on Force, Ancients and Scenery pretty much reflecting my current interests.  I remembered buying most of it - the exceptions being some of the Ainsty resin scenery when I was in my "scatter scenery" mode, and some barricades from Fantascene and some FIW Indians from AW Miniatures

Then onto the book mountain:

I've skimmed through some of these but that's all.  Again, the rules and reference books pretty much reflect the miniatures buying.  

Too hot to paint currently but clearing the painting desk is next.  

More IHMN

So, as part of going through my RPG figures for Castle Falkenstein I came across the Prussians (lower set) and soldiers (higher set).  The Prussians have spiky helmets of course. Not the best scan of the bottom row -  I put the figures on the scanner and then put some foam over the top.     

Probably less useful than I first thought for the Society of Thule as detailed in the book given that they are armed either with a pistol or sword as opposed to a Rifle.  

I've been playing around with the IHMN rules for companies a bit more after my Tong gang didn't seem to have lots of rabble...

Cheapest figures so far seem to be:

3 pts - Cultist (Club) - Servant of Ra

6 pts - Anarchist (club) - Brick Lane Commune

8 Pts - Native Bearer (Spear and shield) - The Explorer's club 

The Servants of Ra and Explorer's club have got enough high value personalites to easily use up points, so the likely largest faction, miniatures wise, would currently appear to be the Brick Lane Commune as their personalities are relatively cheap by comparison.  Even then the Anarchist can be made fearless, or given a knife or shotgun upping their points.  Otherwise, the basic footsoldier would seem to be in the region of 18-22 points for most factions.   

More Steampunk: IHMN Companies

Today I had a better read of "In her Majesty's Name" and specifically the rules concerning the creation of "companies" which are the factions in the game.  I also got my Castle Falkenstein RPG figures out of the cupboard - which was good as it reminded me of some figures that I'd forgotten I had - like the Victorian Detective (aka Sherlock Holmes) from Salute 2000, or the Flintloque Zombieski Cossacks.

Rules suggest 3x3 playing area and 250 pts.

First up was the British Rifle Company:

Figures are Redoubt Zulu wars range facing a Castle Falkenstein Mystic/Mage. 

	Based on US Marines
PTS		QTY	PTS
43	Officer	1	43
5	Tough	1	5
29	Gunnery Sergeant	1	29
5	Tough	1	5
2	Bayonet Drill	1	2
80	Marine X4	4	20
8	Bayonet Drill	4	2
20	Marine	1	20
-2	Congreve Rocket Gun	1	-2
7	Rocket Grenade	1	7
14	Spare Grenades	2	7
13	Navy Corpsman	1	13
20	Marine	1	20
5	Marksman	1	5
249	9 Miniatures	TOTAL

Next up were the Naval Landing party for which I used the British Army chart since  have a gatling gun model (not shown).  Against these were the Society of Thule (wicked Germans who meddle with Zombies).   The first picture shows off the problems of focusing on a hand held camera (ought to get the Tripod out), whilst the Second has a Wizzkids Brass Golem and the Pax Limpopop armoured bicycle. 

Figures otherwise are Redoubt Enterprises - Brtish and Wargames Foundry - Germans

	Based on British Regulars			Based on Society of Thule			Tongs
Total PTs			Total PTs			Total PTs
57	Captain		39	Dr Kobalt		55	Master wu-jen
10	Inspirational
			30	Thule Feldwebel
29	Sergeant					30	Tong Lieutenant
5	Tough		104	Jager X4		1	sword
2	Bayonet Drill
			45	2 Jager with flamethrower
80	Riflemen X4					24	Dragon Warrior
6	Bayonet Drill		26	Jager		10	Dragon Tattoo
			5	Marksman
40	Riflemen					45	Yeti
0	Machine Gun
			249	9 Miniatures		84	Boxer X7
				Plus Zombies
15	Field Surgeon					249	10 Miniatures
5	Erudite wit						Yeti
249	9 Miniatures

To try and get a better feel for the "rabble" argument I turned to the Tongs.  Even here points still go as it is tempting to field the yeti, if only to have a nice miniature on the table and whilst the Boxers at only 12 points would seem to fall into the rabble category the total points soon go.   Interesting to note that the companies are mostly coming out at 9 miniatures, somewhat less if you go for the specials.    

Finally a picture of the Castle Falkenstein blisters from Soldiers and Swords so if you see them in a bargain bin it is worth a rummage.  These are Dwarves and Mystics - the most useful for steampunk skirmish are probably the Prussian Soldiers - who I have (but not in blister) and need to photograph. 

Not the best photography but wherever I was I seemed to get flash bounce from the plastic blister packaging. 

Steampunk - Once upon a time there was a roleplaying game

As part of the catch up then I'm covering somethng I got involved with last month.  I did a kickstarter for some figures, specifically the Empire of the Dead Requiem.

A long time ago - well early 90's there was a roleplaying game called Castle Falkenstein that was steampunk plus magic.  I liked it and the theme - I even GM'd a couple of sessions but the White Wolf World of Darkness games (Vampire, Werewolf) were the fashion at the then RPG group and it had limited interest.  Very much it needs people in the right frame of mind and the GM needs a setting that the players want as well.  Needless to say I bought all the books and even managed to get some of the "official' figures out of bargain bins at conventions.  For other figures I scoured various fantasy ranges along with historical ranges from people like Wargames Foundry.

But in some ways the steampunk feel went back earlier than that.  I'd always enjoyed films that featured say Nemo and the Nautilus.  Go back to the mid 80's and was re-reading the Hawkmoon stuff by Michael Moorcock - we were playing alot of Call of Cthulu RPG at the time but the GM had lots (possibly all) of other stuff put out by Chaosium (which is how I got started on the Pendragon).  When a toy shop was having a clearout I got a couple of zoids with a view to converting them.  These may may excellent 'steampunk" vehicles.  I think I have the giant worm pictured below and another one that flaps wings (view to making a Gran Brettanian Ornithopter from Hawkmoon).    

One of the blogs I follow is A conflict of Interests and I found myself agreeing with the comments about wanting the steampunk aspect in preference to the Gothic werwolves vs Vampires.   

Not blogged about here but something I was very taken with a couple of years ago was the Warhammer Historical Legends of the Old West game.  Now sadly part of history as I suspect licensing issues means that nobody else will be given permission to reprint it.  One of the groups was the Chinese Tongs - always part of pulp fiction.  The Empire of the Dead Requiem Kickstarter had a couple of free figures that I really wanted - the Dragon Lady, so I ended up backing the project.   

I have the PDF of the rules but not really had chance to go through it yet.  I watched the kickstarter (or Nickstarter to be more appropriate) for the figures for In Her Majesty's name.  The free figures for the various financing options were less generous than the Westwind offer and the basic factions were of less interest or ones that my Castle Falkenstein stuff might cover.  

I have bought the rules though.  Very interesting on a first read through and definitely my sort of game.      The mechanics and construction rules seem fairly sound, and the campaign system whilst somewhat simple looks as if it will work and the whole thing has that "feel" of the campaign and tabletop skirmish game that had appeared in the Legends of the Old West.  

Samurai - Rotterdam and Lone Wolf and Cub

April and May have been somewhat hectic for some good and some not so good reasons.  One of the good parts was a 5 day trip to Holland in Mid May, specifically Rotterdam, Leiden and Amsterdam.

The main reason for going was a Samurai Exhibition at the Weraldmuseum in Rotterdam which ended on 26th May.  My chum's daughter's boyfriend passed on the details a while ago, and we hadn't had a big (aka aged 50 ish) boys outing for a while, so "why not".  (I also got to see the Dutch Marines museum but news of that in a different post).

The exhibition turned out be very, very, good and well worth the journey.

The following pictures comes from this blog.

Photography in the exhibition was prohibited for obvious reasons.  The low level of lighting would have meant that without a tripod and very long shutter speeds the results would have been very poor.  The billing talked about stuff on loan from America and Japan but didn't say that much of the stuff was from the Museo Stibbert in Florence - which I knew had lots of Samurai stuff from some Black and white photos in Osprey books.  When I came back I checked it out (again) and the Museo Stibbert Samurai stuff is now only by appointment and incurs an extra fee of €150 !

More pictures on this blog.  

One of the more unusual helmets at the show was this one with a massive (I assume paper mache) Octopus.  

Aside from a two items (armour and a sword set) made for the Dutch King as gifts, the rarest items I suspect were a straw jingasa (war hat) and back banner (Sashimono). The Sashimono was from the Momoyama (1573-1615) period which covers the period of unificaton by Hideyoshi (such as the battle of Sekighara).  With no photography then I succumbed and bought the catalogue for €35 - not cheap, but all the photos are colour and some are very close detail.  Unfortunately it doesn't illustrate every item.  

The Samurai on horseback was in the museum entrance hall and the one item that could be freely photographed.  

Final mention is some new Samurai figures only available until 29 May.  These are from Black Bases and represent Lone Wolf and Cub.  Mine arrived today and what it doesn't mention is that the set does include the babycart too, so is somewhat better value.   Remember that figures are unpainted.  

 

Cleaning Fgures: Dettol, degreaser and hot water

Been busy with gaming this and that: I really should blog more frequently but once again a flurry of posts.

I came rather late to discovering that dettol/pinesol cleans metal figures much better than nitromors paintstripper and is alot safer to use.

However, I was presented with two problems recently.

Firstly some bases on some Redoubt Civilians with a few Front rank intended for Muskets and Tomahawks proved somewhat resilent to coming off.  I realised after a while that they were in fact plastic rather than the card I had supposed.   No idea what glue was used but it wouldn't "snap" off.  Since dettol I believe softens, if not melts plastic, then I wasn't willing to try the dettol bath as a first solution.  Second idea worked though - boiling water over the figures in a basin.

Next problem was with some other figures that had been undercoated in I know not what, but dettol would loosen it enough the produce a green gunge effect on the figure that wouldn't truly wash off, and scrubbing just seemed to gunge up the bristles.  What did work was kitchen "de greaser" followed by use of the old toothbrush and warm water.  

An idea on the subject of bases: great minds think alike

I wish somebody had told me about movement trays in my teens as it would have speeded up many a battle involving Airfix Napoleonics.  None of the pictures in the books or magazines at the time had them, so we didn't copy them.

Since then, the whole subject of bases has moved forward.  Often no longer mere bits of green card (often cereal packets in the Airfix days) they are now works of art in their own right, with sculpted add ons, tufts and other embellishment.   Movement trays have evolved as well, moving from the simple square or rectangle to all sorts of trays, especially ones used for skirmishers or weapon crews.  

At the Derby World Championships last year I bought a pack of the support bases (WGB-base 2) from Warlord Games.  They are in the webstore but you have to search for support bases or squad bases: try looking through their catalogue and I can't find them.

The pack contains 2x2 figure, 2x3 figure and 2x5 figure.  I thought that they would be ideal for Muskets and Tomahawks, particularly for Indians or Civilians/Militia who are likely to be in relatively large numbers.  I also thought that the ones in lines were very appropriate for walking down a wilderness trail (Some smaller movement trays - say 4 bases are a likely purchase at Salute 2013).

Now, it would seem that I'm not alone in this as a great idea, except that someone makes it even better.  

One of the blogs I follow is A Conflict of Interests except that what the author has done is to make some bases with just terrain on it.  The following picture is unashamedly taken from Jonas M's blog to illustrate the point I am trying to make.  

Suffer a casualty - just pop in a blank but scenic made up base.  So, lots more versatility.      

Lead and book mountains: the way forward

In the last issue (no34) (as it is to merge with Miniature Wargames) of Battlegames, Mike Siggins was musing about too many hobbies, too little cash and too little time, along with consideration of what figures was he actually using of late.

On the Very British Civil War forum there was a post about plans for 2013.   I think its that "spring clean" mentality alongside that "so little time, so much gaming I want to do" issues.

I did see a picture once of Mike's lead mountain.   Here's part of mine:

To be far, much of the stuff in the bottom picture is part painted, since that is what I have gamed with and I found the squarish "really useful boxes" to be a reasonably cheap way of storage, since they would generally (lance upright and standard bearers excluded) take cavalry and a Warhammer Ancient Battles 1500 pts army would generally fit in one, or at most two boxes.  More expensive than level arch files, but somewhat more durable and infinitely more stackable.   Foam, whilst nice just takes up too much space.  This is most, but not all of the figures - there are others elsewhere, along with scenery. 

The other thing is the book mountain - rules and historical books.   I seem to have succumbed to various "offers" over the past year, and the following pile are books that I haven't really even glanced through very much.

The left hand side are reference books (along with one work of fiction)

The pile on the right are rules and pretty much reflect my diverse tastes:

Gladiator (Games Workshop)

Hail Ceaser (and army lists) (Warlord) (although you should also add the other big Ancient rules out there of Clash of Empires and War and Conquest).  

Song of Arthur & Merlin (Ganesha Games)

Dux Bellorum (Osprey)

Deus Vult (Fireforge)

Bloody Barons (Peter Pig)

Pike & Shotte (Warlord)

Cutlass (Black Scorpion)

Waterloo (Games Workshop)

.45 Adventure (Ratrap)

Force on Force (plus the supplements Bush War and Classified)

I think it is time to start a bit of a clear out.  Fantasy will be the easiest - I'm very unlikely to play Warhammer Fantasy (for various reasons) and my figures are now "out of date" anyway, although the more knowing GW types refer to them as "classic" I think, rather than "what are they?".  

So, what will I be concentrating on for 2013?

A) Deciding which of the mass combat Ancient's rules I prefer.

B) SAGA armies

C) Muskets and Tomahawks

D) Pike & Shotte

E) Force on Force (Lots of scenarios have small figure count and the rules have lots of interesting ideas).  

Pirates

Firstly there is an arcane art in getting good photos of miniatures, and one at which I need to do some work.  The short answer comes down to getting out the tripod and setting a focal distance to give a good depth of field (and slower shutter speed, which means the tripod is necessary).  These are all handheld shots.  So apologies for quality but I wanted to post sooner rather than later.

Until a while ago I would never have bought pre-painted figures.  A combination of circumstances, time vs money, lack of skill and a need for quality models for demo purposes have altered that.  These were all painted by my chum John Csonka in Hungary - some were commissioned and some were presents.  The deal is normally modelling goods, figures, paints etc in return for painted figures as John can't just nip out and buy stuff in Hungary, or get much stuff at shows or mail order it easily.   As always I understand that Games Workshop is all pervasive.   John also has that skill of producing figures that "look good" when viewed - possibly its colour choice, possibly its painting technique.

The story behind these figures is that I wanted Pirate Captains (with a view to running Legend of the High Seas, although Cutlass has now also come onto the market) at the local club and I wanted different colours - so a yellow captain, red captain etc...

All the Pirate Captains

Top row in detail

Bottom row in detail

Here comes the Navy

Pirate Girls

Milady and some scurvy scum

Specialists

The Dutch in 1940

Every so often I will come across a topic about which I know very little and use the power of the internet to research the answers.

Some of January disappeared in one such item – namely the Dutch in 1940.  My Dutch chum Jan had talked of the Black devils and paratroops and Holland wasn’t the walkover its lack of mention or time would suggest.  My knowledge on this was very poor – at least with Belgium I knew about the landings on Eben-Emael and the deployment of Brandenburgers (and how wearing an enemy uniform over your own but removing it before firing was within ‘acceptable” rules of war, dating back to Napoleonic periods and ships flying various nations flags…) but Holland ?  Nada, except that the Dutch resistance HQ in London was at De Hems which is one of my favourite drinking holes in the capital. 

The internet of course is your friend here..

http://www.waroverholland.nl/

Black devils is a reference to Dutch Marines at Rotterdam:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netherlands_Marine_Corps

http://www.dutchmarines.com/History.html  

Re-enactor pictures here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/battle14/with/4609568630/

And was Holland the straw that broke the camel’s back ? 

http://www.waroverholland.nl/index.php?page=had-it-been-worth-the-sacrifices

Which then set me thinking about making Dutch Tram for use here, as well as in VBCW which has been on the back burner for a while.  

One ebay purchase later and we have some inspiration. 

I think if I take the roof off, remove the stairs, and give it a new roof and a repaint then it will do as a stand in for a single decker tram in 28mm scale.  

SAGA - dice

One set of rules that I have recently taken a shine to is SAGA from Gripping Beast which is miniatures plus dice on a battleboard.   Starter armies (4pts) are perhaps 30-35 figures, whilst the full 6 pts will put it up to 50-60 figures probably, so not an impossible task to paint.  Plus I can reuse my existing armies as well.
The game as sold uses special dice (although ordinary d6 can be substituted) with symbols on each face.    At £12 a set though its a fairly expensive option but the nice boys at Gripping Beast have made the symbols available so you can print your own and stick them onto blank dice.   So, a favour from a chum and I've got them onto laser label (self adhesive) sheets to give that a try.  Results as below.

This is the labels as they came out.  The square design soon proved difficult to fit on the dice that I had because of rounded corners and I resorted after the first dice to trimming the corners on the labels.  

This is a set of my dice - bottom white (Anglo Danish) contrasted with official dice from Gripping Beast (Vikings at top, Normans in the middle).  So far the idea seems good.  

The white dice worked OK, but the Green and Blue dice were going to be too dark for the black design.   Trimming off all the corners was starting to get to me as well - better to ask for another sheet from my chum with say octagon borders rather than squares and slight smaller, and in say a brighter colour - yellow or pink.   A web search came up with another supplier of blank dice without the same style of rounded corner and in brighter colours.  So, Purple (will still need yellow but seems appropriate for say Byzantines), Pink, Yellow and Lime Green.  

Original Beast dice contrasted in size with the new ones in detail.  

Fitting them onto a battle board.  The bigger dice do take up more space but not so much as to totally hide all the text.