Tim's Miniature Wargaming Blog

Pre-Feudal Scots Warband and Army Marker

2012-01-29T17:03:00.000-08:00

A few more elements for my Pre-Feudal Scots – now half finished!

(Remember: click on the pictures for a bigger version)

These are the Warband elements for my Pre-Feudal Scots DBA army.

The stand with the flag and horn blower is the Warband General option (the other option for the general being the Cavalry General - which I’ve already completed)

All the figures are from Old Glory.

This is an Army Marker for the Pre-Feudal Scots army.

For the campaign(s) I’m running I’ll have a map (like this one I used for a previous HOTT campaign) and I'll use these markers to indicate where each kingdom's field army is at.

These figures are also all from Old Glory.

This is just another odd Black Tree Design Viking Berserker I happened to finish up around the same time…

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

I spent Saturday manufacturing and assembling some spears and lances for the Spear elements in Pre-Feudal Scots and the Norman/West Frank Knight. Unfortunately I ran out of paperclips before I could finish the lances for the knights. Those that got done got primed this morning. I also have six stands of Anglo Saxon Spear assembled, primed and ready to go… Hard to say which I'll get going on first...

I’ve been very tempted to paint some elements for some HOTT armies… and some more Great War stuff… and some War of 1812 stuff… even some 20mm WW2 stuff for Blitzkrieg Commander!? But so far I have managed to stay on target with the Dark Age stuff. Hope I can keep that up for the next four weeks!! (LESS THAN four weeks!)

I've also been looking at the Test Version of DBA3.0 and considering using that for the camapaign - along with 4'x4' battle fields... I'd need to make some new playing surfaces and terrain... we shall see...

HOTT Vikings vs. Normans

2012-01-28T21:50:00.000-08:00

Yesterday our young neighbor was over to play games – we usually play Savage Worlds on Fridays, but I didn’t have much of an adventure prepared so we were done early and I thought maybe we’d introduce Christopher to Hordes of the Things.

We let Christopher decide which army to play and he thought it’d be cool to play Vikings. When I explained the different troop types he decided that his Vikings would all be “Warband”.

Whether Finnegan was being cagey and picked them knowing they’d utterly DESTROY the Vikings… or he just happened to have it in his mind that he wanted to play them, he chose the Normans…

Now it’s always been my policy that whenever introducing someone to a new game I really don’t try too hard. I’m not saying I totally throw games (well, sometimes I do…), but I generally like them to feel like it’s a game they could do well enough at and that it’s a fun, challenging game.

Normans utterly destroy Vikings. Always. I probably should have just said; “pick another army, Finnegan.” But for some reason I let him play it… but I warned Christopher that it would probably be a totally military disaster for the Vikings…

FORCES

Normans
1x Knight General
7x Knight
1x Spear
2x Bow
1x Rider

Vikings
1x Warband General
11x Warband

THE GAME(S)

We ended up playing two games. I knew the first one would be very short…

GAME ONE

(Remember: click on the pictures for a bigger version)

General Christopher Axe-Breaker arrays his Viking forces. Despite my attempts to explain that simply lining everyone up in a single line was the best plan, he insisted on breaking the army up into three groups and left the general at the back…

The Viking Horde surges forward.

Christopher Axe-Breaker moves his warbands forward some more.

Almost there.

The Normans ended up the defenders and Finnegan simply passed every turn holding his army in a line just before the gates of his stronghold.

At this point he decided to chrage!

They didn’t have far to charge… barely enough room to get up to a good gallop – they crashed into the Viking line with a fearsome crash and sent Norsemen flying hither and thither.

In the first bound of combat the Normans destroyed FIVE of the Vikings stands! Four fell before the might of the Knight’s charge up the center of the line.

…and one unlucky band of Vikings fled as the Norman archers darkened the skies above them!

Now in DBA that would have been the end of the game… But they were playing HOTT so The Vikings had to lose ONE MORE stand to be lost.

One the second bound the remiaing Viking tried to surge forward into the fray only to lose another three warbands… for a total of EIGHT stands… 2/3 of the army…. Yeesh.

It didn’t help that Christopher rolled a startling number of ones!? So even when he was fighting stuff that didn’t Quick-Kill (The Bow/Shooters and Light Horse/Riders) they were easily doubled and destroyed just the same…

Anyway… I then made them switch sides so Finnegan could get a sense of how utterly hopeless the game was. In retrospect I probably should have gotten out some different, more evenly matched armies so Christopher could see that it’s not ALWAYS so one-sided. That this was a particularly bad match-up – Or allowed him to defend and set up some terrain – because warband vs knights isn’t so gbad if you can throw out a pile of bad-going to hid in/ambush from …

GAME TWO

So this time we have Duke Christophe of Normandy defending against the Hairy Hordes of Finnegan the Short.

The Hairy Hordes of Finnegan the Short begin their long slow march across the battlefield.

Steadily onward…

GARF! One for One – Norman Knights ride down a Viking Warband – while another Viking warband beats down the flanking riders!?

In the center the Norman Knights rode down two more Viking Warbands, but the third, overlapped on both sides and fighting the Norman Knight General (+4 vs. +1) beat bacck the general breaking up the line!!

Their success didn’t last long the following bound the Knight General trompled them into the dust…

At this point we had to call it as Christopher had to head home. A victory for Duke Christophe’s Normans – but not the stinging defeat Finnegan had laid on him in Game One. Despite all that he seemed in good spirits about the whole affair and will likely be back for more!

Huzzah!

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

This afternoon I manufactured some spears and lances and got seven stands worth of Scottish Spear and five stands worth of West Frank Knights finally assembled (they now just need to be primed). They join six stands worth of Anglo-Saxon Spear currently occupying the painting desk. Which will I get to first…? Probably one of the batches of Spear, as either will finish off an army…. Although the Knights would probably paint up quicker… Hmmmm…

Before that I’ll be posting the Pre-Feudal Scots Warband elements I finished up this morning along with an Army Marker for the same.

Perhaps before I finish the batches of Spear I might have a game report up. This next Wednesday is the first Wednesday of the month and that’s game night. I think we’re going to be playing some DBA to get primed for the Dark Age DBA Campaign Weekend. Maybe I should see if I could get one of the batches of Spear done for that!

A Few More Scots (and a Welsh Army Marker)

2012-01-26T11:47:00.000-08:00

…and a Norman, and a Viking…

(Remember: click on the pictures for a bigger version)

These are the Psiloi for my Pre-Feudal Scots army.

The figures are a mix of Gripping Beast and Old Glory.

This is an Army Marker for the the Welsh DBA army (for marking the movements of the armies on the campaign map).

Again, the figures are a mix of Gripping Beast and Old Glory and, I think, Wargames Foundry….?

Another Crusader Miniatures Norman, and a Viking Berserk from Black Tree Design.

These last two really aren’t helping me towards my goal… but they’re fun, so…

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

Next up will be a big batch of four Pre-Feudal Scots Warband elements (Including the Warband General option)

Pre-Feudal Scots Cavalry

2012-01-25T00:01:00.000-08:00

The beginning of my Pre-Feudal Scots DBA army...

(Remember: click on the pictures for a bigger version)

I’m pretty sure some of these are Gripping Beast, and others may be Old Glory…

This is the Cavalry General option and the Light Horse stand of a Pre-Feudal Scots DBA army.

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

Should have some more of the Pre-Feudal Scots up tomorrow (The Psiloi), an Army Marker for the Welsh, as well as a few individual figures (Norman and Viking). After that... I've got all the Warband elements for the Scots underway - that may take a day or two... Hopefully on the weekend i'll get to manufacturing some spears and drilling hands by the dozen!

Vikings & Victims

2012-01-24T07:03:00.001-08:00

More Dark Age DBA stuff… The last stand I needed to complete a Norse Viking army. Now those of you paying attention will probably be wondering; “what do you mean ‘finish’? I thought You HAD a complete Viking army!?” Well, I do… It’s a long explanation but the short version is I actually have enough figures for THREE Viking armies… and I’ve completed a few stands for the other two and have been borrowing stands from said other armies to be able to field one complete Norse Viking army… As I said there’s a much longer explanation that would probably make a bit more sense (at least a little bit more) but I’d rather get back to painting…

(Remember: click on the pictures for a bigger version)

This stand of Norse Viking BLADE is made up of some really old Citadel miniatures and some not-quite-so-old Old Glory figures.

The old ones I’ve owned for about 20 years… they were previously painted – but, as with many of the “oldies, but goodies” I’ve been giving them Pinesol baths and stripping the old paint off and repainting them…

Some of the Vikings potential victims – These are Old Glory…

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

I finished up two stands of Pre-Feudal Scots yesterday - the Cavalry General option and the Light Horse. I'll post them up tomorrow. Last night I was working on the Pre-Feudal Scots Psiloi and an army marker for the Welsh. I should finish them up today and then I'll get started on either the Warband Elements for the Scots, and/or the army markers for the Scots and Irish, or The stands of Anglo-Saxon spear I need to do - all of these are more or less primed and ready to go. The rest need some amount of prep work and assembly - mostly manufacturing of spears, drilling, gluing and priming...

More Normans

2012-01-23T06:16:00.000-08:00

Well... MOSTLY More Normans (West Franks)...

(Remember: click on the pictures for a bigger version)

These are some Bow-Armed Psiloi .

As with the last couple batches of Normans (or West Franks), these figures are all 28mm Crusader Miniatures

Foot Knights and archers for skirmishin’ (also Crusader Minis)

And this piece of work is a Celtic woman from Warlord Games

I used the same figure in a stand of Celtic Warrior Wymin for Amanda’s “HOTT Chick” army a while back (you can see it HERE) I think it works much better as part of a stand that can be made into a bit of a vignette.

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

As previously mentioned I should have some Vikings and Victims to post here shortly, along with some mounted Pre-Feudal Scottish - Cavalry General and Light Horse stands.

After that even MORE Dark Age shenanigans! Anglos, Saxons and Normans (West Franks) – OH MY!

Norman Spear

2012-01-22T09:16:00.000-08:00

(or “West Frank”)

I finished up a few more stands for my new Norman/West Frank DBA army. All the figures here are 28mm Crusader Miniatures

(Remember: click on the pictures for a bigger version)

Two stands of Spear.

The General for the army is actually a Knight, so this “command stand” is really “just for show”. I have enough Spear for two more stands - so perhaps I’ll paint those up someday and they could all be formed up together to make a big unit for… well… some other game?

A couple of Spare Crossbowmen.

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

I finished up some more Normans yesterday. Two stands of bow-armed Psiloi and some individually based foot knights and archers. You can see them over at Analogue Hobbies - I'll post them here tomorrow.

This morning I’m just finished up some Vikings and Victims. That sounds like a spin off Role-playing game from the 1980s… Dungeons & Dragons… Tunnels & Trolls… Burrows & Bunnies…. Vikings & Victims…?

After that? More Dark Age stuff. I have some of the Scots primed and ready to go…? Or some Anglo-Saxons…

Dark Age DBA Campaign Weekend

2012-01-19T23:36:00.000-08:00

As I may have mentioned I'm hosting a Dark Age DBA Campaign Weekend on Saturday, February 25th of this year (my birthday, actually)! It is currently full up and there's a bit of a wait list in case anyone bails....

It looks like we're going to have nine players. There will be two English, two Norse/Viking, Welsh, Scots, Irish, Normans and West Franks.

I've been slacking off on my painting of Dark Age stuff and so I took stock of what I need to finish up earlier this evening... In the next five weeks (35 days) before the campaign I have 35 stands I need to finish up (to have complete - all options - armies). That's a stand per day... Seems a bit daunting, but I'm pretty sure I can pull it off... some of them are Psiloi with only three figures per stand, a bunch are Mounted - again three figures per stand (plus horses). In total it adds up to 109 foot and 37 mounted.

I have some norman Spear I just finished up earlier this evening (not counted in the 25 stands)... What will I do this evening (after I finish basing the Spear)? Maybe I'll knock off a couple stands of Psiloi - so I'm "ahead of the game"!

Unfortunately a number of the stands require some assembly yet - including the manufacture of a great number of spears.... Hopefully I'll be able to convince Amanda to let me paint all day for a couple of the Saturdays... Maybe that will be my job for this saturday - manufacture spears, drill hands and glue... maybe even do some priming.

Anyway, stay tuned to see Dark Age warriors painted at a rather frenetic pace!

Norman Crossbowmen

2012-01-19T20:54:00.000-08:00

Finally getting back to the Dark Ages stuff. I have five weeks until the Dark Ages DBA campaign and two armies to finish up. So it’s going to be all Dark Ages all the time from now until them…

(Remember: click on the pictures for a bigger version)

These are Norman crossbowmen from Crusader Miniatures.

I like them. They’re nice to paint.

The photos aren’t great because I had to take it indoors. Normally I’d take pics outside – so much better light. But It’s been a little chilly here and even I have my limits..

At one point in the day it actually dropped to -49°C with the windchill.... no fun.

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

More Normans/West Franks… Scotts... a few Anglo-Saxons and Vikings…

Kazubushistan 1918

2012-01-18T23:45:00.000-08:00

I thought I’d try and organize some semi-monthly game nights on the 1st and 3rd Wednesdays of each month. I missed out on the 1st one this month (as the plan hadn’t fully congealed), but got it together for the 3rd! Last night John and Rick came over and we tried out a mash up of Ever Victorious Armies and Contemptible Little Armies (with a few ideas stolen from Black Powder). What we ended up with seemed to work out okay. We spent the first hour just catching up (I haven’t seen John in months) and didn’t get started until after 8PM and the game was pretty much wrapped up by 10PM or so and in the meantime played a pretty big battle...

I should really write down some of the rules and stuff – beyond the QR chart I have… and I need to sort out tanks and aircraft… among other things…

Kazubul, Kazubushistan, November 1918

SITUATION

A couple months ago Allied forces crossed over from Persia into the Russian territory of Kasubushistan. A Scots Brigade and a battalion of French Foreign Legionnaires have set up a depot in Kazubul for supplying counter revolutionary forces. The situation has deteriorated for the Counter revolutionary forces in Kazubushistan and the Bolsheviks have decided to capture the depot at Kazubul before the allies can pull out.

SCENARIO

The Bolsheviks objectives are the train station and the town itself – both are wharhousing considerable supplies.

The Allied forces objective is to deny the Bolsheviks their objectives.

FORCES

Allied Forces

Brigadier Hamish McBoorden C-in-C
Colonel Pierre Lepeieu – Staff Officer

7th Scottish Rifle Regiment (15)
12th Royal Highland Regiment (15)
2 field batteries Royal Artillery
1 battery Machine-Gun Corp
2/7iemme Legion Etranger (15)
Railroad workers and local militia (10)

Bolshevik Forces

Comrade Joseph Trotsky C-in-C

Comrade Lowelski – Staff Officer
3x Bolshivik Rifle Battlions (15ea.)
1x Machine-gun battery
1x Field Battery

Comrade Bertelinov– Staff Officer
3x Bolshivik Rifle Battlions (15ea.)
1x Machine-gun battery
1x Cossack Squadron (9)

THE GAME

(Remember: click on the pictures for a bigger version)

Comerade Lowelski plotting the downfall of the imperialist stooges.

The Bolshevik Horde deployed for action.

The Allies prepare to defend their depot against the Bolshevik horde.

Ka-BLAM! The Royal Artillery takes it toll.

A turn or two later the Bolsheviks got their gun set up on a hill in range of the town and for a few turns the guns pounded each other with counter battery fire. Eventually the Russian guns were silenced, but they had afforded the Infantry a few turns of relief… but not nearly enough…

We decided, in general, we need more GUNS on the table for this sort of action!!

The bolshie horde surges forward again.

Onward!

Bolshevik Cavalry tries to charge the town.

…but are cut to pieces by the MGs deployed in the town and the Highlander waiting outside of the town.

One of Comerade Lowelski’s battalions has already been cut down by machine-gun, artillery and rifle fire. The remaining battalions would advance a little further and try to engage the French in a firefight… but they ultimately lost.

The remaining Cavalrymen failed two morale tests and could advance no further. The following turnt hey were finished off by the MGs.

Comerade Bertelinov’s lead battalion was apparently formed of elite marksmen!? The shot the crap out of the Highlanders on the outskirts of town. The Higlanders were down to five figures when the near-full-strength Bolshevik battlion advanced past the shattered Cavalry and were nearly within assaulting distance.

Antoehr turn of shooting took out three more - requiring three morale tests of the highland unit now whittled down to two figures and already having two moral failure markers. They PASSED ALL THREE tests!

They next turn, however, the Bolsheviks assaulted and whipped out the rest of the Highlanders. WE actually rolled for the close combat, but as I was writing this I realized they should have been destroyed on contact (units with two moral failure marker that are contacted by an enemy unit are automatically destroyed) – the outcome was the same, so…

Bertelinovs follow on battalions slowed at this point, unable to keep pace with the elite 1st battlion.

The first battalion pushed through the Highlanders position and assaulted the town. They stuck in the town for a turn or two but were eventually defeated by the Scotts.

The MGs and artillery were starting to take a toll on Bertelinovs battalions…

The last roll I made for my MGs – hitting on 4+… doh! must have jammed or something.

Definitely more guns required... I have three more British/Canadian 18-pounders, Two German Krupp 77mm, and another Russian gun to do... I should pick up a few more for everyone!

Anyway, good fun was had by all (I think...). We’ll have to try it again after the Dark Age DBA campaign weekend. The next two game nights (February 1st and 15th) will probably be devoted to DBA to get people up to speed before the campaign on the 25th. In March we should get back to some Great War and Colonial wargaming and maybe some other stuff… War of 1812? I found a starship fleet combat game based on HOTT that I’d like to have a go at.

For the next five weeks, however, I’m going to have to get busy with the painting of the Dark Age warriors. I have two armies I had planned to have completed before the campaign!?

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

Some Norman Crossbowmen!

Royal Artillery 18-Pound Field Gun

2012-01-14T13:27:00.000-08:00

A second, early war Royal Artillery 18-Pound Field Gun. (The first on is HERE)

(Remember: click on the pictures for a bigger version)

The gun and crew are from Renegade Miniatures.

Another view. I have another pair of guns and crews – but with a late war crew. They’ll all probably see more action as Royal CANADIAN Artillery. These chaps might see action as Canucks too.

I think the gunner at the back is holding a High Explosive shell...

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

Nothing really on the workbench, I’ve been trying to tidy up a bit and sort things out. I did prime some Normans while watching Paul the other night (and it’s a good think I was only priming otherwise I would have made a right mess of things – laughing my ass off and all…).

Trying to get a regular game night going again on the first and third Wednesdays – so hopefully there’ll be some game reports soon-ish. I’m thinking I want to get all these Great War types I’ve been painting on the table to start with!

42nd Canadian Infantry Battalion (Royal Highland Regiment of Canada)

2012-01-08T08:01:00.000-08:00

These chaps are to represent the 42nd Canadian Infantry Battalion (Royal Highland Regiment of Canada). Now those of you who have been paying attention for a long time or delved back into the older posts may be wondering why I’m painting up Great War Miniatures for my Vimy Project when I have figures of my own that I’ve modeled and could cast up for myself… I have no clear answer other than: “I felt like it…”.

I’ve picked up enough Great War Miniatures to do the 7th Canadian Infantry Brigade (Which Included the 42nd and 49th Canadian Infantry Battalions, as well as the Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry and the Royal Canadian Regiment). I also happen to pick up enough Renegade Miniatures to do the 8th Canadian Infantry Brigade. I may pick up Brigades worth of other manufacturers minis… just for the fun of it…

Though I’m not sure how many other manufacturers there are that are doing late war WW1 British…? I suppose there’s Gripping Beast/Woodbine, Old Glory (of which I have nearly two battalions worth already – painted up as battalions from the 1st Division)… Irregular Miniatures…? Any others…?

(Remember: click on the pictures for a bigger version)

As mentioned these are Great War Miniatures. I really like the minis – lots of character and details (like the picks and shovels and mugs and other sundry items of kit hanging off their packs and webbing– which I have often seen in photos but have yet to see any other manufacturer put on any figures!)

Some are in kilt aprons others are not. Three of them aren't from "Highlander" packs. To make up the fifteen I bought a pack of Highlanders Advancing and a Highland Command pack - each containing six figures. Rather than buying another Highlander Advancing pack and having three spares, I noticed there was a pack of British in Great Coats - so I ordered one of those and it just kind of worked out that I could use three of them in the Highland regiment and three in one of the regular regiments and I didn't end up with any spare figures.

These guys are destined to serve at Vimy . I happen to know there were specific orders issued stating that troops were NOT to wear great coats! The powers that be did not want anything slowing their advance! I figured however that soldiers being soldiers SOME of them would have snuck them along with them during the advance up to the line in the dark - and if anyone were to turn a blind eye to such shenanigans it might be a highland unit (wearing KILTS) in the blowing snow!!

I have no idea if the 42nd Canadian Infantry Battalion wore red hackles on their helmets. They were on the minis and I figured if other Highland units wore them, it seemed likely that the 42nd of Canada could very well have... If presented with eveidence that they very definitely did not, I can always carve them off and touch up the helmet covers...

If I ever game the last 100 days I'll have to convert a Will Bird figure. Bird Served with the 42nd from Vimy to the end of the war. In his memoir The Ghosts Have Warm Hands, he mentions during that last push he'd found an old pair of trews which he had cut off to be shorts and wore those in place of the kilt. I seem to recall a passing filed officer (might have been in a car?) spotted him and stopped to tell him he was a disgrace before carrying on... Have to read that again some time.

They are a bit slighter than the Renegade Minis and as such there were many bent rifles and bayonets when they arrived. A handful of repairs were required and one rifle is more or less beyond repair (thin rifle, broken off at the point where the hand is gripping the stock. I guess I could drill it and put in a bit of wire and build up a new stock around it… at some point…).

52 figures painted in the first week of the year... if only I could keep up that rate for the rest of the year - I could make a SERIOUS dent in the led pile!

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

Not sure… While there are a number of items populating my workbench at the moment I’m feeling the need to switch gears and get some work done on some not-so-hobby-related projects… Reading… drawing comics… painting other stuff…

Spartans and Scottish Officer

2012-01-08T07:58:00.000-08:00

A couple other odd items I happen to finish up recently…

(Remember: click on the pictures for a bigger version)

This is a Scottish field officer of some sort from Great War Miniautres. He'll probably end up a Brigade commander in some VBCW game...

A pair of Spartans – the crouching one on the left is from Wargames Foundry and the psioloi on the right is from Crusader Miniatures.

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

Great War Highlanders… CANADIAN Highlanders!

Spartan and Signalers

2012-01-07T12:03:00.001-08:00

A couple more odd items rolling off the workbench….

(Remember: click on the pictures for a bigger version)

This is a Spartan Officer (or magistrate or emissary) from Wargames Foundry.

These are late war Canadian (British) signalers from Renegade Miniatures. They came with a “regiment pack” I bought which contained command, signalers and Vickers MGs. I’ve painted them with a grey shoulder patch for the 3rd Canadian Division.

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

Great War Highlanders… CANADIAN Highlanders!

Greek Hoplites

2012-01-04T09:41:00.001-08:00

For ages I’ve wanted to do a Greek Hoplite army. Heck I’ve dreamed of doing four or five so I could do a Peleponesian War campaign. Jackson finishing up his Spartans got me thinking about it again… and then when I saw some ready made ancient armies on for half price at North Star Figures… well… I had my credit card out faster than you can say “When are you ever going to paint…”

Anyway, here are the first two stands of Hoplites

(Remember: click on the pictures for a bigger version)

These Hoplites are from Crusader Miniatures. They were part of a Clash of Empires Army… I have no idea what Clash of Empires is like… I will be using these for DBA and HOTT.

A view of their backs.

I should have taken pics of the shields before basing them – you can’t really see the shield in the second rank…

Well, with the two Psiloi (here and here) I finished earlier this is one third of the stands of this army done! (Unfortunately figure-wise it’s only about a quarter…)

MORE hoplites – these are for Savage Worlds Skirmishin’. The figures are from Black Tree Design. A while back they were having a crazy sale and some packs were up to 70% off. These were some of those. Unfortunately more of the packs that were 70% off had no pictures… and some of the BTD figures poses leave something to be desired so I only ordered a pack of each…

These turned out to be pretty good. Had I known I should have ordered enough of these for an entire Hoplite Army!

As it is BTD had another sale around Xmas and all foot were 50% off – including some unit deals – so I ended up ordering enough for ANOTHER hoplite army… Oh dear…

Since I’m working on Hoplites of different manufacturers… I thought I take the opportunity to do a little comparison pic for you:

These are Hopite shirlds from Wargames Foundry, Crusader Miniatures, and Black Tree Design! Quite the difference, eh?

Where I get a few more similarly based guys finished up I’ll do some comparison pics of the figures.

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

Well… probably not Hoplites. Though they were fun to do they, as I hope you can imagine, took a crazy amount of time!?

Tomorrow I should have some a Spartan and some Great War signalers. After that it looks like I’ll have some Great War Highlanders. And then…? More Great War stuff…? War of 1812? Dark Ages…? All possibilities!

An Odd Assortment

2012-01-02T14:12:00.000-08:00

A few odd and sundry items to kick off the year…

(Remember: click on the pictures for a bigger version)

Another stand of Psiloi for an Ancient Greek DBA army and a couple spares based individually for skirmish gamin’ (miniatures from Crusader Miniatures)

“Gonville Bromhead: Fact and Film” from Trent Miniatures

Some Great War Canadians. The officer with the shotgun is from Great War Miniautres and the corporal in the great coat with the Lewis gun is from Renegade Miniatures.

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

Tomorrow I should be finished a few Hoplites – watch for them over at Analogue Hobbies, Then here the following day.

Despite the Great War not really featuring in my PLANS FOR 2012 I seem to have a lot of them polluting my workbench at the moment. I’ll probably paint a few more to clear that out of my system then carry on with some Dark Ages stuff that I actually DO need to get done! There’s also a few war of 1812 and 20mm WW2 lurking at the back…

Of course I went and saw War Horse a couple days ago… and I have some early war British cavalrymen that just arrived…

Great War British

2011-12-31T16:57:00.001-08:00

This is the last of the stuff I’ll be getting done this year. I have a bunch of othe stuff that’ll be done over the next week, but nuthin else I’m finishing in the next few hours, so…

(Remember: click on the pictures for a bigger version)

These are early Great War British from Renegade Miniatures.

Here they with the rest of the unit.

I have one more gun and crew and another two units of Scots then this collection is done (for the time being….).

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

There is a large and varied lot sitting on my workbench at the moment… Dark Age Normans… Ancient Greek… Great War British and Canadians… 1812 British and Militia… Which will be the first that I complete in 2012…? Guess you’ll just have to stay tuned to find out!

It’s All Greek To Me

2011-12-31T16:49:00.001-08:00

The first of my recently arrived Ancient Greeks…

(Remember: click on the pictures for a bigger version)

This is a stand of Psiloi. The figures are from Crusader Miniatures.

The rest of the army might take a while… It’s not a high priority. Though I may do one stand of hoplite, just for giggles….

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

I’ve finished up the last of the Renegade early Great War British infantry… (see them here in a moment of two) and started basing and prepping the Great War Miniatures early war Scots and later war British/Canadians…

I’ve been thinking about digging out the T-34s from my WW2 28mm Soviets and the British Commandos from the Modern 28mm stuff… both those are the only things left in both “collections” that are unfinished and it’d be nice to say “I’m done with those’… again… There’s so many things that are so close to being “done”… some would take a week… some would take two or three…. I should really do a big stocktaking again and compile a “BIG TO DO” list. Of course a lot of those nearly finished project have nothing to do with what I’m planning for this year… and I’ve got a lot of painting to do to get what I need done for this year… ugh..

Still More Great War Scots

2011-12-29T08:25:00.000-08:00

Last of the Great War Scots (well… for now…)

(Remember: click on the pictures for a bigger version)

These chaps are from Renegade Miniatures.

Here they are skirmishing with the rest of the unit…

Of course now I have another unit of early war Scots from Great War Miniatures (as well as a unit of Highlanders) to do… (see previous post)

I also happen to finish up some WW2 Soviet Officers:

These are from Crusader Miniatures. My friend Mr. Miller found them in a bargain bin in some store in Vancouver a week or so ago while he was visiting and picked them up for me. I knocked them off because… well.. they’re quick and easy and every other 28mm WW2 Soviet figure I have is painted… I couldn’t have four unpainted infantrymen hanging over my head when the rest of the collection is completely painted… (Well… at least all the foot… I think there’s a couple of three T-34s to assemble and paint…)

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

Last night I finished up some skirmishers for an DBA Greek Hoplite Army, which should be up on Analogue Hobbies today (and here tomorrow).

Rapidly approaching completion are the last of the Renegade early Great War British infantry… gunners are getting there too… Invading the workbench are some more Greeks (Hoplites!) – though I need to manufacture some spear for them. After polishing off those British infantrymen tonight I’ll probably spend a bit of time manufacturing a whole lot of spears for the Hoplites and Normans and them prepping, priming said Hoplites and Normans as well as the Great War Minis…

Because I Didn't Have Enough To Do...

2011-12-28T12:12:00.000-08:00

Here's a desk shot from last night with some of those Scots I mentioned I was finishing up:

(Remember: click on the pic to see a slightly larger version):

Also on the desk are some other Great War British infantry and gunners... More 1812 stuff... 20mm WW2 Stuff... some sculpting projects...

The aforementioned Scots are up on Analogue Hobbies now and will be posted here tomorrow...

I got them done just in time for some MORE to arrive:

This should make two more units (battalions) of early Great War Scottish (one Highland, one Lowland), and another Brigade of Canadians for the Vimy Project. I ordered them from Maelstrom Games.

Also arriving in the post was part one of the second order from Northstar Miniatures which contained about half of the Norman Army I ordered (Which I will be using to make another Norman/West Frank DBA army). Hopefully part two will arrive tomorrow.

Dead Germans and a Viking with a Golf Bag Full of Axes

2011-12-27T22:47:00.000-08:00

A couple things I finished up over the weekend.

First, some casualty/morale failure markers for my great war Germans:

(Remember: click on the pictures for a bigger version)

These are from Old Glory.

Second, my addition to Curt’s Viking Warband”

The figure is from Gripping Beast (though I think the shield is form Old Glory…?!), axes for various manufacturers and the golfbag by yours truly.

Yes, He had a tartan golf bag full of axes… The conversation that led to this can be found HERE

Alright this is getting Silly!

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

I have some more Great War Scots I’m finishing up this evening and some WW2 Soviet Officers. After that…? Hard to say… I have a lot more Great War stuff I’ve been prepping and priming over the last couple days… some Ancient Greeks… I should probably get cracking on some Dark Age types – the Scots and some Anglo-Saxons I need to finish up… a few other odd and sudry items are littering my workbench and threatening to distract…

More Great War Jocks

2011-12-25T23:17:00.000-08:00

A couple more lads I finished up the other day.

Suddenly keen on finishing up some Great War stuff… (probably because I just ORDERED a bunch MORE Great War stuff…). This threatens to derail my plans I should really be painting those DARK AGE Scots (for the DBA campaign in February) and 1812 infantrymen (for Queenston Heights in the fall)!

(Remember: click on the pictures for a bigger version)

These Jocks are also from Renegade Miniatures. I really like these models – nice clean (if a bit exaggerated) details – totally easy to paint. No guessing involved.

Their backsides…

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

Prepping and priming loads more great war stuff… not sure what I’ll paint next. Probably some of the Great War stuff...?

Great War Scots Officers

2011-12-24T08:47:00.001-08:00

Well I don’t have the highlanders to show you yet. I’m supposed to wait 24 hours after Curt posts them over at Analogue Hobbies for them to count in the2nd Annual Winter Painting Challenge. He’s holding off on posting them right away… something about demoralizing all the other participants… I can post today's pics because they won't be counted - as they were (mostly) painted before the start of the challenge.

Anyway, I decided I needed some officers for the Highlanders and Scots. As Renegade doesn’t make their own I decided to convert some.

(Remember: click on the pictures for a bigger version)

These are converted Renegade Miniatures British officers (From WW1B04 British Command – I can’t seem to find the post where I originally painted them…) Anyway, I carved off their Service Dress Caps and for the Highland unit’s officer I modeled a Tam and painted his pants tartan to look like trews (though, technically, I think he should be wearing a cut-away jacket with them – it seemed like it would be to fiddly to try and carve away part of his jacket and pockets…). For the Scots officer I added a Glengarry…

As the rest of the Scots arrived yesterday. I stuck them to bases last night and will probably prime them today sometime and get cracking on them tomorrow to finish up that unit!

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

On the workbench, much like yesterday, War of 1812 British Infantry and Militia (though they are now primed), 20mm British Paras, other assorted and sundry articles… and now some of the recently arrived Renegade models…

As Amanda’s got a week off I should get some extra painting time in – and I’ll probably use it to the fullest – not really just to demoralize my fellow competitors – but just to get some stuff DONE as I imagine my painting time is going to diminish some in the new year…

1812 Militiamen and Great War Royal Artillery

2011-12-23T15:31:00.001-08:00

As promised here are the War of 1812 Militiamen I made. As with the British Infantryman I had a lot of miscasts – I’d cast over twice as many as I’ve painted here (and some of these even have flaws). I think I figured out what the issue was and hopefully next time I get to casting I won’t have so much trouble!

(Remember: click on the pictures for a bigger version)

1812 Militiamen modeled, moulded, cast and painted by yours truly.

Unlike the Regular Infantry which I am basing 8/base, these fellows I’ve decided to do 6/base. Mostly because as militia I imagine they weren’t drilled as well as the Regulars and their lines would be a little more loose.

These could really be from either side of the border, but in my minds eye I imagined them being from Upper Canada…

This is a Renegade Miniatures early Great War Royal Artillery 18-Pounder QF Field Gun. I have a second one on the work bench… I’d tried to do them both at the same time, but got bogged down on fht efirst gun and just wanted to finish it up quick to keep the momentum going… hopefully I’ll keep it going enough to get the second gun finished…

Anyone know what type of shell that gunner is holding?

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

I have a PILE of Great War Highlanders that I finished up last night. You should be able to see them posted at Analogue Hobbies shortly… What those Jocks need is an officer. Renegade doesn’t (currently) make any Highland officers. I do have some spare Renegade British Officers and I was thinking I could paint one in trews. Can anyone out there confirm or deny that Higland officers did such a thing…? I’m pretty sure I read in Wellington’s Highlanders that officers in kilted regiments during the Napoleonic era often (or were even required to?) wear trews – because they often had to ride horses. Was this regulation/tradition carried on into the Great War…? I may just do that anyway… of course I’d probably have to do some converting as all those officers are in SD caps and the Highland officers would probably have worn Glengarries or Balmorals…

Ugh… too… many.. late… nights… I’ll post them tomorrow… and then I’m going to have to take a break from the late (like up until 2am) nights… I gotta slow down and pack myself here… (although it would be cool to finish up 1000 foot figures this year – only ~150 to go… seven days… 20/day….? I COULD probably do it… of course it would mean ignoring my family for the week…)

On the workbench I do have some more 1812 British Infantry and Militia (had a bit better success with the second lot of casting.

I also have some 20mm WW2 stuff I was admiring TimmyD’s entry to The Challenge and thinking I didn’t have much to finish up my (re-organized and re-based) Para battalion.

That second Royal Artillery 18-pounder is also still sitting there and has been joined by some Great War German Casualties is also

Happy Whatever To Me...

Two of my biggish orders arrived today! There's Renegade - mostly Great War Stuff and a few marching Napoleonic British - and there's North Star #2 - a couple of ready made armies for some game or another that I'm going to use to make a DBA Greek Hoplite Army and some Warlord Games partisan types... Huzzah!

I don't even want to think about how that's going to rack up my "purchased" column for this year, though...

Machine-gun Jocks

2011-12-22T15:44:00.000-08:00

You (and I) will be experiencing a bit of time-delay for the next three months. As part of the Analogue Hobbies 2nd Annual Winter Painting Challenge all entries must be posted there first and allow 24 hours before posting them on our own blogs… So I was done these chaps yesterday… and they were posted on Anologue Hobbies HERE

If you mosey on over to Analogue Hobbies you can see what I finished up last night – some of the 1812 Militiamen and Great War Royal Artillery 18-Pounders!! (They’ll be posted here tomorrow evening).

(Remember: click on the pictures for a bigger version)

These are Early Great War Scotts machine-gun teams from Renegade Miniatures.

Well the not-so-kilted guys are supposed to be Early War Scots and, I think, are supposed to be wearing Glengarries like the Lowland Scots I did last week. When I went to prime them I realized they weren’t in Glengarries but some sort of Field Service Cap (Which I didn’t even think was used in the Great War…?) – after I’d started painting I notice a little bit of a loop hanging off the back of the head and at first thought might be some flash I'd missed, but on further inspection realized it was probably put there on purpose and supposed to be the tails of a Glengarry!? So it was either carve off the tails and use them as guys in a Field Service Cap OR carve of the wings and call it a Glengarry… well it looked more like a FS caps so I carved off the loop/tail-thingie… I’m guessing the sculptor had already done a team in FS caps and thought it’d be a quick easy job to re-do them as Scots in Glens…? but… well… forgot to file off the wings and buttons and stuff.. Or did a head swap with the other Great War Vickers team – but grabbed the wrong head and tried to fix it by adding a tail to an FS cap and hoped no one would notice…? I have no idea…

I’m not terribly concerned These’ll probably see more action as Army of the Scottish Republic in the 1938 Civil War – and by then the British Army definitely WAS using Khaki FS Caps…

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

As I mentioned you can see the 1812 Milita I painted last night over at Analogue Hobbies today (and here tomorrow). The kiddies are sleeping at my folks tonight so I’m gonna git some stuff FINISHED! I have some Highland Infantry rapidly approaching completion and a second 18-pounder with crew, primed, assembled and on the workbench…. then…? Some sculpting to do…? More casting…? We shall see…

Sample 1812 Infantryman

2011-12-20T12:20:00.000-08:00

As I mentioned in the previous post I finished up some moulds of the first batch of 1812 infantry and got casting them last night. Unfortunately all of the British regulars were miscast – the one, below, was the least messed up so I primed and painted him anyway just to see what he’d look like. (I’ve sorted out the casting issue and should be cranking more of these out shortly…). Before I get to basing and presenting entire units I’m going to have to make a flank company figure, an ensign, and an officer… and maybe a drummer…?

(Remember: click on the pictures for a bigger version)

War or 1812 British Infantryman (41st Regiment of Foot) - modeled, moulded, cast and painted by yours truly…

…and the backside…

Well, obviously, I ain't no Perry Brother... but when there's a hundreds of them on the table in dense formation... who's going to notice?!

The militiamen I have didn’t turn out quite as bad – I should have a stand or two of those painted up shortly (of course they will be posted over at Analogue Hobbies first as part of the 2nd Annual Winter Painting Challenge…

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

I have some more Great War Jocks on the workbench and ready for painting… but they may be eclipsed by these War or 1812 figures….

As mentioned I also have some sculpting to do (flank company figure, ensign, officer, drummer, etc…)?

Hey, I just realized it’s five years ago today that I started this blog… This is the 811th post.

SPARTANS!

2011-12-18T13:43:00.000-08:00

PREPARE FOR GLORY!

Some of you may recall about… oh… TWO YEARS AGO I painted a stand of Spartans to help get my friend Jackson's Early Greek Hoplite army started… Well he FINALLY completed them and brought them out for their first game last night… (I think the figures were painted nearly a year ago… and, after watching 300 again a month or so back, he finally got to finishing up the bases!)

Not having an Early Greek Hoplite army to oppose him…. yet… or even any of the multitude of ancient armies I have ready to paint completed… (Well I do have the Early Imperial Romans… but they’re few hundred years later and nothing like what the hoplite would have fought…) I busted out some Middle Anglo-Saxons… even later than the Romans, but the same make up as a number of other Hoplite armies:

FORCES

Middle Anglo-Saxons
1x Spear General
9x Spear
2x Psiloi

Early Greek Hoplite - Spartans
1x Spear General
11x Spear

THE GAME

(Remember: click on the pictures for a bigger version)

Spartans defending the… er… well… Sparta, I guess…?

The Saxons advance.

Psiloi attempting to be a nuisance.

The lines close.

BA-DAM! With a thunderous din of metal on metal the antagonists clash! Lots of shoving back and forth, and in that first round I killed his general…

First Turn… First game… Dead General…

Luckily later in the bound the Spartans also got lucky and took out one of my own spear and so the game went on – though with the Spartans suffering in the PIP department due to the loss of their general.

Well, all I had to do to end the game victorious was to knock out one more stand of spear (Dead General + more lost than the enemy = game over)… but the Spartans seemed to be a bit angry and kept destroying MY stands?!

More Shoving back and forth.

Saxons even up the score….

Spartans take out another Saxon…

Battle lines looking a mess.

Saxons even up the score again – with some cagey maneuvering of Psiloi behind the Spartan line!

Even more of a mess.

Now way out on the end I had a bit of an exposed flank and Jackson was finally able to turn it. Which could have spelt disaster and loss for the Saxons. However I had one Spear in the middle of the line isolated and overlapped on both sides… That didn’t work out. then we rolled for the flanked stand at the end of the line…

50% chance he’s going to push me back into my own guys and that’ll be it Saxons lose 4-3…

Well not only did the Saxons not die… they rolled a six… to Jackson’s one… and utterly DESTROYED the Spartan Spear and that was the end of that… The Spartans gave up the field!

I can hardly say they lost because they were green and un experienced… despite the loss of their general in the first round and a more or less uphill battle they fought like deamons from the pits of hell and sold themselves dearly…

GAME #2

Well that was quick so we had another round. This time Rick wanted to play and with something a little more fantastical. Rick took the mounted Orc army- going for mobility along with some hard-hitting behemoths. Jackson ended up defending and threw a river out there. I made a few cracks about “Defending the HOTT river, where their mobility counts for nothing…”

FORCES

Orcs
1x Behemoth General (Giant)
1x Behemoth (Trolls)
3x Beasts (Wolves)
4x Riders (Wolf-Riders_
1x Shooter (Goblin Archers)

Early Greek Hoplite - Spartans
1x Hero General
10x Spear

The Spartans advance to the river and the Orcs and allies paraded back and forth along the river trying to find a place to cross where there wasn’t Spartans.

Seriously, there was WAAAAAAAAAY too much moving back and forth along the river bank - they didn’t seen to get that on a 90cm wide battlefield… with an army taking up 66cm of that… and it taking at least two turns to cross once committed… There was just NO WAY they were going to get across anywhere that wasn’t defended!

More of the same.…

Back…

and forth…

Finally Rick committed his behemoths and archers and tried to bludgeon their way across. The Behemoth/Giant General has some limited successs, but the archers were destroyed in the crossing

The Spartans closed ranks and the Giant was eventually forced back into the river.

Then the Trolls were destroyed…

Rick finally committed his wolves and wolf riders.

…and they were destroyed…

one…

by…

one…

Spartans won this one – with no losses! If this is how they do on their first outing, they will definitely be a force to be reckoned with!

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

More pictures of whatever I happen to be painting and blathering about plans for the new year…

Great War Lowland Scots

2011-12-18T12:13:00.000-08:00

More random bits of painting….

While these are Great War era figures, I’d kind of been imagining them as Army of the Scottish Republic for the 1938 Civil War…

(Remember: click on the pictures for a bigger version)

These chaps are from Renegade Miniatures. I’ve ordered a second pack to finish off the unit…

I have to get a regular wargame night set up in the new year…

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

A game report of some HOTT/DBA action.

I just poured the second half of the moulds for some new figures (mostly War of 1812) – should be casting them by tomorrow night and painting them Tuesday!! Huzzah!!

1812 Masters Update

2011-12-16T08:01:00.000-08:00

Coming along very nicely…

(Remember: click on the pictures for a bigger version)

well as nicely as can be expected from a lunk like me… (judge them not too harshly until you see them cast, painted up and marshaled on the table in the hundreds!)

anyway… hopefully at least the British infantryman will be done shortly, as will a couple of the generic militia. If the stars are right I should hopefully start mould-making this weekend and start casting up a storm next week – Huzzah!

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

More of this master/mouldmaking and casting buisiness…

1st Battalion, 1st Regiment of Foot (Royal Scots) – Finished!

2011-12-15T08:44:00.000-08:00

Well… Sort of…

For DBA-X I’m organizing my battalions into three stands, and so for that purpose this unit is complete. As with the 42nd Regiment of Foot (Royal Highland Regiment) I painted earlier this year, I plan to do another two half stands so these could potentially be fielded as a 32 figure unit in Black Powder (just ordered the additional Center Company Marching figures from Renegade Miniatures last week – curse them and their 5 for 4 sale…). Anyway…

These are the 1st Battalion, 1st Regiment of Foot (Royal Scots). They had been stationed in the West Indies from 1801-1812 and at the outbreak of the War with the United States of America were sent to Quebec. They later saw action at Sackett's Harbor, the capture of Fort Niagara, Longwoods, Chippawa, Lundy's Lane, Fort Erie and Cook's Mills. Part of my Long Range Plan is to do Chippawa and/or Lundy’s Lane in 2014 for the bicentenary… These guys may not see much action for a while.

(I suppose if anyone were to show up with some French opponents that need a flogging I could pretend they were the Third Battalion – which fought at Quatre Bras and Waterloo)

(Remember: click on the pictures for a bigger version)

1st Battalion, 1st Regiment of Foot (Royal Scots). The miniatures are from Renegade Miniatures.

I know I said I'd wait until the Analogue Hobbies 2nd Annual Winter Painting Challenge was one... but... I'd finished one stand and once you get going on something it's hard to stop... and if you do... it's sometimes hard to get it going again. It's not like I have a shortage of historical miniatures to paint over the next three months...

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

The next Redcoats you likely see here will be of some of my own sculpts for the War of 1812 – they’re coming along nicely – but probably a week or two off…

The workbench is more or less cleared off… I’m feeling like getting some sculpting done.

Sci-Fi Guy

2011-12-15T08:41:00.000-08:00

Just some random guy that happen to end up on the workbench (I'm not even sure how he ended up there...1?), that I finished up last night for giggles…

(Remember: click on the pictures for a bigger version)

I think it might have been a Kryomek figure…?

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

Royal Scots… in just a moment…

Tommies

2011-12-10T12:39:00.000-08:00

Finished up a few 1914 British last night…

(Remember: click on the pictures for a bigger version)

These figures are from Renegade Miniatures. They’ve got their 5 for 4 sale on now and I’ve gone and ordered a few more things (Great War and Napoleonics)… mostly to finished up a few units (like this one)…

Oh and North Star Figures was selling some ready made Clash of Empires armies (using Crusader Miniatures figures) for HALF PRICE… so… um… I bought a few… I know nothing about Clash of Empries, but looking at what was in them they kind of worked out to be just enough for a DBA army (plus a few spare for skimish gamin’)… and did I mention that it was half price!? Half the already discounted price – because as an army it’s less than buying the packs, right? Well that’s what I’m telling myself anyway – I couldn’t NOT buy them!?

Don’t get me started about the Maelstrom Games sale… (more Great War miniatures on the way...)

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

I also got cracking on the rest of Royal Scots… hopefully see them finished this week some time.

I also need to finish up the 1812 infantry

Battle of Queenston Heights

2011-12-07T22:38:00.000-08:00

(a little more prattling about plans for next year…)

As I’ve alluded to in previous posts I’m planning on doing some sort of big game of the Battle of Queenston Heights for the bicentenary on October 13th next year. It’s a long way off, but I’ll have a lot of painting and terrain making to do so it’s good to start planning these things well in advance (the trick is not to plan them TOO far in advance so that you lose interest or forget what the hell you were trying to do in the first place…).

I’m still doing a bit of reading

I’m using the scenario from Bruce McFarlane’s excellent Red Rocket’s Glare as a starting point and currently planning to use DBA-Hx to play it. The scenario may be altered (though it seems pretty straightforward) and the rules may change based on playtesting (when I get to that); There’s Black Powder and Ever Victorious Armies… but it’s a start.

In the RRG scenario it gives Orders of Battle for two different levels of play. I’m currently working with the idea of one company (from the “small units scale”) being one stand in DBA-X. So the orders of battle would look something like this:

British

49th Foot - 1 company/stand
49th Foot Light Infantry (Rifles) - 1 company/stand
41st Foot - 3 companies/stands
Lincoln Militia - 5 companies/stands
York Volunteers Militia – 2 companies/stands
Mohawk Indians - 1 company/stand
Heavy Fild Guns - 1 battery/stand
Light Field Gun - 1 battery/stand

Americans

13th US Regulars - 3 companies/stands
6th US Regulars - 3 companies/stands
28th US Regulars - 3 companies/stands
16th New York Militia - 3 companies/stands
20th New York Militia - 3 companies/stands
17th New York Militia - 3 companies/stands
18th New York Militia - 3 companies/stands
Pennsylvania Militia - 3 companies/stands

For regulars I was planning on mounting 8/base and 6/base for militia so I will need:

British Regulars – 40
British/Canadian Militia – 42
US Regulars – 72
US Militia – 90

I’ve started modeling some figures to cast my own infantry. Since that first post I’ve made a mould of the doll, cast half a dozen and started working on some variants.

The Indians I already have (from the Seven Years War project that fizzled – but will one day be revived!!) and I recently painted some Napoleonic Royal Artillery that could stand in for the guns if I didn’t find something else.

War of 1812 Infantry Sculpt Update

2011-12-07T22:32:00.000-08:00

Last week…? Maybe…? The days they are just flying by... It seems like it was forever ago, but it was probably last week (maybe it was two weeks...?) that I make a mould of the 1812 infantry doll and I’ve been working on a few new masters of regulars and militiamen. Here they are:

(Remember: click on the pictures for a bigger version)

The chap in the middle is a British Regular (from the 41st or 49th Regiment of Foot). The other fellow with the beginnings of a stovepipe shako (on the far right) is going to be a US Regular infantryman. The rest of them are going to be militia. I’m probably going to do a few more militiamen as well (different jackets).

They’re a bit crude… but when there’s 220 of them all painted up pretty-like on a table full of beautiful terrain… no one will even notice…

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

Maybe some Elves… or maybe I’ll just go ahead and finish up the 1st Battalion, 1st Regiment of Foot (Royal Scots), I mean it’s not like I have any shortage of other historical stuff to paint for the 2nd Annual Analogue Hobbies Winter Painting Challenge… I had just figured I should get a few fantasy things out of the way because I’ll be focusing on historicals for three months… but there isn’t that much fantasy stuff I really NEED to get done right away… so…

Game Plan 2012 continued – Board Games

2011-12-07T17:34:00.000-08:00

As I mentioned in the previous Game Plan 2012 post that, despite the plan to play one board wargame each month, I didn’t get much board wargaming in at all (Warrior Knights, Age of Conan and Chaos in the Old World being the happy exceptions).

I have a wall full of boardgames, 90% of which are (shamefully) still in the original shrinkwrap – I’ll point out that MOST of those games I picked up super cheap from a distributor that was blowing them out (that whole sucker-for-a-good-deal thing). A fair few of them are wargames that I’d never get Amanda or our other gaming (but not WARgaming) friends to play. So I’m thinking of organizing a game day once a month where I will tackle some of the bigger wargames. Hopefully I’ll find a set day (like, say, the third Sunday afternoon…?) and have that set aside as board Wargaming day!

(I’m also thinking of trying to organize an evening once a month to play some of the not-so-war-ish-games… but that’s with an entirely different crowd).

Here are the twelve Board War Games I think I’d like to try:

Age of Conan– 4 players, 90 minutes? (I’m sure we played for over two last time and didn’t’even finish the final age… it’ll be all afternoon!)
Warrior Knights - 6 players, 4 hours
Red Russia - 4 players, 4 hours
Soldier Raj - 5 players, 6 hours
Soldier Kings - 8 players?! 3-8 Hours
Soldier Emperor - 7 players, 4-8 hours
LOTR Risk 4 players, 3 hours
Axis & Allies 5 players, 3 hours (or maybe the 1940 Europe and Pacific version….)
Cults Across America 6 players, 3 hours
Paths of Glory - 2 players, 8 hours!?
Dragons of Glory 2 players, 3 hours (nice potential tie in with my Dragonlance Campaign)
War of 1812 2 players, 90 minutes

There’s a couple of “lighter” ones in there (Risk, Axis & Allies)… Other will definitely take a full afternoon… and others may take the whole afternoon AND part of the evening! I don’t actually OWN War of 1812… but I thought if I get through half of them by June, and I’m still on track with the Battle of Queenston Heights preparations, I thought I might treat myself…

Does this sound like a (pre-)New Years Resolution…? Could be.

Or perhaps I'll just announce the next months game day a month in advance... Quite often I end up with stuff I can't get out of on Sundays... and they're never on a fixed date.... January 1st is looking like a good day to have a game. Now to decide on which one!

See all tim's other silly games HERE

Game Plan 2012

2011-12-06T14:17:00.000-08:00

Starting a little early… But it is getting close to that time of year when I look back over what I did this past year (and I’ll do more reviewing as the end of the year draws ever nearer in December) and start to look ahead to next year and try to do some long range planning. I recognize it’s hard to do planning that far in advance because… well… I have a short attention span and interests change…

Here’s a brief view of what I’m thinking about for the next year….

Right now most of my active gaming is Fantasy role-playing and skirmishing. I’m running two separate Savage Worlds Fantasy campaigns using the old AD&D DragonLance modules (one for the Saturday Night Savages and one for my kids and their friends. I’d like to keep that going – though now that I’m getting into it I keep getting “itchy feet” – wanting to ditch the DragonLance and start up a new campaign in a fantastical setting of my own design… Anyway… want to keep the Dragon Lance campaign(s) going and stay moderately focused on fantasy stuff. With the “big kids” we seem to be getting through a module a month – so it’s going to take a year to play the whole campaign (with the not-so-big kids… its taking a bit longer…)

I’ve also been getting in a few games of Hordes of the Things and DBA.

As most of my Fantasy stuff is “Dark Ages-ish” (rather than “High Medieval”) this feeds into working on some Dark Ages stuff – in particular; finishing up the last of the Dark Ages DBA stuff. The only complete army I “need” to finish is the Pre-Feudal Scots. I have some options and extras for a few of the other armies… and I have enough figures kicking around for a complete second (and THIRD!?) Viking army that I could paint up… if I ever felt the urge…

Anyway, I thought I’d try hosting a couple DBA/HOTT campaigns in 2012. One in February (for my annual wargaming birthday bash) and one in June when Amanda and the kidz go to visit the Outlaws.

DARK AGES DBA CAMPAIGN WEEKEND

I am setting a tentative date of February 25th for the Dark Ages DBA Campaign Weekend. At minimum I will have six armies ready; Vikings, Anglo-Saxons, Normans, Welsh, Irish, and Scots. If I had time I wouldn’t mind getting additional Anglo-Saxon (or Anglo-Danish), Viking or Norman (West Frank) armies ready… but we’ll have to wait and see…

Normally we’d start the evening before with a get-together and a big battle game to get things started… but the Saskatoon Branch of Dr. Sketchy’s Anti Art School is having one of their events that night… so… We’ll have to wait and see… If anyone’s actually traveling from out of town for the game weekend I’ll probably ditch the Dr. Sketchy’s plan…

HORDES OF THE THINGS CAMPAIGN WEEKEND

June…

Around mid-June Amanda and the kidz will be heading east to visit her folks. I can’t remember the exact date, but around mid june I’m going to host another Hordes of the Things campaign (I ran another one in June Three Years Ago). This one could potentially be bigger. In addition to the six Dark Age armies (which could be used in HOTT – in fact for most of them I have made some fantastical options for HOTT). I’ll have Romans, Elves, Orcs (at least two armies worth), Dwarves, Samurai, Centaurs, and probably a couple others that could be fielded…. More on that in the new year.

And the rest of the year….

THE BATTLE OF QUEENSTON HEIGHTS

With the Bicentenary coming up I’ve gotten to reading about the War of 1812 and an getting pretty excited about doing a Battle of Queenston Heights game in October (Maybe at ToonCon…?) More detail on this one to follow, but I’m already starting to model (and cast!) some of my own figures for this one! Huzzah!

I’ve even worked out a painting schedule to get what I need done for those first three events next year… (at a reasonable rate of about 15 foot/week – which is a little less that what I’ve been averaging over the last few years – since I started keeping track of such things).

Hopefully I'll get in some board gaming too. I'd planned to host a board game afternoon once a month but only managed to get in two - Warrior Knights and Age of Conan (and one evening I got in a game of Chaos in the Old World)... Maybe I just have to make it a set day (like the first Sunday of the month) and that way folks can set that time aside a show up!! Set up the schedule NOW!

2013 and Beyond!

I’ve been thinking about other events I could work on over the next couple years. If the DBA and/or HOTT campaigns go well they will likely become annual events. I’m thinking I’d like to have a big games day three times a year (February, June and October seem to work) two of those would be HOTT/DBA campaigns, the other would be Big Battles! Here’s a few ideas I had for games to run over the next couple years:

2013 – Chateguay and Chrysler’s Farm

2014
Summer (July) - Chippawa and Lundy’s Lane
Fall (October) - First Ypres

2015 – Vimy (add Third Division – Building on the Vimy Game I ran at Mayday a few years back which focused on the Fourth Canadian Division’s attack at the North end of the Ridge)

2016 – Vimy (add Second Division)

2017
Spring (April) - Vimy (add first Division making the Complete Corps – for the 100th anniversary of the battle!)
Fall - Paschendale

2018 – Hundred Days… Amiens, Canal du Nord, Hindenburg Ling, Mons….

After that…? Who knows… Hopefully in there I’ll find some time to do some other new DBA/HOTT armies, though for some of the campaigns I’d like to do (ECW, Rome, Diadochi, Peloponnesian War, etc) I’ll probably need to devote the better part of a year…

is this madness...!?

1st Battalion, 1st Regiment of Foot (Royal Scots)

2011-12-06T12:58:00.000-08:00

First stand of Royal Scots for the War of 1812. These chaps were in Quebec in 1812 and later saw action at Sackett's Harbor, the capture of Fort Niagara, Longwoods, Chippawa, Lundy's Lane, Fort Erie and Cook's Mills. I have the rest of the battalion primed and ready, but I think I’m going to hold off on them until the 20th (so they can be counted for the 2nd Annual Analogue Hobbies Winter Painting Challenge). In the meantime I have a couple fantasy-ish things to finish up because after the 20th it’s going to be all historical all the time (well… MOST of the time) until spring!

(Remember: click on the pictures for a bigger version)

These are from Renegade Miniatures. I picked them up last year during the 5 for 4 sale (which is on again now…). I have Two other regiments worth which I think I’ll do as the 8th and 89th Regiments of Foot.

I’m working on modeling some of my own figures for the War or 1812 – including some British in stovepipe shakos. The newer shako (that the above figures are wearing), as far as I can tell, hand just come into use in 1812 – so I’m not so sure the 41st or the 49th would have had them by the time of the Battle of Queenston Heights in October of that year (despite a very popular painting of the mortally wounded sir Issac urging his troops – wearing the new style shako- on..)

Injured Royal Scot. The figure is from Front Rank Figures

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

Some Elves and probably some blathering about my plans for 2012 – and the next six years or so... (I’ve been doing some lllllllloooooooonnnnnnnngggggg range planning – which at times seems pointless considering my attention span… or lack thereof…).

Ferach Line Infantry

2011-12-04T07:57:00.000-08:00

“Ferach” is, I think, what the “French” Elves from Alternative Armies Flintloque/Slaughterloo line of miniatures are called.

(Remember: click on the pictures for a bigger version)

Ferach Line Infantry from the Witchlands campaign.

I wasn’t quite sure whatcolour to paint those greatcoats… snooping around the interwebs (and the one book I have containing pictures of French Napoleonic uniforms) and I found French in Dark Blue, Grey and Light grey great coats. Most that were obviously in Russia were grey… Though perhaps more historical I didn’t want to do them in grey – because the Russians are in grey and I wanted to be able to differentiate them easily (and besides, this ISN’T “historical”, right?) so I sort of split the difference and tried to go with a light bluish-grey… but it turned out more of just a light blue… ah well… (could be a dark blue that's faded after month - or years - of campaigning... )

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

Hmmmmm… Probably those British…

The Odd and Unusual: Giant Slugs, Napoleonic Russian Zombies, and Dead Englishmen

2011-12-03T14:18:00.000-08:00

An odd assortment rolling off the painting table today…

(Remember: click on the pictures for a bigger version)

Another “Slug Eat Your Face” from Thunderbolt Mountain. This one’s for me. I knocked it off quickly last night because, looking ahead at this evenings adventures there is actually a possibility of encountering a Giant Slug!?

Another “Russian” Zombie Line Infantryman from Alternative Armies. These are kind of fun... Again, if I had limitless money and time (or even "a lot more" money and time... and maybe a few less things to paint already...) I think it'd be totally fun to use the Flintloque/Slaughterloo line of Napoleonic Fantasy armies to make some armies for Hordes of the Things...

So tempting.... Undead Russians, French Elves... how would that not be a tonne of fun (not to mention a tonne of lead - them's chunky figures!)

Another dead Englishman from Front Rank Figures.

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

I have some more Nappy Fantasy Elves and zombies nearing completion and have started on a Napoleonic British unit… Of course there are other things haunting the workbench – Greek Hoplites, Centaurs, my assorted sculpting projects, fairy ballerinas on flying unicorns… y’know... the usual…

Men in Red

2011-12-02T13:20:00.001-08:00

Not actually the “Other Things in Red Coats” I alluded to in the previous post… but dudes that are in red… and they’re finished…

(Remember: click on the pictures for a bigger version)

I can’t remember the make of this chap. I got in a gift/trade sort of deal and, at the time, thought; “When the heck am I going to use this monstrosity!?” Well as it turns out he’ll make a perfect Dragonlord Verminard in Savage Worlds Dragonlance Campaigns

This unfortunate fellow is a little closer to what I was originally meaning… The figure is from Front Rank Figures.

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

MORE men in red… and new sculpts…

Or something all together completely different!?

Zulu Dawn (of the Dead)

2011-12-02T08:23:00.000-08:00

I was only sort of serious when, a couple posts back, I had alluded to painting some more stuff for the Zulu War… As I think I also mentioned earlier I had recently taken advantage of some deeply discounted packs at Black Tree Design - like 70% off – who can say no to that action… anyway it wasn’t entire lines it was just the occasional pack in assorted lines… so I went though their entire catalogue… all of it… to find all the 70% off packs, because, hey, at 70% off I can find all sorts of uses for all sorts of things, right? No I didn’t buy all the 70% off packs… but I did buy a few and, in the process came across this gem:

Zulu Dawn of the Dead

I’m not sure how they thought anyone interested in the pack would ever find it – it was on the bottom of the third page of the Harlequin Fantasy Undead line – which is all pretty much standard fantasy battle undead skeletons and stuff… No mention of it anywhere near their extensive Zulu War line… Perhaps they thought the Historical Puritans would be all offended and stuff…

Anyway I ordered FOUR packs (70% off remember!) so I could put together a whole unit of them (the standard unit size of my Zulu War units is 15).

(Remember: click on the pictures for a bigger version)

Zulu Dawn of the Dead

(the other eight were back ordered, but now on their way!)

If I had too much money and nothing better to do with my time, I’d totally buy piles of these – and some other zombie types and do some converting – and do a “what REALLY happened at Rorke’s Drift” scenario… (The Truth being so awful and outrageous that it was covered up and said to be a second group of Zulus that had broken off from the main army – not the RISEN DEAD FROM ISANDLWANA!!)

MWA-HA-HA-Ha-Ha-ha-ha-haaaaaa…..

I also got thinking they coudl totally be used in Rippers (Savage Worlds Victorian Horror game) or Space:1889 (players get sent out to remote region of Mars to discovery what happened to a lost patrol/comapny/etc...)

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

Other things in red coats…

New sculpted figures

Vikings Invade Ireland

2011-11-30T22:18:00.001-08:00

Gary stopped by this evening for a quick game of DBA. Brought is Vikings again. After their defeat at the hands of the Welsh, they decided to nip across the Irish Sea to invade Ireland…

SITUATION/SCENARIO

Norse Vikings attacking… er… Norse Irish?

FORCES

Norse Irish (III/46)
1x Auxilia General
5x Auxilia
4x Psiloi
2x Blade

Norse Viking (III/40b)
1x Blade General
10x Blade
1x Warband

THE GAME

I rolled a two for deployment – adding my whopping aggression factor of one – it was determined I would be defending as the total was less than the Vikings aggression factor witout even rolling the dice. Still lacking some waterway tiles, I lined up a river along one side and said that everything one the other side of the river was water too… I threw out the maximum terrain nastiness to try and break up the Viking shield wall and we went at it!

(Remember: click on the pictures for a bigger version)

With some lucky PIP dice at the outset the Irish dashed for the marsh and woods!

Gary was pretty conservative with his deployment – trying really hard to keep his line together and not expose any flanks.

More maneuvering in the marsh

Oh what a mess.

Finally the Blade and Warband near the coastline clash.

The first clash was pretty inconclusive. Bit of shoving back and forth…

The lines draw ever nearer.

Garry got a high PIP roll and brought nearly all his line into contact – there was a bit of pushing back and forth – mostly the Irish being pushed back…

But I also lost some Auxilia in the process… Irish down one.

More shoving back and forth.

I realized my blade out on the end of the line could actually benefit from some Psiloi support against the Warband.

Alas they arrived too late… Irish down two.

Once again however my general was stuck in the line – overlapped on both sides. To take off the pressure I advanced the blade in – but that brought them into side edge contact with the Warband. So I moved the Psiloi into contact with the warband – I thought this a rather clever move as I figured the warband would beat the psiloi and follow them back – out of side edge contact with my Blade. Unfortunately the Psioloi beat the warband and they recoiled into a postion where they still overlapped the blade… ah well…

Things went south at the other end of the line when a stand of Auxilia was cought by three Blade in the woods and utterly destroyed! Irish down three!

The General exposed again – alone against the Viking line…

…was finally defeated… Irish down four, including the General. Viking losses: zero…

Psiloi fleeing from the smelly Vikings

The view of things after the battle.

Defeated again… and didn’t even take any with them like they did against John… Ah well…

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

I’ve been mostly working on sculpting when I’ve had hobby time. Though after tonight’s battle I’m keen (again) to get a few waterway tiles (and some more marshes) finished…

Nappy Nonsense

2011-11-28T08:55:00.001-08:00

A couple strange and bizarre things all nominally Napoleonic-ish…

(Remember: click on the pictures for a bigger version)

This Chap I actually finished up a couple weeks back when I did a couple Rifles stands for DBA-X, but didn’t get around to basing him. The figure is from Minifigs

Scale-wise he’s not too far off the Wargames Foundry Rifles I painted up at the end of last year.

Hmmm… In that shot he does look a bit squat – keep in mind he’s crouched over and running low…

These are some “Russians” from Alternative Armies Flintloque/Slaughterloo
miniatures. A line of Napoleonic Fantasy armies. The Russians seem to all be undead. Above are a Russian Vampire officer and a Lich (supposed to be like an orthodox preacher maybe?). I’d seen these listed on ebay for dirt cheap and have wanted to shceck out the figures for a long time. They’re crazy big….

Big and chunky…

Here they are with some of the Foundry and Minifig rifles…

They came in a box set with some Zombie Russian musketeers and an assortment of Elves (who are “French”) in tattered cold weather clothes There was some scenarios for the game in the box – which I’ve never really looked at – presumably having to do with the Retreat from Moscow (or Alternative Armies fantasy equivalent of Moscow…) .

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

Zulu war stuff…? More modeling…? Gen-u-ine 1812 British?

Soviet Sailors

2011-11-28T08:28:00.001-08:00

Feels like forever since I last painted anything… probably been a week… I did clean off my painting area last week in an attempt to focus on… well… SOMETHING!? The work area was polluted by far too many “in the works” projects that I plinked away at but never really finished up any of. So I put everything that was on the desk away. Then a couple days later I started filling it with… well… new things… (for a couple days in between all I worked on was various sculpting projects and some mouldmaking!)

An order from Black Tree Design arrived which included a pack of Soviet Sailors. I also had a pack of them from a previous order. So I decided to knock them off…

(Remember: click on the pictures for a bigger version)

Soviet sailors from Black Tree Design.

It’s fun to work on something different from time to time – keep things fresh and interesting… but from time to time it has the potential to distract or completely derail any longterm plans or projects! While painting these I started thinking up scenarios I could se them in and just about revived our East Front Campaign (putting the current Dragonlance Campaign on hold… until I got it out of my system…). Luckily I didn’t quite have these finished by Saturday evening (when we normally play) and we raged ahead with the fantasy campaign. By next weekend I’ll have forgotten about these and some whole new thing will be threatening to derail the current campaign…

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

There’s some other odds and sods accumulating on the workbench… Some 1812 British and other nappy stuff … some more Zulu War stuff (whut the…!?)… the fruits of my sculpting labours…

War of 1812 Infantryman Sculpt

2011-11-20T09:22:00.001-08:00

Here’s where my latest sculpt is at…

(Remember: click on the pictures for a bigger version)

(plus a few of the others I’m working on in the background…)

No, he’s not balding, I’ve left the top blank to add different hats (shakos for regulars and top hats and wide brimmed hats, etc for some of the militia).

I was thinking I might make a mould at this point and cast some dolls. Then I can add different hats to the dolls and have them holding muskets in a variety of positions (mostly marching), add haversacks and canteens and maybe knapsacks on a few… then make moulds of those and cast by the dozens! Huzzah!

I thought I might even cut of the cartridge box and turn the bayonet scabbard into a sword scabbard and make an officer figure…? Maybe even some ensigns…?

I may or may not add cording on the front of the jacket - perhaps just leaving that as "paint-on detail", keping them just a bit more generic...

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

More pics of the modeling…? I totally cleared the workbench of painting projects – planning to only get out ONE at a time (so as not to get so easily distracted…. We’ll see how that works out…).

Space Marine

2011-11-18T09:19:00.000-08:00

Haven’t been doing much painting lately. Playing games? Oh yes. Planning and thinking about game? Absolutely! Sculpting minis? Yep, even doing a bit of that… But not-so-much with the actual painting. So I knocked off this one the other evening, just for something completely different to do, and to try and get myself going again.

(Remember: click on the pictures for a bigger version)

This is an I-Kore Void figure. I’m using it (and a few others I have… if I ever get them done…) as part of a small Space Marine detachment. Not part of any particular Sci-Fi universe, just the generic Big Stick of any Space Empire’s policy making…

I was kind of back and forth on whether to do them in some sort of camouflage or something bright and ultimately chose bright. They’re the sort that want you to know that they know that you know where they are and they don’t care because they’re THAT bad-ass…

I’ve been thinking a lot about the next year and trying to forecast what I’m going to be interested in doing… It’s always better to have SOME sort of plan – otherwise I just spin wheels bying and painting willy-nilly and never really accomplishing much. I think I’m going to host three major game events; a Dark Age England De Bellis Antiquitatis campaign in February, a Hordes of The Things campaign in June, and a big Battle of Queenston Heights game in October.

The first two are easy enough. I just have to finish up the Pre-Feudal Scotts for the DBA campaign (and it’d be nice, but by no means necessary to finish up another Anglo-Saxon and/or Viking and/or West Frankish army…). For the HOTT campaign… well I could run that tomorrow I have enough armies… but I’ll probably finish up a few more, and add options for the existing ones, between now and June. The third will require a bit more research, a whole lot of painting (and possibly sculpting) and play-testing…

The big question right now is sculpt and cast my own or just say eff-it and BUY all the stuff I’ll need. At the scale I’m planning I could probably do it for under $500. How much time will it take me to model and cast all the necessary figures? What is that time worth? (not to mention how much has metal gone up since I last bought some and do I have enough to cast all the stuff I’d need or would I need to buy more?) Many things to take into consideration.

As I mentioned I have been doing a bit of sculpting lately and have been quite enjoying it… though it is a ssssslllllloooooooowwwwww process for me, and not always successful!? That’s the big worry – I spend a tonne of time trying to sculpt my oen figures to only have them look like rubbish when I’m done and then end up buying figures anyway and wishing I’d spent all that time painting… ugh… Oh how I torture myself…

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

Hmmmmm…. Nothing’s really jumping out at me as something I desperately want to paint… no games arranged that there might be a report of… Maybe some pics of my generic 1812 infantryman…? I was thinking I might build it up as a doll – legs, torso, basic equipment (the crossed straps with and head (with no head dress) and try casing those and then adding details to make more specific…

Norse vs Irish

2011-11-08T22:04:00.001-08:00

Yet ANTOHER game report! I got in a game of DBA with John this evening – who I haven’t had an opportunity to play with for some time – so it was nice to catch up a bit and finally get to try out my new(-ish) Irish DBA army in a genuine game of DBA (They’ve been fielded a couple times in HOTT – but it ends up being a Warband army which is very, VERY different from the mix of Auxillia and Psiloi that the Irish are in DBA!). John was kind enough to invade Ireland with some Vikings so I could try them out.

FORCES

Norse Irish (III/46)
1x Auxilia General
5x Auxilia
4x Psiloi
2x Blade

Norse Viking (III/40b)
1x Blade General
10x Blade
1x Warband

THE GAME

The Irish are “Littoral” so I should have had a coastline along there somewhere… but I haven’t gotten to building any – they are my next project (along with some more marshes!)

(Remember: click on the pictures for a bigger version)

The armies advance. I sent a contingent up the flank to try and ambush any Norse that strayed into the woods – figuring it would be my only real chance at causing any damage (Blade vs Auxilia in the open was a non-starter)

One PIP roll meant only one file advanced on that next turn.

The Viking berserks (Warband) went hunting the Irish skirmishers (psiloi) in the woods…

…and forced them back!

More Fighting in the woods – the Psioloi expand to overlap the Warband and my Auxilia contact the Viking blade.

The Auxilia had some brief success forcing the Viking blade to fall back a bit, but the berserks just kept pushing those skirmishers back.

Again the Auxilia threw back the Blade that advanced back into contact (as well as another blade that closed the door to flank), but the berserks just kept pushing the skirmishers back – right out of the woods!

The Auxilia press their advantage following the recoiling blade and the skirmishers move in to flank the berserks.

Ther Berserks throw back the flankers and push the skirmishers to their front further out of the woods, While the Irish auxilia were also thrown back by the Vikings.

The Vikings moved back in to flank the Irish Auxilia and beat them down (Irish down one)

Again the Irish skirmishers try to surround the berserks, while others harass the Vikings flank.

An element of Blade is lost on the Vikings flank. (Vikings down one)

And the Berserks ran our of steam and were also destroyed! (Vikings down two)

The Vikings, however, decided to ignore the Irish skirmishers shenanigans on their flank and pressed on towards the Irish main line.

Irish Skirmishers again try to harass the Viking flank.

More Vikings are peeled off the flank to deal with them.

The Irish FLEE from the horrible hairy Vikings!

The other skirmishers tried to maneuver around to the rear – but they too are forced to flee (towards the Viking camp!)

The Vikings make slow forward progress as they are constantly harassed by still MORE skirmishers on their flank!

Throwing them back

There’s little either could do – The Vking blade has a +5 vs foot in the open, the Irish Psiloi have +2… Neither quick kill, in fact the Psioloi can’t be killed at all – unless they flee of the table or the Vikings managed to actually flank one… )

One group of Psiloi made it to within spittin distance of the Viking camp – but I didn’t have enough PIPs on any later turns to try and get them into contacts with it…

CRASH! The main lines finally meet!

All along the line the Irish are thrown back!

On the following bound their move in again – and are again thrown back.

On the Vikings next turn they were able to isolate one of the blade, that had remained in combat, and destroyed them! (Irish down two – things looking like they will be going downhill rapidly!)

Everything all lined up…

The Irish, with noting much better to do, moved back – and lost an element of Auxilia for their troubles (Irish down three…).

On the final Viking bound they tried to flank the Irish general – and were thrown back!! (destroying a stand of Viking blade in the process!!), but elsewhere down the line the Vikings took out another stand of Irish and that brought the game to a conclusion…

The Irish are tougher to play than the Welsh. That lack of quick –kill the warband get on blades and spears makes a big difference. It’s very definitely still all about the terrain – and I didn’t have nearly enough of it spread out in a cagey enough fashion to hamper the Vikings as much as I needed to…

Waterway and marshes are definitely the next things to build!!

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

Hopefully get back to some painting soonish! Or perhaps some terrain making!!

Dwarves and Orcs

2011-11-07T23:14:00.000-08:00

Yet another Hordes of the Things battle report! I was introducing a new player this evening with some classic fantasy foes - Dwarves and Orcs! David took the Dwarves, so I pulled out the highly mobile Orc/Wolf army.

FORCES

Orcs of Gorblank
1x (anit-)Hero General (Merk Gorbhead)
1x Behemoth (Trolls)
3x Beasts (wolfapcks)
5x Riders (Orc Wolfriders)
Hmmmm… y’know what… I think I might’ve had 6 riders on the table… lookit me being the big cheater!? Ah well – more for the Dwarves to slaughter!

Dwarvies or Muirvold
1x Hero General (Dwailin Muirson)
2x Shooters (Hand Gunners)
8x Blade (Dwarf Warriors)

THE GAME

(Remember: click on the pictures for a bigger version)

The Orcs were technically “defending” but I’ve always lived by the motto: “the best defence is a good offence” – So off they went, determined to push the Dwaren invaders back off their table edge…

First contact Wolfriders and Trolls charge the Dwarf handgunners!

BLAM! The trolls and woflriders are repelled – this became a bit of a theme for the evening…

The lines close… the Dwaves maneuver….

AS soon as I got the wolves in contact with the Dwarf (HERO!) General I realized it was a bad idea...

First blood went to the the Dwarf general – who collected himself some new wolf pelts!

I’m not sure how I ended up in this situation… was this the same turn and the behemoth had already been recoiled…? Or did the Wolf Riders tie the shooters in the previous bound (there was an awful lot of that going on – ties that is…), anyway…

BLAM! The Orc riders disappear in a cloud of smoke and fur!

Now Trolls aren’t the smartest critters that ever walk this (fantastical) world… but this situation looked bad even to them!

…and so they backed away from the crowds of stunties to give them a moment to think on how best to tackle (or at least distract) nearly half of the Dwarf army!

Meanwhile, at the other end of the line, The Wolfriders – lead by their General Merk Gorbhead – charge up the hill at the Dwarvish battle line.

The Dwarves held their own – recoiling some beasts and only one of their elements falling back.

On the following bound the Dwarven gunners flushed with their success at shooting up Wolfriders set off after another pack of them.

BLAM! And blew them to bits!

On my next bound the Wolves charged back up the hill and I flanked the – despite being overlapped on both sides – due to a gap in the line – That element on the far end of the line held on! Well… at least for one more turn…

On the Dwaves next bound they redressed the line on top of the hill and the General, thinking his warriors had things well in hand, charged down the hill looking for some more pelts.

The General got his pelts…

… but up on the hill things went south… could this be the turning point in the battle!

Not so much… The Trolls charged in again against the handgunners – They’re “mounted” (which quick-kill shooters) that fight them at even odds – surely they could roll a die higher once out of the half dozen turns I kept this up!? No such luck…

Back up the hill The orcs were hoping to clear off the rest of those dwarves… but DANG they are determined little fighters when the situation gets desperate – they held their ground!

On the Dwarves next bound the General finally came to the aid of the handgunners…

And collected some troll heads!

The Wolf Riders on the hill rode down one last stand of Dwarves, but it was too little too late!

Totally fun game – lots of back and forth. David picked up the game pretty quickly and will probably be a formidable opponent in very short order. Of course I find my seven-year-old son a “formidable opponent” at times, so…

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

Gosh… so much to paint so little time… Dwarves? yeah, probably get those dwarves finished up…

Romano-Normans versus Welsh Orcs!?

2011-11-06T17:07:00.000-08:00

Lacking some players and preparation for our regular Savage Saturday Session, we busted out some HOTT toys and had ourselves a BIG BATTLE game of Hordes of the Things. Christian took the Romans, Dave decided the obvious and sensible opponent for Romans would be Orcs(!?), Patrick decided to join Christian with some Normans and then I pulled out the Welsh… because I’ve been having just too much fun with the Warband armies…

FORCES

Welsh
1x Rider General (Tym Brownwyn)
1x Shooters (Welsh Archers)
10x Warband (Welsh Warriors)

Orcs
1x Hero General (Darv Huntcha)
1x Behemoth (Giant)
2x Beasts (Packs of Wolves)
6x Riders (Orc Wolf Riders)

Romans
1x Blade General (General Christianicus)
4x Blade (Legionnaires)
4x Spear (Auxilia)
3x Riders (Cavalry)

Normans
1x Hero General (Duc Patice Le Jeune)
2x Shooters (Norman Archers)
6x Knights (Normans Knights)

THE GAME

(Remember: click on the pictures for a bigger version)

I actually cleared off a bit more of the table to set up a ~5’x4’ area to play on.

Patrick and Christian… Invaders of Wales.

Christian hasn’t played HOTT in over a year… Patrick’s never played it (thought he did get in a game of DBA once… a while back). Originally they had their toys set out differently but Christian actually looked through the rules to refresh his memeory of what was good against each other and realized that HIS force would do much better opposite Daves and that Patrick’s force should be able to ride mine down without much trouble…

I had realized this from the get-go and just hoped they wouldn’t figure it out…

So here is the Romano-Norman line…

Normans ready to ride own the Welsh Warbands and Steady Romans facing the Orc Rider-based army.

Another shot of that Romano-Norman line

…and the Orc-Welsh Alliance.

I figured the only way I could survive this was to stick to the woods…. And there wasn’t very much on my side of the table. Patrick did seem to be planning to move his line out together and there was some archer dead centre and woods only a turn or two away from his. So I left one batch of Warband in the wood and took another batch and ran them hell bent for leather hoping to reach the cover of the woods before the Norman Knights rode around it!

To the Welsh right the Orcs rode up and occupied the largish hill in the middle of the field and decided to wait for the Romans to come to him…

I had though of just staying at my end of the table in the woods and doing the same, but that would have left the orcs flank wide open to attack from the Norman Knights…

My Warband reached the woods… leaving the Bow behind (hey, they get a quick-kill against Knights in the first turn… of course the Knights also quick-kill archers… one of those nasty “instant death” scenarios…)

Of course the woods were occupied by the Norman archers!

One group of Norman Archers repelled one of my warbands…

The other, clearly a little better hidden in the woods, ambushed and utterly destroyed one of my other warbands!?

First blood goes to the Normans – Welsh are down one.

The knights galloped around the woods and made contact with one warband hanging out the back of the woods and the Archers in the open…

The Archers were ridden down… (Welsh down two)

…but the Warband miraculously held its ground.

Things were developing a bit more slowly over on our right – I was beginning to wonder if my battle might be over before the orcs even engaged!?

I kept retiring my general away from the knights – just out of range of their charge, but close enough to give them something to think about and possibly take advantage of any open flank I saw.

Finally the Warband beat down some Norman archers in the woods and forced the other band out of the woods (Normans down one)

After a second (or third) round of battle the Norman Knights finally rode down the Welsh Warband behind the wood. (Welsh down three)

The Orcs finally got into the action by having their giant lumber down the hill to try and tromple over some Norman knights.

Duc Patice Le Jeune himself decided to aid the archer in the woods and another band of knights lined up the Welsh in the woods…

More Norman knights, that had made it around the woods were trying to reorganize and prepare to ride down the Welsh Warbands in reserve.

The Archers and Warband fought each other to a standstill and the following turn the Knight galloped into the woods to attack the Welsh Warband.

Now… being a newcomer to the game I normally would have pointed out to Patrick what an intensely bad idea this would be… But things were going rather poorly for me and didn’t look like the situation was about to improve at all in the immediate future so I let him do it and he would shortly learn why you don’t mess with the Warband in the woods!!

BA-DAM!

THAT’s why you don’t mess with the Warband in the woods! Those knights drop to a +1 combat factor and are quick-killed in bad going…

Patrick’s a clever guy. He will NEVER make that mistake again…

(Normans down two)

Over to my right things were heating up… I can’t remember how the Giant extricated himself from being flanked… I think it might have been one of the MANY tied combat results of the evening, on the following turn he brought in the wolves to take off the pressure on the flank.

Of course beasts don’t do so well against mounted… especially when they are flanked… so they didn’t last long (Orcs down one)

Well after that first Knight vs. Warband in the wood disaster, Patrick figures out why I’d left most of my army in the woods at my own end of the table and they suddenly seemed like a less fun thing to try and ride down…

Christian pointed out that there was a HUGE gap between our lines – held only by my Rider General – and a wide open stronghold for the taking!

Finally the Romans and Orcs getting into it. Cavalry and beasts skirmishing on the flanks.

Again the wolves are ridden down and scattered (Orcs down two)

Duc Patice Le Jeune abandoned his archers, deciding his presence was required elsewhere. I kept chasing them further and further out of the woods… Patrick realized he could, on his bounds, withdraw from close combat to shoot at me – and potentially drar me further from the woods… AFte rhe tried that once, my warband scampered back into the woods and we pretty much just hung out and eyed each other up suspicioudly for the rest of the battle…

More bashing on the left of the line…

More Knights smashed by the Giant… (Normans down three? – eveining up the odds down at my end!)

More mounted skirmishing at the extreme right of our line.

This time it is the Romans turn to take some losses (Romans down one)

But they were quick to give back as good as they got…

Over at the other end of the line Roman Auxiliary Spearmen destroyed some ORc Wolf Riders (Orcs down three)

The Roman legions draw ever closer to the hill while the mounted units continue to skirmish on the extreme right…

Lots of charging and falling back going on over there…

Two of the Norman Knights were approaching my Rider General and just happened to be in range of one of my Warbands in the woods – I charged them out – the odds were even and if I rolled higher I could recoil the Knights into their pals and essentially quick-kill them (even odds +3/+3 – both quick killing each other – I generally try to avoid these situations but I needed to get something moving or they’d ride down my general and carry on to the undefended stronghold…)

The Warband and knight fought each other to a standstill and the other knights pushed my General back up the hill… no more quick-kill possibility for my Warband… but they’re still there tying up those Knights for another turn…

Oh! One of those situations I love. Behemoth with enemy troops to the front and rear. No matter what he’s going to kill something…

Today, it is the Knights. (Normans down four!)

More mounted skirmishing on the Orcs right.

Another Unit of Roman Cavalry destroyed (Romans down two)

Duc Patice Le Jeune Decided enough was enough and rode in to challenge the Giant!

And drove the Giant back (not quite far enough to tromple over some romand Spearmen, however…)

The Romans finally made it up the hill and into contact with the orcs.

It proved to be their undoing. Two cohorts of Legionnaires destroyed – including the General! (Romans down FOUR – including General – at the beginning of the Romans next turn they’ll have to test for panic)

The General and Welsh Warband continue to battle the Norman Knights.

Again the General is pushed further back up the hill… and the Warband fights on!!

Not to let up with the Romans morale seems to be on the edge of collapse the Orcs surge forward…

…pushing the Romans back down the hill, and riding down the last of their cavalry (Romans down FIVE – including General – at the beginning of the Romans next turn they’ll still have to test for panic)

The Romans next bound came. Christian rolled one PIP and the rest of the Roma army fled the field…

Patrick finished the round (because a battle isn’t over until the end of the round). My Warband soldiered on – actually pushing back the Norman Knights!? (unfortunately there was no one for them to recoil INTO…)

Whoosh! Fun times… and I’d call it a close-ish one. I thought I was doomed from the get-go but held on long enough –with the help of the Orcs giant who kept a few of the Normand busy – and our side managed to pull it out of the fire and crush those evil invaders! Huzzah!

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

Probably another battle report…?

Painting-wise I’ll probably finish off the Dwarves then move on to finish up the Pre-Feudal Scots… after that…? More DBA and HOTT stuff… thought whish exactly remains to be seen!

Irish Attack Roman Post

2011-11-06T08:37:00.001-08:00

Yesterday afternoon I got in a game of Hordes of the things with the boy. He wanted to play Romans… I busted out the Irish… Here’s how it went…

[Menapius, 69AD]

SITUATION

The Irish raid the Roman Settlement of Menapius during the brief and little know attempt by the Romans to occupy Ireland in the first century AD.

SCENARIO

Irish Attacking, Romans Defending

FORCES

Irish
1x Warband General (Timn Bran)
1x Beast (Irish Wolfhounds)
10x Warband (Irish Warriors)

Romans
1x Blade General (General Finnicus)
4x Blade (Legionnaires)
4x Spear (Auxilia)
1x Shooters (Auxilia Archers)
2x Riders (Cavalry)

THE GAME

(Remember: click on the pictures for a bigger version)

Gereral Finicus sets up his defenders with the professional precision of a seasoned veteran of many campaigns.

The Irish attacking in three groups. Already Finnicus is confounded (“I thought you said you should always set up your army in one big line..?”)

(I never said “always should” - I’ve always suggested that an army is easiest to manage in one big line….)

Turn One moves. The cagey Irish move up on the flanks, while their general stands steady in the open, far from the Roman settlement. The impetuous General Finnicus advances to meet the Irish.

Turn Two moves. More of the same. Legions (on the flanks?!) encounter the steep hill and fall back, not wanting to climb it in their heavy armour and expecting and ambush by the Irish.

Turn Three moves. I think the Irish only had one PIP… but generally more of the same – the Romans falling deeper into the Irish trap.

Turn Four: The Irish Wolfhounds attack the Roman archers now far to the rear of the main roman line. Elsewhere Irish Warriors prepare to Ambush the flank of the Romans main line from the bog…

The Wolfhounds are beaten back by the Archers.

The end of Turn Four.

A cohort of Legionnaires peels of the main line to deal with the Irish in the Bog.

The Irish warriors are beaten back… momentarily…

On the Irish bound they press the attack again.

On the Romans right flank a large warband of Irish attack the Auxilia Spearmen.

The Auxiliary Spearmen are overwhelmed and overrun!!

Back on the right of the line the Irish Warriors regroup and attack again…

…overwhelming the legionnaires!

Even the Woflhounds charged in again!

They were not so lucky and recoiled off the table…

General Finnicus finally reached the Irish Command in the open field far across from Menapius. By this point he is more or less surrounded by Irish and starting to lose troops on the flanks. The situation is getting desperate, his Auxiliary spearmen fight hard…

The Irish Warriors are beaten back, but not broken.

On the Irish bound they return to the fray with aid from more warriors on the flank.

The Romans are undone…. Finnicus’ Cohort and a unit of Auxiliaries are wiped out and the rest of the army breaks and retreats to Menapius where they prepare to retreat from Ireland…

Total Losses

Romans
1x Blade General
1x Blade
2x Spear

Irish
1x Beasts

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

More HOTT action – Saturday evening I played another BIG BATTLE game of HOTT – I should have that report up shortly… Then tomorrow John is supposed to be coming over for some more HOTT/DBA action… Woot!

Norse Invade Wales

2011-11-03T23:32:00.001-07:00

I reconnected with my pal Gary whom I haven’t played any games with for far too long and arranged a last minute battle this evening. I finally got to try out my (relatively) new Welsh DBA army. Gary brought his own Norse.

Up until now the only Dark Age DBA armies we’ve had to play with have been Anglo-Saxons/Angli-Danish, Norse Vikings, and Normans… At first it was just the former two… and the Vikings pretty much always beat down the Anglos. Then I put together a Norman army, and THEY pretty much always beat down BOTH! I had three other armies for Dark Age England but never really got around to painting them up; Irish, Welsh, and Scots. For a long time I thought “What’s the point? They’re just a bunch of Auxilia and Psioloi or Warband or Warband and Spear…. What chance have any of them against Blade or Knights!?” Well I sat down one night (or manybe it was a few nights…) and came to the conclusion it’s all in the aggression factor and home terrain. Welsh and Irish and Scots have low aggression and would almost always be defending against the Vikings and Normans… and there’s a whole lot of Warband and Auxilia and Psioloi in those armies… The key it seemed would be to sit in the bad going and wait for the Knights and Blade and Spear to come in and then ambush them!

Worked for the Germans fighting the Romans, right?

So I finally got around to painting up my Welsh and Irish, and even made some new terrain for them (I’ll be needing to make some MORE soonish!) and have been itching to have a go with them ever since…

Well…. Here’s how it turned out…

[Dyfed, 987AD]

SITUATION

The Norse under Gary Blackchapel invade Wales and come into conflict with some cagey Welshmen led by Tymm Brownwyn

SCENARIO

Norse Viking (III/40b) attacking Welsh (III/19a)

FORCES

Norse Viking (III/40b)
1x Blade General (Gary Blackchapel)
10x Blade
1x Bow

Welsh (III/19a)
1x Warband General (Tymm Brownwyn)
9x Warband
2x Psiloi

THE GAME

As I mentioned this game was arranged rather hastily at the last minute…

(Remember: click on the pictures for a bigger version)

So when Gary called I had to clean up a bit…

By the time he showed up I’d cleared off enough of the table to have a game (actually this pic was taken after the game…. But you get the idea…)

The Norse form their battle line… the Welsh hide in the woods and on top of hills.

Actually I couldn’t have asked for a better deployment zone – two steep hills and a wood between them! (I need to make some more terrain tiles…)

The Norse advance… The Welsh continue to hide.

Gary moving his troops about.

The Norse expand their line a bit.

Steady lads…

I extended my line a bit too…

Almost there.

It’s almost like they knew what they were doing…?

Finally the Norse got close enough and a reasonable PIP roll so they decided to go in on their left flank – Four Blade up a steep hill to fight the Welsh Warband.

Once we sorted out the combat factors this seemed like less of a good idea… but they were committed… so…

The outcome of the first clash wasn’t as disasterous as it might have been. The Vikings fought one warband to a standstill, pushed a second back over the hill, and lost one stand…

Of course the next bound was mine and I pushed that warband back into the fray.

Another stand of Vikings down.

Gary kept it together and turned on the flank of one of the Welsh Warbands that had pushed into the gap (which then turned to face their Norse attacker). Even odds and someone was going to be gone…

This time it was the Welsh…

The welsh concentrated on the remaining Vikings at the other end of the hill – I think I even brought in some nearby skirmishers (Psiloi) to overlap and just make the odds that much better.

Nearly all the Vikings cleared off the hill and the batter seeming a little more desperate!

With another good PIP roll Gary decided to shift attention to the woods in the center (at least there the Welsh wouldn’t have the hill advantage!)

Again, the first round wasn’t as disastrous as it could have been – due to Gary picking the right battles first. The Norse fought one warband to a standstill and pushed back the General and the other Warband.

As on the hill however on my following bound I simply reorganized and returned to the fight.

First the Bow were pushed out of the woods with the Warband General in hot pursuit into the gap overlapping the Blade on either side. Both of those Blades (including the General) were subsequently vanquished and the battle was lost…

Welsh… Not an army for carving out empires… but damn… best leave them alone and Never, EVER go into the woods or up a steep hill after them!

Fun times… I’m excited to try out the Irish. Being mostly Auxilia and Psioloi they don’t have the “quick-kill” that Warband have against Blade, but they do have a bit more speed… maybe turning flank will be their thing…? It’ll be interesting to see how they play out….

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

More painting… maybe even some more games…

Norse Family

2011-11-03T13:22:00.001-07:00

More odd items rolling off the workbench…

(Remember: click on the pictures for a bigger version)

These are from Dixon Miniatures.

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

Dwarves… probably… or a Magical Ballerina Fairy with a Rainbow Laser on a Flying Pink Pony Unicorn… hard to say…

Napoleonic Rifles

2011-11-02T16:07:00.001-07:00

Nothing for a week, then two in one day!

A couple stands of skirmishin’ Riflemen…

(Remember: click on the pictures for a bigger version)

These are actually old Minifigs. Got them in a box of 50+ assorted Napoleonic and Crimean figures for $5 at the Fallcon game auction a couple years back…

I’ve been tossing about the idea of doing some sort of game to commemorate the Battle of Queenston Heights for the bicentenary next October... Not sure if these Riflemen will be much use… but hopefully I’ll be able to make use of SOME of the British Napoleonics I’ve picked up. Need to make or acquire a lot of Americans and militia for both sides…

More on that in a bit…

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

Hard to say… More Dwarves? Pre-Feudal Scots? I would like to finish up the last of the Dark Age DBA armies before launching into a new project next year.

Dwarves

2011-11-02T13:08:00.000-07:00

Hi-ho, hi-ho, it’s off to war we go…

I was sick all last week. I didn’t paint a thing… I can’t remember the last time I went so long without painting a damn thing. I was starting to wonder if I’d ever paint again – I kind of got out of the routine and looking at all the stuff to do overwhelmed me and filled me with a sense of dread at the thought of getting back into things..

Then my pal Tim Miller popped by for an evening of painting and I polished off these dwarves I’d started a few weeks ago and I’m more or less feeling back in the swing of things…. though I still have this annoying nagging cough… ugh…

(Remember: click on the pictures for a bigger version)

These Dwarves are from Old Glory.

I think I have another three or four stands of these and other generic fantasy Dwarves. They will slowly begin to replace the mish-mash of assorted stands that currently make up my Standard Generic Dwarf HOTT Army. Until I finished these I had six stands of blade in the army, but all of them were originally intended for other armies. Three of them are Dwarf “Shield Maidens” that were ostensibly for Amanda’s all girl HOTT army, and the other three are Dwarf Highlanders which were originally intended for an army of their own…

I also have handful of GW Dwarf Thunderers (dwarves armed with guns) for shooters. I’d like to replace those at some point with some bow or crossbow armed Dwarves – I like my fantasy dark-age-ish. Gun powder just doesn’t do it for me in fantasy settings.

I also had picked up a cannon for the army… I don’t know if I’ll ever get around to painting it. I’d much rather have some sort of stone thrower or ballista for artillery… I was going to say; "I don't know what I was thinking" picking up the cannon, but then remembered came from a bargain bin... (sucker for a crazy good deal)

My plan eventually is to have a couple of Dwarf armies. These chaps which I’ll call “Mountain Dwarves” will be one – generic fantasy Dwarves. Another will be the “Highland Dwarves”. I have six stands worth of Dwarves in Kilts from Old Glory (half of which are painted), and at some point I’ll pick up a few more stands worth, either from Old Glory or West Wind (who also make Dwaves in kilts)… Old Glory also happens to make some Dwarven Samurai… which I think are hilarious and would love to put together an army of…. But I’m not even going to think about ordering those until I finish the first two.

Oh, and then I have about half an army worth of mixed plastic and metal GW Lord of the Rings Dwarves…. Not sure what to do about those…. Pick up some more plastics to finish off ANOTHER (fourth) army of dwarves? Ditch the plastics and incorporate the metal ones into the existing armies…? I should probably just ditch those plastics... (anyone want some plastic GW-LOTR Dwarves..? might have some elves and humans to throw into the deal...? Bob...? Anyone...?)

Still worse is there’s another lot of dwarves that I really love the look of… that I wouldn’t mide making an army of…

Molon Lab Dwarves

aye-yi-yi…

maybe I could just pick up a pack or two and work them into the Mountain dwarf army as additional/optional Blade... Or have a stando r two of them in a Narnian army...

Anyway… I also happened to finish up another casualty marker…

Also from Old Glory…

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

Just finishing up some Napoleonic Riflemen....

I know... I know....

At least it's a little more sensible that last week - I was sick and killing time and found myself on Renegade Miniatures site checking out the 5 for 4 deals and caught myself trying to figure out how many regiment packs I'd need to put together a matched set (Union and Confederate) of DBA-ACW armies!? Yeah... You read that right American Civil War... I must be brain damaged...!?

Maybe it was the cough medicine...

Dead Canucks

2011-10-26T09:27:00.001-07:00

I’ve had these kicking around for a while (since the Vimy Project) but never got around to them… If I ever do get back to it I’ll have a few casualty markers…

(Remember: click on the pictures for a bigger version)

The figures are from Old Glory (they’re actually “British”… but there wasn’t really all that much difference…)

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

Meh…

The Earth-Pig and His Barbarian Friend

2011-10-25T09:24:00.001-07:00

(Remember: click on the pictures for a bigger version)

I think both of these were made by Citadel Miniatures in the 1980s. Thrud I’ve owned since then and have only just repainted… Cerebus (apparently sold as “Aardvark berserker” or something like that) I recently picked up off ebay.

Now I am no super-fan of Cerebus (I’ve only every read the collection of the first 25 issues), but I am a sucker for “celebrity” figures…

To give you a sense of scale…

The two pictured with a few of the Dork Tower Miniatures I painted a while back. Who would win here?

The two (and some of the Dork Tower miniatures) with a Saxon (on the left) from Crusader Miniatures, a High Elf Shadow Elf (center) from Games Workshop, and “Slug Eat Your Face” (right) from Thunderbolt Mountain.

Thrud and Cerebus and Jack Burton versus The A team and Michael Douglas’ character from Falling Down…

Okay, this is getting much too silly…

If only I’d picked up those Groo miniatures… or those Asterix miniatures… sigh…

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

Um… Some other stuff….?

ECW Pikeman Casualty

2011-10-24T12:16:00.000-07:00

An English Civil War pikeman casualty marker…

(Remember: click on the pictures for a bigger version)

The figure is from Dixon Miniatures.

Painted orange to go with my orange Regiment of Foote.

I’ve been sick the last couple days… haven’t been getting much of anything done… bleh….

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

I don’t know. I’m kind if in the mood to mix it up and do a few little one-off things… characters… generals… casualty markers… that sort of thing…

Gah… I wish I could just sleep for three days…

Mounted Warrior Woman

2011-10-23T15:18:00.001-07:00

Finally…

(Remember: click on the pictures for a bigger version)

This is the Mounted version of the Warrior Woman from Thunderbolt Mountain

Another angle

The mounted and dismounted versions

This is a Pict from Wargames Foundry I got half a dozen or so in an ebay lot a couple years back… What the heck am I going to do with six or seven hornblowers?! Start a band!? I’ve used a few of them in various Dark Ages armies… I’ve even got one or two on single bases for my own skirmish games… and I still had a spare – so I based him up on a plastic hex base to send off with the warrior women above to my pal Mike (because his D&D campaign is sort of Dark Ages-ish…)

Hopefully get these in the mail tomorrow!

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

I have an ECW casualty marker that I’m just finishing up the base on that I’ll probably have posted up tomorrow…. After that…? I have no idea… I’ve got all sorts of junk on my workbench… I think I need to do a bit of a clean up…

Isengard Invades Normandy…

2011-10-22T17:31:00.000-07:00

Been a while since we played Hordes of the Things… Had an hour of free time this afternoon while alone at home with the lad..

SITUATION

A band of Orcs from Isengard has been sent to invade Normandy.

SCENARIO

Orcs attacking, Normans defending.

FORCES

Normans
1x Hero General – Duc Guilliam
1x Cleric –
1x Horde – Religious Rabble
7x Knights
1x Rider – Outriders

Orcs of Isengard
1x Magician General - Saruman
2x Blade – Orc Warriors
4x Spear – Orcs with Pike
2x Shooter – Orc Archers
1x Beast – Warg Riders
1x Warband

THE GAME

Finnegan decided to play the Orcs of Isengard and have Saruman directly lead them in battle. Lacking a complete Lord of The Rings army to oppose him I busted out the Normans – because they were “sort of close”. I suppose I could have called them “Rohan”. But… I didn’t…

(Remember: click on the pictures for a bigger version)

The Normans ready for battle.

I had a nasty swamp in the middle of my deployment zone which was pretty annoying. The castle there was the fourth such castle built on that site. It has a really good foundation. Everyone thought they were daft to build a castle in the swamp…

Finnegan considers his options.

The armies of Isengard are deployed.

The Normans trying to maneuver around the swamp into some sort of line.

On Finnegan’s first turn he sent out stuff one the flanks:

Shooters and beasts on one flank…

…and the Warband on the other.

Continuing to maneuver and advance on those beasts. AT this point Finnegan realized his beasts were rather exposed and very likely doomed…

On his next turn he moved the mainbody ahead. He had sort of wanted to move the warband, but thought they’d get mauled by all the knights out in the open nearby, and he’d written off the beasts (perhaps not realizing they go just as fast in reverse!).

The Knights close with the Beast/Warg Riders.

And they were done.

Idengard’s battle line closes with the Normans

Finnegan rolled pretty high for PIPs through most of the game – never having to really decide between two crucial moves… I did okay on the PIP-rolls…

I was not anxious to close with the Magician stand with either the Hero or the Knights. Hero vs. Magician is one of those “instant death” situations – though the hero has a slight edge, and technically isn’t “dead” – they’re just “ensorcelled”, and if in a subsequent round at 6 is rolled for PIPs the hero escapes the dastardly wizards clutches and reappears on the table. However as it was also my General…

Knights also are not good to charge in against Magicians as they get that same “first turn charged quick-kill” just like Bow/Shooters.

So I moved in on one flank – hoping in further turns he’d break up his line trying to contact my other knights.

The first round was rather uneventful. My knights were thrown back and the Hero was fought to a standstill by the spear…

Another view of the same thing

Finnegan did break up his line and surge forward to contact my knights. The warband even came out of the woods (well, partly…)

My Hero General and Knights were thrown back on one flank – on the other TWO STANDS of Knights were destroyed!

Things were looking bad for the Normans!

On the following bound My General and his Knights on the left flanks charged home again – this time with the help of some flanking Knights.

Again the General was thrown back and the flanked Blade fought the two sands of knights to a standstill! I’d be nice to roll higher than a “2” on my combat dice as some point in the game…!?

Again the Hordes of Isengard surged forward…

Again another Knight was lost on my right flank.

Finally, however, the Knights on left of my line rode down the flanked Blade – I STILL only rolled a “2”… but Finnegan finally rolled a “1”!?

Isengards archers darkened the skies above the Religions Rabble (Horde) and they fled the field!

The next go I moved up the General against the Spear block – with the aide of some flanking knights… (also the Riders tried to go deal with the Archers up on the hill – who had been menacing them for a few turns now…)

The tables were starting to turn – the Orc Spear were destroyed!

Orcs surged forward again to surround a group of knights that had been driven back into the swamp – the the very gates of our stronghold!

And they were destroyed…

The situation was getting desperate – but I actually rolled a “6” fort PIPs and was able to back some knights out of the way and send the general in against Saruman along with some of his nights.

The wizard was ridden down and the Normans carried the day! Huzzah!

It was a very close battle – I’d lost Four Knights, the Riders, and the Horde (11 Army Points), Finnegan lost Two Spear, The Beast, a Blade and his Magician General (12 Army points)!!

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

Ah… I’ve been painting other stuff this week, trying to finish up the damned chicken… Actually I like the painting, it’s just that I’d sort of done it as a commission and then when I told my friend it was done they decided they didn’t want it… doh! Ah well, lesson learned: negotiate a price and get some cash before starting…

I plan to get the mounted version of the Warrior Woman finished up for Mikey K and then I’ll probably get back to painting some more pictures…

Dead Man and a Preacher

2011-10-19T12:36:00.000-07:00

Not a Warrior Woman on horseback… Maybe tomorrow.

These don’t really belong together… but I happen to finish them both up last night, so…

(Remember: click on the pictures for a bigger version)

The preacher is a Dixon Miniatures English Civil War preacher. The dead man is a Front Rank Figures British Napoleonic casualty.

The preacher, I realized after painting it, would have been perfect to slip onto a stand in one of my DBA-x ECW armies. The extended hand is about shoulder height and he could have been dropped into the second rank and put his hand on the shoulder of someone in the front rank – to give them a little moral support (buy, y’know, not expose themselves directly to enemy fire…

The Casualty is very nice except I’m guessing they used a pre-cast head as there is a tassle on the hat that one would think would be hanging towards the ground, but is “hanging” toward the shoulder as though the model were standing up straight… ah well… Front Frank makes some very nice figures despite that (very minor) gaff.

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

Warrior Womyn on Horseback! No... really… Then…? I’ve actually had a hankering to get back to some Other Painting Projects…

Fantasy Wymin

2011-10-18T14:20:00.001-07:00

No Chainmail Bikinis here! Some serious GRRRRRRRL Power!

Another pair of figures, both painted for other folks.

(Remember: click on the pictures for a bigger version)

On the left is a warrior from Thunderbolt Mountain for my pal Mike, on the right is a cleric-type from Reaper Miniatures for Art, (bet you thought I forgot about you, huh?)

Back side (and Shield) of the Thuderbolt Mountain warrior.

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

Next up should be a mounted version of the warrior… and some other stuff… One of the sculpts is nearly complete – another one just about as well… but I think I’m going to wait until more of them are ready before I go showing them off…

Slug Eat Your Face!

2011-10-17T09:27:00.000-07:00

The first of a few minis for Mike…

(Remember: click on the pictures for a bigger version)

This is “Slug Eat Your Face” from Thunderbolt Mountain.

Nasty piece of work, eh?

To give you a sense of scale and proportion – here it is up against aa Anlgo-Saxon Thane from Crusader Miniatures.

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

A couple more minis for Mike… Bah… I don’t know what’ll be after that… Back to the sculpting project? Zulus? Napoleonics? Scots? Skythians? Dwarves? I have no idea…

Napoleonic Royal Artillery

2011-10-14T09:52:00.000-07:00

I got a little distracted… and… um... well…

(Remember: click on the pictures for a bigger version)

These are Napoleonic Royal Artillery from Renegade Miniatures. I picked them up as a “regiment” during one of their sweet 5 for 4 regiment deals back in January. I have no idea why I decided to paint these right now… It just seemed like a good idea at the time!?

At the same time I also picked up a couple regiments of foot. I haven’t gotten around to the foot mostly because I’m in a quandary about what to do about ensigns – One of the main reasons I ordered them (I mean, beyond the fact that it was a ridiculously good deal…) was that The site said regiments contained “Two Standard Bearers”. I thought this was odd – because the regiments, for the most part, seem to be made up with the same contents as the packs – essentially three packs to the regiment – and the command pack did not include two standard bearers. Sure enough when it arrived there was only one standard bearer per regiment… and so I’m in a quandary – do I bother trying to hassle them to send me a couple bonus standard bearers…? Or do I just convert the sergeant in the command pack (which would be easy enough – he’s carrying a halberd… Or do I order an individual ensign from some other company like Front Rank Figures? The latter seems like a nice option… except that I’d have to make up an order just to get three guys… Bah! I’ll probably just convert the Sergeant when I get around to them. Which probably won’t be all that soon anyway.

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

I have a couple new figures I’m painting for my pal Mike that I really ought to get to… after that…? Hopefully get back to the sculpting project…. Or maybe finish off the Vikings and Dwarves haunting the margins of my painting area…

See...? Sculpting!

2011-10-07T10:25:00.000-07:00

Well my painting totals for the year are about to level off as I've been distracted by a little sculpting project... Ah well, keepin' it fun is what it's all about, right?

Here's a little teaser:

The image it deliberately small and of low quality because it's sort of a secret.... A secret I'm hiding right out here in the open...!? Anyway, so SHHHHH!

Also got a game of HOTT in with the kids and a couple of their friends which I may or may not get around to writing a report of in the next couple days...

stay tuned!

Macedonian Hypaspist and... Draconians!?

2011-10-06T09:09:00.000-07:00

What the…?

(It seemed like a good idea at the time)

I may have mentioned starting to base some Skythians and some Macedonian pike earlier… well, while I was at it I noticed this one stand worth of figures half painted from a year or so ago and decided to finish them off. (Also, y’know, since all the cool kids are doing Macedonian armies right now, how could I nit get in on that action). No, I will NOT be veering off on some new tangent – though I DO have enough figures to do five (count ‘em, FIVE!) Macedonian Successor armies… and I totally WILL do them all at some point and run a Diadochi campaign (BWA-HA-HA-Ha-Ha-ha-ha-haaaaaa….) – but that’s just not in the cards at any point in the near future

(Remember: click on the pictures for a bigger version)

(Sorry about the sub-standard pics – it’s pouring rain out today so I had to take pics inside…)

These are Macedonian Hypaspist from RAFM (which is, apparently, currently having a 30% off sale until October 17th). They’ll see use as that 4Spear or 4Auxilia option in the Alexandrian Macedonian (II/12) army, and possibly the 1x3/4Auxilia in the Alexandrian Imperial… and maybe even the 1x 4Auxilia in the Macedonian Early Successor (II/18)….?

What I really need to get working on (when I ever get around to these) is the scads and scads of PIKE!!

I’ve also been working on a few things that I will actually make use of in the near future…

The fellow in the front is a figure from Reaper Miniatures, the rest are old Grenadier models that I’ve been picking up off ebay…

They are “draconians” for my Savage Saturday Dragonlance Campaign (and the Kid’s Campaign too!)

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

Another pair of minis for Mike… Some other assorted Fantasy stuff… Dwarves for HotT… some Vikings… Scots… Anglos… other strange and bizarre wonders to behold…

Pages and other Nonsense

2011-10-02T23:27:00.000-07:00

I'm trying out the pages gadget for this blog. The first one, which you can find over on the left there, is a rambling bit about how I base stuff. I'm thinking I might do others like "Dark Age Armies" to showcase all the dark age armies I have for DBA. Maybe I'll do ones for other periods... "HotT FAntasy Armies"... "Great War Armies"... etc...

As I had finished up september at 700 painted foot and three months left I thought I might try for 1000 painted foot by painting 100 figures per month for the next three months... 25 figures per week... I could do that... It'd get the Pre-feudal Scottish completed, probably the picts and a few other Dark Age odds and ends I have to finish up along with some Hordes of the Things fantasy armies...

Unfortunately I've been a bit sidetracked by a super-secret sculpting project. (Shhhh! Nothing to see here, move along).

We shall see.

I WOULD like to at least finish the Dark Age Armies by the end of the year so I'd be ready to run a Dark Age DBA campaign in February.

The Welsh

2011-09-26T08:45:00.001-07:00

Oh, I’ve been busy…

I know it’s been a week or so since my last painting update… but I haven’t been slacking off or anything! I’ve been working on the Welsh in batches of 10 (2 stands worth), which I seemed to finish up one batch every other night or so. Now they are done! (well… the EARLY Welsh… I have a load of Welsh archers still to paint for one of the post 1100 versions of the army… but that’s for another day… or year…)

(Remember: click on the pictures for a bigger version)

There are the new stands I finished up this past week and a half (I’d started on this a few weeks back and previously posted pics of a few stands)

This finishes up DBA Army III/19a Welsh 580-1099. Here’s how the army breaks down

General options; Warband or Cavalry

9x Warband – the bulk of the army

2x Psiloi - for skirmishing and harassing.

The figures are a mix of Old Gloryand Gripping Beast (with a couple of Warlord Games Celtic Women Warriors thrown in for fun – can you spot them?)

Now those that are paying close attention will notice I actually painted up an extra “warband” and an extra psiloi – this is to cover parts of the later lists (III/19b and III/19c Welsh 1100 – 1420 – South and North, respectively). I also have a PILE of archers to paint up as the III/19b (south) list has 8 stands of Long Bow. Also I’ve done all these warbands with spear as III/19c list no longer has Warband but 8 Spear (with the option of three more – or three bow, or three psiloi).

Now I don’t really have any feudal/medieval opponents of these later options, and, honestly, would the welsh of 1420 still have been carrying round shields with celtic devices…? I don’t know… I HAVE all the archer figures – which is what got me thinking I could do all three…

In the category of not-so-Welsh…. A couple other things I’ve finished up this week:

A Viking archer from Gripping Beast, a Viking warrior from Old Glory, and a knight from… welll… I’m not sure… Wargames Foundry maybe? (I got it in a trade from Bob - thanks Bob!)

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

Pre-feudal Scots?

And a few Anglo-Saxons.

Then Dwarves, Elves, Centaurs, Skythians, Picts… um… skeletons? …orcs? And… uh…?…ROMANS!?

So many armies to paint…

I’ve been reading Larry Gonick’s Cartoon History of the Universe I (volumes 1-7) and the boy seems pretty interested in the Egyptians… so…

Of course the book ended with Alexander the Great (almost as a footnote – I hope he expands on that just a bit in the next book!), which has got me thinking about all the Diadochi DBA armies I have sitting in boxes…. (Actually, over the weekend I noted that I had fifty temporary painting bases in the pile - which I just removed Welsh from – so I started gluing Alexandrian pikemen down to them!?)

Oh dear…