More Monks, French Napoleonic Line Artillery, The Watchmen, and Assorted Ramblings About Nothing in Particular…

And so that was January. Poof! Gone.

It hasn’t been a terribly productive month – painting-wise. Even though the family was away for a week and a half! Usually I crank through about 100 28mm foot in a month – especially during the winter when I don’t get out as much as I perhaps should… but the unending renovations…

Three weeks from this weekend is the 10^th Annual Wargaming Birthday Bash/Winter Wargaming Weekend! After this lot I have 2-4 more Bushi Buntai to finish up. I should start getting people to confirm whether they are for-sure-for-sure coming (and maybe not bother paint those last two…).

Here is the latest…

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

These are for my second Sohei Buntai. All the miniatures are from The Assault Group. This is a bit more than 400 points worth of stuff as I am still tweaking this force, so I’ll be doing another post in a day or two with the force that will be used in the campaign.

The Grand Master and his two Senior Sohei.

Four Sohei with naginata

Four Sohei with yumi (bow) though one has hair, which is annoying because I'm pretty sure all monk shaved their heads... When it first arrived I thought I might add a bit more of a cowl with green stuff to cover the offending hair... but I didn't... call it laziness.... or call it panic - because I still have three more buntai to finish in the next three weeks!

Some figures that I thought I might use as initiates. Again, some of them have hair.... maybe they're SO new to the order they haven't had a chance to shave their heads...?

This next bit might be a bit of a shock to those that have followed the blog a while or have known me personally...

Yeah, those are French Napoleonic Line Artillery from Perry Miniatures…

I've been playing Neil Thomas' Wargaming Nineteenth Century Europe and really enjoy it. I noticed he had a set of rules for the Napoleonic Wars, and figuring it would be about the same I picked up a copy. It being quite similar to the other rules I thought it might be fun to play and not a lot of stuff is required. I have half a British force already, so I thought I'd pick up enough stuff for a French force to oppose it.... and I happen to be ordering stuff from Perry Miniatures for the Ronin campaign... so I ordered this gun and crew....

I really know next to nothing about the Napoleonic era - and even less about the French. I find the myriad of different uniforms and combinations of equipment a bit dizzying at times... but after studying the sample on the Perry website, a few napoleonic Line Artillery plates I was able to find on the web, and Curt's fabulous example - in the Analogue Hobbies Napoleonic Gallery! I sloshed some paint on these fellows and hoped for the best...

Hopefully the results and my cavalier and purely amateurish attitude won't offend any of the hardcore Grognards out there...

Finally I finished painting up a batch of minis for my friend John

These are old 25mm figures from Grenadier Models made for the DC Heroes Role-Playing Game by Mayfair Games.

Silk Spectre II (Laurie Juspeczyk) and Doctor Manhattan (Dr. Jonathan "Jon" Osterman)

Nite Owl II (Daniel Dreiberg) and Rorschach (Walter Joseph Kovacs)

Ozymandias (Adrian Veidt) and The Comedian (Edward Morgan Blake)

Hooded Justice and Captain Metropolis (Nelson "Nelly" Gardner)

Also included in the boxed set were Moloch The Mystic and a considerably smaller scale Owl Ship - which, not being "heroes" I didn't feel compelled to get done in time for the bonus round as I have more pressing things to paint!

These have been submitted as part of the “Heroes” Fortnightly Themed Bonus Round of the Fourth Annual Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge. There are bonus points for the most popular – so if you think these are fab you can go and vote for them here:

The Fourth Fortnight Thematic Bonus Round: 'Hero or Heroic Group'

Because the last poll got spammed or something voting has to be done through posting comments…

In other news…

North Star Figures had a sale…

…and I went a little overboard… There’s some Napoleonic French Infantry to join the artillery above. I’ll need a few more units of infantry and some cavalry to finish up the force, but none of that’s really a priority at the moment. There’s also some British and French Napoleonic Colonels there (on horseback). I also picked up 16 Sikh Riflemen for Great War in East Africa (and potentially other colonial conflicts – real or imaginary!). Finally I grabbed a few packs of the Atomic Café 1957 figures; some zombies, the Soviets, the Michigan State Bowling Team(!?), and some Civil Defense types in NBCD gear.

I’ve been listening to A Game of Thrones audiobook for the last week or so while staying up much too late painting after the kids have gone to bed. It’s got me thinking about Hordes of the Things campaigning again… I’m not sure what form this will take? Perhaps I could run another summer campaign weekend? Or another online/email campaign? Or even an ongoing campaign with the locals - get together once a week and play out a season or two once a week. Anyone interested in getting in on any of that action?

I’m also planning on making some new terrain for the upcoming Ronin Campaign/Tournament. I thought I’d make a half dozen dedicated terrain boards approximately 3’x3’ (they’ll actually be 90cm x 90cm) I’ve been thinking I should make them so that they could match up with other terrain tiles I’ve made (or could make in the future) – so any roads or rivers would exit at the middle of where a 30x30cm tile would line up with it.

The big question that’s been troubling me is whether I should stick with the size of the old terrain tiles or start afresh and ditch the old ones?

I have the equivalent of about 24 tiles at present. So matching with them ould greatly add to the possibilities of what I could lay out. Unfortunately when I made the very first of them I didn’t give nearly enough thought to what I was doing and made them with some scraps I had on hand. I had a bit of 3/8 plywood and a bunch of 1” Styrofoam. So I used the 3/8 plywood as a base and cut 1” batts for the sides out of 3/4” plywood or MDF and filled the area with the 1” Styrofoam. So I have tiles that are 1 3/8 thick and when I made the second and third batches I followed suit – even though I’d had a better Idea of how to make them.

Ideally I’d like to make new ones with ¼” MDF bases and use ½” Styrofoam to fill them – that way the rivers needn’t be so deep, nor the banks so steep – which have caused troubles in many games. Also slimmer ones would be easier to store…

But to build anew would mean all these old ones will be… well… less useful…

Hmmmm….

Yeah…

I’m kind of leaning towards starting afresh…

Anyone want some old beat up terrain tiles?

[sorry already taken!]

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

The Sohei Buntai – as it will be organized for the 10^th Annual Wargaming Birthday Bash/Winter Wargaming Weekend? I’m also very nearly finished the second Bushi Buntai- The Dragon Clan!