3rd (Toronto) Battalion, CEF

Yet another battalion finished for the Vimy Project; 3rd (Toronto) Battalion, Canadian Expeditionary Force, which was also part of the 1st Brigade, 1st Canadian Division.

The figures for the battalion, as with the recently finished 1st battalion and 2nd battalion are all from Wargames Foundry

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

3rd (Toronto) Battalion, Canadian Expeditionary Force.

The formation patch for the 3rd Battalion was a green triangle surmounting a red patch – the red patch was for the 1st Division, the triangle was for the third battalion within the brigade and the green was the senior brigade within the division.

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

The logical choice would be to finish up the brigade with the 4th (Central Ontario) Battalion, CEF, but I’m not entirely sure… I may skip over to the 2nd Division and paint a few of those battalions for… reasons… 

2nd (Eastern Ontario) Battalion, CEF

Another battalion finished for the Vimy Project; 2nd (Eastern Ontario) Battalion, Canadian Expeditionary Force, also part of the 1st Brigade, 1st Canadian Division.

The figures for the battalion, as with the recently finished 1st battalion and all of the 1st Brigade are all from Wargames Foundry

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

2nd (Eastern Ontario) Battalion, Canadian Expeditionary Force.

The formation patch for the 2nd Battalion was a green semicircle surmounting a red patch – the red patch was for the 1st Division, the semicircle was for the second battalion within the brigade and the green was the senior brigade within the division.

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

3rd (Toronto) Battalion, CEF? Let’s hope so!!

1st (Western Ontario) Battalion, CEF

Here, finally, is the next battalion finished for the Vimy Project; 1st (Western Ontario) Battalion, Canadian Expeditionary Force, part of the 1st Brigade, 1st Canadian Division.

The figures for the battalion, as with all of the 1st Brigade are all from Wargames Foundry

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

 

1st (Western Ontario) Battalion, Canadian Expeditionary Force.

The formation patch for the 1st Battalion was a green circle surmounting a red patch – the red patch was for the 1st Division, the circle was the for the senior battalion within the brigade and the green was the senior brigade within the division.

Up next will hopefully be the 2nd battalion. I’d hoped to finish the brigade by the end of the month, but that’d mean I’d have three battalions to do in the next week and a half… it could happen…

Actually, come to think of it, it most likely won’t happen – even if I painted all the figures I have, as I’ve realized I am ONE FIGURE SHORT of being able to complete all four battalions – actually I’m three riflemen short – but I have a spare Lewis gun team I could add to a unit… So if anyone out there in blogger land happens to have a British rifleman they could spare I’d greatly appreciate it! Actually if you had three riflemen and wanted to trade for my spare Lewis gun team – that’d be even better! (I’ll even paint them for you!)

I suppose I could use some of the spares I have from other manufacturers... but something about that bothers me. A lot. (just a bit OCD - but I think you kind of HAVE to be to get anything done in this hobby!) 

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

2nd (Eastern Ontario) Battalion, CEF? I started in on them last night and had hoped to have a bunch of time this afternoon and evening to work on them, but I kind of need to get some work done on a few bikes this afternoon... 

Two Games of 7 Wonders

Yesterday, after our game of Twilight Imperium, Amanda, The Boy, and myself sat down to play a couple games of 7 Wonders (with Leaders).

(The Girl was over at Auntie Margies to do some knitting and then went over to my folks for a sleepover.)

At the end of the first game Amanda was getting her pout on as she felt she had done horribly – She’d done some science, but felt she hadn’t really done enough of any one thing to have won. Well… she didn’t win… by a point…

I’d had two leaders that dealt with blue cards (civic structures) – one gave me and exptra victory point for each blue card and another allowed me to place one with one less resource available (which, in the end, only helped me place two cards – the rest I got because they were free or I had a previous card that allowed me to place it without paying).

I thought The Boy was going to crush it with all the green (Science!) cards he grabbed.

In the end I won (by one point) and I was only able to do so because on the very last round of the 3rd age I placed a military card – in a game where NO ONE had gone for ANY military – which gained me 10 points (and lost them one each). I ended up with 67 points, Amanda 66 and The Boy somehow trailed behind at 48?!

In the second game I was excited because I got to play Wil. I ended up with a mish-mash of stuff that seemed like none were giving me a LOT of points. Amanda also felt she hadn’t done very well. When we totaled it up we hadn’t done quite as well as the previous game – we both scored 57 points – and The Boys scored 56!? Can you get a closer game? (I guess if it’d been a three way tie that would have been closer).

During the leader selection phase at the beginning of the game I’d passed on Plato and then kicked myself when Amanda passed me Justinian – as they both gain victory points for similar things (collecting sets of different cards). I ended up passing on Justinian and hoped The Boy didn’t end up with both. He did and I thought he was going to crush us as he collected up sets of stuff, but it didn’t do so well as collecting sets of sciencey things, as I was trying to do, or Military victories, as Amanda was going.

This was fun, and a bit different as the last few games I've played of seven wonders have been bigger 5-6-7 player games. I think I like the bigger games better, but this was still a lot of fun. 

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

1st (Western Ontario) Battalion, CEF – like in about five minutes. I’d considered posting them along with this little game report, but then decided it’d be better posting them as separate things…

Twilight Imperium

I finally got to try out Twilight Imperium (Third Edition). My friend John brought his copy over to set up and play through a few turns - just to teach the game Rob, Bob, The Boy and myself. We'll have to set aside a whole day some time to get through a complete game. 

I really like the game - there's a LOT going on in it and it seemed a little overwhelming at first. by the time we were done playing I felt like I more or less had the basic mechanics figured out, I'm feeling like the strategy was still a bit beyond me at this point.



I was red. Because red make you go faster! (not really). I kind of goofed up my last turn because I was somehow mistakenly under the impression that a law we had passed the previous turn was only valid for THAT TURN ONLY (not suggesting that was anyone's fault but my own, just sayin'). By the time I'd realized my mistake we'd already selected Strategies for the turn... Ah well, the game was all about learning. Now we just need to set up a game before I FORGET everything I learned today!

In other news - I did finish up the 1st battalion last night and just need to put some grassy clumps on teh bases and should have pictures up tomorrow.

Great War Officers and Casualties

No, not the 1st (Western Ontario) Battalion as promised – I have been working on them. I just happened to also be working on these concurrently and sort of finished them off first.

All the figures in this post are from Gripping Beast/Woodbine Designs.

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

Two Canadian officers. The one with the red brassard is from the 2^nd Division HQ, the other is from the 5^th Brigade HQ.

A couple of 2^nd Division casualties.

A couple of Australian casualties…

This figure is supposed to be another Australian casualty, but I painted it in such a was as to pass it off as a Great War Gurkha.

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

1st (Western Ontario) Battalion, Canadian Expeditionary Force.

No, really… 

Machine-guns and Mortars

Back to the Great War stuff that I’ll actually be making use of in the Vimy game…

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

Two German machine-gun teams from Great War Miniatures. Have I mentioned lately that I love Great War Miniatures. I do. They are lovely models with such fun details. the team on the right must be veterans as they still have their older uniforms that still have piping. 

Canadian trench mortar team that seems to be in some disagreement on where they should be firing…? Model is from 1st Corps.

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

1st (Western Ontario) Battalion, Canadian Expeditionary Force. 

British Army of Indian for The Men Who Would Be Kings

This is a small force from the Army of British India I have cobbled together for The Men Who Would Be Kings. Most of the figures – the Gurkhas and Indians and their officers – I painted nearly 30 years ago. They were on 20mmx2mm card bases until a few years ago when I rebased them onto MDF multi-figure bases to make them into a DBA/HOTT force, and now I’ve rebased them to fit with all my other individually-based 19th century stuff. Conveniently there are just enough of them to make a Field Force for The Men Who Would Be Kings!

Unfortunately I don’t really have any OPPONENTS for them… But they’re ready for action for whenever I do happen to put something together.

Most of the figures were from Ral Partha, the exceptions being the Highlanders (who were mostly made by my friend John and lead by and officer and Piper from Minifigs) and the Gurkha officer, which is from Rafm.

I know, I know... the British officers probably should have uniforms that match the forces they are leading… I wasn’t so concerned with such details 30 years ago, and I can’t bothered to repaint them at this point.

I thought I would use the British 1879 list from The Men Who Would Be Kings

The entire field force.

I thought I would use the British 1879 list from The Men Who Would Be Kings:

3x Regular Infantry (@6 points each = 18 points)

1x Well Drilled Crewed Weapon (@6 points)

I’d like to make the Gurkhas (and maybe the Highlanders) “Fierce” to do this I could either downgrade the Indian and Gurkha units to “Poorly Armed” or downgrade the Gun to “Poorly Drilled”. There’s also a “Gurkha” special rule that allows them to move through difficult terrain without being slowed down, but that’s also a +1 point upgrade… I suppose I could downgrade the gun to “Poorly Drilled” and the Gurkhas to “Poorly Armed” to add that in as well…? I guess I don’t have to worry about this until I actually have someone for them to fight… Things to consider, though.

British Highlanders

Fierce Regular Infantry? (7 points)

Indians

Regular Infantry (6 points)

Gurkhas

Fierce, Poorly Armed, Gurkha Regular Infantry?  (7 points)

Indian Artillery

Poorly Drilled Field Gun?  (4points)

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

Some machine-guns and mortars, then the 1st (Western Ontario) Battalion, Canadian Expeditionary Force. 

Great War Germans Snipers and Colonial British Artillerymen

Just clearing a few things off my workbench that were mostly done before taking stock of where things were at for the Vimy Project the other day.

Since then I’ve decided I’m going to hold off on working on the terrain for a few weeks to do a bit more research. But I do have the next Canadian battalion on the workbench – they will be the 1st (Western Ontario) Battalion. The whole of the First Brigade were from Ontario – the other battalions being from Eastern Ontario, Central Ontario, and Toronto. All of the figures are form Wargames Foundry.

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

A German Sniper and Stormtrooper from Great War Miniatures.

Back of the sniper – to show off his camouflaged cape.

Two more snipers – also from Great War Miniatures.

Detail of their other sides.

While at least being Great War subjects, I’m not sure I’ll actually make use of these in the Vimy game…

Two colonial British artillerymen. I think the chap carrying the ammo crate is from Wargames Foundry the officer is from Black Tree Design.

I painted these to add to some existing (previously painted) gun crews as the number of dice rolled for guns in The Men Who Would Be Kings is based on how many figures are left in the unit. Technically, if I’m increasing all the unit sizes by 25% (as I was planning to do), I should have FIVE gunners… I guess I’ll have to find another I can add to the team!

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

1st (Western Ontario) Battalion, Canadian Expeditionary Force. 

(And, hopefully, a game of The Men Who Would Be Kings - before I forget the rules and have to read them all over again!) 

On With the Vimy Project!

With ToonCon and REGINA TRENCH! out of the way it’s time to get cracking on the Vimy Project once again, So I thought I’d just post a quick update on the state of the project – as much to remind myself what still needs to be done as any of you our there in bloggerland. I have 19 weeks until the Winter Wargaming Weekend/birthday Bash and 25 weeks until the big show on the 100^th anniversary of the battle – 9 April 2017.

(For those that are new, the plan is to make a roughly scale model of Vimy Ridge and enough figures to make 48 Canadian battalions and 18 German battalions – at 15 figures/battalion – plus staff and support models it will total well over 1000 figures - and have this all ready for the 100^th Anniversary of the battle on 9 April 2017 – I posted the initial Vimy Project plans almost 10 years ago and have been working on it on and off since then. More “off” than “on”, I’m afraid. But now it’s Go Time and I am all “ON” for then next 6 months!)

I have between 19 and 23 battalions of British Canadians to finish before then… There are 19 battalions I need to finish the Canadian Corps – but 4 of them did not participate in the battle on 9 April 1917 – the 10^th Brigade was being held in reserve to assault The Pimple – a redoubt just nort of the ridge – on the following day. So I don’t REALLY need to have them painted for the game… There are four battalions of British that were attached to the Canadains on the 9th, however, that I should get done.

There are between 9 and 12 battalions of German infantry I need to cast and paint up as well.

I also need some more support teams (mortars and machine-guns) – some still need to be assembled, some still need to be acquired! I need to finish up 7 machine-gun and 6 mortar teams for the Canadians and 5-10 machine-gun and 3-8 mortar teams for the Germans (depending on how many I decide I’m going to use per Regiment)

This means I have 28–35 battalions of infantry still to do about 20-30 support teams to do in 15 weeks. I should probably be trying to get two battalions of infantry and at least one support team done each week (because I still have terrain to do!!)

Sooooo… no more Zulus (or any other distractions, for that matter!) until next may!! (Although I probably will try to get in a few games of The Men Who Would Be Kings with stuff that I already have).

And then there is the terrain…

I can say this weekend I resumed work on the Vimy terrain. I am starting with refurbishing the original terrain for the 4^th Division that I started building almost 10 years ago. A little over four years ago I started refurbishing the terrain (as the original terrain was a bit rushed and I didn’t get to doing all the details in the trenches I’d originally intended (revetting, duck boards, sandbag parapets, etc). Also the original trenches were a lot narrower (as I’d made them for miniatures originally based on smaller bases than my current miniatures are! I have three (of the four) terrain block to refurbish and a dozen more, or so, to build from scratch.

The Fourth Division's terrain - at the north end of the Ridge - with parts that I previously refurbished (bottom left), parts I'm just cutting into (mostly on the right) and stuff I haven't gotten to (everywhere else). 

Parts of the Nothern half of the Fourth Division terrain - including the parts I previously refurbished.

Northwest corner of the Fourth Division Terrain where I've don most of the cutting so far. What a mess. 

The Southeast corner of the Fourth Division terrain - with a few figures thrown in for scale. Haven't done any cutting here just yet - so you can see the terrain pretty much as it was.

Detail of the old trenches as they are (with a few markings where I'm planning to cut).



I’ll admit I’m not the most organized of planners. I’ve also been spending a lot of time going through old boxes trying to find notes or sketches or plans or maps I used to make the original terrain and studying them to try and figure out how to connect the existing terrain in with the new bits I’m going to have to make. These are some of the sketches from various different parts of the planning process at various different times over the last 10 years. Some make more sense than others. But none exactly match the terrain I made. I’m guessing in the process of actually MAKING the terrain I just made changes on the fly to deal with things that came up… or I simply treated the plans a little like the “Pirates Code”… “They’re more like… guidelines…”

In the process of making this mess, however, I got to realizing I hadn’t included any support or communication trenches on the Canadian side. In game terms they weren’t really necessary – and most of the support trenches wouldn’t fit on the planned are of terrain – but I got to wondering if I should at least add in some communication trenches while I’m at it?

This also led me to wondering if I should include all of the subways that were build to help bring troops and supplies forward for the assault – safe and out of sight of the Germans on the ridge! If so, how should I depict them – just model the subway exit points in the front line? Or should I make underground subways (with removable tops) that we can store all the second wave troops in until after the first wave troops have left the frontline trenches!? 

I should definitely make some dugouts for all the trench mortar teams! I’ve started doing so on the Germans side of things (as well as posts for MG teams). But I should probably do the same for the Canadians (which gives me another reason to do Communication trenches as the Trench mortar dugouts would be off the communications trenches…

What about forward command posts for the brigade staff I’ve been painting? Should I do the same on the other side – have command posts on the other side for Regimental staff? I have no idea where these would have actually been historically and no idea where to start looking. So do I bother? Or just put some in for fun in a reasonable/likely place?

I also need to make some more Barrage Markers.

Oh and I’m going to need to make a whole lot MORE Barbed Wire!

So… the plan… After sitting down and thinking things over this afternoon I decided ideally things should go something like this:

October

Finish refurbishing 4^th Division terrain

Finish plans for the rest of the terrain

Paint 1^st Brigade figures and 2 German MGs and 1 Canadian MG

November

Start on 3^rd Division terrain squares

Paint 4^th and 5^th Brigades (8 battalions) plus available support weapons

December

Finish 3^rd Division Terrain squares, start on 2^nd division

Cast and paint 3 regiments (9 battalions) of Germans

January

Figure out budget for the year

Order remaining figures (6^th Brigade plus assorted support weapons)

Cast and paint 3 more German battalions and British Brigade

Finish 2^nd Divison terrain, start on 1^st Division

February

Paint 6^th Brigade

Finish 1^st Division terrain

This would get the bulk of the work done by the end of February so I could do some playtesting on the annual Winter Wargaming Weekend/Birthday Bash…

This would leave March to finish up anything not quite finished up and to make barrage markers and wire and measuring sticks and maps and divisional/brigade order sheets, etc.

Oh yeah… and somewhere along the line I’ll need to recruit some more players… If I had one player per Canadian Brigade (each commanding 4 battalions) and four “helpers” to run the Germans, I’ll need 16 participants.

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

Not Zulus… Great War Stuff!!

Usuthu!

More Zulus…

Another break from the Great War to finish up two more units for my Zulu force for The Men Who Would Be Kings. These were largely done because a) I’d really like to try out The Men Who Would Be Kings and b) these were pretty low hanging fruit – in that I painted four small groups of five to finish up four 20-figure units! Unfortunately this doesn’t COMPLETE a 24-point force… so now what…? To finish the force I need to paint up two more units – of 20 figures each!

I guess I do have a bunch of musket armed Zulus I could cobble together into a unit (or possibly TWO) of 15  guys – I’d probably class them as Irregulars, and maybe either Poor Shots or downgrade to Antiquated Muskets, but with Fieldcraft…? That could make a 24 point force... 

I do have enough British done for a 24-point field force already done.

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

The recently painted chaps – more unmarried Zulus from Wargames Foundry.

I’m going to need to get around to painting some MARRIED Zulus at some point!

One of the units finished up by this lot. (can you tell which are the new ones?)

The other unit finished up by this lot. 

The entire force – so far… with the two units of zulus with pilfered firearms it could be fielded as a 24-point Field Force! 

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

I have another unmarried unit sitting one the workbench (because all the unmarried Zulus require manufacturing spear and then gluing them on along with shields – the unmarried ones are assembled, primed, and ready to go (again with the low-hanging fruit!). 

Or perhaps I'll just play a few games with the two units of musket armed Zulus and get back to doing Great War stuff!!

Long Weekend Gaming

This past weekend was Thanksgiving (here in Canada, at least…) and we had a bit of an blast of winter-like weather earlier in the week, so we mostly stayed in and played games all weekend.

Friday night Amanda and I played our regular Friday night role-playing game – currently we’re playing in a D&D 5E Primeval Thule campaign.

Saturday afternoon we played Firefly: The Board Game which I already posted about.

Saturday evening we played host to ANOTHER D&D 5E game – but this time it was the group that The Boy plays with every other week at King Me Boardgamery - and Amanda and I hid in the basement and started watching The Walking Dead season six (which I’d pick up from the library that morning).

Sunday we played  Super Dungeon Explore: The Forgotten King. The Girl got it last Xmas from my folks. We tried playing it once – ages ago… probably in January. Some time after that she had mentioned to me that she thought it was the best gift she’d ever gotten, so I vowed to try and play it more. I even went out and secretly bought and painted two characters for Amanda and I to use as our own:

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

These are Succubus Vandella and Wandering Minstrel from Soda Pop Miniatures. I’d actually been looking at them for a while at our friendly local games store - Dragon’s Den Games  - and I was pretty sure I was going to get the Wandering Minstrel for myself, but wasn’t sure which of the female characters I was going to get for Amanda. But the day I went in to pick them up these were the only two left! The Succubus was one of the ones I was considering picking up anyway… saved me some decision-making though…

I painted them in the spring May… or maybe June…? But then we got busy doing other things end of the skewl year activities and then got busy with cycling and kayaking and  our summer vacation and all the stuff that followed… we just didn’t get to playing. So I was determined to get playing this fall. I’d hoped we’d get started in September during our 30 Games in 30 Days Challenge, but I got busy with making terrain for the Regina Trench Game and we ended up playing mostly short games and not having time to set up a game of Super Dungeon Explore…

I even came up with part of a back-story as to why they’re adventuring together – she was going about her succubus ways – seducing men and draining them of their… uh… essence…? One night she spied the Wandering Minstrel and determined he would be her next prey, but when she approached and heard his beautiful song she fell in love and gave up her succubus ways and the two have been traveling together ever since…

I digress…

So The Girl set up a game for us to play in “Arcade Mode” – which is basically a co-op game where the dungeon monsters follow an A.I. She included some of the baddies from the Claws of the Wyrm Warband she’s also picked up.

The Characters for our adventure. Amanda and I played the minstrel and the Succubus, The Boy played The Royal Paladin and The Girl played The Riftling Rogue (both of which were painted by The Girl - so far she's only managed to paint a few of the Heroes - but after playing this hopefully she'll be motivated to paintup some of the others)… so both girls were playing demonic women…?! 

Starting out.

It took some time to puzzle through the rules. The Girl is the only one who has actually READ them. Usually I read the rules and explain them to everyone, but I thought since it’s her game she should try. She tried her best, but she is only ten and, while she can play all sorts of games when the rules are explained to her, reading rules on your own and explaining them to others is a whole different kettle of fish.

We made quite a few mistakes… with both the A.I. controlling the monsters and how the player actions worked. The Girl thought that the monstes would only attack the player with the most “Wrath” (you get wrath tokens for doing stuff against the monsters) when actually they only move towards the character with the most wrath, but will attack anyone at had wherever they end their movement. The Girl had also thought we had to do all our movement first THEN spend actions – when actually we could have spent movement and action points in any order – which would mean a LOT more options for moving about the board and doing stuff.

The Boy’s Royal Paladin snuffed it…

Things not looking great for us.

That’s me pretty much standing along against all the stuff on the first section… The girl wasn’t being touched because she had no wrath points. (actually she should have been taking hits too… ah, well… it was our “figuring stuff out” game).

And then I got beat down by one of the “mini-bosses”….

We took a break in the early evening to head over to my folks for a thanksgiving-ish supper (Chinese take-out from Szechuan Kitchen). There we played a few more games - Museé (above), and a few games of Loonacy

Later we came back home and played some more Super Dungeon Explore. The Boy and I were restored to life.

We almost managed to clear out the second board….

Then The Girl got squirrels in her pants…

Seriously, there’re these squirrel like things that move around and when they get in contact with you they are removed from the board and put on your card – because they are, literally, in your pants – and they can only be attacked by you and until removed they lower your armour – or something like that…?

Eventually we had to call it an evening… well… for the kids… Amanda and I stayed up stupid late again an watched more of Walking Dead season six

Sunday one of my oldest and dearest friends came over with his girls to play some games for the afternoon. I haven’t seen them in a long time - so it was great just to see them and even more fun to play a bunch of games with them.

We started out with a game of Monty Python Fluxx.

After that we played a game of 7 Wonders

After that we got to try out a seven-player game of Star Trek: Five Year Mission - and we WON!! (though it was a pretty near thing a couple of times!) I played Chekov.

And then The Girl played a game of Pandemic with them.

After they’d left and we’d all had supper, everyone seemed to decide they’d had so much fun playing 7 Wonders that we should do it again!?

So we did – and added in the 7 Wonders: Leaders expansion.

Later Amanda and I finished off Walking Dead season six…

Phew! What a weekend!

(I even managed to keep up with my Inktober drawings - and get started on painting a few new minis!?) 

It's supposed to warm up a bit over the next few days - hopefully enough to melt the rest of the snow so we can get the carrots and potatoes out of the garden before it snows again! 

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

Hopefully I’ll get back to painting minis and making terrain…