Samurai Archers (finally!)

You’d think after all the time I’ve been working on these I’d have two or three stands of them done… sadly no, all I’ve finished is the one…

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



These are Clan War figures from AEG. I’ve painted them in a red, orange, and yellow scheme to make them Phoenix Clan Samurai.

As mentioned before my Phoenix Clan army will be heavy on the magic – three Magician/Shugenja stands and most of the close combat infantry will be summoned creatures (the ghostly “Void Guard” or Earth Elementals) or magically protected (“Avalanche Guard”). Human life is far to precious to the Phoenix to risk any actual people mixing it up in close combat. I figured they DO have to have SOME Samurai however, so I’m going to include a couple stands of these Heavy Bow/Samurai Archers in the army.

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

I have no idea... I'm mostly still sorting and organizing and planning...

More Indians

After Sean’s comment on the last post I had to bust out Last of the Mohicans last night and while I watched (well… mostly “listened to”…) that I finished up two more stands of Indians. Actually I think I had been watching Barry Lyndon while I was painting the Cannons earlier in the week…


These are some more North American Indians for my Seven Years War British and French. The miniatures are from Old Glory.


I also finished up a couple of “dead markers” for the French and re-based a Highlander (who had previously been based on a much smaller base – I put him on a bigger one to match all the other dead markers).

I like having the dead markers for when I’m planning to do a battle report of the game – putting them down to replace a stand that has just been lost gives a more clear visual indication of what’s going one and saves having to do before and after pictures for readers to study to determine exactly where stands were lost. I’d like to have dead markers for all my armies…

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

After finishing up these I cleared off my workbench and started a grand reorganization… a clean slate upon which I will heretofore only place small numbers of figures that I intend to finish before moving on to something else… so many choices… where to start…?

I may put those Phoenix Clan Samurai archers back on – because they are so very close to completion… Then I have to do some planning and see what – if anything - I need to get done for the upcoming HOTT campaign, and then work on stuff I might need for the Dark Ages DBA campaign and my Savage Worlds L5R Campaign… and maybe work in some other fun stuff here and there.

I’m kind of all over the place again… so many things I want to get working on and just not enough time to see them ALL get to any sort of state that would be of use. In the last week I’ve felt the urge to paint some sci-fi skirmishers, space ships, MORE 18th Centruy stuff (mostly British – for the DBA army… but also some French Cavalry, and assorted figures to be based individually for skirmishing!?), some English Civil War horse (and then start a SECOND ECW/DBA army…), various Elves, various Dwarves, Samurai, Modern SWAT team members, Amazon horse archers, Hoplites, The ”B Team”, some more Phoenix Clan Shugenja, Trolls, Skaven, some Goblin Hordes, skeleton archer and cavalry… and the list goes on...

Indians and Aliens

A couple more odds and sods rolling off the workbench today…

Those of a gentle disposition - please avert your eyes!

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


These are some North American Indians (or “Natives” or “First Nations Peoples”…) from Old Glory. They will be used with my Seven Years War British and French. I think they're classified as "Auxilia"... I had originally thought perhaps "Warband"... But Auxilia works fine as well - moves quickly, not super powerful, fights good in bad-going, etc.... I'll eventually have some others that are three per base and all musket armed to use as jägers as well

Sometimes I just love Old Glory… cheap like dirt (well, compared to many of the other options out there…) and occasionally you get little gems in a pack like this “British soldier being scalped” vignette….


These, I think, are some sort of Kryomek(?) aliens. They were easy, and so now they’re done!

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

I have too damn much stuff cluttering my work bench once again… I need to clear it off and come up with a better system – like having only one thing on the workbench at a time and – maybe a stand or two or three of the same stuff, or a squad’s worth of skirmish types – and leave them there until they are DONE and add nothing else to the workbench until they ARE done… When they’re done select next item from the “on deck” box…

Maybe tomorrow…

Seven Years War British and French

After last weeks game at John’s I got thinking again about gaming the Seven Years War with the DBA Extension for 1500 – 1900AD… so I got working on finishing up a few things I needed to finish up two opposing 12 stand DBA armies.

Actually I had all the French ages ago. Indeed I am only two stands shy of being able to field two complete French forces.

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


These are the British cannon and crew I have just finished. The figures are all from RAFM.


Here are the two French General elements (both I am classifying as “Light Horse”). The only newly painted figure is the cavalryman on the base with Le Marquis de Montclam – the others have simple been rebased… All of the figures here are from Old Glory.


Here is the entire British force. There’s actually 13 stands in the picture – all of the british I have. Right now, that’s 1x Light Horse (General), 7x Muskets (Line Infantry), 2x Muskets (Grenadiers), 2x Cannon, 1x Jägers (Rangers).

Ultimately I’d like to think of the armies/commands as “brigades” generally organized as follows

1x Light Horse (General)
1x Cannon
1x Jäger or Light Horse
3x Regiments/Battalions of 3 stands each (for a total of 9 stands)

(These regiments would be some combination of Infantry (Muskets) and/or Cavalry)


Here is the entire French Force. Again this is all the stuff I have currently painted. It amounts to; 2x Light Horse (Generals), 3x Light Horse, 2xCannon 15x Muskets. Eventually they will be organized similarly to the British.

I have some North American Indians I’m working on that could be added to either forces – when they’re being used for battles in North America… I also have some French Militia, Highlanders, and other fun stuff to paint up… At some point I would still like to do a recreation of the battle on the Plains of Abraham… The british would have three brigade/commands and the French something similar… so I have a lot more painting to do…

…oh, and then there’s the jacobites… but we won’t even think about that for now…

SPARTANS!!!

PREPARE FOR GLORY!!!

So some time back I was trying to gauge what folk around here were most interested in playing so I could decide what project to work on next and Jackson indicated he might like to do a SPARTAN DBA army. I mentioned that our mutual friend Mr. Bertolini had actually modeled and moulded a generic hoplite some time ago and that’s all he’d really NEED for a Spartan army – 12 stands of Spear. So John has been casting up Spartans and handed a few to me to paint up. I thought I’d help Jackson along the way by painting a stand of Spartans for him…


These, as mentioned were modeled, moulded and cast by my friend John Bertolini. Because of their dynamic pose I wasn’t able to quite get two full ranks on to the base. Even as they are there’s a bit of the figures bases bulging at the back of the stand but that should be able to be hidden with some careful application of static grass and shrubbery….

I probably shouldn’t have done any basing details and left that to Jackson – so the base of this stand would match the rest of the stands in his army…. Ah well, he can repaint it and then add whatever kind of details he wants. I couldn’t just hand over a blank base with a bunch of guys glued to it!?

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

A couple of stands to finish up a pair of Seven Years War DBA armies...

just... don't ask...

Magic Rats and a Samurai

Just like it says...

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


These are some more of Jolo’s old Skaven (Citadel miniatures produced in the late ‘80s/early ‘90s, under license, by Rafm) – repainted and rebased for Hordes of the Things.


Another samurai from Perry Miniatures.

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

Dammit I’m GOING to finish those wretched samurai archers one of these days!?!

After that I may switch gears to work on some other fantasy bits and options for some of my other HOTT armies as the 2nd Annual HOTT Campaign Weekend is a scant SIX WEEKS AWAY!!

Gaming with John’s Toy Soldiers

This past Tuesday me, Gary, Rick and Jackson all wandered over to John’,s for a change, to play with his pretty toy soldiers. All the figures are 40mm home-cast toy soldiers that John modeled, moulded, cast and painted himself.

I have to admit I’d been having a long tiring week and was half asleep for most of the game so I’m a little hazy on a lot of the details…

SITUATION

I know the battle took place in the mid-1800s and that Jackson and I played the Russians and Gary and Rick played the Austrians. The Russians wanted to blow up the bridge and the Austrians wanted to capture it intact.

SCENARIO

The Russians objective was to take and hold the bridge for five turns (how long it would take the engineers to prepare it for demolition. The Austirans simply had to be in possession of the bridge at the end of the game. Either side could win by eliminating half of the opposing force.

Given that we had identical forces, and John assured us that his home-cooked riles were “fast and bloody” I figured the battle would simply be determined by whole killed the mostest the fastest.

FORCES

Both sides had identical forces
1 battalion of Light infantry
4 Battalions of line infantry
2 squadrons of Cavalry
2 Artillery batteries
1 General
1 Colonel

THE GAME

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


John (right) explaining the scenario.


The Austrian Forces


The Russians initial deployment. WE were to mark down which units were to start on the table and where (could be 6” in from any point 18” from the corner of the table, only 6 of 9 units could start on).

Conveniently the Austirans “didn’t hear” the bit about keeping 3 units off at the start and so deployed all their stuff on the table… then had to remove a few units (after they say what we had on…)


Our plan was to rush forward the light infantry in open order to sieze and push beyond the bridge, followed closely by a line infantry unit in a march column. The two cavalry squadrons also began on the table and went to opposite flanks to ford the river and threaten the enemies flanks. The guns were to get up on the hill and deploy as quick and possible and fire in support of the advance.


Rick and Gary moving up the Austrians.


Everything going smoothly and according to plan.


The Russian Light Infantry storm the bridge.


Russian guns setting up on the hill.


Another shot of the Russian Light Infantry rushing across the bridge.


A Squadron of Russian cavalry prepare to ford the river.


Russian reinforcements arrive.


Austrian reinforcements arrive right in the thick of it!


A big mess! I'm not even going to bother trying to explain what was going on here...


Big Mess from a different angle.

In the end I think the Russians coup-de-main gambit paid off and we won…?

When John said “fast and bloody” I was expecting something faster and bloodier than other games we have played (like Ever Victorious Armies – which is VERY fast and bloody). There were a LOT of halving modifiers which very quickly reduced a units firing effectiveness to essentially zero… "for your units attack roll a single die, if you roll a 6 one guy in the enemy unit dies…" HUH!? Seriously!?

If only I could convince him to base them all on 60mm frontages and have a go with the DBA extension…

Anyway, it was super fun getting to go to Johns and play with his marvelous toys!

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

More painting… maybe some rules for the upcoming HOTT Camapgin weekend (only SIX WEEKS AWAY!!)