Happy New Year!
It’s a New Year and time for a new plan. I thought I’d more or less follow the same format as The Game Plan 2007. (Do also check out – if you haven’t already – 2007 In Review - to see what I actually accomplished).
CONVENTIONS
I’ve kind of lost interest in conventions. The ones I went to were all very well organized – but some of the participants… well… they’ve kind of turned me off. Life’s too short to play games with arses. I think I’d rather plan some gaming weekends with just friends so….
TIM’S 4TH ANNUAL WARGAMING BIRTHDAY BASH/1ST (HOPEFULLY ANNUAL) WINTER WARGMING WEEKEND
The weekend of 22-23-24 February is going to see a mini-convention in my basement War Room (and maybe the garage if I get the heat hooked up and more people show up than I’m expecting). It will be an invitation only affair with just the friends I actually enjoy gaming with.
MAYDAY (Edmonton, Alberta, Canada)
Okay now that I think about it everyone I played with at Mayday were pretty good blokes. Friends that promised to be there did show up for games (well the important ones did - I love you guys!). So I think I'll go again this year, but maybe just PLAY games!
CALGARY GAMING WEEKEND?
Last year this was Fallcon. Fallcon is a supremely well-organized convention - an example for all to follow. But some of the players that show up there… well… auction or no auction I just don’t think I’m going again…. So hopefully sometime during the year I can organize a weekend in Calgary that my friends WILL remember and WILL show up to play at…!
REGULAR GAMING
Thursday Game Night
I’ve had some success with a regular wargaming night on Thursdays this fall with a really excellent bunch of blokes (John, Christian, Gary, Britton – thanks guys!). I think I will continue with it in the New Year. This has mostly been Blitzkrieg Commander and Cold War Commander and will probably remain so for the foreseeable future… until I finish up some Warmaster Ancients or Seven Years War armies… or sit down and bang out some rules for “Great War Commander”.
Savage Saturday
I have another pretty good bunch that are showing up regularly on Saturdays for Savage Worlds. In the past this had been strictly skirmish war games – but the group has shown some interest in – and considerable talent for – role-playing so it has turned into a more straight up role-playing game. The action is still played out on the tabletop with miniatures, but there is now as much, if not more, time spent role-playing – which is a nice change of pace.
The current campaign is a Fantasy campaign set in a world of my own design. As it gets fleshed out I may start another whole blog to chronicle the campaign.
PROJECTS
Well now… here we are at the “meat” of the plan. What to do with all my hobby/crafting time? So many toys to paint, so little time… I was feeling a little overwhelmed earlier when I actually started taking stock of all the stuff I own and have yet to paint – nevermind the things I’d need to still buy or make to finish up any of the projects I am working on…. Also having taken out and had a real good look at things while taking stock of them I’ve gotten really pumped about a whole bunch of things simultaneously…
So to make some sort of plan I should look at what games I’ve got coming up – the Wargames Weekend. Most of the stuff I’ve got planned I could do right now without adding anything… the one that would be NICE to have a bunch more stuff would be the World War Three game on Sunday – I’d need some more Russian stuff.
Also for my regular Savage Saturday games it would be nice to have some more bad guys… the same old zombies are wearing a bit thin… so it might be nice to paint up some Orcs and monsters and other baddies that I happen to have kicking around. (…and I should really get some of those figures John Burt gave me to paint finished up since he’s planning on playing Hero Quest and all…
So… THE PLAN for January and February
January
2 weeks – paint a pile of Fantasy Skirmish Figures.
2 weeks – Assemble and paint 5 remaining BMP-1
February
2 weeks - Assemble and paint 2x T-80, 1x T-72
2 weeks – paint more Russian infantry… maybe some American infantry…?
I’m too all-over-the-place to determine what I’ll do beyond that – we’ll see how the first two months and the Wargames Weekend go and work from there. I do think I’d like to work on the Seven Years War, and take a chunk out of the Armour TO-DO List.
I’d also like to work on my 20mm WW2 Canadian infantry and I’m getting pretty excited about the Dark Ages… but that’s probably because I’ve been working on taking stock of them over the last couple days.
I also need to build some new terrain – trees, bigger hills, more mountains, more buildings – especially for 20mm.
I still need to finish taking stock of a few things and that will help me finalize my Long Range Toy Plan – which, in turn, will help me figure out what manageable bits I will work on this year…
More to come!
Tuesday, January 1, 2008
The Dark Ages
Hairy men in chain mail… Who doesn’t LOVE this era! Someday I want to run a 1066 campaign weekend. Friday night – Fulford Gate (just to get warmed up), Saturday morning – Stamford Bridge (Harald vs. Harold!), Saturday evening – Hastings (Normans vs. Whoever won Stamford) , and on Sunday… Some battle where the winner of Hastings goes and thumps (or tires to thump..) some Scotts or Irish…
I’d also though I’d like to do an extended campaign using the simple DBA campaign system with a player each controlling the Normans, Norse, English, Welsh, Scotts, and Irish… and maybe one controlling “other franks”… Originally it was my intention to do this with 15mm DBA armies… but they’re gone now… and that’s okay because I’ve still got these 28mm guys, though I am far from owning the necessary forces for either of the above – I’ll get there someday…
Like my Successors and The English Civil War armies I am planning to use these with Warmaster Ancients (and maybe DBA or Warhammer Ancients) So I am using my new standard basing system for multi-figure bases - with any leftovers being based on washers for skirmish gaming or “change” for stands if I ever use Warhammer.
Alright, here’s what I’ve got so far…
(Remember: click on the pictures for a bigger version)
Two units of Saxon Huscarls. These are mostly Old Glory with a couple Gripping beast thrown in.
Now anyone that knows me knows that I think all points systems are BALLS – but I have to admit when approaching a completely new system I sometimes figure out what I was planning on making would be in points and compare it to the min/max limits at various point levels etc – just to see if things are way out of whack with what the designers thought appropriate for proportional amounts of various troop types… Well… None of these armies I have amount to more than 1000 points and Huscarls are listed as maximum one unit per full 1000 points… oh dear… Anyway that’s my 3x 4Bd all taken care of for a DBA Anglo-Danish army.
These are figures I modeled and cast myself. I think this was, in fact, one of, in not THE, very first figure I modeled. I have since re-mastered it with a separate (BIGGER) shield. They have to be re-based. I’ll use these as “Great Fyrd” in Warmaster Ancients. There’s 55 of them, with a few new command figures thrown in I should be able to put together 12 stands (4 units!).
Here’s what the re-mastered figure looks like – I don’t have any fully painted just yet. These don’t have my own shields – these were extras from the various Old Glory packs. Mine looks similar to the round one – very plain, round shield with a metal center bit… I forget what they’re called… I can cast piles of these any time I want… So when I get back into working on this project I’ll crank
Except for the two Harlequin/Black Tree Design figures these are again all home-casts that I could make piles of. There’s no Bow in either the Middle Anglo-Saxon or Anglo-Danish lists, just Psiloi… I think I’ll base these as I would 3Bw – four to a base – as Warmaster Ancients allows “Archers”. This will then make 2 units. I think I’d rather my Psiloi/Skirmishers have slings and/or javelins.
Assorted Command – There’s a mix of Old Glory and Gripping Beast here, maybe even a Halequin/Black Tree Design horn blower over on the left there.
Well I think I was thinking these would be Thegns in Warhammer Ancients. There are no Thegns in Warmaster however… so I guess it’s ANOTHER unit of Huscarls… When I finish getting them re-based.
So back when I started home casting those guys I ordered some Saxon command and some Huscarls from Old Glory Canada in Toronto. I figured the chain mail was a bit beyond my modeling skills at that point so I’d just buy them as I didn’t need too many. When my order arrived they has “accidentally” sent Saxon Casualties instead of the Huscarls… and a note that said “as of [two weeks before parcel arrived] we will no longer be in business”… I wonder if they just didn’t have the huscarls and just “accidentally” threw in the casualties “by mistake” so they wouldn’t have to issue me a refund check… ah well… they’ve been fun to throw on to stands, here and there…
Assorted Saxons to paint. Some Gripping Beast Thegns, some BTD fyrd or skirmishers, some of my own “generic dark ages spearmen”… not quite enough of anything to make a unit. Perhaps they’ll all get mounted on washers and be used in skirmish games. Well, not MY guys – I’ll just cast some more and make full units of them.
Assorted Dark Age Command – on the left are mostly Saxon, some Scotts below them at the bottom, an Norse on the right. I’m not so keen on the Saxon commander on the to left – he looks like he’s singing in a frickin opera! Ah well…
Again Two units of Norse Hirdmen when I only really need one…. (wait for it…) I think these are ALL Old Glory.
One unit of Bondi – all Old Glory, except for the horn blower which I think if from Essex…
These are ancient Citadel and Ral Partha figures I’ve been using as skirmishers – and will continue to do so! These will be based three to a stand and will make 2 units…. Once I paint up another figure for each unit…
Assorted Command – Old Glory, Gripping Beast, and Essex. Some will be added to unit stands of figures whenever I get around to painting them up… some may be based together on a big round metal washer to use as command elements.
Assorted odds and sods. Some may be added to unit stands other will be kept on single bases for skirmish games. These are Old Glory and some more really old Citadel Miniatures (which have recently been stripped and re-painted).
More old figures – the ones on the left are old Citadel, the ones on the right are Ral Partha. The Citadel figures will, at some point, be stripped, their axes repaired, and repainted and added to unit stands…
Ulfhednars and berserkers. I was a little surprised to see that you can have entire units of berserkers in Warmaster Ancients… I guess they had to include then somehow. Well these will be the beginning of one such unit. The Ulfhednars are from Gripping Beast, the Berserks are from Essex.
Valkyries – Wiking Varrior Vimin… I couldn’t help myself… The hottie in the center is another old, old Citadel miniature; the beauties flanking her are more recent Wargames Foundry figures.
Berserks and valkyries to be painted. The Valkyries on the let I have no idea where they came from… the Berserks next to them are from Old Glory, more Ulfhednars from Gripping Beast, and more Valkyries from the Foundry.
More odds and sods – Viking Raiders from Old Glory.
Remember when I said “wait for it”… Here’s why – THREE MORE units of Hirdmen…! I think at least one of these units I will disperse among the units of Bondi as “better off” bondi…
Here’s the rest of the Bondi – six units of them- with the dispersed hirdmen that will make seven to paint - for a total of eight.
The Scotts. These are mostly Old Glory with a few Gripping Beast cavalry thrown in. Lacking an actual Warmaster list I’ll have to BS something together based on the DBA lists and the Warhammer Ancients: Shieldwall lists.
The cavalry will probably be based three per base (rather than two for light cavalry/mounted skirmishers) as they all have chain mail and thus I figured they’d be some sort of Noble Cavalry like mounted thanes or Toisech from Shieldwall or the 3Cv in the DBA Pre-Feudal Scotts list.
I also have enough in this bin for two units of guys with axes and two units of gusy with spears. That’d be the 4Wb and 3Sp, respectively, in the DBA list. In Shieldwall I think I was planning on using them as Gall-Gaedill (Scotts-irish mercenaries) and Soer-chele, respectively. Not sure what they’re going to be in Warmaster…. Probably call them both “medium Infantry”
The only Scotts I’ve gotten around to painting so far. I thought I might use this as a General. But if I’m using three per base for the cavalry I’ll be two short…. I guess I could get another pack….
The Welsh. All I have is Archers right now, Sixty of them. They’re from Old Glory. Unfortunately for the time period I’m playing both DBA and Shieldwall list welsh archers as skirmishers. My plan for skirmishers was to base them 3 to a base. That would give me 20 stands – six units. Do I really need that many units of skirmishers!? Probably not. Maybe They’ll be leant out to other armies – or I’ll make an early feudal/medieval Welsh army as well and make a couple units of massed bow.
I’ll need some sort of light infantry for the Welsh. Maybe re-master my Saxon fyrdman with a barehead and a cloak… then cast hundreds and call them Welshmen!
The Irish. I have about two units of guys with two-handed axes and no armour. In DBA the Irish are pretty much all classed as Auxillia or Psiloi, with an option for some Blade… Comparing to Shieldwall I imagine the Blade would be the “Fianna” (or maybe some Norse mercenaries…?), the Auxillia would be the “Bonnachts”, and the Psiloi would be the “Kerns”. I think these lads will be the “Fianna” and classed as Medium infantry and maybe “warband”. For “Bonnachts” I’ll have to make myself some irish light infantry (which I’ll base four to a stand), and for “Kerns” some skirmishers (three to a stand) at some point…
I kind of like the idea of having a unit of Irish Wolfhounds… Not sure how historical that would be… maybe call them “skirmishers”?
The Sheep. I had this idea of running a skirmish campaign sort of based on Mordheim except instead of looking for shards of wyrdstone you’d be stealing sheep from your neighbors…
Here’s the painted Normans… Long way to go… The fully painted ones are old Wargames Foundry figures, the primed one is from Gripping Beast.
All Gripping Beast, not even enough for a unit.. Now that he dollar is close to the US dollar it might be time to order some Old Glory Norman Cavalry..! (…or find something I could trade to CVT for his!)
So tallying things up, here’s THE PLAN
Anglo-Saxons
1 General might get Crusader DAS-10 Personalities Harold and Tostig for this…
2 Eorls – Use some command figures I’ve got… 2 To Paint!
2 Chieftans? – Use some command figures I’ve got… 2 To Paint!
3 Units of Huscarls – DONE! (well… one has to be re-based)
4 Units of Great Fyrd – to be re-based
2 Units of Archers – to be re-based
6 Units of Fyrd – need to cast and paint!
Norse
General - Use some command figures I’ve got… To Paint (or re-base)!
Warlord - Use some command figures I’ve got… To Paint (or re-base)!
Cheiftan - Use some command figures I’ve got… To Paint (or re-base)!
4 Units of Hird – 2 Done, 2 To Paint
2 Units of Skirmishers – to be re-based
1 Unit of Berserkers – to be painted
8 Unis of Bondi – One DONE, 7 to paint!
Scotts
General – DONE!
Warlord - ?
Cheiftan - ?
2 Units of
2 Units of Mounted Toisech (Medium Cavalry) – to be painted, need one pack of GB cav
2 Units of Gall-Gaedill (Scotts-irish mercenaries with axes – medium infantry)
2 Units of Soer-chele ( with spears– medium infantry)
2 Units of Eachraidh (Mtd Skirmishers/LH) Need to get GB 3xGBCEL-07 Unarmd Cav
Need to make generic spearman and cast piles for more Soer-Chele or Doer-Chele
Maybe I'll borrow a dozen or so welsh archers and call them bow-armed scottish skirmishers...
Irish
Um…
General…? Have one…
2 Units of Fianna (Medium Infantry) – need to paint
Need to make generic irish warrior with spear/Javelin for Bonnachts (light infantry – 4/base) and Kerns (skirmishers – 3/base)
Welsh
Generals and Leaders – need to get…
6 Units of Bow-Armed Skirmishers… I have enough… just need to paint…
Need to make Generic Light infantryman and cast piles….
Normans
General – TO Get – Crusader DAN-110 William and Bishop Odo
Where to start…?
Need to get:
Knights – each old Glory bag would make one unit... four maybe…? The extra figure in each pack could be mounted singly as a Commander.
“Retainers”…? Mounted Skirmishers…?
Need to make: Spearmen – 2-4 units – have figures to use as command to paint!
Need to cast: Archers – two units…
Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:
GAME PLAN 2008
More taking stock…
I’d also though I’d like to do an extended campaign using the simple DBA campaign system with a player each controlling the Normans, Norse, English, Welsh, Scotts, and Irish… and maybe one controlling “other franks”… Originally it was my intention to do this with 15mm DBA armies… but they’re gone now… and that’s okay because I’ve still got these 28mm guys, though I am far from owning the necessary forces for either of the above – I’ll get there someday…
Like my Successors and The English Civil War armies I am planning to use these with Warmaster Ancients (and maybe DBA or Warhammer Ancients) So I am using my new standard basing system for multi-figure bases - with any leftovers being based on washers for skirmish gaming or “change” for stands if I ever use Warhammer.
Alright, here’s what I’ve got so far…
(Remember: click on the pictures for a bigger version)
Two units of Saxon Huscarls. These are mostly Old Glory with a couple Gripping beast thrown in.
Now anyone that knows me knows that I think all points systems are BALLS – but I have to admit when approaching a completely new system I sometimes figure out what I was planning on making would be in points and compare it to the min/max limits at various point levels etc – just to see if things are way out of whack with what the designers thought appropriate for proportional amounts of various troop types… Well… None of these armies I have amount to more than 1000 points and Huscarls are listed as maximum one unit per full 1000 points… oh dear… Anyway that’s my 3x 4Bd all taken care of for a DBA Anglo-Danish army.
These are figures I modeled and cast myself. I think this was, in fact, one of, in not THE, very first figure I modeled. I have since re-mastered it with a separate (BIGGER) shield. They have to be re-based. I’ll use these as “Great Fyrd” in Warmaster Ancients. There’s 55 of them, with a few new command figures thrown in I should be able to put together 12 stands (4 units!).
Here’s what the re-mastered figure looks like – I don’t have any fully painted just yet. These don’t have my own shields – these were extras from the various Old Glory packs. Mine looks similar to the round one – very plain, round shield with a metal center bit… I forget what they’re called… I can cast piles of these any time I want… So when I get back into working on this project I’ll crank
Except for the two Harlequin/Black Tree Design figures these are again all home-casts that I could make piles of. There’s no Bow in either the Middle Anglo-Saxon or Anglo-Danish lists, just Psiloi… I think I’ll base these as I would 3Bw – four to a base – as Warmaster Ancients allows “Archers”. This will then make 2 units. I think I’d rather my Psiloi/Skirmishers have slings and/or javelins.
Assorted Command – There’s a mix of Old Glory and Gripping Beast here, maybe even a Halequin/Black Tree Design horn blower over on the left there.
Well I think I was thinking these would be Thegns in Warhammer Ancients. There are no Thegns in Warmaster however… so I guess it’s ANOTHER unit of Huscarls… When I finish getting them re-based.
So back when I started home casting those guys I ordered some Saxon command and some Huscarls from Old Glory Canada in Toronto. I figured the chain mail was a bit beyond my modeling skills at that point so I’d just buy them as I didn’t need too many. When my order arrived they has “accidentally” sent Saxon Casualties instead of the Huscarls… and a note that said “as of [two weeks before parcel arrived] we will no longer be in business”… I wonder if they just didn’t have the huscarls and just “accidentally” threw in the casualties “by mistake” so they wouldn’t have to issue me a refund check… ah well… they’ve been fun to throw on to stands, here and there…
Assorted Saxons to paint. Some Gripping Beast Thegns, some BTD fyrd or skirmishers, some of my own “generic dark ages spearmen”… not quite enough of anything to make a unit. Perhaps they’ll all get mounted on washers and be used in skirmish games. Well, not MY guys – I’ll just cast some more and make full units of them.
Assorted Dark Age Command – on the left are mostly Saxon, some Scotts below them at the bottom, an Norse on the right. I’m not so keen on the Saxon commander on the to left – he looks like he’s singing in a frickin opera! Ah well…
Again Two units of Norse Hirdmen when I only really need one…. (wait for it…) I think these are ALL Old Glory.
One unit of Bondi – all Old Glory, except for the horn blower which I think if from Essex…
These are ancient Citadel and Ral Partha figures I’ve been using as skirmishers – and will continue to do so! These will be based three to a stand and will make 2 units…. Once I paint up another figure for each unit…
Assorted Command – Old Glory, Gripping Beast, and Essex. Some will be added to unit stands of figures whenever I get around to painting them up… some may be based together on a big round metal washer to use as command elements.
Assorted odds and sods. Some may be added to unit stands other will be kept on single bases for skirmish games. These are Old Glory and some more really old Citadel Miniatures (which have recently been stripped and re-painted).
More old figures – the ones on the left are old Citadel, the ones on the right are Ral Partha. The Citadel figures will, at some point, be stripped, their axes repaired, and repainted and added to unit stands…
Ulfhednars and berserkers. I was a little surprised to see that you can have entire units of berserkers in Warmaster Ancients… I guess they had to include then somehow. Well these will be the beginning of one such unit. The Ulfhednars are from Gripping Beast, the Berserks are from Essex.
Valkyries – Wiking Varrior Vimin… I couldn’t help myself… The hottie in the center is another old, old Citadel miniature; the beauties flanking her are more recent Wargames Foundry figures.
Berserks and valkyries to be painted. The Valkyries on the let I have no idea where they came from… the Berserks next to them are from Old Glory, more Ulfhednars from Gripping Beast, and more Valkyries from the Foundry.
More odds and sods – Viking Raiders from Old Glory.
Remember when I said “wait for it”… Here’s why – THREE MORE units of Hirdmen…! I think at least one of these units I will disperse among the units of Bondi as “better off” bondi…
Here’s the rest of the Bondi – six units of them- with the dispersed hirdmen that will make seven to paint - for a total of eight.
The Scotts. These are mostly Old Glory with a few Gripping Beast cavalry thrown in. Lacking an actual Warmaster list I’ll have to BS something together based on the DBA lists and the Warhammer Ancients: Shieldwall lists.
The cavalry will probably be based three per base (rather than two for light cavalry/mounted skirmishers) as they all have chain mail and thus I figured they’d be some sort of Noble Cavalry like mounted thanes or Toisech from Shieldwall or the 3Cv in the DBA Pre-Feudal Scotts list.
I also have enough in this bin for two units of guys with axes and two units of gusy with spears. That’d be the 4Wb and 3Sp, respectively, in the DBA list. In Shieldwall I think I was planning on using them as Gall-Gaedill (Scotts-irish mercenaries) and Soer-chele, respectively. Not sure what they’re going to be in Warmaster…. Probably call them both “medium Infantry”
The only Scotts I’ve gotten around to painting so far. I thought I might use this as a General. But if I’m using three per base for the cavalry I’ll be two short…. I guess I could get another pack….
The Welsh. All I have is Archers right now, Sixty of them. They’re from Old Glory. Unfortunately for the time period I’m playing both DBA and Shieldwall list welsh archers as skirmishers. My plan for skirmishers was to base them 3 to a base. That would give me 20 stands – six units. Do I really need that many units of skirmishers!? Probably not. Maybe They’ll be leant out to other armies – or I’ll make an early feudal/medieval Welsh army as well and make a couple units of massed bow.
I’ll need some sort of light infantry for the Welsh. Maybe re-master my Saxon fyrdman with a barehead and a cloak… then cast hundreds and call them Welshmen!
The Irish. I have about two units of guys with two-handed axes and no armour. In DBA the Irish are pretty much all classed as Auxillia or Psiloi, with an option for some Blade… Comparing to Shieldwall I imagine the Blade would be the “Fianna” (or maybe some Norse mercenaries…?), the Auxillia would be the “Bonnachts”, and the Psiloi would be the “Kerns”. I think these lads will be the “Fianna” and classed as Medium infantry and maybe “warband”. For “Bonnachts” I’ll have to make myself some irish light infantry (which I’ll base four to a stand), and for “Kerns” some skirmishers (three to a stand) at some point…
I kind of like the idea of having a unit of Irish Wolfhounds… Not sure how historical that would be… maybe call them “skirmishers”?
The Sheep. I had this idea of running a skirmish campaign sort of based on Mordheim except instead of looking for shards of wyrdstone you’d be stealing sheep from your neighbors…
Here’s the painted Normans… Long way to go… The fully painted ones are old Wargames Foundry figures, the primed one is from Gripping Beast.
All Gripping Beast, not even enough for a unit.. Now that he dollar is close to the US dollar it might be time to order some Old Glory Norman Cavalry..! (…or find something I could trade to CVT for his!)
So tallying things up, here’s THE PLAN
Anglo-Saxons
1 General might get Crusader DAS-10 Personalities Harold and Tostig for this…
2 Eorls – Use some command figures I’ve got… 2 To Paint!
2 Chieftans? – Use some command figures I’ve got… 2 To Paint!
3 Units of Huscarls – DONE! (well… one has to be re-based)
4 Units of Great Fyrd – to be re-based
2 Units of Archers – to be re-based
6 Units of Fyrd – need to cast and paint!
Norse
General - Use some command figures I’ve got… To Paint (or re-base)!
Warlord - Use some command figures I’ve got… To Paint (or re-base)!
Cheiftan - Use some command figures I’ve got… To Paint (or re-base)!
4 Units of Hird – 2 Done, 2 To Paint
2 Units of Skirmishers – to be re-based
1 Unit of Berserkers – to be painted
8 Unis of Bondi – One DONE, 7 to paint!
Scotts
General – DONE!
Warlord - ?
Cheiftan - ?
2 Units of
2 Units of Mounted Toisech (Medium Cavalry) – to be painted, need one pack of GB cav
2 Units of Gall-Gaedill (Scotts-irish mercenaries with axes – medium infantry)
2 Units of Soer-chele ( with spears– medium infantry)
2 Units of Eachraidh (Mtd Skirmishers/LH) Need to get GB 3xGBCEL-07 Unarmd Cav
Need to make generic spearman and cast piles for more Soer-Chele or Doer-Chele
Maybe I'll borrow a dozen or so welsh archers and call them bow-armed scottish skirmishers...
Irish
Um…
General…? Have one…
2 Units of Fianna (Medium Infantry) – need to paint
Need to make generic irish warrior with spear/Javelin for Bonnachts (light infantry – 4/base) and Kerns (skirmishers – 3/base)
Welsh
Generals and Leaders – need to get…
6 Units of Bow-Armed Skirmishers… I have enough… just need to paint…
Need to make Generic Light infantryman and cast piles….
Normans
General – TO Get – Crusader DAN-110 William and Bishop Odo
Where to start…?
Need to get:
Knights – each old Glory bag would make one unit... four maybe…? The extra figure in each pack could be mounted singly as a Commander.
“Retainers”…? Mounted Skirmishers…?
Need to make: Spearmen – 2-4 units – have figures to use as command to paint!
Need to cast: Archers – two units…
Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:
GAME PLAN 2008
More taking stock…
Sunday, December 30, 2007
28mm English Civil War
Next in the pile of stuff to take stock of is my 28mm English Civil War collection. This collection has increase extensively very recently due to a very successful trade – I traded away eight 15mm DBA Dark Ages armies (three of which were fully painted) in exchange for… well, you’ll see… a LOT of Old Glory 28mm ECW stuff (thanks Mike!)
Originally I thought I’d use Warhammer: English Civil War – whenever I got around to playing, but (as you well know if you’ve been following the blog) I’m quite enamored with the whole Warmaster idea and imagine I’d like to use these for that… So my current plan is to bases them as per my new basing standards and have some extras on single bases for skirmishing or “change” for the stands If I play do ever end up playing Warhammer: English Civil War.
Here’s what I’ve got so far:
(Remember: click on the pictures for a bigger version)
Now these lads are a touch smaller than the Old Glory – more like real “25mm” stuff. They’re actually figures I modeled and cast myself. Well actually I modeled them and my friend John cast them as I wasn’t set up for that when these were made… I’m not sure where the masters have gone to, I’m pretty sure I got them back from him. I hope he has the moulds as I’d like to cast some more someday…
A second batch of the above. These, with the ones pictured above, should make me ONE UNIT of pike and maybe two shot…
Old Glory Cuirassiers. One unit. Should be all I need, really. I’ll have one left over, he’ll become a commander of some sort.
These are the first ECW figures I ever bought. They’re old Wargames foundry figures that I ordered from England back before the internet based on descriptions and line drawings in a Wargames Illustrated add back in, oh, 1988…? Anyone remember those good old days? I wasn’t disappointed but never did get around to placing another order… didn’t really have the money at the time… or had different priorities… These will probably be kept as individually mounted figures for skirmishing – except the general, he’ll actually serve as a general. They’ll probably get touched up and re-based onto round washers at some point – including the general.
Here’s the stuff I got in trade. One of these I bought myself a while back – one of the Command Packs – I thought I’d use them with my home-cast rank and file.
My Highlanders! These boys have seen lots of action as a Mordhiem warband. Most of them are Old Glory, though I think there’s a couple of Dixon figures in the back there. Nice figures. Pain in the ass to paint – what with the tartan and all. But they do look nice when they’re done.
My Covenanters. All three of them….
The highlanders I have yet to paint. Again, mostly Old Glory but there’s a couple more Dixon and some Essex figures in there as well.
These are some old Minifigs Scotts. Probably more appropriate for the Thirty Years War.
So as I mentioned these will mostly be based as per my new basing standards. The foot will be on 60x40mm bases; pike will have 8/base, shot will have 6/base. The trouble is how many bases/stands per unit. The standard in Warmaster seems to be three. The one English Civil Warmaster variant I’ve found so far varies from that and had pike in units of four and shot in units of two…? Guess I’ll have to play it and find out how they work…
The Horse will be mounted three on a 60x50mm base and are 3 stands per unit.
So what I HAVE is:
16 painted and 16 unpainted home-cast pike (so far…) Which would make one unit if 4 stands/unit, or one and a start on a second otherwise.
16 painted and 16 unpainted home-cast shot (so far…) Which would make two units if 2 stands/unit, or one and a start on a second otherwise….
One unit of Cuirassiers to be finished.
The Old glory bags include:
2x ECW-2 Unarmoured Command
1x ECW-4 Pike Advancing Soft hat
1x ECW-7 Pike Advancing Montero Cap
1x ECW-9 Pike Buffcoat, Charging, Helmet
1x ECW- 11 Pike Buffcoat, Porte Pike, Helmet
1x ECW-12 Pike Buffcoat, Charging, Soft hat
1x ECW-19 Musketeer Firing Montero Cap
1x ECW-21 Musketeer Advancing Montero Cap
1x ECW-26 Cavalry Buffcoat Helmet
1x ECW-27 Cavalry Buffcoat Soft Hat
1x ECW-36 Royalist Personalities
1x ECW-53 Moss’ Troopers
So a total of 60 “command” (could be used in pike units or shot), 150 Pike, 60 shot.
That would make 5-7 units of pike – depending on whether using 3 or 4 stands/unit – and 4-6 units of shot, depending… any leftovers cold be individually based for skirmishing and/or “change”.
Each bag of Horse would be one unit with one left over to be a commander (or skirmisher)
The Highlanders I have 15 painted and 27 not-so-painted… the ones already painted and on washer I will leave as they are. 18 of the others will make one unit of highlanders… unless I base them as “hordes” which would be 7-9 figures on a 60x60mm base… hmmm…
Hmmmm… I have some guns somewhere, but no crew, which I didn’t manage to take a picture of.
The unfortunate bit is that the campaign I’d really like to play is Marquis of Montorse’s Scottish campaign… and there would have limited use… When I get around to the Englsih Civil War again I will model a couple Scottish pikemen and shot and maybe a highlander or two and cast them by the hundreds… That’s a “someday” project right now, though…
Originally I thought I’d use Warhammer: English Civil War – whenever I got around to playing, but (as you well know if you’ve been following the blog) I’m quite enamored with the whole Warmaster idea and imagine I’d like to use these for that… So my current plan is to bases them as per my new basing standards and have some extras on single bases for skirmishing or “change” for the stands If I play do ever end up playing Warhammer: English Civil War.
Here’s what I’ve got so far:
(Remember: click on the pictures for a bigger version)
Now these lads are a touch smaller than the Old Glory – more like real “25mm” stuff. They’re actually figures I modeled and cast myself. Well actually I modeled them and my friend John cast them as I wasn’t set up for that when these were made… I’m not sure where the masters have gone to, I’m pretty sure I got them back from him. I hope he has the moulds as I’d like to cast some more someday…
A second batch of the above. These, with the ones pictured above, should make me ONE UNIT of pike and maybe two shot…
Old Glory Cuirassiers. One unit. Should be all I need, really. I’ll have one left over, he’ll become a commander of some sort.
These are the first ECW figures I ever bought. They’re old Wargames foundry figures that I ordered from England back before the internet based on descriptions and line drawings in a Wargames Illustrated add back in, oh, 1988…? Anyone remember those good old days? I wasn’t disappointed but never did get around to placing another order… didn’t really have the money at the time… or had different priorities… These will probably be kept as individually mounted figures for skirmishing – except the general, he’ll actually serve as a general. They’ll probably get touched up and re-based onto round washers at some point – including the general.
Here’s the stuff I got in trade. One of these I bought myself a while back – one of the Command Packs – I thought I’d use them with my home-cast rank and file.
My Highlanders! These boys have seen lots of action as a Mordhiem warband. Most of them are Old Glory, though I think there’s a couple of Dixon figures in the back there. Nice figures. Pain in the ass to paint – what with the tartan and all. But they do look nice when they’re done.
My Covenanters. All three of them….
The highlanders I have yet to paint. Again, mostly Old Glory but there’s a couple more Dixon and some Essex figures in there as well.
These are some old Minifigs Scotts. Probably more appropriate for the Thirty Years War.
So as I mentioned these will mostly be based as per my new basing standards. The foot will be on 60x40mm bases; pike will have 8/base, shot will have 6/base. The trouble is how many bases/stands per unit. The standard in Warmaster seems to be three. The one English Civil Warmaster variant I’ve found so far varies from that and had pike in units of four and shot in units of two…? Guess I’ll have to play it and find out how they work…
The Horse will be mounted three on a 60x50mm base and are 3 stands per unit.
So what I HAVE is:
16 painted and 16 unpainted home-cast pike (so far…) Which would make one unit if 4 stands/unit, or one and a start on a second otherwise.
16 painted and 16 unpainted home-cast shot (so far…) Which would make two units if 2 stands/unit, or one and a start on a second otherwise….
One unit of Cuirassiers to be finished.
The Old glory bags include:
2x ECW-2 Unarmoured Command
1x ECW-4 Pike Advancing Soft hat
1x ECW-7 Pike Advancing Montero Cap
1x ECW-9 Pike Buffcoat, Charging, Helmet
1x ECW- 11 Pike Buffcoat, Porte Pike, Helmet
1x ECW-12 Pike Buffcoat, Charging, Soft hat
1x ECW-19 Musketeer Firing Montero Cap
1x ECW-21 Musketeer Advancing Montero Cap
1x ECW-26 Cavalry Buffcoat Helmet
1x ECW-27 Cavalry Buffcoat Soft Hat
1x ECW-36 Royalist Personalities
1x ECW-53 Moss’ Troopers
So a total of 60 “command” (could be used in pike units or shot), 150 Pike, 60 shot.
That would make 5-7 units of pike – depending on whether using 3 or 4 stands/unit – and 4-6 units of shot, depending… any leftovers cold be individually based for skirmishing and/or “change”.
Each bag of Horse would be one unit with one left over to be a commander (or skirmisher)
The Highlanders I have 15 painted and 27 not-so-painted… the ones already painted and on washer I will leave as they are. 18 of the others will make one unit of highlanders… unless I base them as “hordes” which would be 7-9 figures on a 60x60mm base… hmmm…
Hmmmm… I have some guns somewhere, but no crew, which I didn’t manage to take a picture of.
The unfortunate bit is that the campaign I’d really like to play is Marquis of Montorse’s Scottish campaign… and there would have limited use… When I get around to the Englsih Civil War again I will model a couple Scottish pikemen and shot and maybe a highlander or two and cast them by the hundreds… That’s a “someday” project right now, though…
Saturday, December 29, 2007
The Successors
Lookit me, I'm a blog-posting foo'!
Taking stock of a few more things we move on to my ancients stuff. This one was easy as NONE of it is painted yet!
(Remember: click on the pictures for a bigger version)
This is a pile of old Rafm “Armies of the Hellenistic Period” packs that a friend got from a distributor that was closing down. He more or less gave them to me and then asked if I’d paint a 15mm Greek DBA army for him in exchange… I have the army… I just haven’t painted it yet… (well… I THINK I still have it… somewhere!?). It’s been a few years not that they’ve bee sitting in a box under my work table.
Unfortunately I know NOTHING about the period. Originally I was thinking I’d paint these up someday and base them as per 25mm DBA armies. I’d probably get a few armies out of them. My good friend Mikey K was visiting earlier this year and helped me sort them out a bit. I made some notes on the packs as to what they might be and circled some armies in my DBA book and then put them back in the box…
Recently I picked up Warmaster Ancients and started thinking about these again and how I might make a WMA Successor army out of these using the basing system discussed in a previous post on Rules and basing. So with that in mind…..
Here’s what I’ve got in that pile pictured above, how I might use it, and some of the things I’d need to get… when I get around to painting these up:
1x AH-30 (of course these are old codes that Rafm doesn’e even use anymore – this one, for example is now RAF07130, but I’m just going to use the ones on the package…) Macedonian Prodomos with Kontos. I’m not sure what a “Prodomos” is… or a Kontos for that matter. But in DBA I imagine it would be 3Cv and Warmaster I’m going to call them “Heavy Cavalry”… not that I can do much with one pack…
7x AH-18 Illyrian Light Cavalry. Now that’s more like it… definitely 2LH or “Mounted Skirmishers”! Ten stands of them! (so, three units in Warmaster, I’d need one more pack to make four)
2x AH-38 Babylonian Levy Archer and 2x AH-39 Arab Archers. If I mixed the two I could make one unit of archers (using the 6/base system for regular troops…) the rest could become skirmishers…? Of course if I did them 4/base I could have a unit of each… hmmm….
1x AH-32 Greek Archer Kneeling – maybe mix with the left overs from the Arab Archers to make a unit of skirmishers…?
1x AH-24 Staff slingers… hmmmm…
2x Mysian Peltast – this will become one unit of 4/base “light infantry” – which I will call Ax if using DBA…
4x AH-15 Extra Heavy Companion Cavalry – Now “Extra Heavy” would lead me to think that they are heavier than heavy and therefore “Cataphract” in Warmaster ancients… However in the Rafm line there are “Cataphracts” which do look like they have even MORE armour on their horses… Whatever, they’re going on stands 3/base and will make me one unit and the beginning of a second (or some command stands, I guess…). Either way in DBA I’m sure they’re Kn.
3x AH-1 Imitation Legionnaire – Poof! One unit of Heavy Infantry – not normally “allowed” in a Successor army. Three stands of Bd in DBA.
2x AH-41 and 2x AH-42 Macedonian Pikemen (front and rear ranks) - One unit of Phalanx. These would be 8/base… or maybe 9 in three rows of three on a deeper base…? We shall see… In the latter case I’d need another pack… I’ll need more packs anyway as these are the foundation of Successor armies and I currently have only enough for about two phalanx.
3x AH-5 Phalangist in Quilted Armour and 2x AH-6 Phalangist in Asian Dress? Another Phallanx, possibly the beginnings of a third if I go with the 8/base. In the end I’ll probably do something REALLY stupid and decide I need to do 12/base on a 60x60mm base…
1x AH-43 Macedonian Hypaspis in Leather Armour. Not sure what they do what work but in the notes I made when Mikey K was here I need to paint them white with a silver shield and they might be Sp in DBA…
2x RA-10 Auxillary Slinger – okay this is getting into the “armies of the Caesars” line… still skirmishers are skirmishers (or Ps are Ps…). This would make a unit of them.
2x RA-57 Dacian Archers – again with the Romans and their enemies – more skirmishers…
So, tallying that all up for Warmaster I'd have:
3-4 Units of Mounted Skirmishers (Illyrian Light Horse)
1 Unit of Archers (Babylonian and Arab)
2 Units of Phalanx
1 Unit of Heavy Infantry (Imitation Legionaires)
1 Unit of Cataphracts (or Heavy Cavalry)
1 Unit of Light Infantry (Mysian Peltasts)
4-5 Units of Skirmishers (including the Greeks, Staff Slingers, Roman Auxillary Slingers and Dacian Archers...)
for DBA multiply by three... and add a Sp and Cv stand (Hypaspists and Prodomos)
Well I certainly have not shortage of Skirmishers! I do like to do two opposing armies at a time and I probably have enough skirmishers for both. When I ever do get around to painting these I will definitely need a pile of more pike/phalangists…
If anybody out there actually knows anything about the armies of this era and know that some of these definitely don’t belong in the same army together or I’ve categorized these wrong please, PLEASE do feel free to post a comment and set me straight!!
Taking stock of a few more things we move on to my ancients stuff. This one was easy as NONE of it is painted yet!
(Remember: click on the pictures for a bigger version)
This is a pile of old Rafm “Armies of the Hellenistic Period” packs that a friend got from a distributor that was closing down. He more or less gave them to me and then asked if I’d paint a 15mm Greek DBA army for him in exchange… I have the army… I just haven’t painted it yet… (well… I THINK I still have it… somewhere!?). It’s been a few years not that they’ve bee sitting in a box under my work table.
Unfortunately I know NOTHING about the period. Originally I was thinking I’d paint these up someday and base them as per 25mm DBA armies. I’d probably get a few armies out of them. My good friend Mikey K was visiting earlier this year and helped me sort them out a bit. I made some notes on the packs as to what they might be and circled some armies in my DBA book and then put them back in the box…
Recently I picked up Warmaster Ancients and started thinking about these again and how I might make a WMA Successor army out of these using the basing system discussed in a previous post on Rules and basing. So with that in mind…..
Here’s what I’ve got in that pile pictured above, how I might use it, and some of the things I’d need to get… when I get around to painting these up:
1x AH-30 (of course these are old codes that Rafm doesn’e even use anymore – this one, for example is now RAF07130, but I’m just going to use the ones on the package…) Macedonian Prodomos with Kontos. I’m not sure what a “Prodomos” is… or a Kontos for that matter. But in DBA I imagine it would be 3Cv and Warmaster I’m going to call them “Heavy Cavalry”… not that I can do much with one pack…
7x AH-18 Illyrian Light Cavalry. Now that’s more like it… definitely 2LH or “Mounted Skirmishers”! Ten stands of them! (so, three units in Warmaster, I’d need one more pack to make four)
2x AH-38 Babylonian Levy Archer and 2x AH-39 Arab Archers. If I mixed the two I could make one unit of archers (using the 6/base system for regular troops…) the rest could become skirmishers…? Of course if I did them 4/base I could have a unit of each… hmmm….
1x AH-32 Greek Archer Kneeling – maybe mix with the left overs from the Arab Archers to make a unit of skirmishers…?
1x AH-24 Staff slingers… hmmmm…
2x Mysian Peltast – this will become one unit of 4/base “light infantry” – which I will call Ax if using DBA…
4x AH-15 Extra Heavy Companion Cavalry – Now “Extra Heavy” would lead me to think that they are heavier than heavy and therefore “Cataphract” in Warmaster ancients… However in the Rafm line there are “Cataphracts” which do look like they have even MORE armour on their horses… Whatever, they’re going on stands 3/base and will make me one unit and the beginning of a second (or some command stands, I guess…). Either way in DBA I’m sure they’re Kn.
3x AH-1 Imitation Legionnaire – Poof! One unit of Heavy Infantry – not normally “allowed” in a Successor army. Three stands of Bd in DBA.
2x AH-41 and 2x AH-42 Macedonian Pikemen (front and rear ranks) - One unit of Phalanx. These would be 8/base… or maybe 9 in three rows of three on a deeper base…? We shall see… In the latter case I’d need another pack… I’ll need more packs anyway as these are the foundation of Successor armies and I currently have only enough for about two phalanx.
3x AH-5 Phalangist in Quilted Armour and 2x AH-6 Phalangist in Asian Dress? Another Phallanx, possibly the beginnings of a third if I go with the 8/base. In the end I’ll probably do something REALLY stupid and decide I need to do 12/base on a 60x60mm base…
1x AH-43 Macedonian Hypaspis in Leather Armour. Not sure what they do what work but in the notes I made when Mikey K was here I need to paint them white with a silver shield and they might be Sp in DBA…
2x RA-10 Auxillary Slinger – okay this is getting into the “armies of the Caesars” line… still skirmishers are skirmishers (or Ps are Ps…). This would make a unit of them.
2x RA-57 Dacian Archers – again with the Romans and their enemies – more skirmishers…
So, tallying that all up for Warmaster I'd have:
3-4 Units of Mounted Skirmishers (Illyrian Light Horse)
1 Unit of Archers (Babylonian and Arab)
2 Units of Phalanx
1 Unit of Heavy Infantry (Imitation Legionaires)
1 Unit of Cataphracts (or Heavy Cavalry)
1 Unit of Light Infantry (Mysian Peltasts)
4-5 Units of Skirmishers (including the Greeks, Staff Slingers, Roman Auxillary Slingers and Dacian Archers...)
for DBA multiply by three... and add a Sp and Cv stand (Hypaspists and Prodomos)
Well I certainly have not shortage of Skirmishers! I do like to do two opposing armies at a time and I probably have enough skirmishers for both. When I ever do get around to painting these I will definitely need a pile of more pike/phalangists…
If anybody out there actually knows anything about the armies of this era and know that some of these definitely don’t belong in the same army together or I’ve categorized these wrong please, PLEASE do feel free to post a comment and set me straight!!
2007 In Review
So the year is nearly over and I’ve been giving some thought to what I want to do next year. Perhaps I should take a look at my goals for 2007 and see what was accomplished.
My various plans for the year were set out in a number of posts on this blog – The Vimy Project, The Game Plan 2007, and various updates.
The progress of the Vimy Project can be followed using the Vimy Label on this blog – unfortunately you then have to read the posts from bottom to top as it always shows the most recent. In a nutshell between December of 2006 and may of 2007 I modeled about two dozen German and Canadian figures, made moulds, cast about 200 of them, based and painted them, then made about 12 feet of barbed wire obstacles and four 2’x2’ custom/purpose built terrain squares roughly approximating something that looked like the 4th Canadian Division’s front at Vimy Ridge. Then I rented a car and hauled it 500km to Edmonton, Alberta, Canada for Mayday….
Around the same time I built a half dozen generic mudbick type houses that could be used everywhere from North Africa to Afghanistan and the “Back of Beyond” – these I also took to Edmonton for a Savage Worlds Pulp Adventure game I ran – which wasn’t part of any original plan – I just kind of volunteered mid-march as registration was about to open and someone else had backed out…
After Mayday I recognized the value of having a focus and a plan so I set out The Game Plan 2007. In it I outlines the events and conventions I planned on attending, the regular gaming I wanted to do from week to week, and the projects I wanted to work on. Anyway, following the same outline of the plan, here’s how things worked out:
Events and Conventions
Mayday – As I already mentioned I went. It was fun.
Fallcon – After Fallcon 2006 I wasn’t sure if I was going to go to Fallcon again. The only really good times I had during that weekend were when I was playing games with friends. A number of the events I signed up for at the conventions blew chunks – partly because of poor organization and lack of play-testing on the part of the person running it, partly because of the other people playing…
I ended up deciding to go for two main reasons. The first was I recognized the value of an absolute deadline for a project. I got the Vimy Project completed in time because I felt I had to. I wanted to take a break from the Vimy Project but, after the success of it at mayday, I was still pretty pumped about Contemptible Little Armies and some friends in Calgary seemed to be getting really interested in it. I thought I might head to Calgary and run just have a big gaming weekend and run a big CLA game just for them. Somehow I got it in my head that I could run it at Fallcon, just for them…. i.e. I had four friends that were interested in playing – if they all signed up for it on the first day of registration there would be no worries about annoying gits at the table. Maybe it would get the game some exposure and anyone interesting that stopped by the table to have a look they could try and recruit into their game….
Well, trying to cut a story that’s getting a bit long story short here… only one did sign up. Of course I didn’t fine that out until the Friday I showed up in Calgary…. Over the summer I had been doing a fair bit of play-testing and the limitations of CLA were becoming all too clear. It’s an okay game if you’re playing with friends of a like mind that have an appreciation for the era and the tactical realities of it. I had almost wanted to give up and cancel – but then figured – hey it’s just going to be cool friends at the table – nobody’s going to try anything gamey…. Ha…
I guess there were two other reasons I had wanted to go. One was modeling and casting my own figures and wanted to show them off a bit and had been thinking I might try to sell some. The other was the auction. I love getting crazy deals on cool stuff…
Whatever… I’m not going next year. I might make a trip out to Calgary for a gaming weekend with John and Will (and anyone else that can pry themselves away from whatever else they’re doing that’s so damn important….). yeah… I’ll just shut up about that now.
Hero’s Gambit – I had planned on running stuff again this year… but then didn’t. There was much discussion about this in another post (Hero’s Gambit and other things). I’ll leave it at that.
Tim’s Wargaming Weekend – didn’t happen last year, but it definitely is this year – it’s taking place 22-23-24 Feruary 2008 and more or less being amalgamated with my 4th Annual Wargaming Birthday Bash (the birthday bash is basically being extended into a whole weekend of wargaming with friends). More on that later.
Regular Gaming
Friday night wargames – for a while I was running games every Friday night. Then it was every other Friday night, then over the summer it fizzled completely – until I got ramping up the play-testing for Fallcon and wanting to try out this fancy new game I’d acquired called “Blitzkreig Commander”. After Fallcon I got games going again with a regular game night of Thursdays. I simply decided I was going to set aside the time and play a game every Thursday night – whether anyone showed up or not. If no one did – I’d play it solo. That way everyone would know that on any given Thursday evening there was a game going on at Tim’s house. No need to worry about whether it was the first and third or second and fourth or every other week… it’s EVERY WEEK – SAME TIME, SAME PLACE… Throughout the fall we mostly played Blitzkreig Commander and Cold War Commander. We took a bit of a break in December, as everyone was getting crazy busy with other things, but started again this past week and will be raging on every Thursday night in the New Year.
Savage Sunday
I had a fairly regular Sunday afternoon Savage Worlds game going on. I started the year playing pulp adventure skirmish games. Then it too became every other week. Then fizzled. Then started up again with the release of Savage Worlds: Pirates of the Spanish Main , then that fizzled… then later in the fall I got a regular weekly game going again on Saturday nights and have a pretty solid core of 3 players that have been showing up EVERY week, and another two or three that show up intermittently (well okay two that show up intermittently and another that has been threatening to show up for the last three months but has yet too…). This show no sign of slowing down so I expect it will rage on into the new year as well.
Projects
As I mentioned already I accomplished a LOT in the first couple months of the year on the Vimy Project. Here’s how the projects set out in The Game Plan 2007 (and the schedule I laer came up with in ”It’s Good to Have a Plan”) worked out…
Back of Beyond - This was the big project for the bulk of the spring, summer and fall. I set out to build four armies by Fallcon in September – White Russian, Bolshevik, Chinese and an Army of British India. Again, modeling and casting the bulk of my infantry and cavalry, and buying some officers, guns, and specialist troops I finished the White Russian, Bolshevik, and Chinese. About 300+ infantry, two-dozen cavalry, plus some guns, airplanes, characters… It was a lot. If that wasn’t crazy enough – a couple weeks before the convention I decided to rip them ALL off of the individual bases they were originally mounted on and stick them on multi-figure bases… I also re-based all the Vimy project figures and completely gave up on playing Contemptible Little Armies. When I get back to the era I’ll be playing “Great War Commander”!
East Africa - I also modeled German and British Askaris for a Great War East African Campaign – or possibly a fictional “Central African” campaign.
Pirates - As I mentioned I got terribly excited about Pirates… well... briefly… I did paint up a handful of 28mm pirates and I made a bunch of wee ships (See Tim's Shipyard)
Post-Fallcon
Around mid-july I came up with a plan for things I was going to do after Fallcon (Game Plan 07 Sep-Dec). In it I planned to work on my CLA East/Centrral African stuff, 28mm World War 2, the Great War Era Indians I had originally planned to do for Fallcon, Build all the planes I picked up to use for Canvas Eagles and “Project Rebase” - re-basing a number of my 15&20mm WW2 and modern stuff. The only stuff in this list I did was “Project Re-base”. I’m not even going to try and count haw many bases/figures I rebased from the old 30x20mm or 30x30mm bases I had been using to the new basing standards … Instead I raged ahead with some considerable focus and productivity but not so much of a sensible plan… hence the ridiculous amount of modern armour models I’ve acquired over tha last couple months… (See the Armour TO-DO List).
Around October I decided I should start taking stock of everything I have. It was to be an opportunity to show off all the stuff I have painted on my blog while at the same time… well… TAKE STOCK of what I already have and assess what I might need to finish projects I have on the go… I’m still working on the whole Taking Stock thing…
Later still in the fall I decided it was time to PURGE the 15mm stuff once and for all! I had already traded away a pile of it early in the year – collections of 15mm stuff that I hadn’t really even started painting. I held on to the 15mm DBA armies because, well I had a couple of them painted and still held onto this glimmer of hope that I might paint them up someday and run a 1066 campaign. After some serious consideration I came to the realization that I just wasn’t ever going to paint any large numbers of 15mm figures. It always seemed like a chore and that I was forcing myself to do it… Not something I want to do with my hobby time!? I DO enjoy painting 20-30mm figures! I know some people thing painting anything is a chore and I just don’t get why they selected this hobby if that’s so – but I decided to go with what works for me so the 15mm stuff started to go.
I had a bunch of 15mm modern stuff that I held onto because I figured it’s be too expensive to replace it with 20mm. Well, expensive or not, having them in 20mm would be more versatile as EVERYTHING ELSE I had that was “modern-ish” was 20mm! (and that whole don’t care to paint them thing previously mentioned…) So they were the first to go! In exchange I got a PILE of cool 20mm ww2 stuff that I might actually paint some day!
Then the 15mm DBA and HOTT stuff went… next it’ll probably be the Fallshirmjager… more on that in the New Year.
While this all this (trading, re-basing, stock taking, stockPILIING of 20mm stuff, game playing, etc) was going on through the fall I was raging ahead with painting 20mm modern stuff, and I got quite a bit done. Two battalions of modern British, three battalions of Soviet VDV, a battalion of Soviet Motor-Rifles, and a fair bit of soviet equipment, three tanks, a BMP-1, a BRDM, two American M1s, a handful of Israelis and Afghan DRA and Mujahideen, etc, etc, etc. It’s all there on the blog if you look back… In the last couple of weeks I cranked out a bunch of new 28mm fantasy figures for (Savage) skirmish gaming on Saturday night, as well as touching up and re-basing (from old square bases) other older figures, as well as a whole unit of Elves for my new 28mm Warmaster project and some 28mm Vikings to finish up a couple of units.
So despite the fact that I’m feeling a little scattered and overwhelmed by how much newly acquired (whether through trades or purchases) I have to paint… I do think I had a happy and productive year over all….
Now to work on my plan for next year… and finish stocktaking… Stay tuned – The game plan will be along shortly…
My various plans for the year were set out in a number of posts on this blog – The Vimy Project, The Game Plan 2007, and various updates.
The progress of the Vimy Project can be followed using the Vimy Label on this blog – unfortunately you then have to read the posts from bottom to top as it always shows the most recent. In a nutshell between December of 2006 and may of 2007 I modeled about two dozen German and Canadian figures, made moulds, cast about 200 of them, based and painted them, then made about 12 feet of barbed wire obstacles and four 2’x2’ custom/purpose built terrain squares roughly approximating something that looked like the 4th Canadian Division’s front at Vimy Ridge. Then I rented a car and hauled it 500km to Edmonton, Alberta, Canada for Mayday….
Around the same time I built a half dozen generic mudbick type houses that could be used everywhere from North Africa to Afghanistan and the “Back of Beyond” – these I also took to Edmonton for a Savage Worlds Pulp Adventure game I ran – which wasn’t part of any original plan – I just kind of volunteered mid-march as registration was about to open and someone else had backed out…
After Mayday I recognized the value of having a focus and a plan so I set out The Game Plan 2007. In it I outlines the events and conventions I planned on attending, the regular gaming I wanted to do from week to week, and the projects I wanted to work on. Anyway, following the same outline of the plan, here’s how things worked out:
Events and Conventions
Mayday – As I already mentioned I went. It was fun.
Fallcon – After Fallcon 2006 I wasn’t sure if I was going to go to Fallcon again. The only really good times I had during that weekend were when I was playing games with friends. A number of the events I signed up for at the conventions blew chunks – partly because of poor organization and lack of play-testing on the part of the person running it, partly because of the other people playing…
I ended up deciding to go for two main reasons. The first was I recognized the value of an absolute deadline for a project. I got the Vimy Project completed in time because I felt I had to. I wanted to take a break from the Vimy Project but, after the success of it at mayday, I was still pretty pumped about Contemptible Little Armies and some friends in Calgary seemed to be getting really interested in it. I thought I might head to Calgary and run just have a big gaming weekend and run a big CLA game just for them. Somehow I got it in my head that I could run it at Fallcon, just for them…. i.e. I had four friends that were interested in playing – if they all signed up for it on the first day of registration there would be no worries about annoying gits at the table. Maybe it would get the game some exposure and anyone interesting that stopped by the table to have a look they could try and recruit into their game….
Well, trying to cut a story that’s getting a bit long story short here… only one did sign up. Of course I didn’t fine that out until the Friday I showed up in Calgary…. Over the summer I had been doing a fair bit of play-testing and the limitations of CLA were becoming all too clear. It’s an okay game if you’re playing with friends of a like mind that have an appreciation for the era and the tactical realities of it. I had almost wanted to give up and cancel – but then figured – hey it’s just going to be cool friends at the table – nobody’s going to try anything gamey…. Ha…
I guess there were two other reasons I had wanted to go. One was modeling and casting my own figures and wanted to show them off a bit and had been thinking I might try to sell some. The other was the auction. I love getting crazy deals on cool stuff…
Whatever… I’m not going next year. I might make a trip out to Calgary for a gaming weekend with John and Will (and anyone else that can pry themselves away from whatever else they’re doing that’s so damn important….). yeah… I’ll just shut up about that now.
Hero’s Gambit – I had planned on running stuff again this year… but then didn’t. There was much discussion about this in another post (Hero’s Gambit and other things). I’ll leave it at that.
Tim’s Wargaming Weekend – didn’t happen last year, but it definitely is this year – it’s taking place 22-23-24 Feruary 2008 and more or less being amalgamated with my 4th Annual Wargaming Birthday Bash (the birthday bash is basically being extended into a whole weekend of wargaming with friends). More on that later.
Regular Gaming
Friday night wargames – for a while I was running games every Friday night. Then it was every other Friday night, then over the summer it fizzled completely – until I got ramping up the play-testing for Fallcon and wanting to try out this fancy new game I’d acquired called “Blitzkreig Commander”. After Fallcon I got games going again with a regular game night of Thursdays. I simply decided I was going to set aside the time and play a game every Thursday night – whether anyone showed up or not. If no one did – I’d play it solo. That way everyone would know that on any given Thursday evening there was a game going on at Tim’s house. No need to worry about whether it was the first and third or second and fourth or every other week… it’s EVERY WEEK – SAME TIME, SAME PLACE… Throughout the fall we mostly played Blitzkreig Commander and Cold War Commander. We took a bit of a break in December, as everyone was getting crazy busy with other things, but started again this past week and will be raging on every Thursday night in the New Year.
Savage Sunday
I had a fairly regular Sunday afternoon Savage Worlds game going on. I started the year playing pulp adventure skirmish games. Then it too became every other week. Then fizzled. Then started up again with the release of Savage Worlds: Pirates of the Spanish Main , then that fizzled… then later in the fall I got a regular weekly game going again on Saturday nights and have a pretty solid core of 3 players that have been showing up EVERY week, and another two or three that show up intermittently (well okay two that show up intermittently and another that has been threatening to show up for the last three months but has yet too…). This show no sign of slowing down so I expect it will rage on into the new year as well.
Projects
As I mentioned already I accomplished a LOT in the first couple months of the year on the Vimy Project. Here’s how the projects set out in The Game Plan 2007 (and the schedule I laer came up with in ”It’s Good to Have a Plan”) worked out…
Back of Beyond - This was the big project for the bulk of the spring, summer and fall. I set out to build four armies by Fallcon in September – White Russian, Bolshevik, Chinese and an Army of British India. Again, modeling and casting the bulk of my infantry and cavalry, and buying some officers, guns, and specialist troops I finished the White Russian, Bolshevik, and Chinese. About 300+ infantry, two-dozen cavalry, plus some guns, airplanes, characters… It was a lot. If that wasn’t crazy enough – a couple weeks before the convention I decided to rip them ALL off of the individual bases they were originally mounted on and stick them on multi-figure bases… I also re-based all the Vimy project figures and completely gave up on playing Contemptible Little Armies. When I get back to the era I’ll be playing “Great War Commander”!
East Africa - I also modeled German and British Askaris for a Great War East African Campaign – or possibly a fictional “Central African” campaign.
Pirates - As I mentioned I got terribly excited about Pirates… well... briefly… I did paint up a handful of 28mm pirates and I made a bunch of wee ships (See Tim's Shipyard)
Post-Fallcon
Around mid-july I came up with a plan for things I was going to do after Fallcon (Game Plan 07 Sep-Dec). In it I planned to work on my CLA East/Centrral African stuff, 28mm World War 2, the Great War Era Indians I had originally planned to do for Fallcon, Build all the planes I picked up to use for Canvas Eagles and “Project Rebase” - re-basing a number of my 15&20mm WW2 and modern stuff. The only stuff in this list I did was “Project Re-base”. I’m not even going to try and count haw many bases/figures I rebased from the old 30x20mm or 30x30mm bases I had been using to the new basing standards … Instead I raged ahead with some considerable focus and productivity but not so much of a sensible plan… hence the ridiculous amount of modern armour models I’ve acquired over tha last couple months… (See the Armour TO-DO List).
Around October I decided I should start taking stock of everything I have. It was to be an opportunity to show off all the stuff I have painted on my blog while at the same time… well… TAKE STOCK of what I already have and assess what I might need to finish projects I have on the go… I’m still working on the whole Taking Stock thing…
Later still in the fall I decided it was time to PURGE the 15mm stuff once and for all! I had already traded away a pile of it early in the year – collections of 15mm stuff that I hadn’t really even started painting. I held on to the 15mm DBA armies because, well I had a couple of them painted and still held onto this glimmer of hope that I might paint them up someday and run a 1066 campaign. After some serious consideration I came to the realization that I just wasn’t ever going to paint any large numbers of 15mm figures. It always seemed like a chore and that I was forcing myself to do it… Not something I want to do with my hobby time!? I DO enjoy painting 20-30mm figures! I know some people thing painting anything is a chore and I just don’t get why they selected this hobby if that’s so – but I decided to go with what works for me so the 15mm stuff started to go.
I had a bunch of 15mm modern stuff that I held onto because I figured it’s be too expensive to replace it with 20mm. Well, expensive or not, having them in 20mm would be more versatile as EVERYTHING ELSE I had that was “modern-ish” was 20mm! (and that whole don’t care to paint them thing previously mentioned…) So they were the first to go! In exchange I got a PILE of cool 20mm ww2 stuff that I might actually paint some day!
Then the 15mm DBA and HOTT stuff went… next it’ll probably be the Fallshirmjager… more on that in the New Year.
While this all this (trading, re-basing, stock taking, stockPILIING of 20mm stuff, game playing, etc) was going on through the fall I was raging ahead with painting 20mm modern stuff, and I got quite a bit done. Two battalions of modern British, three battalions of Soviet VDV, a battalion of Soviet Motor-Rifles, and a fair bit of soviet equipment, three tanks, a BMP-1, a BRDM, two American M1s, a handful of Israelis and Afghan DRA and Mujahideen, etc, etc, etc. It’s all there on the blog if you look back… In the last couple of weeks I cranked out a bunch of new 28mm fantasy figures for (Savage) skirmish gaming on Saturday night, as well as touching up and re-basing (from old square bases) other older figures, as well as a whole unit of Elves for my new 28mm Warmaster project and some 28mm Vikings to finish up a couple of units.
So despite the fact that I’m feeling a little scattered and overwhelmed by how much newly acquired (whether through trades or purchases) I have to paint… I do think I had a happy and productive year over all….
Now to work on my plan for next year… and finish stocktaking… Stay tuned – The game plan will be along shortly…
Friday, December 28, 2007
Rules, Rules, Rules… and basing… again
I do torment myself about these things…
Recently I’ve been doing a lot to thinking about gaming and rules and basing for various different periods. What I’ve decided is that I’m basically going to use two basic systems for all my gaming in the foreseeable future – Savage Worlds for skirmish gaming and Warmaster/Blitzkrieg Commander/Cold War Commander derivatives for everything else (i.e. non-skirmish games).
All the Savage Worlds skirmish games will be played with 28mm figures individually mounted on round metal washer. I hate square bases for skirmish games and I hate plastic bases. Hate them.
I’ve also decided on a standard basing system for all my non-skirmish games.
For 28mm figures – they’re all going on a 60x40mm base for most infantry types. Cavalry will probably be 60x50mm. Anything requiring deeper bases will be done “as required” but keeping the 60mm frontage. This is the same frontage as DBA – so I could use these for DBA – but I’m obviously using different depths and I will also be using different numbers of troops.
Most pre-“horse and musket” foot troops will be based on said 60x40mm bases in two ranks of three. Conveniently this works out to and average of 20x20mm per figure so that if I ever fell on my head and thought playing Warhammer might be a good idea I could use them for that – I’d just need a couple of the individually mounted guys for “change” when I started taking casualties.
To represent some lighter troops (of all eras) I will have three or four figures scattered about on the base. This I’ve done this with most of my Great War/Russian Civil War/Back of Beyond forces. You can see pictures of these on my CLA Fallcon playtest post and my CLA Fallcon AAR.
Some units with particularly dense formation I will be basing them in two rows of four – my Seven Years War regular infantry have been based this way as will most pikemen.
Horse will be either two or three on a 60x50mm base.
For 20mm/1:72 I’m using 2”x1-1/4” (~50x32mm) stands for infantry and light support weapons. There are generally 3 infantry on one of those stands or one weapon and two or three crew. For bigger support weapons and smaller vehicles I use a double sized base – 2”x2.5” (50x64mm). for anything bigger I’m trying to keep the 2”/50mm frontage but I’ve found for some bigger tanks that’s just not enough so on some I’m using a 2.5”/65mm frontage – depth as required…
Because of the difference in sizes for 20mm infantry vs 20mm tanks I was this last week considering using a 2”x2.5” (50x64mm) base for infantry with about 5 figures on it. I’ve tried to rid myself of that dangerous notion as it would mean reorganizing everything ( not to mention rebasing hundreds of figures – many of which have quite recently been re-based from 30x30mm bases…). GAH! I am demented sometimes….
I have been desperately trying to PURGE myself of 15mm figures. I’ve traded away all the modern and dark age historicals and all the fantasy stuff. The WW2 stuff will be a little harder to let go of as I’ve put so much work into it and I know so many people with 15mm forces that I could conceivably play with…. I think the Falshirmjagers are going to be going up on the trading block in the very near future however (as most of them aren’t painted and are never going to be….).
I have been re-basing the 15mm stuff I am planning on holding onto (for now) and they’re more or less following the same system as the 20mm figures, except the infantry generally have four figures per stand and that many tanks will fit on the double sized (2”x2.5” - 50x64mm) base. Only a few will need anything bigger.
Recently I’ve been doing a lot to thinking about gaming and rules and basing for various different periods. What I’ve decided is that I’m basically going to use two basic systems for all my gaming in the foreseeable future – Savage Worlds for skirmish gaming and Warmaster/Blitzkrieg Commander/Cold War Commander derivatives for everything else (i.e. non-skirmish games).
All the Savage Worlds skirmish games will be played with 28mm figures individually mounted on round metal washer. I hate square bases for skirmish games and I hate plastic bases. Hate them.
I’ve also decided on a standard basing system for all my non-skirmish games.
For 28mm figures – they’re all going on a 60x40mm base for most infantry types. Cavalry will probably be 60x50mm. Anything requiring deeper bases will be done “as required” but keeping the 60mm frontage. This is the same frontage as DBA – so I could use these for DBA – but I’m obviously using different depths and I will also be using different numbers of troops.
Most pre-“horse and musket” foot troops will be based on said 60x40mm bases in two ranks of three. Conveniently this works out to and average of 20x20mm per figure so that if I ever fell on my head and thought playing Warhammer might be a good idea I could use them for that – I’d just need a couple of the individually mounted guys for “change” when I started taking casualties.
To represent some lighter troops (of all eras) I will have three or four figures scattered about on the base. This I’ve done this with most of my Great War/Russian Civil War/Back of Beyond forces. You can see pictures of these on my CLA Fallcon playtest post and my CLA Fallcon AAR.
Some units with particularly dense formation I will be basing them in two rows of four – my Seven Years War regular infantry have been based this way as will most pikemen.
Horse will be either two or three on a 60x50mm base.
For 20mm/1:72 I’m using 2”x1-1/4” (~50x32mm) stands for infantry and light support weapons. There are generally 3 infantry on one of those stands or one weapon and two or three crew. For bigger support weapons and smaller vehicles I use a double sized base – 2”x2.5” (50x64mm). for anything bigger I’m trying to keep the 2”/50mm frontage but I’ve found for some bigger tanks that’s just not enough so on some I’m using a 2.5”/65mm frontage – depth as required…
Because of the difference in sizes for 20mm infantry vs 20mm tanks I was this last week considering using a 2”x2.5” (50x64mm) base for infantry with about 5 figures on it. I’ve tried to rid myself of that dangerous notion as it would mean reorganizing everything ( not to mention rebasing hundreds of figures – many of which have quite recently been re-based from 30x30mm bases…). GAH! I am demented sometimes….
I have been desperately trying to PURGE myself of 15mm figures. I’ve traded away all the modern and dark age historicals and all the fantasy stuff. The WW2 stuff will be a little harder to let go of as I’ve put so much work into it and I know so many people with 15mm forces that I could conceivably play with…. I think the Falshirmjagers are going to be going up on the trading block in the very near future however (as most of them aren’t painted and are never going to be….).
I have been re-basing the 15mm stuff I am planning on holding onto (for now) and they’re more or less following the same system as the 20mm figures, except the infantry generally have four figures per stand and that many tanks will fit on the double sized (2”x2.5” - 50x64mm) base. Only a few will need anything bigger.
The Armour TO-DO List
As part of my general taking stock and planning for 2008 I thought I’d take stock of the 20mm/1:72 armour kits I have this evening…. Oh dear…
Here’s what I have:
(Remember: click on the pictures for a bigger version)
Armour – WW2
World War Two kits seem to be almost exclusively German:
7x PzkwIVG
2x PzkwIIIM
1x Panther G
2x Wirblewind/Flakpanzer
2x Panzerjager(?)
1x Jagdpanzer IV
1x AA/AT kit (Pak 40, Pak 36, and Flak 38 – all with crews!)
1x StugIIIG
4x Sdkfz 251 – various sorts – they’ll all just end up being the standard infantry carriers
1x Sdkfz 251 with rocket launchers
1x Sdkfz 251 assault bridge
1x Sdkfz 250/9 recce
2x Jagdpanther
1x Sdkfz11 and Pak 40
1x 88 and tractor
1x Sdkfz 222 and Kublewagon
plus assorted bits for various “bashed” kits
I also have a T-34 to repaint and two IS-2 (both assembled and primed and started painting– just need to finish)….
Let’s say about 30 kits total – that I could find… wow… I actually only bought three of them – of the German kits that is. The two Airfix kits listed on the bottom were given to me, the rest I got in trade for my Falklands 15mm stuff! (along with a pile – like HUNDREDS – of 1:72 plastic WW2 infantry)… Well all this along with the piles of late war SS infantry I’ve already got painted would make for some great Canadians vs. 12th SS in Normandy games! (or British paras – which I’ve also got piles of already painted – vs. SS panzer troops near Arnhem!)
I think the PzkwIV and Panthers and 251s would probably be my first priority, along with the AT guns… the two Jagdpanthers would be dead last – I already have two (from a HaT/Armourfast kit) and there just wasn’t that damn many of them, especially on the western front.
I also have 4 Corgi die-cast shermans which I will at some point base and re-paint to look like Canadian tanks – maybe even convert one to look like a Sherman VC.
Now for the modern stuff….
Armour - Modern
Well I have a bit more of this stuff…
French (not in the picture)
2x AMX-30
2x AML-90
4x VAB
British
3x Scorpion/Scimitar (one assembled –needs to be painted)
6x Challanger I (two of which are the up-armoured variety)
10x Warrior IFV (eight of which are the up-armoured variety – there was a crazy sale at squadron…)
Canadian
5x Leopard 1A4
5x M113
4x Grizzly
2x Cougar
Russians
1x BTR 50 Command
3x BMD of assorted varieties
5x BMP
1x AT-3 Sagger
3x BTR 60 PA
1x 2S9 Nona
1x Hind D
2x Mi-8
1x 2S1 Gvozdika
2x T-54
2x T-80
1x T-72
USA
5x Bradleys (die-cast kits that just need to be re-painted)
1x Blackhawk
5x Cobras (I’ll probably only ever build and paint two – got them as part of an auction lot)
1x M-48 (assembled and primed – just need to finish painting)
Australian
2x M113 FSV (one assembled and primed – just need to finish painting)
So… uh… another 80 kits or so… okay, I may have gone a bit overboard here… adding the two together is about 110 kits… If I did one a week, that would be just over two years… Hmmm I better get cracking!
Actually I’m hoping I’ll be able to do some of them in lots – say over two weeks do four or five of the same or similar vehicles – setting up a bit of a production line.
The sad thing is there’s a couple more kits I’d like to pick up ( a couple more BMDs… some ERC-90s – as they’d be more appropriste to go with the VABs…) I think I can hold off on them for now.
As for priorities for the Modern equipment I’m thinking Russian stuff first! After the Russians I should probably get cracking on the British equipment – as I have a lot of British Infantry done – equipment will mechanize them. The American Bradleys would be up there too as they’re quick repaints, I have some M1s done, and I have American infantry based, primed and ready to be painted.
Stuff like the French VABs and the Canadian M113s and Grizzlies aren’t going to be all that usefull until I have some infantry – which may be a while. I guess the M113s could be used in Vietnam so they’d be slightly higher on the list than the Grizzlies and VABs.
Conclusions.
Of course there are things I’d like to do besides build and paint armour kits for the next two years…
Here’s what I have:
(Remember: click on the pictures for a bigger version)
Armour – WW2
World War Two kits seem to be almost exclusively German:
7x PzkwIVG
2x PzkwIIIM
1x Panther G
2x Wirblewind/Flakpanzer
2x Panzerjager(?)
1x Jagdpanzer IV
1x AA/AT kit (Pak 40, Pak 36, and Flak 38 – all with crews!)
1x StugIIIG
4x Sdkfz 251 – various sorts – they’ll all just end up being the standard infantry carriers
1x Sdkfz 251 with rocket launchers
1x Sdkfz 251 assault bridge
1x Sdkfz 250/9 recce
2x Jagdpanther
1x Sdkfz11 and Pak 40
1x 88 and tractor
1x Sdkfz 222 and Kublewagon
plus assorted bits for various “bashed” kits
I also have a T-34 to repaint and two IS-2 (both assembled and primed and started painting– just need to finish)….
Let’s say about 30 kits total – that I could find… wow… I actually only bought three of them – of the German kits that is. The two Airfix kits listed on the bottom were given to me, the rest I got in trade for my Falklands 15mm stuff! (along with a pile – like HUNDREDS – of 1:72 plastic WW2 infantry)… Well all this along with the piles of late war SS infantry I’ve already got painted would make for some great Canadians vs. 12th SS in Normandy games! (or British paras – which I’ve also got piles of already painted – vs. SS panzer troops near Arnhem!)
I think the PzkwIV and Panthers and 251s would probably be my first priority, along with the AT guns… the two Jagdpanthers would be dead last – I already have two (from a HaT/Armourfast kit) and there just wasn’t that damn many of them, especially on the western front.
I also have 4 Corgi die-cast shermans which I will at some point base and re-paint to look like Canadian tanks – maybe even convert one to look like a Sherman VC.
Now for the modern stuff….
Armour - Modern
Well I have a bit more of this stuff…
French (not in the picture)
2x AMX-30
2x AML-90
4x VAB
British
3x Scorpion/Scimitar (one assembled –needs to be painted)
6x Challanger I (two of which are the up-armoured variety)
10x Warrior IFV (eight of which are the up-armoured variety – there was a crazy sale at squadron…)
Canadian
5x Leopard 1A4
5x M113
4x Grizzly
2x Cougar
Russians
1x BTR 50 Command
3x BMD of assorted varieties
5x BMP
1x AT-3 Sagger
3x BTR 60 PA
1x 2S9 Nona
1x Hind D
2x Mi-8
1x 2S1 Gvozdika
2x T-54
2x T-80
1x T-72
USA
5x Bradleys (die-cast kits that just need to be re-painted)
1x Blackhawk
5x Cobras (I’ll probably only ever build and paint two – got them as part of an auction lot)
1x M-48 (assembled and primed – just need to finish painting)
Australian
2x M113 FSV (one assembled and primed – just need to finish painting)
So… uh… another 80 kits or so… okay, I may have gone a bit overboard here… adding the two together is about 110 kits… If I did one a week, that would be just over two years… Hmmm I better get cracking!
Actually I’m hoping I’ll be able to do some of them in lots – say over two weeks do four or five of the same or similar vehicles – setting up a bit of a production line.
The sad thing is there’s a couple more kits I’d like to pick up ( a couple more BMDs… some ERC-90s – as they’d be more appropriste to go with the VABs…) I think I can hold off on them for now.
As for priorities for the Modern equipment I’m thinking Russian stuff first! After the Russians I should probably get cracking on the British equipment – as I have a lot of British Infantry done – equipment will mechanize them. The American Bradleys would be up there too as they’re quick repaints, I have some M1s done, and I have American infantry based, primed and ready to be painted.
Stuff like the French VABs and the Canadian M113s and Grizzlies aren’t going to be all that usefull until I have some infantry – which may be a while. I guess the M113s could be used in Vietnam so they’d be slightly higher on the list than the Grizzlies and VABs.
Conclusions.
Of course there are things I’d like to do besides build and paint armour kits for the next two years…
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
