Thursday 17 November 2022
The Battle of Ceresole 1544
Tuesday 1 November 2022
Second Mantinea at SELWG
Sunday 18 September 2022
Chalgrove 2022
Here are a few (clickable) images from the games I played yesterday at the Chalgrove "Worlds" - apologies if you've seen some already on Facebook. Above is game 1 vs. Sid Bennett's newly painted and very pretty Samnites. Sid's javelin-chucking Samnites out all too many of my nellies, I think I had just two units left at the end- he was well ahead on points. Always great to play Sid, he's really knowledgeable about the rules.
A quick note on my Classical Indian army- my objective was to maximise the number of elephants on the table, so I picked eight small units and represented each with two models, for a total of 16 pachyderms. I suppose I could have fitted even more elephants in the baggage- perhaps an idea for a future outing!
Unfortunately I forgot to photograph my final game against Tony Horobin's (left, photo taken after the end of the game so unfortunately, none of his minis) Middle Imperial Romans, which is a great, pity as it was very a friendly game which I won, with seconds to spare, just before the end of the tournament.
The tournament was won by Peter Ryding (again!) with a Timurid army, very well done to him. He practices very hard for the tournament. I ended up right in the middle of the field. Unfortunately I don't have all the scores but I think Alex and Kurt from Belgium came second and third.
Steve Dover, with help from chums Simon Purchon, Peter Ryding and John (? sorry can't recall surname) did a fantastic job setting up and running the tournament, huge thanks to them. Below is a photo of all those participants who hadn't legged it by the time we got around to taking the group photo.
Finally, we have two more tournament coming up later this year:
The first is the TtS! Opens, part of the BHGS Historical Teams event at the Lee Valley Leisure Centre in north London on Saturday 15th October. Like Chalgrove, there are four games in one day. You can use any army list from the Ancient Army List eBook. You can book this here. The ticket also gets you entry to SELWG which is in the same venue on the Sunday, a great show where I'll be running a participation game - Second Mantinea - which features Epaminondas and the Theban mega phalanx.
The last tournament will be at Warfare at the Farnborough International Exhibition & Conference Centre on Saturday 12th or Sunday 13th November (we haven't decided which day yet). If you think you'd like to come to this one, please email me and I'll forward to the organiser.
I hope to see you at one event or t'other!
Saturday 10 September 2022
Building Roundway Down out of Really Useful Boxes and Masking Tape
Wednesday 7 September 2022
Roundway Down at Colours
I'm in the process of finishing off the extra elements I have planned for our extended Battle of Roundway Down For King and Parliament game at the Colours show in Newbury on Saturday. Above are the new units- Prince Maurice's horse, Captain ffoulkes' firelocks*, some battalion guns and some extra casualty stands. Below is my forming baggage park, now with three teams of horses.
Many of the minis were painted by chum Shaun McTague or eBay purchases, although Prince Maurice's are built around a core of minis originally painted by chum George Moraitis. I painted the wagons and highlighted/finished everything, Ian flocked all the bases, which I'm in the process of tufting - they will all be finished by the day. I will take some proper photos, later on, when everything is completely finished.
If you fancy playing on Saturday, drop me an email at simonmiller60 at gmail.com and I'll hopefully be able to fit you in. It should be a relatively short game- around 90 minutes, I expect. If not just drop by and marvel at the size of our hill! I hope to see lots of you there.
* There wasn't an actual ECW unit of this name, although there were a number of small units of firelocks on both sides. Captain ffoulkes is a Welsh officer and entirely a figment of my imagination.
Tuesday 30 August 2022
Infanterie Regiment van Birkenfeld
Friday 26 August 2022
Régiment de Pfyffer
The minis are from the 1672 range, owned by Nick at North Star. The Swiss are some of the finest minis in this fine range. I painted the pike and most of the officers, the other minis were beautifully painted by Richard O'Connor. My friend Ian designed the flags; because of the way I folded them, half the detail (like the painting of the annunciation on the Colonel's flag) is, unfortunately, obscured. :-/ The wobbly-edged bases are my own trusty FK&P6's, with built-in magnets. Ian also flocked the base, which I tufted.
Thursday 11 August 2022
Swiss army- first muster!
Here's a video of the army, where I talk about what's what and my plans for it.
I'd say there are perhaps 170 points-worth of troops in To the Strongest! terms, and I can only take 140 to the tournament (Britcon in Nottingham, this weekend). I'll try to get some images of the army in action. It is going to be a very odd army to use- I won't have played a single practice game. I'm not sure whether I'll get any wins with it, but I'll have fun trying!
Monday 8 August 2022
Flockbox Monday
Usually chum Ian flocks my bases, but recently I've been basing so many things I have felt I should help to lighten his load, somewhat, and so have taken my trusty Flockbox out of storage.
The Flockbox is brilliant at some things- terrain, flat bases and skirmishers. It's much less effective at crowded bases with strong vertical elements, such as 28mm cavalry and pike. Ian does much better at these with his trusty Noch puffer bottle- he really gets between the legs. Luckily, this week's basing don't include anything difficult - the Swiss for this weekend's tournament and the baggage train for Roundway Down. I made the point of re-reading the instructions that come with the box which are very helpful. If you don't have one, and do a lot of basing, I'd recommend buying one, you can easily find it via Google.
Friday 5 August 2022
Cranking out crossbows
Thursday 28 July 2022
Baggage Trayne III with added firelocks!
Wednesday 27 July 2022
Precautionary pedestrian knights
Tuesday 12 July 2022
Baggage Trayne II - wet palette
Last night I finished dry brushing the woodwork on the new baggage wagons (note to future self- I used a Rhinox Hide base, Gorthor Brown layer and Vallejo Silver Grey highlight). Tonight I hope to paint the ironwork and, ideally, the canvas covers. The current extreme weather necessitated the first ever deployment of a wet palette in the BigRedBatCave, simply a lid with a wet sponge and some baking sheet on top. This was a revelation- on an exceptionally hot night I hardly wasted any paint.
Tomorrow is the 379th anniversary of the Battle of Roundway Down- I'm off to visit the battlefield with chum Andrew- hopefully some photos will follow!
Thursday 7 July 2022
Baggage Trayne and TtS! Digital Sale
I've decided to build a substantial baggage train for my ECW army, which, with careful planning, will also be usable with the both the late c.17th armies and a newly planned Thirty Years War force that I'm assembling. I plan to have at least six wagons with four horses teams, some smaller carts and all of the ephemera one would expect to find around a camp. I'll need baggage guards - firelocks, for the earlier period - sutlers - wives and girlfriends and so forth. Later I'll add tents.
Here is the first wave- I've partially assembled and base coated the first six vehicles, many of which are from Warfare Miniatures. I've worked out a way that I can base the wagons so that I can depict them with moving horses, standing horses or drawn up in a defensive laager. I am confident that most of the new vehicles will make the Roundway Down participation game, which I plan to run at Colours and SELWG.
In other news, all of my digital products (rules, army lists, scenarios) are included in the Annual Summer Campaign Sale on the Wargames Vault site in the US, so I have decided to put the digital products in the BigRedBatShop on a parallel sale. So, for the next few days, all of the digital products are 25% off!
If you are within the EU, please purchase from Wargames Vault, because, unfortunately, I cannot sell digital products within the EU.
Here is the link to the BigRedBatShop
Here is the link to Wargames Vault
Wednesday 6 July 2022
Just-in-time TtS! Tournament Organisation!
We have three TtS! tournaments planned for the second half of 2022. The first event is Britcon in Nottingham on 13th/14th August, less than ten weeks away! This two-day event with somewhat longer game durations- ideal if you are less familiar with the rules. I suspect there will be a great deal of socialising on the Friday and Saturday nights! The university accommodation is all booked so we will be staying in small hotels in the town itself. You can email me if you have any questions at the email on the left- or book, here.
The second event is the To the Strongest! Worlds in Chalgrove, Oxfordshire on Saturday 17th September. This is the most venerable and illustrious TtS! tournament, now in its eighth (or ninth?) year. It’s a thrilling event with four nail-biting games in one day. It is organised by Steve Dover (who you can mail to book your place by contacting StephenJamesDover at outlook.com. There are details on the forum here.
The third and final event is the BHGS Historical Teams event on Saturday 15th October. This is held at the Lee Valley Leisure Centre in north London which is very easy to reach by car. Like Chalgrove, there are four games in one day and you can use any army list from the Ancient Army List eBook. You can book this here. https://www.bhgs.org.uk/tts-bhgs-teams.html The ticket also gets you entry to SELWG which is in the same venue on the Sunday, where I'm hoping to run a big For King and Parliament demo game, assuming I can get the table space. It should be a glorious weekend of gaming!
If you have any questions about any of these, please mail
me at the address to the left! I really hope to catch up with as many old friends (and new) as possible. That's me, below, I'll be bringing those 16 Indian nellies to at least one of the shows.
Sunday 26 June 2022
Later Thracians
All of the riders are Wargames Foundry or Aventine Miniatures. Many are converted with heads from bought from Aventine, and all ride lovely Aventine horses. I added flowing cloaks to any minis that lacked them, which I think gives a real sense of movement. They were all painted by Shaun McTague - he did a fine job- and I highlighted and based them around 6 months ago- I only just got around to finishing them though.
I chose to depict them, skirmishing, in a Cantabrian circle.
In other news... if anyone was waiting for Geek Villain mats, I have them stock again. I've also bought in a lot of cloth mats with a 7.5cm grid for people wanting to play TtS! with smaller 6mm or 2mm minis, or other games such as with Mark Backhouse's Strength and Honour. You can find the mats here. Finally, I'm back on editing the Renaissance rules, which are moving forward again, albeit at a glacial rate. I'm not yet ready for playtesting, but I'll keep you posted.