Saturday, 13 November 2010

The Unvarnished Troops


This time next week these troops will need to be "on the table", but they were delayed when I unexpectedly ran out of Dullcote.  Happily Antenociti came up with the goods, very quickly indeed; they provide a great service.  I plan to have them all on their bases with the grout in place by the end of today.

Wednesday, 10 November 2010

Varnishing Miniatures at Night in Winter


This is not exactly varnishing "Best Practice", but when I have a tight deadline to meet I find I can usually get away with gloss varnishing even at night. NEVER try this with a matt varnish!  

They are the last 32 minis for my recruit legion, fresh from the brush of Nick Speller, and I need them finished and based by the 20th for a game...

Monday, 8 November 2010

First Viet Minh


These (clickable) minis are the first pic of the old 20mm Platoon 20 Viet Minh figures from a previous post that I've been reconditioning.  See if you can spot some of the ones that broke off at the ankles.  They represent, roughly, a company of Viet Minh regulars at  roughly1:4 scale.   I will need at least a couple more companies, and hopefully, eventually, a second battalion.  Hell, probably a whole regiment.  ;-)


Above is a closeup of a couple of very heavy machine guns, DSHKs I believe, and a 60mm mortar.


Above, Comrade Battalion Commander.  A crude but serviceable paint job.  I can't decide whether to give each company a red flag of its own, or not; I shall probably err on the side of generosity.

French Indo China War Storage

This is the storage system I've designed for my planned Indo China war infantry.  They are mounted, in 2's and 3's on 1.5mm thick 40mm diameter plywood disks, with magnetic sheet added.  In the Really Useful Box I've put a double-decker layer of 99p metal baking trays (separated by wooden spacers).  These should take up to 240 figures, with pace for dice or vehicles in the plastic drawers.

So far I've only finished one company of Viet Minh, but I should be able to base up a company or two of French, soon (figures mustering in the foreground). 

Sunday, 7 November 2010

'Arfur Legion III

 
Here's the (slowish) progress on my second legion; 5 cohorts fully based, 2.5 partially based and the remaining minis awaiting reinforcements from Nick.  I'm planning to use them all in a game in less than 2 weeks, so I shall need to get my skates on!  When all 10 cohorts are finished I shall take a proper pic.

Wednesday, 3 November 2010

Missed the bus

I missed this from yesterday's post; in days of yore I painted this bus up as an informal troop-transport.  It may see duty evacuating planters and French-sympathisers from under the nose of the advancing Viet Minh menace.


And below, the destination!

Tuesday, 2 November 2010

Looks like we got us a convoy...

I've excavated my 1980's collection of French Indochina stuff, and here are around half of the vehicles, displayed as a supply convoy.  They aren't too bad...  not brilliant, like Troop of Shrew's, but playable until I get better stuff.  


Above, an M8 armoured car patrols cautiously ahead of the convoy.  It is in the wrong shade of green (not olive drab), but with broadly correct markings. 
    

Above is the front section of the convoy.  The tanks are a slightly unfortunate hybrid of M3 and M5 (I converted from the former to the latter; perhaps it was hard to find M5's in the '80s).  But they are nicely weathered, and the Airfix M3 half track has the correct tent-like canopy.


Above is the body of the convoy; a US tanker and GMC trucks, and a rather lost-looking Matador that I bought around 1975, presumablly left behind by the Brits in WW2.  A third "M5" is in overwatch.


And to conclude (above) a closeup of one of the M5s.

I have around another half-a-dozen vehicles that need painting.  My plan is to supplement these with some of the new 1/72 Italeri and Pegasus fast-assembly kits, especially their GMC trucks, M3 half tracks and jeeps, and make up a GM100-like mobile column.

Tuesday, 26 October 2010

Street Without Joy

...is an excellent book written by Bernard Fall about the war in French Indo China in the late 1940's/early 1950's.

I read this in the mid 1980s and got very interested in this very interesting but little-gamed war, which culminated in a huge defeat for the French at Dien Bien Phu in 1954.    I collected and painted a few hundred Platoon 20 minis, which in those days were made from a rather brittle metal.  Unfortunately, I carefully  stored all the minis at the top of a high cupboard, and one day accidently dropped all the boxes from a height of 8'.  Almost to a man, they snapped off at the ankles (and many of the rifles broke).  See Exhibit A, below, for one of the four boxes. 


More feet without joy than Street without Joy!

It has taken me around 20 years to overcome the pain and return to the period, but this week I've started to repaint the surviving minis, and I'm going to order a few dozen more (well perhaps a hundred or so...).  I'll either use an adapted Memoir '44 ruleset, or write a simple set myself.  The battlefield of Zama, with some added hills and vegetation, is going to become Route Coloniale 19. 

Several things are a lot better in 2010 than 1990; firstly I'm a somewhat better painter now, and have a lot more nice terrain.  Secondly, the 1/72 diecast vehicles that one can buy these days look outstanding; the French transport pool is consequently going to be a whole lot bigger than it was 20 years ago!  Finally there is a lot of great material on the war that wasn't around in 1990, especially this excellent site on the war which has OOB's, which was information I could only dream of, twenty years ago.  En avant!

Monday, 25 October 2010

Another hobby

My eldest has got a place to read Ancient History at Kings College.  As part of this he will be learning Latin, and this made me nostalgic for the period form 1974-1976 when I did GCSE Latin (my efforts were ultimately blessed with an A!)

The same course I studied (Cambridge Latin), is still in use, and I bought the updated version of the books I used to use way back, when.  I have been thrilling to the old phrases, such as "Caecilius est pater", "Metella est mater" and "Cerberus est canem".


I've been making good progress and am now on book 4; my ultimate ambition is to be able to read the great Latin classics in their original language, such as:

Sunday, 24 October 2010

'Arfur Legion II

I've made good, if slow, progress with this project.  The first half of the legion (below, clickable) is painted and based.  I still need to add tufts, tonight, and do a little snagging work; then they will be finished.
.

Around half of the second half (not shown) are also stuck onto their bases.  Nick is furiously painting away on a draft of reinforcements, in Essex, which will complete the legion (at 1:20 scale).  

In other news, I have been inspired by these stunning photos to dig out a project I last worked on around 20 years ago... more anon.

Saturday, 23 October 2010

Ancient Horse Miniatures Size Comparison Shot

Mike of Relic and Keith at Aventine have recently each sent me some of their Tarantine cavalry figures, and I thought it an opportune moment to take a picture of some of the various ancient horses I've been accumulating.  I'd also like the thank Hank at Gorgon, A&A and 1st Corps who sent horses, previously. The below pic is clickable.


Regarding the two latest arrivals, I'd heard tfrom Mike that the Relic horse (which is I believe is on an eBob master) was smallish, but am pleasently surprised to find that it isn't much smaller than the Aventine Tarentine horse, to the extent that I think one could probably get away with mixing them within a unit.  Which I may do.  It is interesting to note that all the horses are smaller than the Foundry WotG horse, which is now looking very leggy, and I'm thinking that, in the future, I'll reserve those for heavy cavalry. 

In terms of style, the Aventine horse has bigger hooves and a slightly larger head than the Relic and 1stCorps steeds.  I rather like this look.  OTOH the Gorgon and Relic horses are bigger in the chest than the others, which feels right to me.

Depending on how fussy one is, several of the horses "breeds" could be mixed within a unit.  In particular  I think that the 1st Corps and Relic would be a fine match for size, and the Gorgon and Aventine would also pair up nicely. 

I also have some of the larger Relic Horses that come with Mike's leader figures; these are very nice and I'll take some shots of them, later. 

In other news I am dusting off (literally!) some 1980's Platoon20 miniatures with a view to restoring/expanding my old French Indochina units; more anon.  Oh, and I've started a Twitter feed.

Sunday, 17 October 2010

Memoir '14 update

This is a link to Greg's site, where he has uploaded his WW1 Adaptation of Memoir '44. 

The pdf on the site is a large one (19MB), and in French.  There will be an English translation in a few days.

Recently I messed around with Memoir '44 for my Western Desert variant, which gave a great game.  Greg has got me thinking about writing a variant for the French Indo-China War...

Wednesday, 13 October 2010

Memoir '14

Mon ami Greg has decided what he's bringing to Salute 2011: surprisingly, but interestingly, a WW1 28mm figure game adapted from Richard's Borg's excellent WW2 Memoir'44 boardgame rules.  This sounds like a fun idea, and I shall definitely try his rules amendments out with my own WW1 15mm figures.

Here is a link to his Gloarmy blog which has pictures of a playtest.

Tuesday, 12 October 2010

'Arfur Legion

I mentioned last week that I'd worked out that, with a bit of judicious juggling and outsourced painting, I could knock a legion of 240 recruits together.  My rationale is that the cohorts have been recently raised in a time of crisis.  The armouries have run out of mail, and are issuing shields in whatever colour and condition they have available, and many of the soldiers are in unmilitary whites and other colours.  I rather suspect that a lot of Civil War legions may have looked like this, especially when Pompey "stamped his foot".

I'm making good progress.  Below are the first 5 cohorts, less c 24 figures that are painted (by Nick) and almost ready to add into the gaps on the bases.  I'm freely mixing armoured and unarmoured Foundry minis, with a whole spread of helmet types, and even some Aventines.

Below are the first batch of 48 minis that Nick painted, together with some shields that I've painted them to match shields on some of the recruits I finished last year. 

My plan is to polish off these 5 cohorts over the next 2 weeks, and then complete the second batch of 5 cohorts in a similar manner.

Monday, 11 October 2010

Red Letter Day

I received a package today from Mike of Relic Miniatures in the USA, with some of his lovely generals (Military Man, and the Gallic chief).  I'm very excited by these models, and Mike has very kindly sent some more samples of his Tarentines and some very nice foot figures, too.  I promise I will take photos over the next few days. 

I also received some pics from Keith at Aventine of their own new Tarantines, which look fantastic; I've placed an order, and also ordered some of their new Spartacus range, too (mostly the cavalry). If you've not seen this latter range it is well worth a look as they are on the same Copplestone dollies as the Companion range.

It is amazing; a man waits 20 years for sone nice Tarantines, and then 2 great ranges come along at once.  ;-)

And finally, as icing on the cake my BTD Roman cavalry arrived; a complete order and within 4 weeks of placing it, which is a personal best for them.  Nice minis too.  I'll be back for more.

So excited have I been by the recent plunk of lead on hallway floor, that I placed an order in the Foundry 20% off sale, to celebrate!

Friday, 8 October 2010

Marlburian Digression

Tonight Ray Lucas kindly invited self and local gamer Nigel along for a 10mm scale Marlburian game.  I grabbed a couple of snaps of the splendid battlefield (but regret not having used a flash).  I was the Imperialists, defending some villages and a stream (foreground), whilst  French  General Nigel was busily outflanking me on my right.  We didn't get all that far, but it is safe to say I was fretting about my exposed wing.

I told Ray that I loved the way the minis were mounted in 6's on 20x20 bases, and that what he really needed was a big 5" hex mat to put them on!  He looked at me like I was a heretic. But I think those battalions would work superbly on some sort of grid using stripped down rule system and card activation.  Made me wish I owned a couple of armies myself, to experiment with.  I shall have to get him down for a C&C game....

Ray's Corporal John Marlburian rules are available on his website.

Saturday, 2 October 2010

Cunning Plan I

A few weeks ago Nick Speller sent me back 48 Caesarian Romans I'd posted to him back in the summer; he's done a lovely job on them.  I mix unarmoured and armoured minis, mount them irregularly on 60x30 bases, and use them as poorer quality legionaries, such as the Pompeians raised.   Here are some I prepared earlier.  

I've temporarily mounted these so that I can paint the bases, varnish and add shields.


I was planning to mix these with some figures Nick has painted before, to build 6 24-man cohorts.  However, I found myself going through my other units, and have worked out that if I cannibalise four smaller existing units and ask Nick to paint another 32 figures, I could put together an entire 240-man legion.  So this will need to be done... a package is winging its way to Essex and I've started retouching 16 figures in the background.

Monday, 27 September 2010

A Little Roman Camp- Completed

This is the 15mm Roman camp from 3 posts back, painted, stained and varnished.  The palisade is my 49th Birthday present to my friend Ian, and the tents my 50th. 


By coincidence, today is my own 50th Birthday, so Happy Birthday to Me!  I shall celebrate by starting to base a couple more units.

Sunday, 26 September 2010

Praetorian Horse

These horses are salvaged from an old cavalry regiment I have decided to renovate; they are from A&A. They are a little tubby, but I love the elaborate harnesses.  Strictly speaking, they are middle Imperial Roman horses, but I won't tell if you won't!  They are going to become the cavalry components of the two Praetorian cohorts I have planned for my EIR Army.

I will be using riders from Black Tree Design.  I have most of the riders I need, but have had to order the command minis from BTD themselves, who are far from being the speediest supplier of miniatures, gulp... this could considerably delay the unit.


I have renovated the bases, too.  It is very odd to see a nicely-based unit with no riders!

Saturday, 25 September 2010

Riders of the eBoii

I've just knowcked out a quick celtic cavalry regiment.  These were an impulse purchase on eBay; relatively poorly painted, they cost rather less than the cost of the metal from Wargames Foundry.


It took roughly a week to tart them up.  They will never look as nice as figures panted by Nick who has done most of my Celts, but I think they will look fine on the table.

Next I'm going to finish Ian's camp and work on some Praetorian Cavalry....