Thursday, 11 August 2022

Swiss army- first muster!


This is my Swiss army, forming up for its first outing at the weekend.


At the moment I have four decent pike blocks, a couple of units of halberdiers, six units of skirmishers and various command stands, heroes etc. 
 

And a bear.


A lot of the minis were painted by Shaun McTague, but David Imrie painted some fantastic ones with great faces, which I mostly used in the front ranks or as officers.

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


Next weekend I'll be at the Britcon tournament. I'll be taking a Swiss army along; my earlier Condottieri plan was cancelled for fear of an excess of enemy elephants, which they lack an answer to, other than dismounting on which point the rules were a little... opaque. The Swiss, on the other hand, don't care about elephants- in fact, they don't care much about anything very much at all! You plonk them on the table, facing straight ahead and they do, or die. A perfect army for a morning's gaming with a hangover.

A second feature of my Swiss is that they are mostly plastic and so sufficiently portable for a train journey. Although I luckily had just enough pikes and halberdiers, I still need generals, heroes and crossbowmen, so I'm busily basing up some minis from "the reserves". Most of these came from David Imrie's collection- I swapped him for them- they are lovely minis and should look brilliant when based. With any luck it'll give me the push I need to finish the rest of the Swiss army, which has been languishing in storage for far too long.

Thursday, 28 July 2022

Baggage Trayne III with added firelocks!


Here's an update on my baggage train for the extended Roundway Down game at Partizan. The (clickable image) wagons have been joined by a guard of firelocks, which I'll take proper photos of, later, once flocked. I've only managed five wagons, but I'll add a few more in the fullness of time, also drivers and horses, sutlers, harlots etc.
 

Here's a clear shot of the wagons, which are mostly very nice resin/metal models from Warfare Miniatures, and which I painted to match one that David Imrie gave me. For dry brushing, I used make-up brushes from eBay, a tip I got from Redzed. They are cheap as chips so you can throw them away when they inevitably get caked with dry paint- much more cost effective than using sable! 

In other news, I just published the latest update to the TtS! Ancient Army list eBook. I've published four new lists but have moved the eight African lists with Medieval dates over to the Medieval book, where they fit better. It still contains 161 lists, and I'm very proud of it!  That's around 6p per list.

Wednesday, 27 July 2022

Precautionary pedestrian knights


I'm at the TtS! Britcon event on the 12th of August with an army of mounted knights, the only army that I have that is portable enough to carry on the train. Unfortunately it is any army that struggles with elephants (chum Sid held up my whole army with a single pachyderm, last year), and I suspect that elephants will be very "à la mode" at this year's events. So, as an anti-nellie precaution, I'm preparing dismounted versions of my mounted knights. I plan to do a speed paint job on two dozen Perry plastic knights I had lying around, assembled, and add them to a few finished minis I found in my "reserves". Here I've sprayed them all chrome and washed with Army Painter Dark Tone (they might well need a second coat). Plan is to paint the flesh, wooden handles and sword belts, then highlight the armour again and do a quick basing job. Sounds easy enough- but because of other commitments I only have a few painting sessions available- we'll see how it goes.

Just to recap, 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 two weeks away, but you can still enter if you get your skates on!, we had an entry yesterday.

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 at the Lee Valley Leisure Centre in north London on Saturday 15th October. 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. 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 game. Incidentally I'm looking for people who can play (and perhaps help set up) the big game on the Sunday, so if you are coming feel free to let me know.

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