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

 

This is my first Dutch Regiment, van Birkenfeld. It was raised by Holland in 1672 and commanded from 1673 by Johann Karl, Prins Palzgraf von Birkenfeld (below). 


Johann started his military career as a cavalry commander in the army of a Palatine cousin, Charles Gustav, who, in 1654, became Charles X King of Sweden, and fought in the Denmark campaign. Later, he fought against the Turks in Hungary, before entering Dutch service. As a Colonel, he led his eponymous regiment at the Battle of Seneffe in 1674. He was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant General of Foot in 1688.

Most of the 1672 minis came from an internet purchase, which I overpainted, but I did the officers from scratch. The early 1670's uniforms of this unit are unknown, so I went with pale grey coats, lined red with red breeches, as these were recorded as worn by the unit a few years later. The officers have coats in contrasting colours, which makes for a brave look (and which must have rendered them a not-inconspicuous target!). The bases are as ever my trusty FK&P6 bases, flocked by chum Ian and heavily tufted, dry brushed and matt varnished by me.

The flags were tricky- no one makes them and the design is not certain. However, there is an image of a fragment of a flag recorded for Birkenfeld in Triomphes that appears to depict the lion of Holland, so I copied and resized a Holland flag image from t'Internet, and then created a greyscale version for the colonel's flag (which make or may not be correct in the Dutch army at this time?). I then overpainted both flags which came out pretty well, I think. This is good as I will need to make other flags from scratch in this somewhat-too-obscure-for-flag-manufacturers period.

In other news, I'm finishing the last minis for the extended Roundway Down game at Colours in Newbury on Saturday 10th September, where several chums will join me to put on the game (shown below at Partizan). If you'd like to play, please email me.

Friday, 26 August 2022

Régiment de Pfyffer

 
This is another regiment for my progressing-in-the-background 1672 project. This is Régiment de Pfyffer, circa 1672, a Swiss regiment in French service, painted for the Franco-Dutch War. The photo is clickable.

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.


Above is the eponymous Colonel, that's one of my favourite sculpts, reminds me very much of the 1950's Disney Captain Hook. The colonel is on a separate base because I need some officers to command brigades. Battalions will typically be grouped in brigades of four (representing 8 real-world battalions), in two lines. 

I have five battalions finished, and perhaps 15 more mostly painted, but which I am struggling to get over the line, due to other commitments. I'll try to finish one a month over the winter, which will give me enough for a small battle in the spring.

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

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


I'm planning a very large Successor To the Strongest! game for Salute, and as such I need several more units of light horse of various nationalities. This unit is my first of Thracians, distinguished as such by their characteristic helmets, long boots and flowing cloaks. I didn't want early Thracians, with the soft caps, but rather later ones suitable for Lysimachus' army at Ipsus.

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.

Friday, 17 June 2022

Niccolò da Tolentino

This is Niccolò da Tolentino, commander of the Florentine coalition at the Battle of San Romano. He was painted by the very talented Redzed (Shaun Watson), some time ago. All the photos are clickable.


He's accompanied by a unit of Florentine knights painted by Shaun McTague and myself. Aside from Niccolò himself, the knights are mostly Perry plastics, lightly converted with beautiful high feather headdresses from Mirliton in Italy. I've given many of them giornea tunics. I've tried to get close to the famous "Rout of San Romano" painting. 

I bases on my trusty FK&P6's, Ian Notter flocked and I tufted. The unit is 18 strong, that's how I do all my mounted units, these days. I plan a full Florentine army with lots of militia types.


Here's Niccolò from a different angle, from which you can make out part of the magnificent standard that Pete of Pete's Flags has designed. It's huge and stunning. The red flag in the previous image is also by Pete- Orsini, if I recall correctly, hence the bear.

In other news, it is the final day of my To the Strongest! Flash Sale today (Friday). I've added some new items and further reduced the price of some other items, some of the stuff is 30-50% off. You can find them here.

Here's a clickable version of the full-unit shot.



Tuesday, 14 June 2022

Flash TtS! Early Summer Sale


I've put a bunch of To the Strongest! products on sale for the next few days.  


There are rule books, chits,  bases, magnetic sheets, terrain pieces and tokens on sale.


Discounts vary from a modest 10% to a mighty 50%. Get them while they are hot- sale must end on Friday!  

In other news, I'm currently working on a TtS! scenario for the battle of Ceresole 1544, and (re)painting another regiment of ECW horse, some minis shown below. These will become a Royalist regiment, probably Prince Maurice's, who were at Roundway Down. Maurice's had red cornets so I'm giving them matching red sashes.

Tuesday, 31 May 2022

Latest Version of the TtS! Medieval Army list eBook is published

I've just released the latest version of the Medieval Army List eBook. This release includes two new lists - Later Lithuanian or Samogitian, and Frisian Free Cantons - bringing the total to 122. The former list provides able opponents for the dread Teutonic Knights. The latter is an obscure but fun list, since the Frisians are equipped with spears that double as vaulting poles!

There are significant edits to the Breton list, and Bretons in other lists. There are also edits to Western Franks, Pre and Post Mongol Russians, Nikephorian and Thematic Byzantines and possibly others. I removed Livonian light cavalry from the Teutonic knights list; apparently they never existed. I've also added additional background and army note material to some lists. The next version of this eBook will come out around the end of August, there will be several new lists. The next Ancient Army list eBook update is due out at the end of July.

If you have ever bought a paid-for version of the eBook (as opposed to free versions) you should have received a copy either by email (if bought from the BigRedBatshop) or as a download link (if bought from Wargames Vault). If you would like to buy a copy, you can find it here or, if you are in the EU, here.

Here I'm recovering from the exertions of Partizan and trying to push on with several projects in parallel- some more ECW for an extended version of Roundway Down, some more regiments for my 1672 project, some Renaissance knights and ancients for Ipsus. Photos in the weeks to come!

Tuesday, 10 May 2022

Gridding

 

Here's chum Ian helping me to mark up cloths for the Roundway Down game with a very unusual 26cm grid, that is required because of the somewhat unusual configuration of the battlefield (7 boxes wide). This proved to be quite involved, since the cloths I had picked are from Geek Villain and use a fleece that is lovely but stretchy, being designed to go over hills. But Ian and I are grizzled veterans of marking up cloths with grids - heck, we've even done hexes! - so it wasn't unduly taxing.

The reason I like these GVs is because they are a great shade of green and there's a nice nap to the fleece. Unfortunately I had to use the last three I had in stock, so I can't sell you any, but I'll hopefully receive more in June, both gridded and un-gridded.

Friday, 6 May 2022

Bring on the Empty Horses


Above are the completed horse casualty markers for the Roundway Down game (click for a close-up), and below are the infantry casualty markers. The miniatures are a mix of Bicorne and some old Redoubts and a couple of Warlords The dead horses, above, I converted from a Bicorne horse and Bicorne very kindly then cast a bunch up for me (I've not seen them added in their shop). All the minis were painted by Shaun McTague or me, and chum Ian did the expert flocking, which I then tufted, dry-brushed and varnished. I added the flag for the wounded ensign; poignant, or what?


The title reference is from a David Niven auto-biography. The phrase was used by Michael Curtiz, the Film Director of The Charge of the Light Brigade (1936), when attempting to explain on set that he wanted a lot of rider-less horses in the background of the climactic charge; so it is fairly appropriate for Roundway Down!

My recent lack of posts has been because I've been very busy writing modelling for the Roundway Down game at Partizan.  I've almost finished this- just a few hundred tufts to go. I am currently working on the next release of the Medieval Army list book for the month end- I expect to add at least two or three new lists. I'm also finishing my contribution to a Helion book on Ceresole 1544, and writing some ancient army lists, and doing a little work on Renaissance. Lastly I was interviewed at length on the Plastic Crack Podcast, you can watch it here.  Busy, busy, busy!  :-)

Tuesday, 26 April 2022

Even Stronger V10 published


I've just published an updated version of the Even Stronger Rules Supplement- the first in over a year. There are a handful of changes, notably a new troop type, straddle cars, which I hope will help to raise interest in the Sumerian and other Third Millennium armies. There is an interesting, significant change to javelinmen. There's an extra ammo chit for all wheeled vehicles such as chariots. I also simplified the (formerly somewhat Byzantine) rules on massed lights and supported mounted. There are sundry other minor changes. If you've previously downloaded it, I've sent you an update link. If you haven't received it you can download it here.  It's free.

Late this week I'll publish an updated version of the Ancient Army List eBook. There are three new lists, and quite a few other lists will have some revisions, in particular the Third Millennium lists which are receiving something of a spring clean.  If you've previously bought  the paid-for version, I'll send you an update or a link.

Sunday, 24 April 2022

Roundway Down Roundup


I've been busy writing this month and haven't had time to post anything, so here's a sneak peak of the last minis for the For King and Parliament Roundway Down project. The officers are based, the casualties based, two new regiments of cavalry based. There's just these bit bringing up the rear - six artillery pieces and a limber. These are all painted except for the three light guns in the foreground, which I'll hopefully tackle tonight. 

I still need to do some work on the battlefield which is a huge, bare hill. I more or less know how I'm going to do it but that's not quite the same as having it done!

In other news, I'm working on the next update to the TtS! Ancient army list, which is due out on Saturday 30th. There will be three new lists bringing the total to 166 lists.  I'm also ready to publish the next Even Stronger, the first update to the rules in over a year. There will be some interesting new rules which I hope people will enjoy, in particular a new take on Sumerian battle cars.

Finally I recently found a big bag of gold and silver (plated) treasure- literally- and have completely restocked the shop with Victory Medals. Unfortunately these will be the last such medals I'll be stocking, because the supplier's wholesale price recently went up by 50%, which makes them unaffordable- once these are gone, these are gone.  So if you want to add some bling to your game, now's the time! Below is one of my favourites, the Pegasus of Corinth. Of course the best sellers are the Roman denarii.

Sunday, 10 April 2022

ECW progress

I'm conscious that I've not posted on this blog for almost a month- it can get that way when I'm busy in the lead-up to a display game (in this case Partizan). Above and below, I've been making command stands, pursuit  markers, casualty markers and artillery pieces for the Roundway Down game. This has been going pretty well, with the first three categories close to completion, and only the artillery needing very much work. I should have them finished with plenty of time, which is good news, since I still need to build a darned great hill. When they are completely finished, I'll take some decent photos. 


In other news, I'm working on the next release of Even Stronger, which will include some new troop types and streamlined rules, due out at the month end- it'll have been a whole year since the last version! I'm also editing ancient army lists for the month end release and a book. Busy, busy busy!