Inspiration Has Landed

 Well, we have a name for the madness that I am about to embark upon, thanks to Paul of the Mancave. 

The Frenetic Festive Frenzy of Finishing Forces (or 5F) has the alliteration that I find both Frivolous and Fulfilling.

5F kicks off on December 1 which traditionally in my house is also the beginning of Hawaiian shirt season. This year I designate December 1 as Hawaiian Hobby Day. The celebration of which consists of wearing a Hawaiian shirt, doing some hobby and perhaps eating some pineapple. But not on a pizza because that is weird.

I received some inspiration in the post this week in a copy of Lion Rampant 2nd Edition. I am a great fan of 1st edition and was very keen to get this new version. Thankfully not much has changed in the rules, just some clarifications made. Mancave Paul and Dux Homunculorum are keen for me to join them in building War of the Roses forces utilising LR. I am going to with the twist of my force being entirely made up of halflings and hobbits. Proud rose gardeners, when they heard that someone was having a rose war, they were super keen to get involved.

Obligatory gotcha photo

All I have to do now is dig through the lead mountain and find those unfinished projects. That shouldn't be difficult, in fact, it will be quite fun.

The War Library or "Why I Need A Reason To Paint"

 About a year ago I "retired" from my full time job in the games industry and got involved in a full time job in the games industry. 

Yes, I know that statement doesn't really make sense but the difference is that now I am working with a business partner and it is our business, doing what we want and hopefully making a positive difference to the hobby.

The War Library is our company.

What is different about The War Library is that not only do we sell a great range of new wargames miniatures, rules and supplies, we specialise in selling other people's collections too.

Let's face it, we all have those extra bits from projects that didn't quite make it, games and miniatures that we bought in a fit of enthusiasm only to find no-one else you knows was interested or even those extra units you bought as part of a deal but don't really need. We take them, sell them, and send you money. Simple.

Normally at this time of the year I would be prepping for the fantastic Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge, an annual international event co-ordinated by Curt from Analogue Hobbies in Canada, and the Christmas event I am more excited about than Santa's visit. However, this year The War Library is keeping me so busy that I won't be able to participate.

However, I am going to "paint along" over roughly the same period. The AHPC runs from around December 20 to March 20 every year. You can prep (clean and undercoat) your miniatures but the actual painting must wait until the challenge starts. Handling all the miniatures collections we are selling through The War Library has made me realise that what I need to do is finish some half painted miniatures, fill out some units and get my armies closer to the tabletop.

So, starting December 1st, 2022 I am going to dedicate 1 hour every day to painting, basing or whatever needs to be done to get my armies on the table. I will not be awarding points, as done in AHPC, but publishing weekly (at least) pictures of my progress. Even if no-one reads this blog, I want to record it for myself.

This poor Persian has been waiting over a year for paint

I need a catchy name of course - "Ninety Day Painting Shred"? , "Christmas Crackers Painting Challenge"? , "Get Some Bloody Painting Done You Slow Bastard"? Hmm, not sure. I guess I have about two weeks to decide.

Wish me luck.

A Year At the Sharp End

It's amazing how fast the year has flown by. Lots of good games played so far this year with Sharpe Practice II predominating.

Ah, Spain! What a great place for a battle

The Peninsula has been fought across, down, through and across again! We tend to play large multiplayer games of SPII (really 3 or 4 side-by-side games) where we all have our own Leaders and act on the card draw. For example, a Red Leader 1 card means that we each get to use our Leader 1 (if we are Red of course).
A lot of games have been with my friend Gavin who is definitely a "more is better" gamer hence the large number of figures, players and the 15ft x 6ft table we play on. And you will never see an unpainted figure on the table in our games. We enjoy the look of the game as much as the gameplay. Scenery is important too, lots of lovely buildings (Gav's again) used but most of the figures in these photos are mine!
The lads from Odin's Night club have been involved in a number of the big games, along with a variety of other "gentleman gamers".

Experimenting with double size units

As well as the big games we have been experimenting with tweaking unit size, mainly for visual impact. Those French columns sure look impressive in double size! Easy enough to do, each casualty takes off two figures, that way you get a bucket o' dice experience too!

Look at that column!

The 'thin red line' facing downs the hordes of French conscripts makes for an exciting game. In this particular scenario the British cavalry are shown at the point of breaking through the French supporting unit which you can see fleeing near the curve in the road. The British held, Napoleon's boys ran. Cracking game.

Pumpkin helps with the painting

I have been painting pretty consistently this year (for me) getting through British Light Dragoons, Light Infantry, Line Infantry and various bits and pieces. Always with the help of one furry painting buddy or another. Sometimes the generously shared fur gets in the way of a perfect paintjob but meh, c'est la guerre.

Brigade Lights in progress

I have been adding to my Napoleonics armies steadily too so my painting queue keeps getting longer (funny how that works) and I especially like the Brigade miniatures figures I have picked up. Lots of character. Perry Miniatures and Warlord Games metals have made their way onto the pile too.
Gavin and I have been playing a fabulous Dawns and Departures campaign in the Peninsular, with superb (and hilarious) moderation by Man Cave Paul. Some of the Hornblower/Sharpesque "despatches" (orders) between our named leaders have been nearly as fun as playing the game. Next round of the campaign is about to start as the first phase played itself out.
We have made a slight tweak to the casualty recovery chart, sliding eveything one dice pip into a deadlier outcome. We just felt that not enough attrition of forces was happening.
I can't wait to get the next game underway.

Goodbye 2018

Another year, another squillion miniatures have passed through my hands. Some of them have stuck around. The lead pile has actually decreased (slightly) as I have clarified what projects I want to work on.
As you can see by my sidebar total, I haven't exactly set the world on fire with my painting total this year. And most of that was in November and December!

Italian Stallions

Italian 15mm was the major part of the beginning of the year. I swore that I would never paint 15mm again several years ago but the temptation of Battlegroup wafted past me by Man Cave Paul and Dux was too strong to resist. I bought most of my army pre-painted but as always happens, I just needed a couple more miniatures...
Needless to say, my man cave is now awash with tiny Italians.
Later in the year I decided it was time to finally bite the bullet and build some Napoleonic forces. encouraged by excellent games of General D'Armee with the Carpenter men and Sharpe Practice with Paul, Dave, Alan, Phill, Aled and especially Gavin.
As mentioned in a previous blog I took it as an experiment, used three different techniques and ended up with a process and a result I am happy with.
It didn't hurt that I had a beautifully pro-painted force to inspire me as well.

A gorgeous Indian Mutiny game

I had the chance to play a lot of games in 2018 (part of my don't let the opportunities pass by policy) including a cracking couple of huge games at Gavin's, a big Bolt Action and a superb The Men Who Would Be Kings Indian Mutiny game.

Marty and Paul both hosted terrain making and painting days. No better way to spend a lazy day than hobbying with good friends, helped along with adult beverages. Some really nice terrain was the result (despite the aforementioned beverage consumption!

Superb Sarissa built at Marty's

I can't forget Slaughterloo. Dave K hosted a 6 (or 8?) player game of my favourite system. And this of course inspired me to paint more forces.
The very end of 2018 saw me get involved in two Challenges; the first was the Painting and Sculpting Miniatures (in association with Footsore) 30 Minutes for 30 Days November challenge. What rollicking (and sledging) fun that was. And the discipline was was so helpful to my overall output.
I found that challenge the perfect lead in to The Challenge. I have decided that despite previous years' bad luck, I would give the Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge another go. I have been pushing myself to do at least the 30 minutes a day I started in November, helped along with painting days with Paul, Alan, Aled and various other Odinians. So far so good.

My first AHPC entry for this year

Overall, this has been an excellent hobby year, made all the more so by my great friends in Odin's Night Games Club. You people really make life more fun.

A Wander Into Wellington's Army

I have always loved Napoleonics but until recently I have never painted anything for the period with the exception of my vast Slaughterloo armies. As I have been enjoying Sharpe Practice II and General d'Armee with borrowed forces I thought that it was time to build my own armies.

As I have not painted any historical figures for this period (most people, wrongly obviously, don't count Slaughterloo figures as Historical) I needed to establish the technique. So I decided to undercoat 15 figures, five each in white, grey and black, to see how that changes the method. I am painting British infantry in the test and first group.

First five, white undercoat

These were the first five done, using the white undercoat and finished with Army Painter Soft Tone.
I am not happy with these first five, I think they are washed out and I found them really challenging (hard!) to paint.

And then fortune intervened. I lucked into 120 odd pro-painted French and British for an excellent price. Not only did I have a substantial kernel to build my army around, they were partially based and saboted, just what I wanted to do.

The basing and painting production line

I then spent a couple of days really looking at the deceptively simple pro paint job. I can't match the quality but I thought I could use it's example to improve. They were obviously done with a black primer. So on to the grey and black undercoats. At the same time I decided to finish basing the bought ones, and carry the same basing scheme through to any I painted. At first glance, from a distance, they will hopefully look similar.
The grey undercoat was easier to work with than the white but the black was easiest of all. I also changed to a Strong Tone Quickshade, mainly to try for more definition, particularly with the grey base. Not 100% successful.

I will paint the rest of the British on a black undercoat and sparingly use the Soft Tone (mainly on the trousers) to give a bit of definition.

Black base to left, grey to the right. Black is the winner.

My Goodness! Mistakes Were Made.

I recently had the opportunity to visit Melbourne and spend a day gaming with my friend Mark N. We had long discussed us playing All The Kings Men, a set of rules from the US toy soldier company of the same name. As the name implies, it is a Toy Soldier company specialising in 54mm old style figures.
Mark's particular obsession is the War of 1812 so we had a game set loosely in that period, not a recreation of a real battle, just a bunch of toys on the table.

The field of battle

The toy soldiers are deployed in four types of unit; Infantry in 12 privates + Officer + Ensign, Skirmishers 6+O+E, Cavalry 6 + O +E and Artillery 4 gunners + O + E.
The rules are simple enough, with activation by random playing card draws, red for one side, black the other. Certain cards give you the ability to make special moves. Each play through of the (shortened) deck can allow your units of figures to make multiple moves in a full turn. However each move degrades their quality level from green to yellow to red. Green is good, yellow is ok, red is bad.

Get 'em lads, they is on red!

Battles are resolved with a simple roll of D6s, the number required for success grower higher with each drop down the colour scale.
As I said, rules were simple, toys were on the table and battle was rollicking. We played until the last toy standing and due to a good run of activation cards towards the end, and some lucky dice rolling, I emerged victorious.
This is not a game for anyone to take seriously but for a fun few hours or perhaps a light-hearted club night game, this fits the bill.

What? These old things? Had 'em for ages.

In fact, given my constant moaning about not being able to see 15mm figures to paint them, and the simple style inherent with toy soldiers, mistakes were made.
I spent the evening with Mark and his wife eating, drinking and discussing the idea of doing the game in Napoleonics. And now this huge box of figures have turned up at my house. I wonder where they came from? Looks like it's time to start painting old school.

Holiday time, let's roll some dice

Who doesn't love a holiday? We are having a 'staycation' this year over Christmas/New Year so I get a chance to play a few week day games.
Yesterday Paul (The Man Cave blog) and I decided to start the Chain of Command 29 Let's Go campaign. We have both played Chain of Command before but with an umpire helping us along. It's fair to say that we had only retained a basic understanding of the rules. The whole idea of starting this campaign is for us to work through the rules in our own time and get a better working understanding.

 I laid out the first map of the campaign (including the "slope rope"- which is what you get when you finish laying out terrain and notice the elevation change on the map). Paul was the Germans defending and delaying and I was the Americans probing forward. My objective was to get at least one unit off the left hand side of the table. Sounds easy in theory.
I managed to get two jump off points quite far across the table - about two thirds of the way to my goal. That may have been my problem. As I brought units onto the table they immediately came under fire from the entrenched German defenders. This lead me to having units bunched up in the centre of the table, under fire from three groups of defenders. Not good. I had a Sherman tank (played by a Chaffee in this episode) as Support, mis-read the deployment rules and brought it on the table too far forward. That's OK, Paul's off-board 88mms sent a high velocity hello screaming straight through my side armour and brewed it up. Bye bye Ronson.

My jump off point to the left, under fire from 3 defender units.

Overall, we had a rollicking good game and learnt a lot more about ChOC but still would not consider us experts. The book's layout is challenging and wording somewhat unclear but we will stick at it. In fact, since I lost we get to play this scenario again although this time I get more tanks for support. I must remember to bring them on at the back of the table. And away from those bloody 88s!
Today I was lucky enough to be invited by the father of Aled, one of my fellow Odinian gamers, to his place for a game of General d'Armee. This is another TFL production, this time grand battles in the Napoleonic era.
Dean (Aled's Dad) is a long time Napoleonic player and has a great collection of painted Peninsular figures. We have played General d'Armee together once previously and both enjoyed it. Today Dean and I played the French while Aled and our mate Phil were the stinky Spanish. We had two brigades of infantry and one of cavalry per side.
 Despite a slow start for both sides (just couldn't get the rolls needed to get the troops moving) we soon got into the action. My infantry brigades pushed forward, soon capturing the town in the centre of the table and putting pressure on the Spanish infantry's left flank. Dean then swept in from our right flank, crossed the river and smashed into the Spanish. Mayhem ensued with units dissolving before Aled and Phils' eyes. It looked like it was all over other than the cleaning up. We were mistaken. My absolutely atrocious rolling for any important result (anyone want a 1? I'm your man) combined with Aled's tenacious defence saw the battle swing back in the Spaniards favour. Phil led the Spanish cavalry, previously held in reserve, across the river and started smacking my right flank around. My left flank kept steadily advancing but my awful rolling frittered away a couple of chances. A re-roll wasn't enough to get my Infantry assault going. Fortunately my right flank managed to repulse the Spanish cav, despite the loss of a unit and the pushing back of our cavalry too.

The Spanish Cav pour over the bridge

It was all up to our infantry on the left. The drums beat, cries of Vive l'Empereur filled the air and the infantry columns crashed home into the Spaniards. The centre tussled but the sangria sippers held on. And then it happened, my leftmost unit routed a Spanish unit in melee and the Spanish right flank melted away. Victory to the French!
It was a great game, no one was assured victory until the very end. General d'Armee is a straightforwrd, quick playing set of rules with simple resolution of combat and clear results.
Dean's new wargames room got a big battle christening, we all had a laugh and it was a good day. Thanks Dean for hosting.
Well, so far, so good for my wargaming holiday. Still 4 days to go. who knows what war dolly madness I can get up to before going back to work.