Advice Sought!

Had a bit of a delay there for a while, lost 3 days over Xmas.......Lost Holiday!......I suppose. But back on track now, finished another 160 points for the contest, just need to get the bases done.

Brunswick Artillery Batteries

This my first submission for the Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge. They have netted me 150 points, 7% of the way to my my goal!

Mordor: Orks, Warg Riders and the Mouth of Sauron

Next up in my son's LotR collection is Mordor. He has a size-able collection here, and I thought he did a nice job on these figures. I recently painted 6 orcs that were unpainted in order to fill the trays. I wonder if you can pick them out.

The Forgotten Kindoms: The Fellowship and Treebeard

Next in the series of our LotR collection is the figures from the Forgotten Kingdoms, I presume this means the kingdoms that existed in the Northwest of Middle Earth. We do not have a whole lot here aside from the Fellowship and Treebeard.

Brunswick Lieb Battalion

Well the big contest starts tomorrow, the white primer has been applied and the airbrush is going to get cleaned today; 1700 points will be near on impossible for me to achieve, but I will give it a go. Unfortunately timing is everything and I have been off for the last week and go back to work tomorrow, not the best of planning.

The Contest and the Prediction!

Moria Goblins and they have a Cave Troll!!

This is the first post in a planned series to exhibit my son Simon's LotR collection. I would think that he probably painted these figures half way through his 3 year figure painting stint. I have taken the figures and have redone the bases in an attempt to unify the figures. I have also obtained some War of the Ring movement trays and have terrained them in order to more carefully display the figures. As you can see we have 3 missing slots. I am really having to control myself in not ordering any figures in order to fill these trays. Gamesworkshop figures are not only incredibly expensive approaching $5 each in some cases even for the grunts, but I really do not want to take on any extra painting tasks. This is quite difficult for me as I am a completist and seeing those empty slots will probably drive me crazy. Additionally, I am much more likely to play the LotR SBG rather than the WoR ruleset in the future, so  no need for complete trays....keep saying that to yourself.

Bronze Age & Gripping Beast Vikings

I was recently asked for some comparison photos of Bronze Age Miniature and Gripping Beast Vikings. Unfortunately this is a little difficult as the I have already based the figures and the bases are of differing heights. Not withstanding this I have taken some photos, and I believe from them you can get a sense of their proportions anyway. The Bronze Age miniatures are in the middle.

Liebster Awards

It took me awhile to figure out what this actually was, I am am still quite confused. When I google Liebster Award, I get these blogs which absolutely have nothing to do with wargaming. The only unifying detail is that it is awarded to blogs which have less then 200 followers.

Good vs Evil!

I believe most of my readers have heard me make an occasional negative remark about non-historical wargaming. It is not that I have anything against people who enjoy fantasy wargaming and their figures are certainly fascinating, but really to catch my imagination there has to be some attachment to reality. Although, one could argue of course that history is not an absolute reality, but really someone's version of reality. Still though fro me it is nice to think that my wargaming has some basis in the past. What about your attachment to Sharpe, you say, he was not real! Well Sharpe's adventures are set in a very exciting period in history, just like with Uthred or Balista. And I am good with that.

The Black Hoard: 3rd Brunswick Light Battalion

I am hoping that this is the penultimate army I will start in my Napoleonic collection. I just need to control myself. My long term goal has always been to fight Quatre Bras, so the last army should be obvious. I have always wanted to paint the Black Brunswickers and they will also, I hope, have some use as allies for the Austrians. Here is a nice brochure put out by Wargames Illustrated.

A Recent Game with a New Set of Rules

I am starting to have a real backlog of posts. I am planning to put up posts on my next Napoleonic army (someone did guess correctly on my second last post), some comparison photos of Bronze Age and Gripping Beast Vikings (as requested), my son's LotR collection (which I have started to revitalize), my Dux Britainniarum Saxon Army (well actually my Vikings with some new command figures and movement trays) as well as some photos of my first painted Napoleonic figures (done almost 40 years ago) which I have just dug up. I have been doing a lot of day shifts recently and unfortunately, where the days are short, this leaves no time for photography in natural light.

Freydis Eriksdottir: Hero of the Viking Age

My initial attraction to SAGA was the Skraeling special pack. Suddenly I could play out a game that was set in my native land, Newfoundland. I like wargaming with some basis in history, so as I have detailed in previous posts my plan was to set up a campaign set in Vinland to recreate the encounters of the Greenlanders with the Skraelings as detailed in the 2 Vinland Sagas. About a month ago myself and Nicolas at Nowhere to Lead Soldiers got in a brief test game set in Vinland. Nicolas appears to have been quite taken with the story as he has written a SAGA campaign with several linked scenarios for Vinland. I suspect he will soon be detailing them on his blog, so I will leave that there for now.

More Vikings

The great things about skirmish figures is that the units are small and I find them quick to paint. Over the last couple of weeks I have managed to fit in another 16 figures between the Napoleonics.

These are the last two points for my Viking Warband, I now have 6 points of Vikings, the standard sized Warband for SAGA. All Gripping Beast figures.

FeldBattalion Lüneberg

This is the last battalion needed to complete the 1st Hanoverian Brigade at Waterloo.

The battalion fielded 617 men and officers at Waterloo under Lt Col Von Klencke. You can see the rest of my Hanoverian brigade in the background.

FoB Terrain Modifications Buscao Ridge

Our recent game in Montreal really taught me that scenario design is a lot more complicated then just throwing two balanced forces together. I had looked quite forward to the game, we were going to use a set of rules that I like but had not used in awhile, and I really enjoy recreating historical battles. It ended up being a bit of a debacle, mostly because I really failed to consider the complex nature of the terrain in the scenario in respect to the ruleset.

Carnage in Montreal

Iannick has posted an AAR of our recent Napoleonic battle Reynier's Assault on Busaco Ridge on his blog Clash of Empires. Essentially as he will describe the Anglo-Portuguese did not repeat history which resulted in a crushing defeat for myself and Nicolas.

The relentless French columns

We did have some problem with the terrain rules which I failed to predict, but more about that in a later post.

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SAGA in Montreal

Nicolas has posted an excellent AAR for our first SAGA games last weekend. Hopefully much more to come about our adventures in Vinland. See Nowhere to Lead Soldiers.

Photo from Nowhere to Lead Soldiers

Photos de Montréal

I thought I would post a few images from my past gaming weekend in Montréal. Unfortunately, I could not control the lighting and I was using an iPhone, so the photos are not great. I am suspect both Nicolas and Iannick will be posting AAR's on their blogs, they were both using cameras, so I am hoping for better photos.

Onwards to the Busaco Ridge

Well it is off to Montreal tomorrow. Should be a great weekend, I am playing SAGA on Saturday with Nicolas of Nowhere to Lead Soldiers. He has been painting up an Anglo-Dane (well I think they are dwarves actually) 4 point warband, his painting and especially his shields are really great, have a look at his website. I am bringing my Skraelings and Viking war bands. 

The 92nd, Gordon Highlanders

Salamanca Summer Challenge Fini

I have had this stand finished for a few days now, I did some touch up on the base this morning and took some photos. And there we have it. I am really happy to get it done as I had lost interest in the whole project pretty soon in to it. It is lucky I am a completist (someone called me this in the comments on one of my posts), as it never would have got done.

SAGA: Two War Bands Completed

I finally finished the final 2 starter units that I purchased in June. These are both 4 point war bands, and are what is recommended to learn the game.

First up is a 8 figure Viking Warrior unit. I used axes for the weapons in 7 out of the 8 weapons, but I found for some of them that the pose looked a little odd and maybe I should have used javelins. I will have to fix the shield to the left not sure how it got smeared with red.

Salamanca Summer Challenge Step 3

I finally got around to putting a bit more paint on these figures. I have multiple other projects ongoing so these have been on the back of the painting table being pushed back by my SAGA project (thankfully just finished today), my British re-organization which has required painting a dozen new figures as well as re-terraining multiple bases, my ongoing Hanoverian brigade and organizing a scenario for my upcoming game in Montreal.

FB Grubenhagen

Field Battalion Grubenhagen fielded 643 men and officers at Waterloo. A unit like this is what makes this brigade, some variation is always necessary and it was nice to paint some green rather than red.

Lovely Perry figures as usual.

Oh No! Another Re-Organization

I have an upcoming game in early October in Montreal with the usual suspects. Since I let Iannick pick the scenario the last time, I convinced him it was my turn. My French friends are usually more keen to game the central European theatre, rather than the Peninsula or Waterloo. But it is only fair that I get to field les rosbifs every now and then. I wanted to do a Waterloo scenario, but I am still working on my Prussian Corps as well as my Hanoverian Brigade. Just was not ready, but I will be soon.

More SAGA

I have been diligently working away on my SAGA figures, but also on those important gaming accruements.

Casualty Stands (Part 2)

Sometime ago I made a post about what I thought was a good plan for casualty stands, well I tried them out in June in Montreal, and they just did not seem to work (Peut-être, que c'était parce qu'ils ont parlé tous français. Qui sait!). Iannick my usual opponent has his own method and I have decided after some thought to go with his plan. Essentially he uses 3 differently sized circular bases (30,40,50 mm) to represent 1, 2, or 3 drops in cohesion, strength etc. This is not a bad system, as it is obvious and you can use a single or a combination of stands for a single unit to represent the damage they have taken.

Two more points of SAGA

I have just finished another unit of Skraelings, here we have a unit of Warriors comprised of 8 figures. I call them the green band as their unifying colour is green. This is to distinguish them from the the yellow band!

Salamanca Summer Challenge Step 2

Well I have got a bit of painting done in the last couple of days. I have finished 2 more points of SAGA, got all my casualty figures migrated to round bases and re-terrained, painted and terrained 3 new casualty bases as well as started another unit of Hanoverians. And yes, I put a bit more paint on my Barron Larrey project.

Some Foundry Figures: 4eme Lanciers

A couple of years ago, I swore off Foundry figures, they were expensive and a regimental order of légére showed up from Nottingham with more broken bayonets and plumes than I could count. There was also the major problem of their cavalry, they are tiny in comparison to other manufacturers especially Front Rank or Calpe. Even Perry's are quite a bit larger.

Salamanca Summer Challenge Step 1

I have actually found it a bit tough to get painting this summer, I dislike the heat and it has been very hot, even hot inside with AC. I believe this has made me a little sluggish, but I have a lot coming up in the gaming world, with couple of trips to Montreal this fall, as well as the La Bricole painting challenge, so it was time to get going.

Salamanca Summer Challenge Entry

Another Non-Wargaming Post!

First an apology to my internet wargaming friends for doing another non-wargaming post, I try to limit these to 1-2 per year, which I suppose is not unreasonable. But I was asked by a couple of you for some photos, so I said why not.

Feldbattalion Osnabrück (Duke of York's)

Here we have the first battalion in the Hanoverian order of battle: FB Osnabrück sometimes referred to the Duke of York's battalion. They fielded 632 men at Waterloo under Major, the Baron Bülow.

These are Victrix figures with the Hanoverian metal heads and back packs. They were again assembled by Lord Hill. I will not go into it, but bonding the metal heads to the plastic bodies gave both myself and Martin quite a lot of trouble, and I would not recommend purchasing them. I am sure in their first outing, half of them will end up headless! These were painted in the last week.

Feldbattalion Bremen

Next up, as promised, is FB Bremen. These are Perry figures and are quite distinct for their caps and their blue trousers, although most references appear to support shakos rather then caps.

Some Hanoverians:Feldbattalion Verden

Needed a little break from the Injuns. The 1st Hanoverian Brigade at Waterloo has been a project long sitting on the side table. I have done bits and pieces over the last few years. Initially started when I was still doing 12 figure battalions, at the time I did FB Verden and Bremen, as well as parts of Luneberg and Grubenhagen. I had also substituted some Calpe Landwehr for the feldjager company and have done part of the Hanoverian Foot Battery; both associated with the brigade at Waterloo. Being obsessive  this was driving me crazy, I needed to complete this unit! Over the last two week I have added 12 figures each to the FB's Verden and Bremen as well as almost completed FB Duke of York. The remaining figures needed for the Luneberg and Grubenhagen battalions are in the mail as well as the Howitzer for the foot battery. I hope to get the first 3 battalions painted, terrained and posted in the next few days before I go on my hols.

Viking Warlord:Thorvald Eriksson

Leif Eriksson discovers America by Christian Grogh

I decided to go with the Gripping Beast Heroes of the Viking Age Ragnar Lothbrok figure for my Viking warlord. As my first SAGA games will pit Vikings against the Skraelings in the new world, I needed a figure that just not represented the warlike characteristic of the Viking race, but also more importantly their sense of adventure and exploration. Here we have a figure that is not just imposing in a military sense but one who is searching the horizons for new lands. I also have to say that my wife said the figure looked liked me, I may be just as heavy but certainly not as well built or tall. I believe she more equated my gray hair, receding hair line and beard with the figure. But so much for that, maybe I should shut up now!

Skraeling Warlord and who were the Skraelings anyway?

My postings have almost now caught up with my painting. Next up is my warlord for the Skraeling Warband. I decided to go with a scenic base here, so increased the size to 60 mm and added some decorative elements. I also thought that I would give him a name to commemorate the last chieftain of the Beothuk nation who died in the early nineteenth century. So here we have Nonosbawsut. I will get more into this below. I realized early on that I wanted to add some figures to the base. I initially thought maybe a black or polar bear, but these animals are still plentiful in Newfoundland and did not really fit the dark age/lost nation theme. I then remembered the Newfoundland Wolf, extinct since the early 20th century. It sort of fit.

Viking Beserkers

I enjoyed painting these Vikings. I believe, the last Berserker figures I had seen were some Saruman Orcs from Lord of the Rings that my son had painted some years ago. Really not that much different. Crazed animal type creatures.

In SAGA, these are a Hearthguard unit. You can use only 1 unit of Beserkers in a Viking warband, because they are so crazy I suppose. Generally Viking Hearthguard generate 2 attack dice in melee per figure, but these guys have 4 each. Very crazed indeed, but it comes with a cost as their armour is reduced from 5 to 3. The bear skins apparently do not provide much protection. This is point 2 in my 4 point starter Warband.

Skraeling Warriors (second point)

Here is my second point of Skraelings, a unit of warriors, these are the hand to hand guys. You can see that unlike the levy, they have Mohawk hair styles, a little unlikely for these guys in 1000 AD, but I will get into that bit more in my next Skraeling post. Other then that they are probably right for the period. Their clothing is all made of caribou skin and their weapons are stone.

There will be 3 units of these guys in total in my Skraeling 4 pt warband, there are no hearthguard equivalent in the Skraeling SAGA world.

SAGA Viking Bondi First Pt

My SAGA plan is to build two 4 point war bands to start, so I can test the rules. To make it simple for myself, I just went ahead with two Gripping Beast 4pt starter sets. My post from a couple of days was the Levy from the Skraelings starter set.

Simply put SAGA is a points based game, with most games being 6 points aside. To get new gamers off the ground though, it is recommended that they start with 4 point war bands. Gripping Beast sell these nice starting sets with a Warlord, and any combination of a 4 figure Hearthguard, 8 figure Warrior and 12 figure Levy. The Warlords are free. These are all metal figures and are quite nice and usually quite varied (the Skraeling Levy being a bit of an exception as you have seen in my last post). Generally the Levy are armed with bows, spears or slings, i.e. throwing weapons. The Hearthguard and Warriors are, in most cases, armed for hand to hand combat.

La Bataille pour les Deux Villages

Just a quick link to Iannick's AAR of our recent game in Montreal.

Back to Terre Neuve

I have been looking at SAGA for about 6 months now, it looks like a very innovative game, simple to play, and requires a limited number of figures. I was very attracted.

When I look at the other historical periods that I have tried over the last year (WWII, Japanese Sengoku Period), and my subsequent failure to be enthused, I believe the reason is two fold. First the Napoleonic period will always be number 1 for me, but essentially it requires an enormous amount of time to paint armies at the divisional level, and I like painting Napoleonic armies. I have had a real good go at the French, Prussian and Anglo-Portuguese, but also want to paint the Hanoverians and the Brunswickers to start. Because of this I really have little will left to paint large armies in other periods. Another period really needs to be at the skirmish level. Thirty-60 figures aside and ready to go, is what I need. I also need an interesting and well put together set of rules. I have found nothing for the Sengoku period (there is a SAGA mod, but I am really not good with mods, I need a full colour rulebook with all the extras to get me started). For WWII, I based for non skirmish gaming, it was a mistake. The IABSM rules from TooFatLardies look great, but I have to do some rebasing and I am now unsure if I should have gone with 28mm rather then 15mm.

Calpe Landwehr: New and Old

In my recent push to get figures painted for Vorwärts Montreal, the last unit painted was a Landwehr battalion.....2nd battalion/1st Regiment of the Elbe. I have yet to present them.

What is interesting about this unit though is that they are mostly comprised of what I believe are first generation sculpting by Peter Fitzgerald of Prussian Landwehr. I bought these units about 6 months ago, and initially I was a little disturbed that they were significantly different than the Calpe landwehr figures I had on hand. They looked like Calpe, but were clearly different. I confirmed on TMP that they were indeed Calpe. The more I looked at the figures though the more I liked them, so it was with pleasure that I started to paint them. Unfortunately time was at a premium so they were a little rushed, but I am good with how they eventually came out. I thought it would be interesting to look at the differences and the evolution of Peter's sculpting style.

Vorwärts Montreal

Well it is a beautiful day in Salem and the forecast looks great for Montreal for the next several days, so forward we go. I have just worked the last 7 in 9 days so I am really looking forward to the break. I am driving up with my son Simon, who I believe although happy to be home, is suffering acute withdrawal from the delights of the Montreal nightlife.


We are having our game at Chez Iannick tomorrow, and although I am sure that he will post a report on his blog Clash of Empires, I thought he would not mind me posting the initial details here.

Casualty Markers and Sub-Commander Stands

Well I have almost got everything done for the big game in Montreal this Sunday. It really has been a pretty busy time while at the same time I have worked almost every day. Essentially do a shift, come home eat something and start painting.

I had hoped to have a few more new style casualty stands done, but I find the little dice holders time consuming to make, I will have to come up with a different plan if I hope to have one for every infantry battalion and cavalry regiment. I had also hoped to have some Prussian Landwehr mounted regimental officers done, but the ones from Warlord Games only arrived yesterday.

RIR 9

It has been almost a month since I posted to the blog, time goes by! I have been quite busy with painting, but just have not had time to take a lot of photos.

I have been preparing for a trip to Montreal this coming weekend, and all though I am not the Prussian Commander, I had been tasked with bringing a Prussian brigade (division for the unaware). I had 48 infantry to paint and several command figures as well as some casualty markers to do, so I have been busy. Still have 12 infantry to go, but I suspect I will have them done in time. 

Field of Battle Napoleonic: Plancenoit

All the posts (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6) on TMP in reference to FoG-N have been quite interesting. I get a sense that people are looking for a grand tactical ruleset.

My last blogpost was in reference to the look of the game, did it look like a corps level game on the table? I had shoved some figures on the table, laid out some terrain and asked a simple question. Generally the response was NO! A lot of advice about using smaller scale figures or a larger terrain. I appreciate so many people responding, but I am unsure what to do with it.

Field of Glory Napoleonic:How does it look?

A big thing for me is how does a game look, this is going to be specially difficult with Grand Tactical games, where each collection of figures represents a regiment or higher rather then a battalion.

FoG-N advertises itself as a Grand Tactical game aimed at a least a Corps aside. The rules also say that in 28mm scale that it can be played on a 8'x5' table (of course I can not find this reference now). The foot print of small unit (1200-2000 men) for 28 mm infantry figures is referenced as 120mm wide x 90mm deep in tactical formation. A large unit (2000-3000 men) would be 120mm wide x 135mm deep. A cavalry unit, similarly sized represents 500-800 men for a small unit and 800-1200 men for a large unit. The base size for both is recommended to be 60mmx45mm. For completeness I should also say that a small unit of artillery, comprised 2 bases sized 60x60 each represents 12-19 guns and a large unit of 3 bases represents 20-30 guns.

Field of Glory-Napoleonic Review (2) & Playtest

To continue my review of these rules, I took the quick start scenario from the Slitherine website and said why not have a go. In part 1 of my review of FOG-N, I discussed some of the basing issues as well as introduced the brief scenario on which I plan to play test the rules. The quick start rules are an abridged version of the ruleset, I really just wanted to see how the game worked from a mechanical sense, rather than with all the bells and whistles.

Field of Glory-Napoleonic Review Part 1

No one should say that I will not try anything once. Being a relatively new war gamer, I have none of the biases and deep seated resentments that seem to pervade the minds of les grognards. I will happily try Warhammer as I have nothing against Games Workshop. I looked at Napoleon ( a real stinker, I do not believe they even sell it anymore), as I have never perceived that Foundry has been out to get me.

French Command Stands

I recently just finished rebasing my French command stands. I liked the Prussian ones so much, I decided to change the works. During the process I also finally painted the emperor himself and numerous ADC's. The stands are 120x80mm, and I have decided not to differentiate high command structures by number of figures or size of base. Higher command structure is defined as Army, Corps or Division (Prussian Brigade). I will try to make it obvious from the figures on the stand what level they represent. Lower level commanders (brigade,regimental or battalion) remain on 40x40 or 40x25mm stands.

1/1 Landwehr Regiment of the Elbe

Some further additions to the 1815 Prussian Army. I have had a bit of a painting hiatus recently, life got in the way etc etc.

Recently received my final shipment directly from Calpe in the UK. Received in 8 days from the day that the order was placed, excellent service. With the exchange I save, I suspect 25% from the amount the US distributer would have charged. Well worth it.

What should I do with these beautiful figures?

I recently received these Prussian Medic figures from Schrumpfkopf in Germany. He had commissioned these figures and had a limited number cast. I was lucky to get a set. More about them and a uniform guide on his blog. 

Prussian 6th Neumark Dragoons & 4th Kurmark Landwehr Cavalry

Mockern 1813

Next up is 2 units of Prussian cavalry. These are Calpe figures, and really they are the nicest figures I have painted to date. I may try some Perry Prussian cavalry as well, but these figures are first class, and it would have to think about it before I tried another manufacturer.

My Army Painter Method

I have finished my main unit (I have painted an extra unit in secret that will be revealed at the same time) for the Les pinceaux de la guerre contest at La Bricole and I thought I would put all the photos in one post for ease of review. The unit is the 6th Neumark Dragoons and the figures are from Calpe.

Prussian Command Stands

Blücher

No, I do not have a Blucher yet, but I have recently painted up some command stands for my Prussians. I used a couple of the Calpe command sets and then added corp commanding two officers from their latest set PC9. These are absolutely lovely sets, all tell a story and are very nice to paint. They are sold as brigade command sets. I always find this a little confusing until I remember that a Prussian brigade is essentially similar in size to a French or British division. 

A Retrospective

About a month ago, Curt at Analogue Hobbies made a comment to me something along the lines that it would be impressive to see our assembled Napoleonic armies. This made me think: I have never placed all my figures on the table, and I was not even sure how many figures I had painted. I was not even sure when I started.

Death's Head Hussars

Prussian Hussars

I have had these figures for a while and I was unsure whether I was going to paint them or not, as they are not in the Prussian OB for the Waterloo campaign. I then found out that 2-3 squadrons of the Prussian 1st Lieb Hussars were actually seconded to the I Corps. That was enough, I had also told myself that I have to push on with the Calpe figures I have on hand so here we are.

Prussian Artillery

Richard Knotel

Slowly but surely whittling down the Calpe Prussian metal pile. Next up we have two artillery batteries from the IV Corps at Waterloo. I am getting completely confused now by all the rulesets I have been using, but I think I will probably add a cannon to each battery in the future. I have been primarily playing Black Powder and the one peculiarity about the ruleset is that it requires only one stand to make a battery, which I quite dislike. ( does anyone play Black Powder with 4 stand artillery, does it change the game?) Lasalle and most rule sets, I believe, have one stand representing two guns. I like this so for most nations this is 4 stands to an unit aside from Britain and it some it's allies where there would be 3. I do not have nor plan to have Russians, but I believe they would be an exception. Generally most nations had a fixed ratio of howitzers to cannon, I usually like to put one howitzer to each battery. I also plan to have a caisson or limber for each battery. It would be way to expensive to have one for each gun, and one will suffice to represent a limbered battery.

IR21/4th Pomeranian Regiment

Next off the table is IR21. Again, I have used the Mont St Jean site as the guide and some nice Calpe figures. I included IR21 in my Prussian Army as they still wore their British supplied uniform at Waterloo. The unit was brigaded in the II Corps.