Project Updates

1683 Vienna Project

I've been doing research for my 1683 project.

I picked up a couple of rulesets:

• Baroque is an Impetus variant. It has a few army lists, including Imperialists, Ottomans, and Poles.
• But I am most interested in Pikeman's Lament from Osprey.

It's really geared toward smaller actions, but I find the campaign system very intriguing. It follows the fortunes of your commander, as he leads a company through a series of actions, and (hopefully) rises in experience and rank. I'm thinking of creating an Austrian officer and running a campaign for him.

PL's force lists are geared for western European armies, but I found some online suggestions for eastern armies.

I currently have some 3mm figures that will do for cavalry. I placed an order with Magister Militum for some infantry and dragoon. I can do 1683 as a small side project.

Byzantine Project

I placed my orders for my Byzantine project. 

Miniatures will come from Magister Militum's 3mm line. Here is my shopping list:

Byzantines:

• Heavy/Medium Infantry will represent the skutatoi
• Skirmishing Archers will be light infantry
• Parthian Style Cataphracts will do double duty as Byzantine Cataphracts. At this scale, I can't really tell the difference
• Likewise, Parthian Style Horse Archers will do double duty as Hunnic allies

Sassanian Persians:

• Parthian Style Cataphracts and Parthian Style Horse Archers for the cavalry
• Persian Sparabara will be levies
• Skirmishing Archers as light infantry
• and Seleucid Elephants

I also ordered some terrain; the Roman Buildings from PicoArmor.

Operation Last Train

I wanted to order PicoArmor's Desert Buildings for my Operation Last Train sci-fi project. Alas, they were out of stock. I'll keep an eye out for them.

Whew, what a week!

From the looks of things, you might think I did a lot of gaming this week. That's not exactly true. I was on vacation the prior two weeks and built up a backlog of posts. It just so happens that I spaced them out so that they covered the entire week. Just don't expect me to maintain that pace.

I have been doing some game-related stuff this week.

First up, I did some painting:

• At the bottom, is a complete 3mm army for my mini mini project (games on a 5" x 7" board). It features a leader, 3 cavalry, 4 infantry, and 2 skirmisher units. I plan to add a couple of artillery pieces, so this can be a generic shock or horse & musket army.
• Next are 3mm figures for my Operation Last Train project. Flanked by 2 dropships, I have infantry (blue), civilians (red), and xenos (dark green).
• Ignore the 4 chariots at the top left. They've been sitting on my desk for months and I did nothing with them this week.

I also spent some time plotting out my Byzantine project. Now that I received the Ospreys on the Byzantines and Sassanids, I'm getting a better handle on the armies.

Here's my plan for each army:

• Byzantines - 4 units of heavy cavalry, and 2 units each of heavy infantry, archers, and light cavalry.
• Sassanids - 3 units each of heavy cavalry (cataphracts), levies, and archers, 2 units of light cavalry, and a unit of elephants

 Because Magister Militum's packs are so big, I'm thinking I can do double duty on some packs:

• Order one pack of Parthian cataphracts to stand in as Sassanids and Romans. I don't think any differences are noticeable at 3mm.
• Likewise, use Parthian horse archers as light cavalry for both sides.
• Finally, split a pack of skirmishing archers between the two sides.

I figure my order will cost a bit over $60. I may postpone my order until after my birthday next month. Besides, I should probably wait until I finish my current projects before tackling the Byzantines.

Going Grand

 For years, my gaming space has been somewhat constrained. As a result, I have created my own, highly portable gaming system.

I have a small battle board of 8 by 10 inches. Upon this field, maneuver armies made up of 6 units with 1 stand per unit. The board, unit, terrain, markers, and dice all fit into an 8.5 by 11 inch box.

An example of one of my portable battles

Given that I frequently gamed on a table that was 16 by 22 inches, this set up fit very well.

But now my gaming space has grown. I now have some space for a 2 by 4 foot table. I plan to use half of it as a dedicated painting area. But that still gives my a 24 inch square space.

This leaves me pondering increasing the size of my games.

One option is to return to a set-up I used in my early gaming days. 

Here I am using Risk figures (approximately 10mm) on a 12 by 18 inch board gridded into 2 inch squares. One benefit of this is that it would look much better in pictures. The larger figures seem to photograph better. Or they would if I had properly painted figures. And that is the sticking point; I don't really fancy painting up a couple of armies of larger figures. Also, I don't think my "cheat," using the same figures for battles ranging from ancients to modern would work in 10mm.

Another option is to use my 3mm troops with a 2 inch gridded board. I've done this before.

Here, I am using 2 stands per unit. I could increase it to 4 stands per unit to really fit up the spaces. I think this would look nice, giving a very grand tactical look to the game.

Speaking of grand tactical, I just picked up the new Osprey rules set, Absolute Emperor. It is a set of grand tactical Napoleonic era wargame rules.

I find his organization interesting. The basic unit in the game is a division, usually made up of 4 stands. For command purposes, divisions are grouped into Corps. This high scale approach means that Waterloo can be done with approximately 20 divisions per side.

This is still a bit big for me, as it would require about 80 stands. But what about 1 stand per division? I could probably manage that. I could still organize into corps and still use the One Hour Wargame scenarios (with each of Thomas's units = a Corps).

Thinking about this now has me leaning toward a increasing the size of the battle board, but still keeping a 1 inch grid. This would still allow me to play smaller games with just six 1-stand units, with the option to expand to larger battles.

Anyway, all of this is in the pondering stage. We'll see if I ever manage to get it off the ground.

Addendum

Looking at my 2 inch square gridded battle board, I remembered that it was 12 by 18 inches. I think that this size will be perfect so I plan to pick up three of these bifold foam boards along with green, tan, and blue felt sheets (for grass, desert, and sea).

Projects

With LARPing out of the question due to COVID, I have more time for tabletop gaming. Over the past week, I have embarked on a few different projects.

Khamen and Candorra
Last year, I painted up some 10mm figures for RPGs.

However, I did not buy rogue or elf figures. Now that my characters Khamen and Candorra are back in action, I wanted figures for them. I placed an order for Copplestone's heroes and halflings pack. I have two figures in mind to represent the characters (in the red box).

Sci-Fi
I was not happy with the 15mm sci-fi figures I purchased. I decided to scale down to 10mm. I placed an order from Pendraken. I'm getting Marines, Special Force troopers, and a wide variety of aliens. I plan on using them for more skirmishes using Age of Heroes.

Fantasy Gladiators
Over at Stronghold Rebuilt, Kaptain Kobold has been playing a bunch of simple, quick games. These have been giving me an itch for something similar. While I enjoyed the accounts of his prehistoric hunting games, my animal-loving wife would hate me if I did my own. However, the gladiator games piqued my interest. I had some reservations because I don't know of any gladiators in 10mm (my preferred scale for skirmish games) and I didn't want to start collecting a new period. However, inspiration struck as I experimented with Age of Heroes. That game calls for forces of 5 figures. How about team gladiator battles?!

I decided to use fantasy warbands; after all it's not a new period (see above). I ordered from Irregular Miniatures because they sell by individual figure. Each team would consist of 1 hero, 3 standard warriors, and a missile-armed warrior. I ordered teams for orcs, elves, dwarves, goblins, halflings, skeletons, and lizard-men. But I wanted some humans too, so I looked at their historical ranges. I could not decide on one so I ordered Romans, Gauls, Crusaders, and Arabs. That will give me more than enough teams!

For someone who doesn't like painting, I sure gave myself a lot of work.

It's Been Quiet

A short status report.

Last weekend was a LARP weekend so no gaming.

Here is my current kit, sans armor. I am wearing an old pair of greaves from my ranger kit, but I am moving back to a paladin-y look. I just purchased some plastic armor in nice, shiny, paladin-y silver.

I am working on a 15mm sci fi project. You can see some minis in various painting stages. The red ones are some Rebel Miniatures Earth Force Marines, which will become Imperial Marines.

The others are from Khurasan. The photos below are from Khurasan's website (I wish I could paint that well).

Tigrids

Insectoids

Intruders

Robots (I haven't started painting these yet)

I still need some minis for my heroes.

Army of Darkness

I did a little painting last weekend. Not much, mind you, but enough for my purposes. I present the Army of Darkness.

This is a really Lazy Gamer type of army. The troops are all black and are intended to stand in as generic minions of evil. Thus, I did not want to paint details that might limit their use. I may also use them as native tribesmen. I was going to use brown for the natives but I am trying to stay lean and avoid collecting too many armies.

Anyway, I hope to have them in service this weekend when I give another Dragon Rampant scenario a go.

To the Stars!

As I press forward with my Renaissance-era fleets, my mind has wandered to another project I had in mind. The concept was to minimize my collection by putting together a fleet of spaceships that could do double duty for naval battles in space and space dogfights.

Initially I wanted some generic, classic sci-fi rocket ships. I scratch-built a few 2D counters, but they were a bit large for my 1" grid.

I've been looking around for small retro-rockets but have not been able to find any (I love the Hydra Miniatures rockets but think they are too large).

Recently I discovered Monday Knight Productions. Not really retro but I like the looks (note that all pics are from their website)

Terran fighters

Heavy fighters

A bomber

Entomolian fighter

I then add an odd thought. These alien scout vehicles from Irregular miniatures could substitute as rocket ships. At first I thought about adding some fins but I'm lazy so would probably use them as is,

 Looking at some more Irregular, I thought I could use this alien transport as a bomber.

And these APCs as heavy bombers.

I'm not sure of the size of any of these figures and I really need another project like a hole in my head. But I could not resist playing around so I ordered some samples. Stupid GADD.

Note: All pictures taken from the manufacturers' websites.

Navy Blues

I previously posted that I placed an order for some 16th century ships from Tumbling Dice. Well, they have arrived, and I have some mixed feelings about them.

First some pictures of the unpainted product (sitting on my new sea mat)

First up - caravels. The one on the left is tipped on its side so you can see the profile a little better.
Note that my mat has a 1 inch grid. That should give you an idea of the size of the minis.

Some small galleys. I did not remove the flash from the two on the ends.

Two large galleys. The one on the left is on its base while the one on the right shows the base separate from the galley, and the galley is tipped on its side.

Finally, a galleass (left) and galleon.

Note that the above pictures do not show the separate sails, which need to be glued on. The galleys include a selection of furled and unfurled sails.

Thoughts

So what do I think about these miniatures?

Pros
The ships themselves look nice. I expect they'll paint up well, even for a bad painter like myself. I am especially pleased by the size. The galleass is slightly bigger than 1" but all the rest will fit into my grid well.

Cons

• Flash - compared to Tumbling Dice planes, these seem to have more flash. I suspect that it is easier to mold planes than ships however. I just finished prepping the caravels and small galleys and it wasn't too onerous.
• The bases - the bases are just too bulky and long for my 1" grid mat. Before seeing the figures, my plan was to ditch the bases and mount the ships on clear Litko bases. Alas, some of the ships are molded directly onto the bases. On others, the galley oar banks are molded directly onto the metal base! If I dump the base I dump the oars, too!
• The sails - the last time I bought sailing ship minis (back in the early 90s I think), they had the sails molded to the masts and I just had to glue the masts to the hull. Well, TD minis have the masts molded to the hull with the sails separate. It seems a bit fiddly to glue the sails onto the masts.

The Plan
I decided to start with the easiest and work my way through the rest.

• Caravels - these require minimal prep work. The bases fit into a 1" square so I can leave them be. Everything is molded in one piece so no gluing required. I just cleaned up some flash and will paint them.
• Small Galleys. the bases are a bit long so I chopped off the ends (the middle ship in the picture above show one with the ends removed). The ship is molded to the base so no gluing there. The sails are separate, however, and will need some gluing. I may just ignore them. After all, galleys generally used oars rather than sails in battle.
• Large Galleys - generally the same strategy as with the small galleys. The bases are separate so some gluing is required.
• Galleass - the base definitely needs to be chopped down; right now it measures about 1.5" while the ship itself is only slightly larger than an inch. Sails are a bit bigger and therefore less fiddly than the galleys so I may add them.
• Galleon - the base will get chopped. I definitely want to add sails; the galleon just looks bare without them.

Generic Army Update

My latest project is underway. I received the figures from Magister Militum and have begun to paint.

I decided to start with a slightly reduced army for the 2 main combatants - red and blue. The initial armies will consist of 4 heavy / line infantry, 2 light infantry, 2 heavy cavalry, 2 light cavalry, and 2 artillery.

Heavy / Line Infantry (left) and Light Infantry (right). I cut down the pikes on the heavy infantry; the finished product will be able to stand in as either pikemen or musketeers.

Heavy Cavalry (left) and Light Cavalry (right)

Artillery crew and gun

I have begun painting the red and blue armies. Infantry

and cavalry

The project has stalled a bit due to work but I hope to get it going again soon.

Generic Army Project

I know I'm crazy. In the midst of a miniatures purge I just ordered a big batch of 3mm miniatures from Magister Mililtum! Why would I do something that crazy?

It all stems from a concept that has been brewing in my mind. At the smaller miniature scales, general unit information (foot vs. horse, formation, and general uniform colors) is visible but uniform details are very difficult to discern. It dawned on me that I could use that same figures to represent units from ancients through the horse & musket eras. How is that so? With judicious selections I can build generic units of heavy infantry, light infantry, heavy cavalry, and light cavalry (although I'm also adding some artillery specifically for gunpowder eras).

Here is my plan for the generic armies:

• I ordered the minis from Magister Militum's 3mm line (I found that 2mm is a bit too small for decent photos)
• I plan to build 3 armies - red, blue, and white or brown (for natives)
• Each army will consist of 4 units each of heavy infantry, light infantry, heavy cavalry, and light cavalry plus 2 units of artillery
• Composition of the different categories of units:
• Heavy Infantry - Renaissance (i.e. ECW) pikemen in helmets. I plan to cut the pikes down to spear size. I chose to do this because they have helmets without shields. They can represent either spear-armed ancient/medieval infantry or helmeted musketeers.
• Light Infantry - Ancient skirmishing archers. At a distance the bow could be taken for a musket. Either way, they should be distinguishable as skirmishers.
• Heavy Cavalry - Age of Reason cuirassiers (because of their body armor without shields)
• Light Cavalry - Age of Reason hussars

What about my existing 3mm units? While I think they look good, they are obviously restricted in temporal scope. My fantasy armies are equipped with shields and my horse & musket armies wear tricorns. Thus, they are expendable. I'm holding onto the horse & musket figures for now but ultimately plan on replacing them when the new armies are ready.

Plane Crazy

I'm facing a bit of a dilemma right now. I need more planes for my bomber campaign, but I'm reluctant to buy more planes!

Let me explain. You see, I am not a typical wargamer. I'm a minimalist at heart so I hate having large collections. I try to keep my forces to a minimum to play the game. It's one of the reasons I like imagi-nations. I can use generic forces and not worry about collecting every plane in every theater. Unfortunately, due to my GADD (Gamer's Attention Deficit Disorder) I start and drop projects regularly, only to find duplication and overlap. That's my current situation.

Today, I rummaged among my discarded projects and found some more planes.

First up are some generic 1/900 scale planes by Irregular. To the left are some of my Aetherian planes. As you can see, they seem to fit size-wise (even though the Aetherian ones are nominally 1/600 scale from PicoArmor). The bombers are a bit bigger but they are 4-engine bombers so it makes sense. The bombers are only a little larger than my 1" squares so I think they'll work. I'll probably repaint them in Aetherian colors.

And here are some 1/600 Tumbling Dice Germans and Americans (Me-109, FW-190, P-51, P-47, and B-17). They are a bit larger so I probably won't use them.

I found some 1-engine bombers from PicoArmor (right, in red). I need to finish painting and basing them. I have another 5 (not painted).

Nevertheless, I would like some more 2-engine bombers.

However, my latest plane kick started with these.

This jet age project began as an homage to my recently deceased father, who flew Canberras in the '50s. My problem with these is that they are a bit big for my board.

To complicate matters even further, I had previously intended to get rid of all my planes. In an exercise in extreme minimalism, my plan was to create fleets of rockets which could serve either as space fighters or larger ships. I have done some space dogfights with home-made flats. However, I am not happy with my attempts and am looking for some minis that I like.

Writing this post has clarified some things in my mind. I'm going to paint up my Canberras for another set of rules while I prepare my Irregular planes for the Aetheria campaign. I'll be ordering a small batch of 2-engine bombers (probably from Irregular) to fill out my Aetherian air forces. I am going to shelve my space dogfight concept for the time being. Once I get everything sorted out, I'll put any extras in my discard pile (to be given away eventually).

Come Sail Away

Earlier this week I performed a couple of Age of Sail experiments.

Previous experiments utilized my scratch built ships (which I made in the early 1990s!)

Because of their masts, these ships don't fit well into my portable wargame boxes. I've been thinking about creating some counters, like Fantalonia's. I don't have a functioning color printer at home, so these counters have been shelved for the moment. However, I have some pieces of craft wood. A little snipping and painting later and I have 2 fleets.

I also dabbled with rules today.

First, I used an idea from Aelred Glidden's As Per Margin rules (in MWAN 109). Roll 2 dice to determine movement. Use the higher die if moving with the wind or the lower if against. Because my board is small, I halved the movement rates (e.g. a roll of 5 or 6 = 3 squares). To speed the process, I rolled per squadron instead of per ship. Overall, I felt that this was a positive experiment. It gave some variability to movement that made things interesting.

For combat, I rolled 2 dice per ship, needing a 4+ (5+ at long range) to hit. Given that ships could only take 3 hits before striking, this could get bloody fast. Thus, I added a couple of rules to lessen damage. First, ships could make repair rolls; for each hit roll 4+ remove a hit. Then halve the number of hits to determine permanent damage.

Here is a shot of my ships in action.

This was after several turns of battle (half of the Blue navy has sailed off the board without damage). Black markers indicate hits and orange represent permanent damage. After repairs, these 4 hits translated into 2 points of damage. At the end of the game, Blue had no damaged ships while Red had 3 (one seriously with 2 damage). These changes seem to be working.

Once again I had a game partner. This time Onyx watched without disturbing the pieces (although he sat on my box).

Quite Irregular

Irregular Miniatures, that is.

Late last year I abandoned my various miniatures project and created some generic block armies. Here we have two of those armies standing in for Wellington and Napoleon,

Of course, I'm never satisfied for long and recently decided that I wanted to use some small-scale miniatures in lieu of blocks, So now I have placed an order from Irregular for some packs of their 2mm line.

For a start, I'm planning 3 generic armies - red, white, and blue. Each army will consist of the following:

• Infantry - 4 units of regulars, 4 militia, 2 elite, and 2 light
• Cavalry - 4 units of light, and 4 heavy
• Artillery - 2 units field guns
• Commanders -1 command stand

Each unit will consist of 1 strip on a 20mm x 10mm base - very minimalist. I still plan to draw the terrain using markers (as shown above).

Something Old
I've gone through my old miniatures inventory and bagged up most stuff; most likely I'll donate it (don't know where yet). I did keep a few airplane miniatures, my 2mm sci-fi from GZG (Germy), and a some 6mm fantasy and sci-fi minis I want to use for skirmishes.

The Purge

Recently I replayed a Waterloo scenario that I originally ran for the 200th anniversary. This time, however, I used my generic counters rather than my 3mm miniatures.

Did I miss the minis? Actually no. And this got me thinking about what I do and do not need for my gaming.

Bob Cordery's recent efforts at downsizing have also got me thinking about reducing my gaming clutter. Now I don't have a large collection as it is. There are just a cheap plastic chest of drawers from Walmart and a few plastic boxes.

Still, I am a minimalist at heart, and it grates on me to have unused stuff lying around. Which brings me back to my 3mm figures. They worked great when I was using a 2 inch gridded battlemat. However, I have switched to a 1 inch gridded dry erase board and to me the figures look oversized for the grid.

I have been thinking of switching back to 2mm (yes, another scale switch). I think they will look better on the 1 inch grid. As a result, 3mm is now expendable.

I actually began a purge process in January, bagging up a bunch of stuff I don't think I need anymore. I have added my 3mm to the pile.

Now what to do with the lot? Trying to sell crappy collections like mine is usually an annoying process. I don't make much (if any money) and it just adds annoying errands (like running to the post office) to my already busy life. However, I hate to throw them away. It just seems wasteful. Maybe I'll just post them on this blog and see if anyone wants them - just pay postage.

Any suggestions?

Jaded

With miniatures, that is.

I know that I once posted about why I like miniatures. Done well, they just look fantastic. Problem is, I cannot do them well. I am an indifferent painter, so my quality suffers and I take a long time. I tried compensating with smaller scale minis (2mm and 3mm) but in my opinion they don't photograph all that well. As a result, I have not been particularly satisfied with my miniature efforts.

Recently, I started experimenting with block armies and have found it surprisingly satisfying. As a result, I built up several block armies (red, blue, white, green, gray, black, brown, and purple). Playing games with these blocks gives me the same visceral feel as miniatures. I'm rolling dice and pushing troops across the board. Furthermore, I find it far more practical, I don't have to make a new army or new terrain if I want to try a different period.

With my block armies I'm set for large battles, but I still don't have a set up for my role playing games. I am thinking of creating some counters using some paper mini files I have picked up. For example, here are two that I use for my Four Against Darkness characters Khamen and Candorra.

The upshot of all this musing is that I'll probably be posting more games with counters and fewer with miniatures in 2018. I apologize if this is less satisfying for readers, but I have to go with what works best for me.

July Update

Six by Six
Thanks to the long Independence Day weekend, I got a good start to the month, so I was able to get in 5 games! I have now completed 27 games (average of 3.75 a month).

Here is a list of the games played during the month:

• Anarendor fantasy - 1 game played (Massacre at the Foaming Flood) and challenge complete!
• Slipstream (using FU) - 2 games played
• Say Goodbye to the Sunstone
• Into the Black Hole and Pirate Panic (2 parts)
• Spandau and Lewis - 1 game played (Spandau in Space)
• Ticket to Ride - 1 game played (July 3)

I suspect that my pace is going to slacken because I am so close and won't feel pressure to play. I doubt that I will finish DC Rivals (my wife lost interest in the game) but expect to finish the others.

The Generic Army Project
For my initial Slipstream ground battles, I used 2mm and 3mm ancient figures. I noticed that I could not tell what they were. At normal game ranges their weapons are nigh on invisible;  I can only see their formation and primary colors (shields are even hard to see). This led to a revelation. the actual figure is not discernible therefore a figure can stand in for any period. In other words, I only really need 2 generic armies to cover all of history and beyond.

To this end, I started working on 2 generic armies (red vs. white although I am tempted to add a third blue army). Each army will consist of 4 units each of heavy infantry, light infantry, and cavalry supplemented with some elite infantry, artillery, and perhaps some war machines (tanks or whatever).

In the past, I've tried to distinguish unit types based on strip type or supplemental colors (e.g. shield color). This doesn't always work at the micro-scales, For the generic project I plan to differentiate based on formation, perhaps supplemented by flag colors.

I started this project but stalled because of . . .

A New LARP Kingdom
I am a devoted LARPer (live action roleplayer) but often find myself dissatisfied with the state of LARPing. It's not so much the local group as it is dealing with national organizations that dictate rules to the local groups. I would prefer local autonomy so that my realm (local group) can develop its own customs, especially with regards to knighthoods. Well, I recently discovered a cure for my frustrations. The High Fantasy Society, a national organization based in Texas, actually allows each local group to rule itself. I am in the process of creating a chapter of the HFS in South Florida; this involves a lot of organization in its own right (writing bylaws, creating a rank structure, developing heraldry, scheduling practices, recruiting, etc.)

The Aetheria Dogfight Project

As I experiment with air combat rules, I've been hankering to get some new planes for Aetheria, my imaginary, pulp-era world. I want to avoid well-known World War 2 models, in fact I'd like to get something a little more primitive, say early-mid 1930s.

I was looking through the Tumbling Dice website but unfortunately there aren't many pictures. I then checked out the PicoArmor website when I hit the jackpot!

P-26 Peashooter

The P-26 was obsolete by the start of WW2, but I think it's a cool looking plane. This will be my main Confederation fighter.

How about the Empire of the Iron Fist? The obvious solution would be to look at German fighters, but I decided to take a different tack. How about this?

Soviet I-16 fighter

I also like the look of this next one (even though it is technically a bit more advanced than a P-26 I can fudge things for my setting).

Macchi 200

Next I need to look at bombers. Pity that PicoArmor doesn't have B-10s.

(By the way, the photos are from the PicoArmor website)