ndcblog
eldannardoFolly, thy name is naval wargaming. I know NOTHING about sailing, except that you do it on the water and you need wind. Apart from that , I have a working knowledge of several naval battles, and like the look of ships. What more do you need?
I purchased the Warhammer Historical Trafalgar rules earlier this year, and was immediately impressed. I could play naval games with no idea of the finicky sailing detail that confuses me so much. So I have finally bought some ships. Everyone I have read raves about Langton minis. And I have to admit, they are very nice. But I am cheap, and this was always going to be a secondary project for me, so I bought 2 NavWar starter packs for a very reasonable sum. They arrived within a week of sending my fax, which is fantastic service seeing as I am on the other side of the world. I never fail to be impressed with English companies and Royal Mail.
The ships themselves were good. I’ve seen in the flesh Langtons and they are exceptionally detailed. NavWar, not so much, but then I want them to game, I’m not overly concerned with details and they come in less pieces than a Langton (I’m not big on constructing models… too much time that could be spent painting…).
Being a bright sunny day I thought I’d make my model outside in good light. Hmmm, well I’m just glad that I have some modelling nouse in order to compensate for losing my bowsprit through the cracks in the deck! I found that the rearmast (which one is that again?) wasn’t quite long enough. so I chopped it up and used a piece of florist’s wire to extend it’s length. I used a pin vice and drilled holes wherever the Trafalgar rigging guide told me to. I painted the hull and the sails seperately, and at about 9 o’clock at night I glued the model together and proceeded to rig the ship. Now, I think that I’ve already made it quite clear that I’m not looking for perfection here, but I do think that the rigging adds a lot to the look of the ship when finished. So what I wanted was some elementary rigging to make the ship look like it had some ropes somewhere. At 11 o’clock I put the last of the rigging on. In the morning I got up and had another look at the Trafalgar book and realised that I had done it rather wrong! However I had managed to rig my ship, it wasn’t the way that it was done back in the day. The worst thing was that having used superglue I couldn’t really fix it. So here it is, the flagship of the French fleet, painted and rigged for sailing under the ‘Nate’ system of sailing.
Bugger it, so long as it can trade a few shots with the bloody poms, that is all that matters. At least the ships will look better in the future.
Nate
Well, after numerous changes of mind, I have finally settled on using 1644 as the rules for my Marlburian project. I’ve therefore had to start looking at 24 figure regiments. The intermediate plan is to have 8 infantry, 4 cavalry and 4 guns finished, enough for 1500 points a side. I’ve broken this down again into making sure that I have 4 regiments of foot, 2 cav and 2 guns per side completed first.
I’ve been painting figures in groups of 12 infantry or 6 cavalry to limit the boredom factor that I often find with painting too many of the same figure, so a lot of these pictures show the first half of regiments. All figures are Lancashire Games.
The Gardes Francaises
The German La Marck regiment
The Lyonnais Regiment. I have since worked out that the drummer shouldn’t be in the livery uniform, but in regimental colours. He will be repainted, but only after everything else is finished!)
The Gendarmerie – not a particularly good photo, as it is all front on and a little blurry.
The British Foot Guards. There is a limit of 20 figures in this regiment, so that is how many I have done. The individually based 19th and 20th men are on the right hand side. In order to make sure that they didn’t just fall over on terrain all the time, I have glued thin magnetic strip between the sidesof the elements. This works very well.
The rest of the British Infantry, in complete 24 figure battalions. Churchill’s regiment and Stanhope’s regiment featured.
The first of the Dutch are – German! The Brandenbourg Regiment in homage to my ancestry! Not sure about the Lancashire Games figs here, as the hat brim is perhaps too flat. My reading is that the sides were turned up, but I’m not too worried, as the flat hat really differentiates them.
I’m just working on the other 12 figures of the Gardes Francaises at the moment. Not pictured are the 24 figure Picardie Regiment, the Villequier Chevaux-Leger and the first 6 figures of Wyndham’s Horse.
I’m really enjoying the Marlburian project, and it is my priority for the rest of this year to get it finished. However, in about three weeks or so there will be a new baby on the scene, so we will have to see how far I get.
Nate
I took some photos of the Marlburians and while I had the camera out I thought I’d capture some of the Warmachine figs that I’ve finished too.
Here they are – first up the Grundback gunners. I had a tragic moment getting these guys out of the cabinet. One of them hit the concrete in the shed and shattered. I glued him back together about 3 minutes before taking this photo. See if you can work out which one it was!
Ahhh, got the lighting right for these boys – the first unit of the Hammerfall High Shield Gun Corps:
Finally, an Ogrun Bokur, a bodyguard for Gorten Grundback.
That’s it for now.
Nate
Here is a snapshot of the new Marlburians that I have been working on. They are 15mm Lancashire games, but they are actually closer to 20mm than anything. A decent size means that the detail is relatively accessible with a paint brush.
I’ve sorted out an Anglo-Dutch and French army for the 1644 rules of around 1250 points. When these are all painted I will look at expanding to a 2000 point force. Infantry battalions are 20-24 figures strong, and the cavalry units are 10-12 figures strong. I looked long and hard at Principles of War, but in the end, I wanted units with a bit more heft to them. I’m already planning to use 1644 for the English Civil War, so not having to learn a new rules system appealed. They were originally written by Rick Priestly for the War of Spanish Succession and then amended for ECW, so I’m sure they will play alright. There is also the familiarity and ease of understanding of Rick’s rules for me. So the decision is made. And now, without further ado:
More as soon as the whole unit is finished!
Nate
Filed under: Wargaming works in progress
A month since the last update and nothing . Well, I’ve painted some more Warmachine, but I don’t want to post them until they are all finished. It is a funny thing, but I’d rather unveil them all in a single post where they can all be examined together. I’m still probably a month off that post.
I have taken possession of the 15mm Marlburian. I’m looking at using Principles of War as my mainstay ruleset, and have sorted out my French and Allies into army lists as suggested. I’m a bit miffed at the lack of flexibility in the army lists, but I’ll play with them as I see fit. My first Marlburian unit (the British 1st Foot Guards of course) will be up here within the week. Overall I’m very pleased with the Lancashire Games figures.
Hopefully another post soon,
Nate
Filed under: Napoleonics, Wargaming, Wargaming works in progress, Warmachine
To start off, I said that I was going to post a battle report from our DBA game in the last post. Unfortunately the pictures turned out quite dull, so I’ve abandoned that goal. This week I have made a point of doing an hour of painting every night, and have finished the 12 Victrix British that I had been working on for the last month or so. Napoleonics are labour intensive to paint but look so good when finished! This latest battalion is the 28th Gloucesters with their lovely yellow facings. I now have 8 more figures undercoated and ready to go, which will be the flank companies for the 2 battalions that I have already finished. when they are done (hopefully by next weekend), I will put up a post of the completed British battalions.
After that, I will be starting the Vistula Legion lancers, as I plan to paint 2 battalions from both sides, then a support choice, then 2 battalions again as a regular pattern. I plan to chip away at the Napoleonics steadily throughout this year.
As stated before, the next combined project for Dan and I is Warmachine. I have a Mercenary force, he has Cygnar. My Mercs are heavily Rhulic, and the plan is eventually to be able to field an entirely Rhulic army, now that the Horgenhold Guard have been released and can add some variety to the troops choices. I painted a Hammerfall High Shield soldier in grey a couple of years ago. Then I painted the Ghordson Driller in khaki, and then Durgan Madhammer in khaki. So I went back to the Hammerfall guys and decided to go with a ‘WWI British Tommy’ theme. After painting the first figure, here are the results:
And another view showing the Hammerfall Shieldsman to the side:
The scheme is nice and simple – Vallejo khaki for armour plate and British Uniform for the uniform. Webbing is buff.
I’ve bought the Too Fat Lardies rules for Through the Mud and the Blood. All of their rules get quite positive reviews on TMP, so I thought I’d splash out the 7 quid (hardly a major dent in the wargaming finances) and see. Initial skim through is positive, but I’m not sure about having to make a deck of cards. I like the idea of a card driven system, but it is actually making them that I’m not so sure about, as I am a perfectionist and making stunning cards could seriously cut into figure painting time!
To finish off this post, a couple of photos of the painted Napoleonics in action, fighting it out over a bridge:
The 1st battalion 18th Regiment crosses the bridge, supported by the second battalion at the river’s edge.
The 54th West Norfolk battalion trades volleys with the French.
That’s all for now. I’ll try and have something interesting next time!
Nate
This is a 1:43 ford escort i bought the other day. It is going to be used for 28mm modern skirmish gaming using Black Scorpion figs (which are closer to 30/32mm give or take), so it fits in ok. It was a bit new so i gave it some weathering to make it seem like it’s been thrashing around the middle east for the last 30 or so years.
Dan.
The holiday period is usually quite slow for me. We go away for a week to the beach (this is the southern hemisphere we are talking about), as well as have the whole family shindig at Christmas time. The upshot is that not a lot has been completed in the three weeks since my last post saying that not a lot has been done. But I have finished off the second battalion of Perry French, as well as put together a box of Vixtrix British. I’ve also ordered cavalry and guns for the French from Elite Miniatures, and 2 more boxes of Victrix – 1 of centre company and 1 of flank company. That will give me enough figures for eight battalions of Brits, and I’ve already got 8 battalions of French to face them.
I’ve got hold of the beta version of some rules being developed by a guy named Andrew in Aussie. I’ve read through them a couple of times and I think they are exactly what I’m looking for. They are kind of like Shako, but also reminiscent of Warhammer Ancient Battles and Flames of War. They have plenty of character, but the great thing is that they are designed with 16 figure infantry battalions and 8 figure cavalry regiments in mind, and for games of about a division a side (in fact they are designed for Brigade sized engagements in tournament play, but I like the divisional option). One of the reasons I like the 8-10 battalions and 2-4 cavalry a side sort of game is that this fits with the scenarios that Charles Grant has in his scenarios for wargamers book. True, I believe he envisaged slightly bigger battalions being used, but I’m one of those people who has too many wargaming distractions to sit down and build 48 figure units!
Anyway, latest pics with the basing for the Tactics and Gloire rules:
The first battalion of the 18eme Ligne, and:
The second battaion of the 25eme Ligne. I haven’t put the white dot in the centre of their pompom yet, and the command stand will actually be used in the first battalion when that is painted. I’m waiting on some Elite minis for all the greatcoat figure commands, and they will, of course, have the fanion, not the eagle.
How I painted them
I’m quite used to using black undercoat, so if something works for you, try something new! I felt that I wasn’t getting quite the finish I wanted on the white bits with the first couple of figures, so I went and bought a GW Skull White spray can and sprayed the figures still on the sprues. I had previously already sprayed them black, and it ended up giving some interesting shadow effects. No detail was obscured, but I wouldn’t recommend doing this as it is a bit of a waste of spray!
I then popped the figures off their sprues and cleaned up their mold lines with a blade, just scraping them down. On some of the figures I left them, and with others I touched up the white of the undercoat. In the end I only touched up the trousers, as it is quite possible to paint solid colours straight onto the plastic without priming. Cleaning mold lines on these guys takes about 20-30 seconds a figure. Plastic is really easy to work with in that regard.
In order to pick out details and give myself some shading, I used the GW Badab Black wash, and washed the figures all over. This provided the shading for the white undercoat, as it comes out in a convenient grey-black if diluted a little.
I then applied paint, using mostly Vallejo colours but the uniform blue is GW Midnight blue highlighted with Regal Blue. The faces are Vallejo Dark Flesh, with GW Ogryn Flesh Wash and then highlighted with Vallejo light flesh. The eyes are not my best work and I think that my hand is not as steady as it once was, or I’m less patient than I was. They are black lines with 2 white dots added.
The white parts were picked out in solid white for highlights (I use vallejo white), but the washed undercoat was left as the shade. If I felt it was too dark or not looking right, i touched it up with soem Vallejo London Grey.
The Backpacks were painted seperately glued on after the figures were finished. The reason I did this was to ensure that when drybrushing the light brown on the backpacks I didn’t have to go and touch up anything else on the figure later, and because with a white undercoat it is really noticeable if you miss any of the detail between the backpack and the figure. Incidentally, the backpacks are the only kit to glue together on the average figure. You need to add and arm to the officer (with the sword), the eagle to the Eagle bearer and the drum and arms to the drummer. I put all of these together before painting. I’ve only used a couple of skirmishing figures, but they are not much more work than the rest, just needing the arms glued on.
Would I recommend them? Yep. Cheap, nice, no more work than metal figures. I haven’t had a broken bayonet yet, and that could be a possibility, but unlike metal, broken bits reattach with just a bit of Tamiya model glue, and I anticipate any problems of this sort being easily fixed.
Compared to the last lot of metal figures that I seriously painted, Great War miniatures Brits where I was clipping and filing flash for hours, these guys are a dream to prep. Last comment would be that the plastics will hold the paint better than metal in terms of taking knocks. It doesn’t take much for chips to start appearing, even on varnished metal figures after they’ve been handled in a few games. I don’t think chipping is an issue with these boys, unless you want to take a chisel to them.
The Victrix British are a different story, and I thought I might try and paint a battalion of them next. They take a while to put together as they are a bit more multi-part than the Perrys. I will also go back to Black undercoat with them, due to very little white being needed. I should say that if you look through my blog you’ll see several different painting styles, and I don’t think I’ve managed to stay consistent through a whole project yet! I have no doubt that there will be a little more experimentation before I am settled on painting Napoleonics!
Note in the background there is a backdrop which I whipped up today. Expect to see it more often. I also have a new camera and am going to get a tripod to make sure that all of my pictures are as good as I can make them in the future.
Next I should have some Flames of War pics to show off. And of course, another Napoleonic battalion should be painted soon.
Nate
I never say ‘no excuses’, there are always excuses! In this case it has been that school has been busy and painting has taken a back seat as a result. I’ve finished off the first battalion of French with a nice flag around the Eagle, and have painted another half battalion in greatcoats. I’ll post them as soon as they are finished. Aside from that, I’ve finished 3 elements of GHQ 1:285 Modern Germans:
Mounted for Modern Spearhead, these are just samplers. Very easy to paint, but I need a pile more to build a decent army out of them. Dan’s got Israelis. We didn’t get matched pairs because we just wanted armies we thought were cool. I don’t know why Germans and Israelis would be going head to head in the modern era, and frankly it’s a minefield that I don’t want to even tiptoe over!
We spent a decent amount of time last weekend painting and finishing off trenches and craters for our battlefields. We also put together the last of the Space Marines (still need a librarian, but otherwise finished!).
We played several games of DBA, including one of Big Battle DBA for the Punic Wars. That was resolved fairly quickly when my CinC was outflanked and killed. I believe that it was the only element I lost. On my right flank I was carving through one of his commands… Note to self – keep your CinC out of potential danger!
We also played DBA Biblicals with Philistine and Later Hebrew Armies, which was a bit of a laugh as my Built Up Area ended up in Dan’s deployment zone. I placed an element of spear in it as defence and watched as his Auxilia repeatedly assaulted the walls. Three elements left themselves smeared all over the defences. Very amusing.
Two DBA Wars of the Roses games were also played. These were quite evenly matched. I can’t remember whether the results were even in this contest as well. I have the feeling that I may have lost the first and won the second. I do remember that we enjoyed them quite a bit.
DBA has been a real revelation. We’re thoroughly enjoying our games, and now it is time to paint some armies! Technically it shouldn’t be too much effort to paint 12 elements, but it actually is! Mostly because we have other projects on the go – Dan has his Space Wolves and I have my Napoleonics. I’ ve no doubt we will get there though.
Hopefully I’ll get to do a bit more painting over the holidays.
Nate
Between Dan and I, we have built a new Space marine force. These are destined to be my Purple marines that I already have one test figure completed for. It is designed to be a Straight forward Codex Marine Chapter, with an emphasis on shooting rather than assault. It contains a Capttain, a Librarian, Terminators, 2 Tactical Squads, a Devastator Squad, a Scout Squad, a Dreadnought, 2 Landspeeders, a Whirlwind and a Vanguard Veteran Squad mounted in a Razorback. As they are a blandly Marine force, I have finally decided on my chapter name. they are to be known as the Vanilla Suns after their base in the Vanilla system. Their chapter heraldry recalls the two planets and asteroid belt that circle the large sun at the centre of the system.
My first Vanguard veteran is painted but he really will be a vanguard, as these have to will compete with Napoleonics, DBA and ECW for painting time. I’m sure a few will crop up though!
Front-on, this Vet is ready for action!
The Vanilla Suns emblem - the Sun of Vanill with the twin planets of Cinnamo Prime and Neapolita, and the crescent shaped asteroid field of Risus Puddingus Majoris marked on. Veterans have rays on their sigil, standard troops have no rays, just a straight yellow circle.
Nate
