Wargames Factory Spanish Succession Cavalry

I thought I might go through with these guys step by step as I put them together and paint them with the white undercoat, just to go through my techniques and to make comments on the figures themselves.

First up, the horses go together very easily, but when attaching them to the bases that they are supplied with, they do not necessarily stand comfortably. Two out of the four horse poses are fine, the other two lean quite a bit. To fix this I cut a small piece of thin plasticard – 1mm I think, and glued it under one of the hooves.

You can see the plasticard inserted here

The rest of the figures are absolutely fine and go together very cleanly. I’ve used some pieces from the infantry set to construct a standard bearer as there isn’t one in the cavalry set.

Six dragoons awaiting the next stage

One of the things that I took away from my test paint figure was that I need to paint the rider and horse seperately, as there is just too much difficulty trying to manouevre the brush for fine detail like the lace loops on the jacket when the rider is attached.  So today I sawed up a couple of pieces of wood and drilled some holes in them. I then drilled holes into the bottoms of the riders (I’ve done this plenty of times before with pinning cavalry so it no longer makes me wince). I then grabbed some wire from a pack of Old Glory spears that I never put together and used blu-tak to secure the riders onto the wire and the wire into the wood. This enabled me to spray the undercoat on them and get all around coverage. I plan to use the wire to hold the cavalry figures while I paint them – we will have to see – I may simply be able to hold the wooden block and they will stay in place. I will reveal the result in the next post.

With this project I am tempted to sell something and fund a bulk buy of everything that I need (eleven boxes of plastics and a few metal figures from Front Rank and Old Glory), but I think that it would be too overwhelming.  there is a lot of construction time with plastic sets, no matter how user friendly they might purport to be (even Perry Napoleonic French infantry take a bit of time, and they would be the most user friendly kit). I think that I am better off just buying a box set once a month and trying to get it completely built and painted before the next one arrives.  At the moment that is my plan of attack. If the pattern works and I can stick to it, I might follow this up with a similar Napoleonic project using Perry minis. Although, the twins are apparently unveiling two new sets at Salute this weekend for a totally new period, and if it is Franco-Prussian War or Seven Years War then I make no apologies for revising my plans once again!

Nate

The new Marlburians take shape

It was in November that I last did anything with my 28mm Marlburians. As things got more hectic I put them on the backburner and got my US and Soviet Flames of War finished instead. Well, now they are back, and ready to be a main project for the next year or so (alongside my 15mm French Revolution project).

The last time that you saw these guys there were 16 of them and they were all individually based. Well, I decided that I would revive my original plan to use the Wargames Foundry 1644 rules, needing units of 20 figures ( it could be more for the French and less for the Allies, but I like 20 as a number).  These rules have individual casualty removal, but I like having multi-bases to move figures around with, so will simply use mini dice to keep track of hits like I do when using Black Powder.  They may yet end up being used with Black Powder anyway.

I’ve left the figures on their washers and then based them on balsa. I find that this gives them a nice heft so that I won’t accidentally send them flying across the room with a careless sleeve getting caught on the bayonets.

The Regiment Tourville.

I like these Wargames Factory figures – I’ve written before that they seem to be the Spencer Smiths of the 21st Century and I hope they remain around for a long time ( well at least the next year while I’m building my armies).

If you think that the drummer in his livery looked onerous to paint, you are wrong. I really enjoyed doing the detail on his coat, probably because I knew that he was the only figure in the whole regiment that I would need to lavish this much attention on.

I have also glued one cavalry figure together and experimented with painting him up as one of Coynyngham’s Dragoons. I think that I am getting the idea with white base coat painting, in that if your paints are slightly watered down they give a thick wash which provides natural highlights. I still have a tendency to want to paint everything in opaque colours and mix highlights. I’m not sure I’ve got white base coat quite right, but I’m pretty impressed with the results. I also quite like the effect of black-lining, although it is a rather long-winded process.

I also did a final coat of Army Painter Strong Tone just to accentuate the recesses.

The only thing I am thinking to myself is whether I want to go with my traditional matt finish or a more ‘toy soldier’ shiny finish. Comments would be welcome.

Nate

Irregular games last Friday

On Friday night I was able to head out to John’s for games night, and was joined by Chris, Terry, Paul and Jordan. That was good because it meant that we had even numbers to play with. We paired off with Terry and Chris playing Afrika Korps vs Kiwis and Paul and Jordan playing Afrika Korps vs British armour. John and I decided to have a game of Napoleonics using Black Powder, as we hadn’t played either of these things in several months.

The Battlefield looking down towards the French ourtflanking movement after Turn One – John has already turned his line to face the threat. Grrr!

John set his British up on a ridge in Spain somewhere, preparing for a French attack. I decided that it was folly to simply assault the ridge head on, and brought the French on in two wings. I would contest the church with the infantry and try to bust through the British cavalry and loop around behind the British infantry. Meanwhile I would take my other infantry brigade down the extreme flank to try and cross the river and upset his balance. It was a fine plan on paper, but was fouled up in the first turn when John rolled three moves for the brigade on his left and simply turned his line to face the river.

It was now not going to be a single head on fight anymore, but two separate head-on fights. Hoo-bloody-ray.

The British Line patiently waits while the French deploy to cross the river.

The attacks went slowly after that. John occupied the church before I could get there and the cavalry just eyed each other for far too long. I tried to bombard the Church to soften up the defenders prior to assault, but my attacking troops kept getting shot up. In the end the British came down off the ridge and drove the French infantry off. At the same time my cavalry finally wiped out the British cavalry, but it was too little too late.

Artillery pounds the church but little softening up is happening. After their first clash the cavalry rallies and prepares for the next round. 

On the other side of the table the French and British went tit for tat as John’s general suffered paralysis of command while the French crossed the river (we house ruled the river would take three turns to cross unless by bridge). In the end, though, the French Brigade simply lost too many battalions and broke before the Brits did. The French army was broken and the battle ended with the Brits victorious.

The French cross the stream slowly – but the British just sit and wait.

I have to say I had rotten luck with the dice, failing the break tests at the end of the game quite spectacularly with aq series of 3s and 4s. And John getting three moves with his left hand Brigade in the first turn was also a rotten piece of luck, but then ’twas ever thus in the Peninsula.

The motivation for this battle was to see what sort of game I will get when I have painted my Peninsular War armies – 8 battalions and 2 cavalry a side. I may have to work towards 12 battalions for each, as I felt that there just wasn’t really enough to play with in the end. I also think that the scenario would probably have benefited from some late arriving reserves.

On the other table battle raged in the North African Desert. The final verdict was a triumph for the Afrika Korps, but it was hard work. The British armour under Jordan fought literally to the last tank, and Chris was giving as good as he was getting for large parts of the game.

Chris’ Kiwis, already burning up.

Terry’s Afrika Korps. He hasn’t quite got around to putting together desert PaKs. The Infantry are a commission I did for him, using Command Decision figures. Their Afrika Korps are very nice and I enjoyed painting them.

Stukas say hello to some Portees. The objective is, of course, the only piece of grass in the Desert..

Above is an example of Paul’s resin dug-in markers. He sculpted the originals and then cast them in resin. They are perfect for Flames of War and can meet up to form a trench system if you want. If anyone would like to purchase some, just let me know and I’ll put you in touch with him.

Lastly, nothing whatsoever to do with games night. I thought I’d paint up some of my Wargames Factory Romans (this is pre-baby) and construct a light box to try photographing them.  The result – fail. I may not be using enough light for my box or maybe the paper is too thick. Back to the drawing board.

I’ve hit painter’s block at the moment, as happens every year. This year I think it is a combination of starting back at school and having a new baby at the same time. I’m hoping I’ll feel a little more settled in a couple of weeks and get back to the brushes.

Nate

First British Section for Force on Force

Here are the first 15mm Command Decision figures finished for Afghanistan.

Two fire teams and a WMIK. I’m hoping to really get into this project once the Christmas holidays kick off.

And a close up.

Nate

The new Marlburian project begins

If the definition of insanity is doing the same thing time and again and expecting a different outcome, then I must be mad.  Not content with painting up loads of figures for the Spanish War of Succession in 15mm, I sold them and decided to start on something else.  That something else, was, of course, 28mm figures for the War of Spanish Succession.

I’ve been looking at the Wargames Factory plastics since they were released, and stayed away, mainly because I already had armies in 15mm, and there was no conceivable reason for starting again in a different scale.  Well, that isn’t a consideration anymore, is it?  They have had mixed reviews.  For a start there are the WF ‘haters’, but I pretty much ignored those.  Then there were those whose opinion I respect, such as my old mate Scott (link in side bar), who were a bit concerned about the googly-eye complex.  But what the heck, at $30 NZD a box I thought I’d give them a shot.  I’m happy to say that I am not disappointed.

The first two test figures are above.  Yes, yes, I cocked up the chap on the left and cemented the wrong body on so he has his crossbelt going in the wrong direction.  It was too late to cut him in half again by the time I realised, as the cement had set overnight.  Never mind that right now, there are more important things to talk about.

This project is going to be my Old School Wargaming endeavour –  my chance to get into the spirit of Charles Grant and Don Featherstone that inspired me as a junior novice wargamer.  Now, I have thought long and hard about Spencer Smiths, but they aren’t available in plastic anymore, and frankly, they are not all that inspiring.  Not too mention that although I like the War of the Austrian Succession, my true love is 35 years earlier.  I saw these guys described on TMP today as the Spencer Smiths of the 21st Century, and I agree.  They have a real old school feel about them while still being nice figures in their own right.  But no 48 figure battalions.  Just too big for my 4′ x 8′ table.  So 24 figures they will be, all individually based on 20mm diameter washers.  The rules will be the Rick Priestly 1644 book from Foundry.  The latest version has lists for the Marlburian period, and I have worked out my forces at roughly 1,000 points each.

The next question was painting.  I’m dying to get into white undercoat and black lining with ink.  But I’m also lazy.  So this first battalion – the Orleans regiment, have been my guinea pigs.  I started with a wash of Vallejo London Grey.  It was too dark.  So I mixed up a magic wash and this flowed much more freely.  I will now declare myself happy with this part of the experiment.  The only problem is that in places the plastic detail is not as raised as it would be in metal, and the wash does not give defined outlines.  So I decided that I would have to line in these areas with London Grey.  But the contrast wasn’t strong enough.  So I have now relined them with black.  So that attempt at being lazy was totally unsuccessful.  Never mind, the next phase to make things easier/quicker was to turn to my new friend, Mr army painter quickshade.  I realised that strong tone would be too powerful on white coats, so I went with the soft shade.  Result?  It didn’t make much impact at all on the face, cuffs or belts – again, the detail was too fine – but managed to be too strong on the coats for my liking.  The one positive was that it tinted the white coats a dirty creamy-brown – what I would consider the perfect colour for ‘white’ coats in this era!  So the dip stays, but only a very light coat and preventing the excessive pooling at the bottom of the coat.  Oh, yes, and before varnishing the figures I dropped them on concrete from a height.  They bounced, did not break, and the dip protected the paint job!  I will be returning to the old techniques of three layer flesh painting from now on though.

So overall, I’m pretty happy with this project.  I plan on buying a box a month and having all of the figures painted before the next box arrives, so that it doesn’t become another monkey on my back with a pile of figures sitting there just looking at me.  Should be totally finished by half way through next year I reckon.

And as for the googly eyes – you be the judge:

‘Hey Thierry, did you see that les Tricolores got into the Rugby World Cup Final?’

‘Oui, Maxime.  By the way, what are you doing with your cross-belt?’

Nate

Oh, and Go the All Blacks!  Big semi-final tonight.

Army Painter dip on brightly clothed figures

This is the first time that I’ve tried the dipping method on anything that wasn’t in drab colours.  This is a comparison of two Front Rank figures, the one on the left has been dipped, the one on the right painted in the more traditional base coated – main coated – washed – highlighted way.  I have to say that I am very happy with the dipped result, especially as I look to build 28mm Marlburian armies in a relatively quick way.  Let me know what you think.

Nate

Army Painter saves my sanity

I don’t know whether I’m getting lazier or just more impatient, but whichever it is, the saving grace has been the use of the Army Painter dipping system.

I fancy that at my best I am a pretty good figure painter.  Not in the Kevin Dallimore or El Mercenario league, but certainly not a hack with the brush.  Trouble is, my best was probably a year or so ago.  Since then I have been finding more and more ways to paint fast to a good gaming standard that I am happy with.  This has seen me experiment with black lining technique letting black undercoat show through, and with spraying my tanks with Tamiya colours and using dip or home-brewed magic wash to shade them.  This has worked and I have churned out my FoW modern Egyptians and Israelis, piles of WW2 Germans and Soviets and now I’m starting the Italians.

The question has always been whether I would be irritated when I was finished that the troops I have painted are not my best possible work.  However, I just finished my second squad of 28mm US troops today using Army Painter dip, and thought I’d put up a photo comparing identical figures with one of the totally hand-painted figures that I have done.

The figure on the right was painted with a base coat followed by washes then highlights.  It involved drybrushing and paint mixing, followed by a satin varnish and then a matt varnish.  The figure on the left had base colours painted on, followed by a brushing of Army Painter Strong Tone.  It then had a spray of Matt varnish followed by the eyes being painted in.  There is a visible difference in the figures.  The ‘dipped’ figure has deeper shading, the highlighted figure is more subtle.  I haven’t painted in the 5 o’clock shadow yet, but this will take 5 minutes for the whole squad.  To be honest, there isn’t that much between them as far as I’m concerned.  But here is the key thing: The ‘dipped’ figure took a third of the time to paint as it did to paint the figure on the right.

It might be cheating for some, it may be lazier, it may be settling for second best.  But it means that I have a show of getting way more figures painted up for gaming.  That has to be a good thing.  Let me know if you think that I’m fooling myself and that ‘dipped’ figures are really a horrible abomination in the gaming world.

Nate

Tangent to Warmachine (25pt Cygnar Force)

Well i’m on another tangent; getting a small Cygnar force up and running. It has been painted enough to get it on the table top and will get more love once i have played a few more games. I will finish a project one day…

25pt Cygnar Force lead by Hayley

I spent the weekend building a bit of MDF pre-cut terrain but mainly painting Space wolves.
I had put these guys on hold as i had other impulses to follow, however Marcus was keen for a game to test his Nids so i got the bug again (no pun intended).
I had a complete 1750pt force painted for the last edition of the Space Wolves Codex but with the change in Codex came a change in army composition and a bit of meh. Things change so i decided to embrace the change and came up with a new list to try out, tweaked it a bit and was quite happy. Well that meant dropping two squads, two Dreadnoughts and a LRC which meant a big points vacuum and a lot of models to paint (which pains me) hence the hiatus status.
Now i am dead keen to get into them again (in small doses) so they don’t go to war in black armour. Pics up soon of the Wolves Project, wait out.

The new projects line up

I’ve gone and done it again.  Spent all that time painting up two opposing forces and then… sold them!  No real surprise there, but in this particular case it is my Marlburian 15mm army that I have flicked on to John.  Why?  First of all, there are other projects I want to get stuck into.  That means I need cash.  Secondly, by selling to John they remain half an hour away and are able to come out on games nights so I can still push the little fellas around.  Thirdly – I’m just fickle like that.

Bye bye Luddie, I will visit regularly…

So what could possibly have made me part with these little works of art that consumed my hobby time for the best part of a year?  Ummm, well, er, stuff.  That is right – the proceeds of this transaction have not really been dedicated to a single project in particular.  They’ve been pushed into a number of areas.  I shall now regale you with the upcoming projects in my sights, or what I call ‘the list of doom’!

First – The French Revolution in 15mm.  Specifically, Bonaparte’s campaigns in Italy 1796-7.  I already have most of the figures I need and have downloaded Orders of Battle for Rivoli from this handy little website.  I have chosen to build Massena’s division, not just because he is an awesome general, but because 18, 25, and 75 are my favourite numbers when it comes to making up regiments.  The fact that it includes not only the 18th line, but also the 18th Light Demi-Brigade makes it my favourite formation of all time!  The Old Guard? Caesar’s Tenth? the SAS? Pfagh, who needs those amateurs? No 18s in there, are there?  But I digress…

The 18e Demi-Brigade de Ligne is complete, and can be seen here:

 

Click for a close-up

The figures are Lancashire Games, and are very cool.  The range is currently a bit limited, but I’m pretty sure that there is more to come just around the corner. As soon as there are, you’ll hear it here.

Second – The Great War.  Umm, didn’t I have two awesome 28mm armies for this era that I parted with?  Well, er, yes.  But this time I’m doing it in 15mm!  Yip, the release of Blue Moon’s WWI and my recent acquisition of an Old Glory Army card has led me to revisit this era.  But what about rules?  I was having trouble deciding.  Flames of War would work, but it would be a bit boring in an almost all infantry battle I think. Contemptible Little Armies?  individual basing sounds good, but not 100% sold on the idea of them.  Price of Glory?  Quite a nice little skirmish set, not that I have ever played them.  And then, like a bolt from the blue, Warhammer Historical announced (3 years late) the publication of Over the Top.

Dan and I had played a couple of games of GW’s Great War and not been overly impressed.  But I had been using Stormtrooper lists and we felt that they had too much grunt.  When OTT was announced I went back to the rulebook and decided that I would try the Assault Company list instead as it did not make the Germans too uber.  The mechanisms are familiar to me and 120 figs a side should be a good game.  So I ordered OTT and decided to build for this ruleset.  I’ll keep you posted on the progress of this project (and my 15mm trench system plans).

Third – Modern Brits in Afghanistan in 15mm.  Osprey releasing Ambush Alley’s Force on Force tipped the boat here.  I’ve been quite keen on the prospect of an ultra modern game based on Afghanistan, and when i got the OG Army card saw that they had Command Decision figs that would be perfect for it.  I ordered the rules, and having read through them I am very impressed.  The mechanics are quite different to what I am used to, so I will need to focus on playing several games in a row to get a grip on them, but I just love the idea of the action/reaction phase to reflect shifting initiative.  Time to stock up on some more D8s and D12s (I already have D10s for Africa).  Why the Brits and not NZSAS or even AUS or US troops?  I’ve been reading a bit about Helmand, watched Ross Kemp’s doco series that was recently on the History Channel again, and also like the historical irony that the Brits have already been here and done this 100+ years ago.  I’ve seen posts on TMP etc that ultra modern isn’t everyone’s cup of tea for a variety of reasons, mostly moral (bodybags are coming home from this conflict while we play these games).  But Dan is an Afghan vet (do you call them that?) and if he would game it, I see no reason for me to feel awkward about it.  This would take a post of its own to go into, so I’ll just leave it there.

Fourth – World War Two Italians for Flames of War.  With the release of Hellfire and Back I have finally decided to indulge my passion for unpredictable and difficult to use armies by building up some Italians.  I’m currently putting together a mid war list which should morph easily into an early war list with the addition of a few tankettes and some extra motorciclisti.  I have acquired some Italians painted (badly) for Russia and am slowly stripping them back for repainting.  Currently I have an artillery battery on the go and I will post pictures as soon as it is complete.

On top of this I still have Dystopian Wars, DBA Wars of the Roses and Punic Wars and my Soviets to finish off.  And I still need a few more figures to finish off the Star Wars skirmish project.  Well, it keeps me busy…

Next games night is 12th August (next Friday) and a report will not be far behind.

Nate

 

 

The beginning of the Star Wars project

At some point it was inevitable that I would wargame Star Wars if it was ever possible.  With the release of the collectible Star Wars Miniatures by Wizards of the Coast it became a possibility, but I was irritated that you had to buy boosters and end up paying for double ups that you may not want.  In 2005 I did purchase one pack, getting Obi Wan Kenobi and Jango Fett along with a battle droid, 3 clone troopers and some other random figures.  But I wasn’t going to buy into the whole collectibles side of things as I was just beginning to build up my first metal DBA armies.

My recent discovery of Strikezone and purchase of comic book characters has changed my mind somewhat.  I can buy the Star Wars miniatures as individuals and collect exactly the number that I want.  The exchange rate between the US and NZ dollar has never been better so I made an initial order.  My first figures are below:

First up, Yoda and four Wookies.  The little green master has long been my favourite Star Wars character, even before he kicked ass in Episode Two.  In fact he is probably my favourite fictional character of all time.  Hmmm… I’m thinking here, but I can’t name one that even comes close…  I plan on having another four Wookies to flesh out this unit.

The forces of goodness are completed by Obi Wan and some Clones.  I plan to have three squads of 9 clones each in the end.  Obi Wan was the one character that I had sitting out of the box for the past six years.  His lightsaber has lost its colour – I will have to paint it luminescent blue.

Jango Fett with some Separatist Commandos and half a dozen Neimoidian soldiers.  I’m planning to get more Neimoidians to bulk this lot out to the grand number of 12.

General Grievous with some battle droids.  The droids are a bit problematic in that there are a number of different types available and they are not all the same size.  The bulk of my droids are quite skinny, but my earlier droids (seen in the photo above and a paler colour) are a bit chunkier.  I also have some Rocket droids which I will bulk out to a full squad.  I’m aiming for four squads of ten with the battle droids, including one squad of super battle droids.

Lastly are some random guys that I put together as a group of adventurers – A Nikto soldier, an Aqualish spy, a Quarren warrior, a Zabrak fringer, a Yuzzem and a Rodian scoundrel as their leader.  Unsure what sort of plotline these guys will be using – smugglers or bounty hunters maybe.

You’ll note that I’ve opted for the Clone Wars as my setting for gaming.  The reason is simple – lots of Jedi, (including Yoda).  I loved the original trilogy, but I think this is a better period for battle-gaming.  I’m planning to use the original GW Rogue Trader rules, or maybe second edition Warhammer 40,000.  I think that these rules will work perfectly with Star Wars, especially mimicking the Jedi.  When I start putting stats together I will post them here.

Finally, I probably won’t worry about repainting these for quite a while.  I have so many painting projects to get on with, and these paint schemes will hold up for another couple of years until I get around to them.  Having said that I just couldn’t help repainting a Clone trooper just to see how he would look.  A comparison shot is below.

I’m not going to say which is the repaint – up to you if you think it is an improvement.

Nate