Natholeon
eldannardoAnother Blog? I can’t even keep this one updated on a regular basis! Well, no, but then I have been a bit busy. My new daughter, Olivia, was born on the 28th October. As if that wasn’t enough, we are moving in 2 weeks as well, so a lot of my stuff is getting packed away. Having said that, I have continued to paint some 15mm Marlburian, and will try and get some photos uploaded soon.
What I am going to do though, is moving the tracking of my Marlburian project to a new blog based on a campaign in the imagi-nation of Frankenberg. This documentation can be found here http://frolicsinfrankenberg.wordpress.com/
The plan is that this strong narrative thread will pull me on to get my 15mm Marlburians finished ASAP. It also allows me to be a bit more creative rather than just showcasingphotos of my models, which is what seems to happen here. Sometime in the near future I will also put a new blog together specifically for WWI.
In the meantime, stay tuned to Frolics in Frankenberg.
Nate
Folly, 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
I enjoyed the game that Dan and I had of Rules of Engagement so much that I made the completion of a German platoon for these rules a priority. I started painting these as SS, simply because of all the cool equipment that was available in the Army lists. I usually shun anything related to the SS, so these are an exception. I have enduring respect for the basic landser, though, and in 1944-45, these guys can fit into Das Heer OK. In fact, some of the support and command has been painted in everyday field grey to emphasise that point!
The comand squad with some ornery veterans of the Eastern Front. Equipped with captured PPSh SMGs as a badge of honour.
The full platoon of infantry. Pictured below are squads 1, 2 and 3
Above and below are the support sections – 2 HMGs and a mortar.
Specialist troops that can be merged into the infantry platoons, or in the case of the sniper and his mate, selected as a support choice.
Above and below are the PaK 40, all camouflaged and ready for an ambush. I have the first of the German tanks undercoated, but I’m going to borrow an airbrush to finish it off.
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
Filed under: Wargaming
It has been a hectic month or so, but we have finally sold our house and I’ve had some holiday time as well, so I’ve been able to catch up on a bit of painting and a few projects. So these posts will mostly be photos detailing my latest amount of work. I’m fully into the Marlburians at the moment, and hope to have them completed by the end of the year. So, in three seperate posts, here is what I’ve been up to.
Nate
I’ve finished off the two regiments of French that I was painting – the Regiment Champagne and the Regiment Lyonnais. I accidentally glued the wrong labels and flags to the command stands, but have now swapped them around, although that was just slightly annoying…
Being a committed and focused painter, I also thought I’d pump out a few other figures. Here is a squad of GIs for Rules of Engagement (more about that later).
And a close up
I also painted up the first of many Mid-Republican Roman elements for Field of Glory. Here they are hiding behind their big red scutums…
They were quite easy to paint, and the main reason for painting them was to get an idea of how long it might take to get the whole army done. I’d say, if i could focus, three months. Reality? Give it a year or so… Especially as the Marlbs aren’t finished and the Napoleonic Principles of War book showed up today.
Finally, I recently invested in Song of Blades and Heroes, and its Napoleonic version Song of Drums and Shakos. I really like these rules, and I’m thinking that SDS will work very well for the NZ Wars. I’m also looking at SBH for a Celt-Roman skirmish game. Without further ado, I’d like to introduce my first Celt – his name is Obelix.
I’ll catch up on the great first game of Rules of Engagement that Dan and I had in the next post.
Nate
As promised, I managed to finish another Marlburian unit. This is the Regiment Picardie, the senior line regiment in the French army. I thought that it would be a bit boring to paint with all that grey, but on the contrary I really enjoyed it. Marlburians are really a joy to paint – I love seeing them come to life under the brush.
And here is a close-up of the drummer. I really like how the livery turned out.
Not content with finishing the required regiment on time, I have also managed to sneak in a Demi-Brigade of French Revolutionary infantry. These are also Lancashire Games figures, but closer to true 15mm.
Yes, it is yet ANOTHER period. These were very easy to paint as well. I think it is just the whole 15mm thing being so different from 28mm in terms of painting time. The plan is to do about 11 French battalions and the same of Austrians. I’m thinking Bonaparte in Italy 1796, and basing the armies on the orders of battle for Arcole. If the project flies (and like the Marlburian one, I’m pretty sure that it will), I might even get some Prussians in there too.
And in the true spirit of Anglo-French friendship, here is a photo just for the hell of it:
‘Tirez les premiers Monsieurs les Anglais’ (OK it is a little early for Fontenoy, but it is a great quote!)
Yes, for the eagle eyed amongst you, I have rebased the English. It doesn’t matter what size your bases are for the Rank and File rules, and this system gives me the flexibility of using Beneath the Lily Banners or Principles of War, or even Shako.
I’ve also decided to amputate the command system from Warmaster and sew it on to rank and File. I think the two will complement each other superbly.
Next: Churchill’s Foot for Marlburian, due 26th July.
Nate
Work, work, work. I guess I should be thankful that I have a full time job during a recession, but I’ve had very little time to myself lately. It is school holidays and I’m still trundling into work every day… there is something distinctly unfair about that!
So what have I achieved? Rebasing! A whole two units. That’s it, no real extra painting except to finish off my Marlburian foot guards. There is a Warmachine Wroughthammer Rockram just sitting there staring at me at the moment. Oh well, this is what I have done:
Dan and I played some FoG when he came down a fortnight ago. We liked it. We liked it a lot. We decided to rejig our Arthurian armies , which means rebasing and more painting! Here is one of my battlegroups of 8 Medium Infantry elelments, all rebased and ready. I’m using my new fiels grass and hobby tac. At first it all seemed very easy – then I got a smidgen of hobby tac on my fingers. What a pain in the arse that was! It seemed that no matter how hard I scrubbed, the field grass did not want to let me go. Patients and being absolutely meticulous is in order if I am not to lose my sanity with the rebasing. It does look good I think.
I decided that 4 figures to a base looked far to sparse, but I didn’t want to reduce the base sizes. So the answer was obviously to cram more figures onto the bases. My plan is to base all of the Marlburians up for the Beneath the Lily Banners rules by Barry Hilton, but not necessarily to use these. I really like Mark Sim’s Rank and File rules, but they don’t really work with anything less than 4 bases to a unit. So, the answer is to combine 2 battalions into a manoeuvre unit. This works great with the French and Dutch regiments, but means that the British battalions will combine 2 different regiments. The partner of the 1st Foot Guards will be the 2nd Foot Guards in order to keepthe whole unit elite.
I’ve just ordered more French and some Austrians(because I have so much time to paint them), so I will have 12 battalions a side (6 manoeuvre units – or regiments), 4 cavalry (2 units) and 2 artillery. I aim to increase the amount of cavalry in the future too, but one step at a time.
I’ve decided to focus on the following, and to try to complete a project every week:
- Punic Wars Mid-Republican Romans 15mm Field of Glory
- Arthurian Post-Roman British 28mm Field of Glory
- Wars of the Roses Yorkists 15mm Field of Glory
- English Civil War Parliamentarian and Royalist 28mm 1644
- Marlburian Confederate and French 15mm Rank and File
- World War One British and German 28mm Rules of Engagement
- World War Two German 15mm Flames of War
- World War Two US, Soviet and German 28mm Rules of Engagement
- Science Fiction Chaos Space Marines, Orks 28mm Warhammer 40,000
- Fantasy Chaos Warriors 28mm Warhammer Fantasy
- Fantasy Mercenaries 28mm Warmachine
Everything else takes a back seat until these are complete – well, that is the plan du jour. It will be almost impossible to stick to it with my butterfly-like tendencies.
Nate
Due 19th July – Marlburian French Infantry Battalion
Hot off the painting table, here is my completed army for DBA I/29b Philistine 1099-600BC:
And here are a couple of close-ups:
So now that they are complete, onto the next project – a 50 point force for Warmachine v.2. I’ve already painted some more Hammerfall handgunners, and Alexia and 6 Risen are due for the paintbrush this week. If I can keep up a steady pace, I should have them all completed by the end of May.
There are other projects beckoning though: Two 6mm armies for DBN – French and Russian; and 15mm Marlburian Allied and French armies for Beneath the Lily Banners. I’m looking at getting these from Lancashire Games. This will be followed up by a couple of Napoleonic ships for the Warhammer Trafalgar rules and a 6mm Anglo-Portuguese army for DBN. That should be the last of the ‘big’ projects for this year.
The decision to go with 15mm Marlburian is threefold. The first is economic. I can completely buy two armies for the same price as half of one 28mm army. The second is speed. I can paint 15mm three to four times faster than 28mm, which means I can be gaming within a reasonable space of time. Third is that I found that really enjoyed painting the 15mm Philistines, and found previous 15mm armies to be a similar experience. 28s can be enjoyable if there is no pressure to paint up a lot of them, and Marlburian would require this. I’ve purchased and painted a Williamite Anglo-Dutch army from Lancashire (long since sold), and really like there figures, so no worries there, then. I’m looking forward to them.
I’m just sorting out some Napoleonic Austrian and French 6mm figures that fellow Rotorua Irregular John purchased. They’ll be based up for DBN as well. DBN will be my army level game for Naps, whilst the 28mm have been sorted out this weekend for Sharp Practice. Now I just have to paint some of this stuff!
Nate
Just got back from NATCON yesterday. Three days solid of playing Napoleonics. I was borrowing an army off the unpire, Russell, to use with his First Volley rules. These are very much in the style of the ‘Grand Manner’ rules, with very large battalions.
Russ gave me 1813 Austrians to play. They were mostly militia and 2nd Class troops with a couple of good cavalry regiments thrown in. I was beaten in the first two games by Andrew’s 1805 Russians and Mark’s 1812 Franco-Swiss. Then on Saturday I was trounced by Paul’s 1812 Russians and Kevin’s 1813 Italian- Wurtemburgers. I have to say by that stage I was feeling a bit down on the poor old Austrians. They seemed to be scared of their own shadows and the 6 pounder artillery was getting thrashed by bigger guns on a consistent basis. But the four games had given me a good understanding of the rules, and an insight to the army I was using.
The fifth game was an extra long one on Sunday was against Simon’s Saxons. I’d worked out a pattern for deployment that could see me get the most out of my cavalry brigade, and realised that using the militia as cannon fodder was probably a good idea, as retreating militia didn’t give the same disadvantages to morale as a retreating 2nd class unit.
The game was played at a leisurely pace, as both Simon and I are rather new to the rules and we wanted to make sure we understood them to the best of our ability. The game consisted of Simon launching a huge cavalry offensive on my left flank while I made an attack on the right with my infantry. There was a big gap in Simon’s centre which my dragoons exploited, but they just didn’t have enough time in the end to do the damage which they might have done. Simon’s Guard Zastrow Cuirassiers smacshed themselves against my 2nd class squares, but depsite the inability of the squares to do any dmage with volley fire, the squares stood firm. The 6 pdrs managed to get within canister range of Simon’s artillery, and whilst he was masked by his own troops, I let rip. It was the first triumph for the Austrian artillery all weekend!
In the end time was against us and a count up of victory points showed that the Austrians had won. Despite enjoying the whole weekend, the last game did contribute to an overall positive feeling from the competition. I’m not sure of the final points tally, but I’d be pretty sure that I was placed 6th in a field of 6. Without the last game, I probably would have been 7th! But placings wasn’t the rationale for playing – it was all about learning the First Volley rules so that the Rotorua Irregulars could play them and start to use a standard rules-set that would work when travelling to other climes. At the same time I had some good games with a great bunch of guys who played in a fantastic spirit. I’ve now determined to build a French force for First Volley, and look forward to future games with the ‘Mid-Island Mercenaries’ (as Kevin called them)!
(Sorry there are no photos, I forgot my camera!)
Nate
