Slipping Again

Ooops! A week since my last post - I'm slipping again. Fortunately that is only in terms of posting here and not as a result of being idle.

Whilst I might not have made as much progress as intended on the Mongol light foot, at least there is a good reason. I realised that the only chance I'd get to do any spray priming would be at the weekend, so I spent a couple of evenings gluing them onto sticks for painting (and gluing riders onto horses).

I also had a game of FoG:AM on Thursday to give Clive some practice before Warfare. He's taking Mid Republican Romans which was a good excuse for my Sarmatians to have a gentle trot across open steppes. they took along some Scythian mates. Sadly, I didn't take many pictures, mainly as a result of me trying to compensate for my completely idiotic initial deployment.

Amazing deployment. Light horse on the left flank facing heavy cavalry; shooty medium cavalry in the centre; big scary blokes on big scary horses with long scary pointy things on the right flank where they won't really be able to do anything useful.

Maybe the horsey boys were less than enthusiastic by the thought of looting cola rather than impossibly huge glasses of ale?

My crappy deployment was made all the worse by my truly awful dice rolls in combat and the loss of two generals. I think the horsey boys were regarding their model generals as extensions of me and showed their contempt for Clive killing them by passing their cohesion tests with flying colours.

In the end we ran out of time, but it was a clear "winning draw" for the Romans. At least the horses got some exercise for the first time in a long while.

With hindsight, I should have taken Siracae or Iazyges Sarmatians rather than the Rhoxolani. Their shooty medium cavalry is "Bow*" rather than "Bow". This means that in single rank where they can evade, they only get 1 die per 2 bases which effectively means no shooting against most opponents. The alternative is to have them 2 ranks deep so that they can shoot (but can't evade). The inability to evade means risking being charged and then being at a disadvantage in the combats to follow.

Our club has been introduced to a set of French ancients rules - L'Art de la Guerre" - by Seb. The English translation of these is now available and we made a mass purchase. I picked up my copy on Monday evening. Having had a quick read through and seen bits of some games at the club, they look to be a great set of rules. Army size is somewhere between DBA/DBM and FoG. Command and control looks quite interesting and will lead to some tough decision making when the armies are in contact. Two great advantages of the game - you only need one d6 and the armies should fit in a small box making transport very easy. The movement and range units are in 40mm increments for 15mm-based troops, which with the smaller table size used means that battle lines will get into melee quite quickly.


Anyway, that's enough rabbiting about games, time for some workbench chit-chat.

Mongol Light Foot

They're nearly finished. I just need to do belts, metals and the fur trim to the coats and hats, give them a Klear/ink coat, spray with matt varnish and flock the bases.

Seven Years War Russians

Yesterday morning I was thinking I wouldn't be able to do any priming as it looked like rain was on the way. Fortunately the sun came out instead, so in the afternoon I set up to do the spray priming. I'd managed to spray the artillery, commanders and grenadiers with the red primer. However, the can ran out when I was part of the way through the first of the 6 musketeer regiments.

So, I moved onto the cavalry and primed them grey. Very little of their uniform is red, so there was no benefit for using red primer for them.

This morning I popped out to Halfords for some more red primer.

I picked up 2 cans so that I will have enough for future infantry and artillery additions, I should have picked up a can of grey as well for the cavalry additions I will be making. I can do that next weekend or some other time.

The weather today has been grey and damp, so I haven't been able to continue with the priming. I'm hoping for some decent weather next weekend.


Painting Plans for the coming week:

1. Finish the Mongol light foot

2. Start on the Russians. I'll probably do the artillery first, then the commanders, then the grenadiers. The artillery should be quite quick as the crews had red uniforms and the woodwork of the guns and limbers was painted a rusty red colour (so I'll just have to paint the metalwork - result!).

Sunday Workbench

I've spent most of this weekend prepping the SYW Russians and have finished them all. That just leaves putting them on sticks for painting, priming them, painting them and then basing them. Hmmm, maybe getting them all prepped isn't that much after all.

My starter force will comprise:

3 generals
2 artillery batteries (gun, crew and limber)
2 regiments of cuirassiers
2 regiments of dragoons or horse grenadiers (probably one of each for now)
2 regiments of hussars
2 regiments of line grenadiers
6 regiments of line musketeers

I hope to make a start on them this week, probably the infantry first. However, as the standards are cast on in such a way that they can't be removed, I'll need to decide which regiments they will be so that I know how to paint the flags.

I've also managed to pick up my paint brush for the first time in months today, and made a small start on the Mongol light foot. I'll probably do a little bit more before bed, maybe the coats.

I'll carry on with these over the next couple of evenings. They shouldn't take long to finish.

Goodies and Some Finished Bits

The missing Essex bits arrived today. Four packs of musketeers, two 2-horse limbers, two packs of dragoon command and one pack of hussars. Here they are on my workbench.

I've started prepping the Seven Years War figures today, so you might see the first units rolling off my table shortly. As much of their uniform is red, I am planning to use red car primer for the infantry and artillery (white or grey primer for cavalry; perhaps red just to keep things simple) but before doing that I need to check how the other colours work with it. I also need to work out which are the best colours for the uniforms - green for infantry and commanders; cornflower blue for dragoons. I also need to work out suitable buff colours for belts and cavalry uniforms. I sprayed a sheet of card with red primer during my lunch break and will be doing test patches later this evening.

The other evening I added a "baize" to one of the 4Ground tables I'd put together. It actually looks quite good.

I also finished the hovel - brushing the teddy bear fur with 50% PVA to make it better resemble thatch and fixing the smoke hole hood in place.

I know what you're all wondering. "But, what are those white-primed figures in the first photo?" Well, they're some Mongol light foot bowmen that have been prepped for quite a while. I need to get back into the swing of painting, and they should be quite a fast unit to paint up.

Made it to SELWG

Luckily my Amazon parcel got delivered just before 11.30 which meant that it would be reasonable for me to head down to SELWG. I ended up getting there just after 1pm.

First stop was the GZG stall - luckily the Evil Mr Tuffley was just heading off for a break when I got there, so I was able to keep to my shopping list and only buy the NSL power armour troops.

As I was heading away from there I bumped into Clint and had a brief chat. He let me know that the rejects were still around somewhere. After a catch up, Clint headed off home and I made my way around the traders and games upstairs before heading down to the main hall, having bought the Perry WotR plastics I wanted from Harfields.

I don't know if it was due to my late arrival, but it seemed emptier than previous years. A few empty spots where there are normally traders, some empty games tables and fewer attendees.

Downstairs, my first shopping stop was for some 4Ground bits from Colonel Bills. I bought a late medieval cottage and a bunch of furniture kits.

I also picked up a bottle of Army Painter yellow paint and strong tone wash, from Caliver I think.

Toddling round, I bumped into Big Lee and had a chat for a few minutes, then headed to the Essex stand to make my foray into the age of lace. As I hadn't spent excessively more than my original plans I decided to add a few bits to my planned order. A couple of packs were out of stock and they took my address and said they'd post them to me tomorrow.

Infantry

Cavalry - top = cuirassiers; middle = dragoons; bottom = hussars

Commanders and artillery

On checking my goodies when I got home, I found that I'd been given an extra pack of grenadiers, but am missing 2 packs of dragoon command and one pack of hussars. I've checked the credit card slip against the list I gave them and I was definitely charged for them, so have emailed to ask for them to be added to the items which were out of stock when they post them.

I also discovered that the hussars are in mirlitons rather than colpacks/busbies. I'll probably have to grab hussars in busby from another nation (half the Russian hussars were in busby, half in Mirliton).

While at the Essex stall Postie came up to say hello and we chatted for a while. He told me Ray and Fran were somewhere around.

A few minutes later I heard the dulcet tones of the Bromantics from behind me. We had a chat and discussed purchases for a while. Apparently the big fella is going to be moving to the Emerald Isle in the not-too distant future, so I've told them to make sure they invite me down to a Rejects game before he fecks off.

I did a bit more bimbling around looking at games and trade stands before deciding at 3pm to call it a day and head home. On the way out I picked up a green base cloth.

A Somewhat Productive Saturday

I've actually done something on my workbench today. Not painting or figure prep, but usefully productive anyway.

Yup, I've been putting together stuff from 4Ground - an Anglo-Danish hovel, some coffins and some furniture. The roof of the hovel isn't finished yet; I'll do the last steps tomorrow evening.

The furniture you can see consists f a double bed, a single bed, 2 tables (I'll be adding the printed "baize" tomorrow), some stools and a safety deposit box. The pack had said it was boxes 1-15, but it had the 16-30 box fronts in the pack. Drat - I'll have to buy another (and check to make sure it has the correct box numbers!).


Unfortunately my plans to go to SELWG tomorrow are a little bit up in the air. Amazon tried to deliver a book I'd ordered this morning while I was out, but decided to take it back rather than leaving it with a neighbour. They will attempt delivery again tomorrow, but there's no indication of what time that will be. Hopefully it will be early so that I can get down to SELWG.

If I do manage to get down to Crystal Palace, my shopping list will have expanded from that indicated in Thursday's post. A lot of people at the club play King of the Battlefield, a set of Seven Years War rules written by one of the members. The games always look fun, I do have a copy of the rules and had been planning for a while to put an army together for it. So, Essex will be getting some money from me tomorrow if I can get down to SELWG. Initially, I'll be buying enough for a small brigade of infantry, a few cavalry regiments and an artillery battery. Oh, yes, you want to know which nation I'll be doing. Russian. There are too many Prussians and Brits/Hanoverians at the club and I didn't fancy painting lots of white-clad troops (having already painted a Choson Korean army for FoG).

Planning My SELWG Purchases

It's that time of year again, so this Sunday should see me traipsing down to Crystal Palace on Sunday for the SELWG show if all goes well. I'm not planning on spending much, but as we all know no plan survives first contact with the enemy. Not that the traders are the enemy. Except of our bank balances. But you know what I mean, don't you?

I've been looking at the sprues of the Perry packs I bought on Monday (and the European Mercenaries pack I bought on a whim at some point) and have been working out what units for FoG I'll be able to make from them and what extra I need to order.

Luckily for my purse, I will only need to buy one more pack of the WotR Infantry and a few metals figure packs (commanders and light guns) to make up a 600 point army. If I ever want to expand the army, it will be relatively easy to do so by buying a couple more packs of infantry. I might also pick up a second pack of the mounted men at arms, which would allow me to make up 4 bases (12 figures) as knights and 4 bases (12 figures) of curreurs.

I also want to pick up a couple of packs of GZG's new NSL power armour troops. However, that damnable Mr Tuffley is always very good at persuading me to part with more money than planned so I suggest waiting to read my loot post on Sunday to see what else I bought.

I imagine there will also be some impulse buys.

Oh Dear, What's She Planning Now?

So, two weeks since my last post - they're getting closer together! I still haven't painted anything. My fatigue is improving, but I've done something to my right shoulder and need to rest it until it stops being sore. I'm hoping that this weekend will see me back in painting mode, finishing off the warehouse and corner store at long last.

For a while I've had a silly idea about doing a 28mm army for FoG, but wasn't sure what era I wanted to do, let alone what army. Then this weekend my brain suddenly had a moment of inspiration. I still haven't been able to identify the source, but I have a crack team one the case.

Whoops, my mistake. It appears I have a case team on crack. I guess I'll never find out.

This evening after work I did a little shopping trip to obtain some research materials. The advantage of working in central London - lots of useful shops. Here are the fruits of my shopping trip.

Well, that's it for today's post. I'm sure my next one won't take two weeks.

What's that? You want to know what is in the bags? Oh, since you asked so demandingly.

Yup, I'm going to do a Wars of the Roses army. Thanks to those great guys the Perry twins, I should be able to do the army relatively cheaply thanks to their plastics. I will need to complete the army with a few metals, but not many (just the commanders and artillery). Another factor that will keep the costs down is that FoG in 28mm uses smaller armies (500-650 points) and the troops for this army are relatively expensive points-wise.

Foyles didn't have the MAA145 book in stock, so I ordered it on Amazon when I got home.

Part of my research involves discovering what the sprues contain, so it was necessary to buy one each of the packs - WR1 Infantry, WR40 Mounted Men at Arms and WR50 Foot Knights.

Infantry:

The pack contains 3 infantry sprues of 12 figures, 2 command sprues of 2 figures, a sprue of plastic bases and an information leaflet which has some examples of livery and some banners and standards.

Mounted Men at Arms:

This pack contains 3 sprues of men at arms of 4 figures, 4 horse sprues to make up 3 horses each, a sprue of plastic bases and an information leaflet which has some examples of livery and some banners and standards.

Foot Knights:

This pack contains 6 sprues of 6 foot knights, 1 command sprue of 2 figures, a sprue of plastic bases and an information leaflet which has some examples of livery and some banners and standards.

Given my family background, my army will be Lancastrian - apologies to any White Roses following my blog. However, all the retinues will be of fictional knights and lords so that I can do them in whatever livery colours I want (within reason!). Deciding on the liveries should keep me out of trouble for a few days until my shoulder heals.