About Me

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London, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
A mythical beast - a female wargamer! I got back into wargaming in the summer of 2011 after a very, very long break and haven't looked back since. I must admit that I seem to be more of a painter/collector than a gamer, but do hope to correct that at some point in the near future. My gaming interests span the ages, from the "Biblical" era all the way through to the far future. I enjoy games of all sizes, from a handful of figures up to major battles (see my megalomaniacally sized Choson Korean and Russian Seven Years War armies).

Sunday 30 November 2014

10-4 Rubber Duck, I Think We've Got Ourselves A Convoy



We've got ourselves a convoy
Spacing through the night
We've got ourselves a convoy
Ain't she a beautiful sight
Come on and join our convoy
Ain't nothing going to get in our way
We're going to jump this spacing convoy
Across the Milky Way
Convoy!

(with apologies to CW McCall)



It has taken me a few days, but I finally got around to takings photos of the civilian ships I'd finished a few days ago.

For the groups shots, I decided to picture them with some NSL escorts - 2 escort cruisers and an escort carrier.


Tradewind Class Freighters and Tankers





Small Civilian Ships


L to R: Kestrel class free trader; Glowworm class free trader; luxury yachts
Dallas Class Refinery Ship






This leaves me with four more civilian ships which I've very nearly finished painting (I should finish them this evening or tomorrow).



I'll also be doing some spaceship assembly this evening - my ESU and Crusty fleets so that they are ready for the Challenge (don't panic Clint - I'll only be doing the ESU ships; the Crusties can wait). Luckily there aren't many ships of either fleet that require pinning and gluing, so it shouldn't take me too long.


Yesterday saw me take a trip down to the Kentish coast (as opposed to the coast of Kent) for a game with the Rejects. This was the "Fran's Feckin' off back to Eire" game and he had chosen Seven Years War using Age of Reason rules. Evil Postie had decided on a refight of Liegnitz (1757). Fran was commanding the Austrians, Ray was commanding the Prussians; the rest of us drew lots for which side we'd be playing on. I got Prussians and ended up commanding most of the cavalry. We were facing a tough challenge as we had a smaller army assaulting the more numerous Austrians who were occupying a ridge.

I'll try to do a write-up in the next few days, but here are a couple of photos to be going on with:











Tuesday 25 November 2014

Mongol Light Foot

Last night I decided to be brave and open the bathroom window to do the spraying which the rain on Sunday had prevented. Did I say brave? What I meant was foolhardy. It took several hours for the temperature in my flat to be restored, not helped by my boiler sulking (it's in a cupboard off the bathroom) for a few hours.

Anyway, all the spraying got done which meant I could do the final steps - flocking the Mongols, gluing flight peg toppers to the ships and using brush-on satin or gloss varnish on certain parts.

This evening I've taken some pics of the Mongol light foot. I would have taken pics of the spaceships as well, but my camera battery had run low. I'll do them tomorrow.











I was going to place an order with GZG this week for a few bits (their Christmas deal is running at the moment), but I've decided to hold off until after the weekend. There is a very good reason for that - Clint and I will have a side-challenge going on during the Challenge around painting spaceships. We'll be sorting out the details on Saturday when I head down to Postie's for a game with the Rejects.

For those of you who don't know about GZG's Christmas deal, head on over to their website and you'll find details on the front page. Freebies with every order and a discount voucher to use in the New Year. What's not to like? However, to make the most of the offer, I'll need to order a bit more than I'd originally planned. And then some more in the New Year to make use of the discount voucher. Mr Tuffley is an evil, evil man! *grin*



Sunday 23 November 2014

Rain, Rain, Go Away

...and come again - NEVER!

Well, OK, maybe a little bit of a shower at night to top up reservoirs etc, and to ensure crops and gardens are watered. Just don't come during the day at weekends when I need to hit models with spray paints and varnishes. Do we have a deal?

As you can probably guess, I'm a little frustrated by the weather today which has kicked my plans into touch. I had hoped to post some finished work this evening, but I can't do any spraying so that's out of the question. I'll now either have to put up with an open window (and associated cold in my flat) one evening this week or keep my fingers crossed for dry weather next weekend. I'll probably put up with the open window one evening, just to clear them off my paint table!

I haven't quite decided what to do instead yet, so I took some pictures of what was going to be sprayed.

Mongol Light Foot


These just need to be sprayed with matt varnish and for the bases to be flocked.

While doing the last stages on the Mongols, I decided to finish off the...



Civilian Spaceships

that I'd started painting many, many months ago.



These just need to be sprayed with matt or satin varnish and to have flight peg toppers glued underneath.

I also decided to paint up another big beast spaceship. This is the Dallas Class Refinery Ship which is just over 5 inches long.





It also needs a coat of varnish. I'll probably go matt, then use brush on satin and gloss for the spheres and pipework.

Seven Years War Russians


I thought it would be a good idea to paint a couple of test figures for the Russian infantry. These were going to be sprayed with red primer. The figures are spares.


Since my last post, I have had some goodies arrive. I'd placed an order with Adler for various strips of 6mm ACW figures to see how they would fit alongside the Baccus ones. The cavalry definitely won't work together; the infantry might just about. I could get away with Adler mounted officers on infantry bases as brigade commanders. I'll definitely raise a few regiments of Adler cavalry as they have a good variety of poses/weapons - Baccus just have sabres drawn; Adler have them with pistols, carbines and shotguns as well.

I also placed an order with Timecast for some Old Glory 15s Koreans. It's probably a bit more expensive per pack than ordering them direct, but there weren't enough packs for me to qualify for discounts and it saved me on postage and the inevitable extortionate admin fee from Royal Mail for import VAT. I'm still waiting for 2 packs as they were out of stock and I'd just missed their pre-Warfare restocking order.


These will provide the remaining figures I need to field "legal" armies for the later period (for FoGR I need Righteous Army and warrior monks), and to max out the Korean light cavalry.


Second Game of Art De La Guerre

I got in another game of ADLG last week, this time with my Alans. I decided to try something a bit risky to see if it is workable - the light horse swarm. I'd say that it doesn't work that well as light horse are very fragile and can quite easily be destroyed as they only have 2 cohesion points. It might work better on a table without a lot of terrain, where they have a chance to get around the enemy flanks. Unfortunately, for this game one flank was closed down by forests and forested steep hills.

The beige bits with trees are forest; the hills are steep and forested; the green bits are brush

My opponent had played a few more games before than me, one of them coached by the rules' author. I think that was how he had picked up a rather cheesy tactic that I'll have to try to remember. As charges occur in the movement phase and can be carried out at any time, if you can move a unit around a flank and behind (within 1 base width) of enemy units which can normally evade, it prevents them from doing so when they are charged. He used that to devastating effect against my light horse.

I also learnt another rule I'll need to remember. Allied corps have to check at the start of the game to determine if they are "hesitant". It is therefore useful to place an allied unit in ambush near to where you expect your opponent to advance. This is because if they come within 1 base width of the ambush marker, the ambush is revealed and the hesitant allied corps will stop being hesitant and come into play. Yes, you guessed it - my light horse managed to advance within 1 base width of his ambush, revealed it and activated the previously hesitant allied corps.

A third thing I found out (note to self - read the rules properly) is that disorder doesn't remove the ability of spearmen and pikemen to nullify the impact of mounted troops. In the club tournament, all three of my opponents are fielding heavy foot spear or pike armies against my mounted army. My only chance is to get onto their flanks and rear as it will be very difficult to shoot down 4 cohesion levels.


Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge V

With just under two weeks to go, I'm starting to get myself organised.

15mm Seven Years War Russians - primed and ready to go; schedule worked out
6mm ACW - primed and ready to go
ESU fleet - prepped; ca[ital ships need assembly; all need priming; need to decide on colour scheme
28mm Wars of the Roses - still on the sprues in their boxes. I have worked out what units I'll be making up from them, but haven't decided on livery schemes yet.
Anti-Hero entry fee figure - I think I know what I'll be doing for this; I just need to source the figure(s)
Other bits - I'm thinking of painting some 15mm SciFI as well. These might be a good mini-project to take down to Sussex to paint over the Christmas break.


Curt has decided to try to control the chaos this year by setting up a blog just for the Challenge. All the challengers will be able to draft their own posts (and upload photos) if they wish. He will then review, edit and post them.

We've each been assigned a day when our entries will be posted. Mine will be posted on Saturdays if you want to keep an eye out for them.


Thursday 6 November 2014

5th Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge

It's that time of year when we wargaming bloggers check to see if Mr Campbell has lost his sanity again and decided to run the sadomasochistic exercise known as the Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge for another year.

I'm pleased (I said it was sadomasochistic) to confirm that he has indeed lost his marbles once more and the Challenge will run for it's fifth outing, starting on 5th December and finishing on 20th March.



This year the theme (primarily for purposes of the entry "fee") is "Anti-Heroes, Rogues and Ruffians". As with last year's outing there will also be fortnightly bonus theme rounds.

I've signed up for my third outing, with a target of 1500 points. My main reason for signing up is that I hope it will give me the kick I need to get on with painting. I'll probably skip the bonus theme rounds unless they happily coincide with what I'm painting at the time.

My main focus this year will be to get my Seven Years War Russians and my 6mm ACW armies painted. Once they are done I might make a start on my War of the Roses army. To inject a bit of variety, there may also be some fantasy and SciFi submissions scattered among the main works. And definitely some spaceships. There have to be spaceships.

If you fancy joining in, pop on over and sign up in the comments of this post on Curt's blog.


(and I will get around to writing the ADLG AAR - promise)



Tuesday 4 November 2014

Finished 4Ground Cottage

Well, it's finished, as you've probably gathered from the title. Time for some pics:





At some point in the future I might have to buy some longish static grass to add to the floor as rushes/straw of this and the other 4Ground buildings.

In Sunday's post I forgot to mention that I'd ordered a few bits and bobs at the weekend. Not a lot. A few packs of Old Glory 15s from Timecast to fill out my Korean army; some Adler 6mm ACW strips to see how they match up with the Baccus figures (mostly command figures and odds and cavalry with firearms to provide some variety) and some bases from Tiny Tin Troops.

I still haven't done any actual painting, but my excuse is that the cottage was taking up my workbench. Now I don't have that excuse, I'll have to finish off those Mongol light foot tomorrow.

Dave over at One Man And His Brushes has just taken delivery of a spray booth kit which he'd ordered through Amazon. I've been meaning to get one but hadn't thought to look there. Now I know what my next purchase will be (unless I remember to order the extra Mongol heavy cavalry figures I need from Donnington beforehand).

Hopefully tomorrow evening - once I've finished painting the Mongol light foot of course - I'll do the AAR from last Thursday's game of Art de la Guerre. I've just signed up for a club ADLG competition so I need to get some practice in. I've picked Alans. My opponents in my group have picked Patrician Roman and 2 variants of Macedonian Successors. Not opponents that my horsey boys with pointy sticks really want to face head on. I think I might have to keep my lancers off to the flanks and occupy them frontally with a mass of light horse and shooty medium cavalry.

Sunday 2 November 2014

Sunday Workbench 2/11/2014

I haven't had a very productive week, but have made up for it this weekend, but still no finished figures to show off I'm afraid. The Mongol light foot are still hanging around waiting for me to finish them. I seem to have been hitting a bit of a funk on weekday evenings lately - I'll have to break that by making myself paint something every evening, even if it is only for 15 minutes.

On Thursday evening I got in my first game of Art de la Guerre, using my Swiss against Elliot's Yorkists. I must say I was impressed with the simplicity of the rules and how the game flowed. I was also impressed by how light my bag was compared to FoG armies. I'll do a brief AAR during the week, but here are two teaser pics:




When I got up yesterday, things weren't looking hopeful for finishing the priming of the Seven Years War Russians. Luckily while I was out of the house it brightened (and warmed!) up nicely so when I got back home I quickly got everything set up. As a result, the infantry are all primed now.




Having had my Swiss out on the table without any flags did induce a bit of a guilt trip. A long while back I had bought some of the flag sheets from Donnington Miniatures. After I'd done the spray priming, I decided it was time to bite the bullet and get them cut out and glued. They've been removed from the wire now, ready to be added to figures.


However, I still need to trim the Confederation and special cantonal flags before adding them to command stands. That might be a task for tomorrow evening (after I've done some painting of course!). I also need to make up a load of smaller flags to distribute around the mass of pikemen. The extra flags will include those for cantons other than the eight on the Donnington sheets.

In another painting-avoidance effort, I decided to make a start on my Wars of the Roses army. Well, to be accurate, the camp. Rather conveniently, 4Ground's "High Medieval Cottage" is just about the right size for a 28mm FoG camp. I started assembling the building yesterday evening and it's now all but finished. I've done some more work on this today and everything is now done apart from brushing 50% PVA through the teddy bear fur to get the thatch effect right.





Eventually I'll stick it on a MDF base with some scenic bits to bring it up to the correct camp size. It should be quite useful as I can store bits and bobs inside during games to reduce clutter on the table.

Well, that's it for now. Hopefully this week will see me post the ADLG AAR and some pics of finished stuff.