Sunday Update

Oh dear, it appears I'm slipping on the old posting front. That's been down to me not having anything to show you until today. Well, strictly speaking I did have something I could have shown you yesterday but it was easier to roll that in with this post.


Figure Prep

I've finished prepping the SYW Russians! However, I discovered an omission and an error. The error was that the ammunition wagon cover doesn't fit on top of the SYW wagons (too short); that could be because the covers are intended for wagons from the supply train section. The omission was that I'd forgotten to order limbers for my artillery. I foresee and order being rapidly placed with Essex.


But that's far too much chatter, on with pics:


This was what I'd got done over the weekend by lunchtime today:

Yes, rather a lot of figures stuck onto painting sticks. Before moving onto pics of the figures glued on sticks, here's a close-up of the building:

It's the Police Station from TT Combat. It went together quite easily. One thing I found during the assembly was that it was a nice tight fit for a frame of Lego bricks around the outside to support the walls as the glue dried - I wonder if that was a deliberate design choice or just a happy accident? I'm going to need to prime it at some point, which means waiting for a dry morning/afternoon.

Yesterday I realised that I was even lower on airbrush thinners than I'd thought so I did a quick buy through Amazon Prime as I needed some pretty urgently. Of course, that meant waiting in today for the delivery. While I was waiting for the delivery to come, I decided to glue the SYW Russians onto painting sticks, the riders onto the horses and assemble the guns and wagons. That kept me busy for a couple of hours and I've now realised that I need to get some more drawer units to keep them while they await painting.

Cossacks!

Hussars!

Cuirassiers, horse grenadiers, guns, wagons and "spare" infantry

Infantry, generals, horse teams and artillery crew

Just to save you the trouble of trying to work out how many figures there are, here's a list:

Cossacks - 39 figures (6 regiments of 6 plus a 3-figure command group)
Cuirassiers - 11 figures (1 regiment of 9 and 2 spares)
Horse grenadiers - 18 figures (2 regiments of 9)
Hussars - 36 figures (4 regiments of 9)
Infantry - 152 figures (8 regiments of 18 and 8 spares)
Artillery - 2 guns, 6 crew
Wagons - 2 wagons, 2 drivers, 8 horses

When these are all painted I'll have all the non-Cossack cavalry regiments done that fought in the SYW and all but 13 of the infantry regiments. If my megalomania strikes again I might add those 13 next year.


Whilst I was doing all that gluing, the Amazon delivery came which meant I could play with the airbrush this afternoon. I did have a play with it yesterday but had a disaster which was entirely my own fault - I hadn't properly prepared (washed, lightly sanded, rewashed) the cheap toys I was using to test something out and the paint and primer peeled off. Luckily I had another cheap toy which had a better surface that didn't need prepping and I had primed that at the same time. However, I'd run out of thinners and it had got rather too late anyway.

So, today I cracked on with the better toy (a cheap-ish diecast helicopter from Wilko). The tests were in two parts - I wanted to try out a potential camo colour scheme as well as trying out some of the Anarchy Models HD stencils I'd bought a while back. I was in luck today - the primer and paints adhered to the toy and the stencils didn't peel any off when they were removed! Here's the finished test piece:

Now, this was just a test piece so I didn't use as many of the stencils as I would for proper pieces.  I'd also do more overlaps. I think the three colours work as a camo scheme ("where the hell would a pink camo scheme work?!?!?") but the hexes of these stencils are probably too large, particularly for 15mm. Luckily, I picked up the mini-hexocam stencils at SELWG.

Applying the stencils and removing them once the airbrushing was complete was a bit fiddly and time consuming but the effect was really good - you couldn't do hexocam or digicam freehand.

The great thing is that if you are careful you can reuse each of the stencils a few times but they do eventually lose their tack.

I'm planning on getting some other stencils from the range - digicam, tiger stripe and maybe one or two others (skulls! pin-ups!) so I think that tells you I was impressed with them. I might also get one or two of the HS stencils to try out.


Plans for this week:

1) Place a few orders - I need some ore bases, the bits from Essex, some more stencils (and maybe some paints on the same order - need to check what's running low)
2) Do the basing for the 28mm stuff I'd stuck on washers/bases last week, then prime them
3) Prime the SYW stuff - the cavalry I can use the airbrush, the infantry I might need to take to work and prime during my lunch-breaks (they'll be getting hit with red spray primer)
4) Try out some other camo colour schemes
5) Decide what else I need to order in for the Challenge

More Sticking

Yesterday saw me doing a bunch of chores, then doing some furniture rearrangement in my lounge as well as shifting various boxes that still need sorting. As a result, not much time was left for doing figure prep for the Challenge. I did, however, manage to get all of these figures stuck onto washers/bases:

Sheep and WW2 Russian Women

Merchant seamen and "punks" for Salutesville

Civvies plus Il Postino Diablo and minders for Salutesville

Of course, now I need to do the basing work on all of these before priming them.


Figure Prep - I've just started prepping my SYW Russian reinforcements during my lunch breaks. They should be done by the end of next week, ready to get stuck onto sticks for priming.


Challenge Planning

I've begun planning what I want to paint for this year's Challenge and to work out what else I need to buy. You can expect to see (among others):

28mm

• A whole bunch of figures for Salutesville (the ones above and some more that I'll be ordering) and maybe some boats
• WW2 Russian women
• Some characters (and maybe grunts) from Raging Heroes

15mm

• A large reinforcement for my SYW Russians (with added Cossacks!)
• Some more Koreans (all infantry, mainly Righteous Army types)
• More SciFi goodness if TEMrT releases the support weapon packs for the NSL Jagers and ESU Naval Infantry in good time for me to buy and prep them
• Possibly some 30YW
• Possibly a new ancients army for ADLG (maybe even two)

6mm

• Some cavalry and artillery reinforcements for my ACW armies. Potentially some infantry reinforcements
• Maybe, maybe, maybe some small SYW Imaginations armies for Honours of War

Other stuff

• Quite possibly some spaceships...

The next stage will be to sit down and work out how many points my "definites" come to, and what the "possibles" come out as. And then to place some orders for figures.


Still, it will keep me busy and a busy Tamsin means that everyone else can take a deep breath and relax!

Shopping and Sticking

I've been struck down with a gut bug the last two days, so I was quite pleased this morning when I woke up feeling much better. Well enough, in fact, to take a trip into central London to do a bit of hobby shopping. First port of call was 4D Model Shop, then onto Dark Sphere near Waterloo. Of course, my journeys weren't helped by various line and station closures on the Underground.

Anyway, I got all the bits I was after (I think) and a few other bits I hadn't planned on but had had in mind to buy at some point.

So, the haul:

Everything on top of a stack of four 25x310x600mm styrofoam

Some Raging Heroes "Jailbirds" character figures

Card sleeves for my Gruntz and Chicago Way decks - might need another

Airbrush stuff

Painting sticks and wires for my hot-wire cutter(s)

The styrofoam is intended for my Mexicagrave project, to make up terrain boards and pyramids.

The Raging Heroes figures will get painted up during the Challenge. I'm not sure at the moment whether to keep them on individual bases or do a bit of a diorama with them as a group. I had hoped to get a Coyote Crew pack, but they didn't have any in stock.

And I've just realised as I'm writing this that I accidentally picked up cleaner rather than thinner for my airbrush. Oh well, you can never have enough cleaner when you've got an airbrush. I'll just have to add thinner to the order I'll be placing with SnM Stuff shortly.

Well, that's enough of that, on with the rest of the post.


Once I'd had a bit of time to recover from the shopping trip, I decided it was time to put those painting sticks to good use. So, I grabbed the box containing my 6mm ACW stuff and set about sticking them onto the sticks for priming and painting.

In case you are wondering, on these sticks there are enough figures for 10 mounted cavalry regiments, 8 dismounted cavalry regiments, 4 artillery pieces, 30 generals/staff and the horse teams for 8 limbers. I still need to glue the wheels onto the limbers before putting them onto painting sticks.

I'll have a few spare mounted and dismounted cavalry figures. From the mounted, some of the command groups are destined to go on the dismounted cavalry bases (for some reason, the packs contain 1 command strip and 5 skirmisher strips, rather than 2 and 4 which would make more sense). The rest will get individually based as couriers/tempo point markers. The extra dismounted skirmishers could get used as infantry skirmishers I suppose.

The generals will be used to make up 3 command stands for each army and the remainder will go onto infantry and cavalry bases as brigade commanders.

My plan for tomorrow is to do some more sticking of figures onto painting sticks, bases or washers. Oh, and placing a few orders over the old interwebbything. You see, I've been making some plans for this year's Challenge...

New Table and A Courthouse Confrontation

My new table and chairs were delivered just before 9am this morning and two hours later they were unpacked and assembled. I'd acquired quite a bit of white polystyrene packaging from the various packs of flat-pack furniture I've bought over the last few months. So, I sorted through it to find anything which might be suitable for making hill shapes, then dug out my little hot-wire cutter and set about shaping them. These will be for going underneath a cloth, so no need to painting, gritting and flocking.

I know what you're thinking - cream/ivory coloured seats, how long until they get dirty. Yes, well...

Various hill, ridge and undulation pieces

And under a cloth

I do have two more pieces that need shaping. Unfortunately I managed to snap all five cutting wires I had - a mixture of flimsy wire and me trying to go too fast/hard with the cutting. I'll have to take a trip to 4D Model Shop at some point to either get more wires or a new cutter.

Just after I'd taken the photos above, I thought it might be nice to see how much space all the buildings I've painted up for Salutesville cover so I put down my grey slate floor tiles and arranged the buildings. Of course, it would have been a shame to waste the opportunity to get out some of the vehicles and all the figures for a photo session, so that's exactly what I did.


A Courthouse Confrontation

The feds have caught up with Il Postino Diablo and he's been arrested and taken to the Supreme Court for arraignment. Anticipating trouble, Salutesville's Finest have mounted a heavy guard to prevent any rescue attempts...

Unaware of what is about to go down, Salutesville's citizens go about their daily business...

As Evil Postie is the only one who knows where all their ill-gotten gains are stashed, his mob react to liberate him. Ray "The Badger" Rousell's gang are first on the scene:

One of Big Lee's Bad Boys has managed to sneak behind some of the coppers:

And Fran's mob are starting to arrive in dribs and drabs:

Will they manage to break him out of custody? Read all about it in the late edition:

And the band played on...

So, the buildings I've painted so far do cover a 3' x 4' table quite nicely. I've got another seven to assemble and paint at some point which are all reasonably large, so I could potentially fill a 4' x 6' table. Time to acquire some street features I think.

Oh, and then there's the docks, the rail freight yard, Chinatown, the rural retreat...

River Test 2

Time for an update I guess. I've been doing some more figure prep during my lunch breaks this week - at the moment I'm working on some reinforcements for my 6mm ACW armies. When they're done I'll start prepping the Essex figures I picked up at SELWG. Once they're all done, it will be time to get them stuck onto sticks or bases and primed.

Anyway, I've been taking it a little bit easy today and did another test paint on that river section, this time starting with the dark green and wet blending some Payne's Grey and some olive green into it.I still wasn't happy with the look - too much of the dark blue, so I added another thin coat of the dark green with a few more olive streaks blended in:

First test

Second test

Second test

I think that going forward the best thing would be to paint some thin patches of Payne's Grey before adding the dark green with olive streaks.

Tomorrow I've got my new dining table and chair being delivered - it's 90 x 150cm (3' x 5') so should be ideal for home gaming, especially if I get some 2' x 4' MDF boards to take it up to 4' x 6'.

1066 And All That

Before I get onto the stuff relating to the title of this post, just a quickie about what I've been doing with my two days off.

Yesterday started with chores, mainly related to shifting furniture around in my living room and then assembling the last of my bookshelf units. This one was a bit more fiddly as there were two drawers to assemble as well. With that in place I was able to transfer most of my wargames rules, Ospreys and magazines to them.

Today I spent a bit of time prepping figures - they've now been washed and are drying off on kitchen towel now. I also decided to do a test paint on one of the latex river sections. The paint went on very nicely, but I did make a bit of a booboo - I added static grass before applying a coat of Klear so some stray fibres got trapped in that. Tomorrow evening (back at work unfortunately) I might have a go at stripping the paint and flock off. Anyway here are a couple of pics, including the "flex test":

Loose flex

Tight flex

I'm not sure about the colour - I did a base coat of Paynes Grey then wet blended some dark green in. I think it looks a bit too blue, so maybe doing the two colours the other way round and perhaps wet blending in some streak of a lighter green would look better.


So, 1066 And All That. Last night saw the second of two big multi-player games of ADLG organised by Gordon. I missed Stamford Bridge last week as I wasn't feeling brilliant, but did make it to the club for yesterday's refight of the Battle of Hastings. I was given command of the Breton contingent.

The Normans and allies started off table and in the first turn would deploy into a box representing the base of Senlac Hill, roughly opposite the centre of the English line and then carry out their first moves. The Normans were given 4 minutes per turn to complete any moves; the English only got 3 minutes. Naturally this added quite a bit to the friction, particularly for our first turn where we also had to transfer troops from one table to another. Especially as I found that the Fleming & French contingent who only had three pips were blocking my Bretons from actually moving out of the deployment zone!

Normans at end of turn 1 - still some troops on the other table

My goal was to try to get around the right flank of the English, using my light and medium foot to go through the difficult terrain there. My cavalry (no knights for the Bretons) were meant to act as a threat and to exploit any gaps. Given that my contingent had the furthest to travel, it would have been better if the Flemings had deployed behind us, but our CinC decided otherwise...

Things got rather chaotic so I didn't get many pics, but here are the ones I did take:

Yay! Finally moving!

and from a different angle

Table at the end of the game - 6 out of 8 of my medium cavalry dead...

Fighting uphill meant that at best the Normans would be on evens at impact and usually down in melee. Almost all the English facing me were armoured, which meant I'd need fluky dice to do any damage to them. It didn't help that I'd forgotten that light troop shooting benefits from bases behind as well as to the side.

As the game wore on, and given how badly the Normans and Flemings were getting mauled (being down at least one factor and then having crap dice) we decided to throw everything we had into the battle line, so I charged in with my medium foot and medium cavalry. Against (mostly) undamaged, armoured heavy foot. You can probably guess how that went.

To my right, the Flemings had managed to lose both of their commanders to "Jeavon the General Killer". Billy B'tard threw himself into the fray to try to help out. On his second try, Jeavon managed to "Kill Bill" making three generals from four attempts:

It was a good game overall, despite the reversal of history. It probably didn't help matter that the English players mostly had plenty of experience with ADLG whereas the Normans (especially the CinC) generally had very little.

It may have been better for the Normans to be allowed to deploy anywhere along the baseline rather than being restricted to the central deployment zone. Another thing that might have made the battle a bit more even would have been for either the Normans to have slightly more points than they did or for some of the English to have started with reduced cohesion to represent fatigue from the long, fast march South.

Just for the record, all the figures were 25/28mm from Gordon's collection.