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Saturday, 9 October 2021

Paint Table Saturday 09 October

 


I'm back! In case you were worried about my not having posted anything for a whole two weeks, please rest assured that I am alive and well and that nothing untoward has happened to me. I was quite simply busy with all sorts of odd little bits and didn't have anything to post until today.

As you can tell from the photo above, I actually have some figures on the table ready for painting. Over the last few days I got all of this lost prepped:

and primed them today with the airbrush:


That's 96 foot and 18 cavalry for my Choson Korean and Ming Chinese armies. Some will be ADLG specific bases, the rest will be towards my megalomaniacal Korean army for FoG/FoGR.


Why did it take me until this week to start prepping them? Well, I was away for a few days at the beginning of last week, and then when I got back I managed to sidetrack myself to deal with a bug going round my in my brain.

For those who know the Traveller RPG system, I came across what I thought might be a clash between the world generation system and the stated average Imperial tech level. According to most sources I'd read, the average TL is 11-12 (Jump-2 to Jump-3). However, all the Sector data I'd seen suggested a much lower average TL. So....

...I thought it would be a good idea to do a quick check to confirm my suspicions. At least, I thought it would be quick. It wasn't. It took me a day and a half to build and run the spreadsheets to work it out. That's because there are six different factors that generate die roll modifiers for the tech level roll and many of them interact with each other. My suspicions were confirmed - the average TL using the systems in Book 3 and Book 6 comes out as around 8. 

Clearly an additional DM on the TL roll is required to give an average tL of 11-12. Not knowing how big a DM would be needed, I did an initial recalculation using a +2 DM - that shifted the average TL to a bit over 9. I then tried +3 which shifted it to a bit more over 10. I finally tried a +4 DM which gave an solid 11.5 as the average. There was still a full range of TLs from 0-15, but the distribution was skewed much more toward the higher TLs. That makes much more sense given the published TL timelines - at the time the RPG is set, the Imperium has had Jump-3 for over a thousand years and Jump-4 for about 500 years. How likely is it that the majority of worlds would be TL 8 or below after all that time?

Oh, yes, each run of the additional DM took the best part of a day to complete as a lot of copying/cutting and pasting had to be done.

Which is why I wasn't doing actual hobby stuff to post here until this week.

17 comments:

  1. The ever expanding army syndrome. You just can't get enough troops for these big armies. I know, I have Late Achaemenids

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  2. You've got a fair amount prepped Tamsin, can see why you weren't posting with going through all those permeations ! LOL

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  3. Good to have you back Tams, its a nice part of my evenings after work seeing what you have been up to! (Wargames wise, I am NOT being creepy! ;-)

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  4. It is interesting how long you've been posting with the frequency of several times a week. You need not give a reason for the break , especialy when the return view indicates a new project.

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  5. Always good to have proof of life Tamsin.

    Glad to see the pursuit of Traveller trivia. The first RPG that I took a serious investment in.

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  6. @ Khusru - It's just one of those armies where I went a bit nuts and decided to model everything in the army list(s). With the new version of ADLG, I also needed to model some extra troop types as well. :)

    @ Dave - cheers! Setting up the spreadsheets was a bit of a PITA, but once the basics were done it was just a lot of cutting/copying and pasting - thank heavens for Shift-End-Down! :)

    @ Herkybird - thanks! *checks flat for hidden cameras* ;)

    @ Pancerni - I generally aim for my two WIP posts every week with "finished" posts as extras. It was just a short break, but someone did post a comment expressing concern. :)

    @ Ashley - thanks! The funny thing is that I barely played it, but the whole idea of it stuck with me. I still have my old 80s LBBs (not the full set) and a few months ago bought the full collection as PDFs on one of those "bundle of holding" deals. :)

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  7. Hey Tam. I been browsing though your Ming Chinese and they look amazing. It good to see you coming back to then and expending them into ADLG v4.
    I'm also planning to start a Ming Chinese army soon. But I'm having some difficult finding sculpts that I like.
    Can you help me with the range you are using for your army, or other options?

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    1. Mostly Old Glory 15s (I think I might have used some of their Korean cavalry as Ming - I'd used some Ming cavalry as Korean!) with a few Grumpy's (arquebusiers and rocketeers).

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  9. Hello! Im so glad to have stumbled upon your blog. Your Choson army is an inspiration! Definitely in my new project list now. Im wondering what game system they are used for? ADLG and FoG? These acronyms are lost on me. :(

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    1. Thanks! ADLG = Art de la Guerre; FoG = Field of Glory; FoGR = Field of Glory Renaissance.

      For Choson Korean, the two main ranges are from Old Glory 15s and Essex Miniatures. However, both lack handgunners/arquebusiers and the only source I'm aware of for those is Grumpy's Miniatures (available through Eureka).

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    2. That is assuming you intend to do the project in 15mm; in 28mm I can only think of Perry Miniatures as having a range.

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    3. Cool! Thanks ill have to look into those systems. Theres hardly any games that have choson army lists. I’ll probably do 28mm and look for a smaller skirmish sized game.

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    5. Your mention of 28mm skirmish reminded me - North Star do have a pack of 8 Korean figures in their range for "Ronin" (from Osprey Games - one of their "blue book" series of rules).

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  10. Planning, prep. and various aspects of research are all part of the fun, I reckon. I spend a lot of time reading, taking notes and developing army lists for historical games.
    I look forward to you performing your usual 'magic' with those figures!
    Regards, James

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    1. They most certainly are all part of the fun. Thanks - the figures should be finished in a week or so. :)

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