Yes, There's Magic in the Air

It's February 27th and there is snow on the ground outside my little house.  It's been a week of winter.  Though I've managed to get some figures painted while avoiding burst pipes sliding on the ice, the late for Puget Sound snow has been weird.  But today, February 27th marks the beginning of my favorite time of year--baseball season.  The M's play the Padres, who share their training facilities in the Peoria, AZ, in their annual charity game before opening the Cactus League season in the coming week.  Better still, it's on the radio.  So, my big plans to spend the morning at work correcting assignments will take a bit of hit, as I only work a couple of hours instead of three. Ball game is on at noon, and I'll be painting a Hasslefree figure as well as my languishing unit of British loyalists while listening to Rick Rizzs and the boys.

Ahhhhh, I love baseball.

The PT Dockyard Sale

I haven't bought any new stuff for my WWII or modern coastal fleets in a while.  I get a lot of my toys from PT Dockyard in New York.  Dave Gregory's business fills a nice little niche in the hobby, offering vessels from WWI, WII and the modern era.  He specializes in coastal vessels for the "narrow seas" but also has his Shangri-la line of 1/1200 ships of might-have-beens, including a what if modernization of the armored cruiser Seattle that is quite spiff. Gregory is a super vendor, one you can always feel safe doing business with.  The models aren't always a snap to assemble, but they are quite nice.

PT Dockyard vessels from the med.  An Italian torpedo boat leads escorts into battle with British and Americans on the narrow seas.

Sometimes it gets quiet around PT Dockyard, and I get a little e-mail from Dave announcing new releases or some short term deal.  He sent off an e-mail last week announcing a 15% off sale.  Good deal, and last night I took advantage of it.  I ordered three Fairmile B MGB's and a re-released model of an American motor gunboat on a subchaser hull.  It keeps alive my commitment to some day doing the Raid on St. Nazaire and adds a valuable little piece to my American coastal fleet.

Good bye American Eagles

We got the word a couple of weeks ago that American Eagles in Seattle would be closing its doors. That's too bad, not because Eagles was a big loss to the gaming world--it's not.  I think it's just symbolic of what seems to be happening to hobbies like miniature gaming, plastic modeling and model railroading.  These are hobbies that seem to have generational appeal and unfortunately the generation of enthusiasts is slipping away.

American Eagles in Lake City.  Currently holding a closing business sale, its last day is April 9th.

I'm not going to bash younger people for their interest in video games or other interests.  Nor will I bark at those of my age for not doing more to interest kids in their prized interests.  I've been out there and recruited and it's really hard.  I feel for people like my father, who is a lifelong Freemason, and represents generations of Masonic members, but couldn't draw me in.  My generation walked away from service organizations like the Elks, Lions, and Kiwanis in droves, and now for whatever reason, our interests too may be doomed to the utter fringes of hobby interests.

American Eagles will be missed.  I was a frequent visitor in the late 70's and early 80's.  Though I never found it to be the mecca for gaming supplies, I was also forgiving of this failure.  As miniature lines grew, Mike Edwards simply couldn't stock 'em all.  Like many of my friends, I ordered from Modeler's Mart and other catalog operations.  Still I bought what I could there.  Rules, books, the Courier, were all frequent pickups on the way home from my job in Crown Hill.  For a while we held monthly game days at the Ballard store.  But the gentrification of Ballard forced the move, and Mike's retirement pointed toward the end for AE.  It was just too far out of the way for me down here. What the move didn't kill, the internet did.

Seattle Times photo of George Edwards contemplating.  Like me he's probably wondering where the next axe will fall.

In the  South Puget Sound community I worry about losing those bricks and mortar stores.  Where can we get simple hobby items, the foundation of what we do like, CA glue, Testor's spray paint (which I use for primer) and Dullcoat, sheet styrene without having to find an online source, or resort to craft shop giants like Jo-Ann's and Michaels which are completely under resourced.  We see this in the shrinking number of paint lines.  While miniature ranges have exploded and we have more choices than ever, those fundamental building blocks are more difficult to come by.  The last hobby shop in Puyallup closed nearly a decade ago.  The Hobbytown store in Parkland, a delightful shop catering to RC aircraft enthusiasts, where I can get styrene, brass wire and tubing, and CA glue is frightfully quiet and located on a recovering Garfield St.

 In any case I wish George Edwards well.  There was a great article on the closing of American Eagles in the Seattle Times this morning.  I don't believe he could have done more than he did, and while I'm sorry to see the shop go, I understand.

Field Trip: Dick Blick's on Capitol Hill

In my February 10th post I lamented the condition of my brush collection and the difficulty of getting replacements.  I also commented about the opening of the region's first Dick Blick art supply store on Capitol Hill in Seattle.

I've been scheming for a way to get up there, but I really needed another reason to drive the 35 miles or so.  Wednesday was the end of our newspaper cycle, and I usually pick up our finished product in South Seattle on Thursday night.  Because this is a four day weekend for me, I decided to put off driving to Pacific Publishing on a Thursday night and head up this morning.  Casey and I decided we'd go out for breakfast at Portage Bay Cafe (highly recommended) pick up the JagWire and check out some neighborhoods in Seattle as Casey looks for a place to move.  Capitol Hill is on his list, so we agreed to stop by the big Dick's.

We picked up the paper, grabbed some good eats and headed over toward Broadway.  After some creative parking solutions we walked in and I immediately began searching the brush aisle.  They did indeed have my Master Kolinsky brushes and on sale 50% off.  The only problem is they don't stock all brush sizes, so the Number 1's that I really needed weren't available.  They did, however, have 0's and 00's and 50% off is 50% off so did grab an 0.  Because I really did need some 1's I looked really hard at what they had.  The brush selection was super, though there really wasn't much in that size.  I picked up a couple of Da Vinci 1's, which unfortunately weren't 50% off and also used synthetic bristles.

Two Da Vinci Cosmotop No. 1's flank a Blick Master Kolinsky 0 from Dick Blick's Art Supply.  Located at 1600 Broadway across the street from Seattle Central Community College.

Aside from that we didn't spend much time.  I did ask about the Master Kolinsky 1's which could be special ordered, but I didn't feel the need.  They also showed me their behind the counter collection of Windsor and Newton series 7's, also Kolinsky brushes, but they demanded Casey as collateral.  I offered, but he refused.  Honestly, I don't have as good a result with the W and N brushes, so Casey made a good choice. There was one upside.  Like all vendors, they offered to make me a preferred customer.  When I asked if there was a cost, the said not if I was a teacher or student.  Bonus.  10% off my purchase.

I didn't look at anything else, no paint or acrylic gels.  It was great to go to a real art house with real art supplies as opposed to Michael's or JoAnn's. It was a worthwhile trip.

Time to 'Fess Up

I have done a much better job of posting on the blog since December, but I haven't been really good with my counting stats--figures painted and figures purchased.  That's not quite true either, I do update my painted stats regularly, but I haven't included my figures purchased stuff.

I really do try to keep purchases to a minimum.  Like you, I just have too many unpainted figures for too many unpainted projects in my drawers of shame.  My chief culprits are the American Revolution and the Hundred Years War, but I have lots of other figures for lots of other projects.  So, I make it point to try to only buy figures that round out units I need for a specific game, and try to avoid buying lots of other figures that will sit for years waiting for brush to apply paint.  I've kind of done that-sort of-almost.

I've made two figure purchases since the first of the year.  The first was to RAFM for some of their Martians.  I needed a couple of figures to finish out a unit, and, being a firm believer one can never order just two figures no matter the excuse, I added another unit too to make my order a still paltry, but more acceptable thirteen figures.  Have I painted any of the thirteen?   No, but they are sitting on my painting table primed and very much on my to do list

My other order was to the Warstore.com where all Perry figures worth having live.  Son Casey gifted his mom and I each 60 bucks when he got a big bonus from his employer and I combined that with thirty five or so simoleans I'd stashed away for a future order.  I could get some serious stuff with that much cash, and I really wanted some limbers and wagons for my AWI projects, particularly Hobkirk's Hill where an encampment, artillery pieces and transport was really important.  So I did order a couple of the Perry two-horse limbers, and a powder wagon.  It would have been fine to stop right there and reinvest the leftovers in paint brushes, but I just couldn't help myself, and I spent the rest too.  I snapped up two packs of the very nice Lee's Legion foot, which I'll eventually need for Eutaw Springs.  I had just enough left over to pick up the Indian Cavalry Command figures from the Sudan range--just what I need for one of my Martian units I've got a-building in my mind.  I have all the remaining figures for the unit--just need a commander.

 There, I've come clean.  Do you have any purchases to confess?

A Look Ahead

It's a short look ahead.  Mostly to the weekend.  Because of President's Day and the extra Friday the district provides us, I've got a four day mid-winter break holiday coming up in a couple of days. What do I have planned.  I remember the days when we'd run to Whistler or stay in Seattle, leave the house for a few days. Well, we're broke, so that's not going to happen this weekend. 

What better to do than watch movies and paint figures this weekend?  Lorri's mom gave me the entire collection of Harry Potter vids, so I could check those out.  I don't recall what's in the old Netflix queue.  I dunno, I have plenty to watch.  I also have some painting to do.  I have eight or nine Hasslefree miniatures I need to paint.  I should have role-playing this Saturday so they need to get done--plus I need to work on my Serenity adventure. 

Looking father out, those sixteen semi-painted Perry AWI guys are calling my name and I really need them for Hobkirk's Hill.  And cogs, more cogs, I need lots of cogs, though not quite as many as I painted for the English. 

In any case, I'm on deadline right this very minute, so I could use a break.

Cogs: The English Fleet

Edward III's cog Thomas lead's the English fleet to Sluys

Hoo boy,

I've finished my English fleet for the Sluys game.  I haven't talked too much about the rules or the scenario, but it's based on one laid out in David Manley's Medieval Fleet Action Rules.  I don't know if David has plans to publish these, but I've reviewed them and I like them a lot.  In the rules he provides an order of battle for Sluys.  The rules are simple.  There is an artillery fire phase, a missile (arrow) fire phase, and a boarding/hand to hand phase.  All the phases are adjudicated a la DBA, with a fighting factor combined with a die roll.  If your die roll exceeds that of your opponent that's good.  If your die roll doubles that of your opponent, it's very good.

 The scenario calls for 22 English cogs, plus Edward III's flagship Thomas, which can be seen leading the parade.  I painted far more cogs than called for--there are 43 of them out there.  The only thing I want to do is to put together a cannon, so one model can be cannon armed per the scenario.  You can see the large, medium and small sized cogs.

Another view of the English fleet

This is a project I'm really proud of.  My goal was to hand make everything, and I've succeeded.  I'm really not much of a scratchbuilder, as any of my friends can tell you.  The minis are far from perfect, but even so, they work.  My next big challenge is to figure out how to come up with a workable galley, though I have some ideas.

All 43 of my English cogs

 The project is only half completed at this point.  There is a small Flemish fleet with five small cogs, and 28 French fleet.

 The English decisively won Sluys, but it wasn't a walkover.  They fought all day and into the night and the French casualties were horrendous, as you could imagine.  The English cleared the decks with arrow fire and then fought hand to hand, throwing the losers, in armor overboard.  Not a good battle to lose.  However the scenario is very well constructed and poses some real problems for the English to resolve.  My hats off to David.  I've admired his work for years and I really like this scenario. 

Friday night at Enfilade.  Be there or be square.

Don't you hate it . . .

That great brushes are so hard to come by of course.  For the past five or six years I've bought Dick Blick's Master Kolinsky sable brushes.  They are really good brushes that last about a year before I wear 'em out.  I take pretty good care of them but eventually the bristles start to shed a bit, and the points get uneven.  I know, others claim to make them last for years and years, but I ride 'em too hard. 

Love the brushes, but the cost and getting them make me a bit crazy.  When I began buying brushes from Dick Blick, they cost a little less than five dollars a pop on the web.  Not a bad deal.  Unfortunately the price has skyrocketed to just under ten dollars, though one can occasionally get them much cheaper if the big Blick is running sale, which is most of the time.  What really makes me crazy is the shipping cost.  I never order fewer than five or six brushes because they're shipped in a little padded envelope and the shipping is ten bucks!! My weighty miniatures from the Warstore only costs six dollars and they are fast and well padded for the journey.

However, I did see that Dick Blick opened an art supply shop in Seattle on Broadway, so I'll have to check'em out.  I'll bet I can get the brushes alright, but they'll cost an arm and a leg.  What I save in shipping I'd lose in gas.  We'll see.

Poll Closed: Woo Hoo!

The poll was really fun.  I was always tracking it, so if you took the time to post your choices thanks.  I look forward to more polls.

It's also influenced my thinking for the convention.  So it looks like I'll go with:

1. Sluys on Friday night using David Manley's DBA-based Medieval Fleet Action rules
2. Hobkirk's Hill Saturday night using Regimental Fire and Fury
3. Closing Wilmington Sunday using the Ironclads rules.  

It will be a spring time of playtesting, and I may be forced to do more solo efforts as I work the games out.  Of the three Sluys will require the most work.

 Cog Update--I have twenty two cogs a building including Edward III's flagship the Thomas.  I should have them done this weekend if not sooner.  However I do start deadline again tomorrow, which is a deterrent to serious painting progress. When these are finished I'll have 43 painted English cogs at a cost of less than twenty bucks.  Not bad.

In My Dreams

Do you ever pass the time thinking about projects you'd love to do if you had unlimited abilities, time, money, and creativity?  I do, often in the car driving home from school.  I only drive about two and a half miles, so they're fleeting thoughts.  I gave some thought to cool movie scenes I'd like to do, so here is my list and commentary:

Khartoum-The Final Assault.  Khartoum with Charlton Heston and Lawrence Olivier is one of my favorite movies and I have fond memories of my parents taking me to see it in the theater.  It would be awesome to game the final assault with the city garrison diminished by starvation and dervishes everywhere.  It would be good.

One boom among many

 The Lighthorsemen-Desert assault on Beersheba.  This probably wouldn't game very well, but skazillions of Australian light horse charging entrenchments and into the city would be so cool.  It sure looked great in the movie.  Of course my itchin' to do this is complicated by the fact that my old VHS copy of the movie doesn't play on my DVD player and a region 1 DVD is simply not available-legally. Crap.

That this movie is unavailable in the States is an incredible injustice.

 April Morning-Retreat from Concord.  Yeah, this is an old hard to find Hallmark Hall of Fame movie based on the Howard Fast novel.  It's at least twenty five years old. It could be a great skirmish game or Brother against Brother game.  Concord is an important action at the beginning of the AWI, equally hazardous to both sides.  It could be an interesting game.

This 1988 movie has a great cast with Tommy Lee Jones, Robert Urich, Rip Torn, a young Chad Lowe, and Susan Blakely

Return of the King-Battle of the Pelennor Fields.  I actually don't much care for the movie version of this, but it's one of the three battles I've always wanted to do-Cowpens and Agincourt being the other two. Tolkien's description of the action is so interesting.  No army of the dead in book, but lots of Oliphaunts.  It's a 15mm game for sure with lots of Riders of Rohan, Orcs and men of Harad.

Eomer gets ready to ride to ruin.

Henry V (Branagh)-Battle of Agincourt.  I love this movie.  I love everything about this movie.  It's so much better than the Olivier movie.  I've sort of surrendered Agincourt to Chris Craft, and I'm more focused on Poitiers-someday.

Edward the Duke of York, the Earl of Suffolk, Sir Richard Kikely, Davy Gam Equire; None else of name; and of all othermen but five and twenty.  O God thy arm was near.

The Wind and Lion-Desert Fort.  I still love this movie too.  Candace Bergen, Sean Connery and Ken Kanaly trying to chop up the German nasties from the inside, while the Riffians attack the fort from the outside.  Come on, admit it you love the dueling artillery pieces too.  Sword and the Flame, it was made for Sword and the Flame.

President Roosevelt promised the Raisuli

The Natural--Knights vs. Pirates.  Little did you know I already have three painted Reviresco teams and two unpainted ones in my drawers of shame.  I love this movie, and the final scenes are so great. Don't know about scratch-building Knight's Field though. 

Saville Slugger's rain of destruction, courtesy of Roy Hobbs

The Patriot--Ha ha!! Fooled ya.  I hate this movie.  

Oh well, back to the cogs.

Block 20 Cogs

This is the next dozen cogs I completed tonight.  The chief difference from the earlier batch is that the fighting platforms are facing in the proper direction.  There are also a couple that are longer.  One got pretty thin which left a little too much overhang on the fighting platforms.  My goal is to create a kind of tubby effect and the long, skinny guy looks like a cog on a diet.

I'm going to do one more batch of cogs, ten or so, including some longer, chubbier ones.  I hope to have them done next week. I've run out of my templates for fighting platforms, so that will take a bit more time.

Enfilade: What to do?

Enfilade is still a ways off, but I need a plan for which games to host.  I have six games I'm considering, and unfortunately I can only manage three at most due to my responsibilities as convention director.  I've posted a little poll to allow you, my faithful readers, to guide my thinking.  No guarantees of course, but I'm interested to hear what you're thinking.

1. Gold Cup Hydroplane racing-These are with our home grown hydroplane racing rules, Thunderboats. It's a pretty long game and probably could only be run on Sunday morning.  This is an oddball game, but the boat racing game has a lot of faithful followers and generates a fair amount of enthusiasm.  Usually I run a design the boat/driver race instead of a historical game, but both have their proponents.  
2. Hobkirk's Hill-This little battle is a perfect size for Regimental Fire and Fury with the AWI expansion.  I love Fire and Fury.  I love the AWI in the south.  The only problem is there isn't much flash here.  The terrain is kind of a snooze and the Americans have to have some bad luck in order for things to break right for the Brits. 
3. Sluys-This would require a lot of work to get ready for an end of May convention.  I have a fair number of cogs painted with more building (Block 20 cogs posted soon.)  I'd also need to figure out how to scratchbuild some galleys.  And what about the land representing the estuary?  Nevertheless I think everything is doable in enough time to play test a couple of times. 
4. Closing Wilmington--Last summer I ran a couple of ACW naval games using Ironclads on a fictional battle to eliminate Confederate defenses on the Cape Fear River after the fall of Fort Fisher.  It's a fictional battle using naval forces in 1/600 and 6mm land forces.  I had fun with it, but it would still need some tweaking to make it work. 
5. 1962 Air Strike on Cuba is loosely based on an air action that could have occurred during the Cuban Missile Crisis.  I am really intrigued by this event.  It would be built around air recon, an interception and ground attack.  We'd use the Airwar C21 rules which I am increasingly fond of.  It is a great convention set of rules. 
6. Lewis and Clark is the same Arrest Captain Merryweather and his Followers scenario I've done before using the Brother against Brother rules.  These are much more appropriate for a convention setting than the Black Powder Battles I've used in the past. I take this game fairly personally because I'm the only person looney enough to do it therefore it must be fun or I become vaguely suicidal. 

The balloting is at the bottom of the page.  You're allowed to vote for more than one game, but please try to vote just once.  The links will take you to my previous posts on these games or projects so you can make an informed choice.

Drumbeat

Yesterday was the annual Drumbeat gathering held in Seattle each January.  This year it was in a new location, the Lake City Community Center, and a little later in the month which attracted a few more bodies. I really liked the new space and saw lots of friends I don't normally get to see except at Enfilade.

28mm Napoleonics using the Black Powder rules.

Dave Schueler and I hosted our Airwar C21 game.  It was just our second playing of the game, and I gotta say I just liked it more. We didn't have a ton of players, just Dale, Larry and Denny.  I helped run the Taiwanese, and Dave ran the Taiwanese frigate. Four RoC planes and ship vs. six PLAF bombers and six PLAF fighters.  We upgraded the the Chinese J-8's to include radar guided missiles, and that paid off.  One of Denny's RoC Chin Kuo's was shot down outright and one had to be abandoned by its pilot.  Nevertheless, all of the PLAF Fantans were shot down before they reached the frigate.

Larry and Dale plot their attack on the RoC frigate in a game of Airwar C21

A look at the advancing PLAF from my Taiwanese Mirage 2000.  Each of my planes shot down an adversary and excaped unscathed. (There's a first time for everything.)

A pair of Larry's J-8's overflies Denny's burning Chin-Kuo

I think what impressed me most about the game is that there is the potential of considerable maneuver in the missile age.  We were all launching left and right, but they didn't all hit or even lock on.  The ease of play made the game a very good time.  David Manley et al should be congratulated for writing a fun, very playable set of rules.  I've got an idea percolating for a Cuba 1962 scenario.

In the afternoon I ran my Lewis and Clark game.  It was my first game running a Brother against Brother game. I was really inspired to try this by Lawrence Bateman's Northwest Indian War game at Enfilade last year.  I thought it was really great and was perfect for the size of my scenario.

 How did my game go?  Well, it wasn't god awful, but let's just say Lewis and Clark didn't make it to the Pacific.  The Americans had problems with die rolls.  Shooting, moving, you name it, the Americans didn't have much luck moving back to the keelboats, or not far enough ahead of the Spanish.  On the other hand, the Spanish rolled extremely well, shooting, moving, you name it. Hmm, sounds like a pattern.

Spanish troops crossing the Missouri River bank before they attack the Corps of Discovery's boats.

Bruce Meyer, a Brother against Brother veteran had some great suggestions for future scenarios, and I'll have to give them a try.  They were excellent.

Show and Tell: The block 10 cogs completed

I put the finishing touches on my first batch o' cogs.  This is the finished project.  I painted the beads, er, fighting tops simple colors.  The hulls are pretty basic.  Tried dry-brushing them, though it isn't my long suit, and I think I'll need to find a better dry-brush color.  I really like the sails, even the plain ones, because it adds something too them, including disguising some of the masts that didn't quite end up perpendicular.

I put them on Litko bases.  They're actually modified Litko bases that began life as 80mm X 40mm and were chopped in half.  I painted them Ceramcoat Midnight blue, added a little foam, and coated with Liquitex gloss gel--miraculous stuff.

I've begun working on the block 20 cogs with the properly faced bow and stern castles.  I hope to have them up to view next week.  Consider the block 10 vessels a down payment on the Battle of Sluys.

Cogs: Work in Progress

After reading over David Manley's comments, and taking a look at my 28mm cogs, he is correct, the fighting platforms should be reversed.  Too late for these fellows.  I like to call them my block 10 cogs.  A step beyond my prototype, but with improvements to be made on future models. 

I'll be painting the vessels and gluing the  sails tonight.  I'll have to see if the sails are worth the trouble.  At least the sails should distract the viewer from the silly castle problems.

 Also on the learning curve, the large cogs seem too long and thin at 2" X 3/4".   The small cogs seem too tiny at 1"  Don't quite know whether I should just call a do-over on these or not.  I did cut some larger hulls at 2" X 1" which seem more reasonable.

The video is just kind of silly, a lot of me talking and not showing much in a very useful way I'm afraid.  Yes, my den is very messy-you don't even see the worst of it.  Final update on the block 10 cogs soon. 

The Bug that bites you.

Painting figures and working on projects are hard work.  It takes money, time, dealing with a certain amount of tedium and the mental toughness to persevere a project through to completion.  I don't have all that.  I have to "walk away" from what I'm working on from time to time just keep moving forward on my painting goals--which is always to paint a lot.

 I promised myself no new projects.  I lied. Sort of.  One of the big deterrents to taking on new projects is cost.  I rattled on a couple of weeks ago about cog wars.  I truly believe I've found scratchbuilding, in this case, to be the antidote to the cost of taking on this project.  Deadline also broke my concentration on the AWI unit I was working on, and yesterday, my first day of not not working on the paper  in over a week, imbued me with enough energy to focus my attention on the mass production of English cogs for the Hundred Years War.

 Here is my improved prototype.  I've added a sternpost and a small bowsprit, as well as a crow's nest for the mast top.  The stern post is just a chunk of flat toothpick.  The bowsprit a bit of brass wire, and the crow's nest a simple bead.  Given the scale I think they all work.  The production models will be a bit different.  The forecastle will be smaller at Daveshoe's suggestion.  The mast will be the same height, but the yard will be raised higher and will be thicker-brass wire the same thickness as the bowsprit.  I'm at sea about sails (pun intended.)  I will probably try to determine if it is worth the effort. 

If I can retain some momentum on this I'd like to finish 15ish vessels this week to show off at Drumbeat on the 29th.  Dave and I are hosting at an Airwar C 21 game, and I've agreed to pull my Lewis and Clark project out of the box and host a game using the Brother Against Brother rules.

Wrapping up the Indians

Tonight I finished my first figures of the new year.  The remaining 22 Indian figures are done.  I'm going to be moving on to the RAFM Martian askaris.  These are nice, if very tall, figures.  They were the first of the post-Bob Murch sculpts for the range and a worthy addition.  It would be great if there. 

The Old Glory figures are pretty simple and generic.  Nice sculpts and cleanly molded.  There are three different turban types, though none of them are super.  I wish the rifles had bayonets.  Anyway, I put them in khaki with some color distinctions to tell the difference.  I have the unit with red turbans inspired by pictures of Madras infantry in the 1890's.  I gave one unit a green turban tassle and green cuffs, inspired by an Osprey plate.  The last is a group with the tall turban/fez which I colored blue with blue turban tassle-simply out of my imagination.  These were fun and fairly quick to paint.  I especially liked painting the distinctive officers.  Two of them come out of the RAFM Victorian Adventurers pack.  The other is a Parroom Station officer.

I really like the Martian colonial figures.  There are two different figures plus a Martian NCO.  I've painted them up in rifle green for the Parhoon Rifles.  Still a ways to go on them. The officer is a colonial artillery officer by Old Glory.  He'll be in red trousers with red facings.  Color, ya gotta love color.

I have a second unit of the askaris, but am short a couple of figures.  This, of course, prompted my first miniature order of the year--two more askaris and ten sword wielding Martians to serve as tribesmen types.  Probably my last figures for this genre for a while.  I still have more Space 1889 figures to paint, but I'll continue to whittle away at them in 2011.

Gah!! Deadline's got me.

I'm in the middle of the first deadline of the year.  On a Friday night no less. It's actually been a couple of fun weeks of painting which I can honestly say I've had very few of the past few months.  Maybe I'm just getting used to wearing those cheaters.  In any case, I'm hoping to have some pictures of completed Indians and the Parhoon Rifles. to share this weekend.


My current painting subjects are the The King's Loyalist regiment.  16 nice little Perry figures that should go fairly fast--whenever I get the time.  If I can finish these guys fairly quickly I'm going to spend the rest of the month working on cogs.  I think I can mass produce a fair number of them quickly and I'm really looking forward to trying it. with some of the suggestions I've heard.

Scratchbuilding Cogs

What's a cog?  No not those, you've been watching too many episodes of the Jetsons.  Cogs were medieval warships, as ungainly as they sound.  Typically they were the simple clinker built merchant vessels planked over front and rear with raised fighting platforms.  Some were big--120 tons--some were small--30 tons--all were tubs.  Big tubs, small tubs, medium sized tubs.  They were difficult to manage in any kind of weather or rough seas.  It could take months or more simply to cross the English Channel.

In any case, after Lepanto and the acquisition of David Manley's medieval naval rules I've been trying to figure out how to acquire enough cogs to game with.  NavWar makes cogs, but they're NavWar, and without pictures to look at I'm skeptical .  Outpost miniatures makes some really nice looking cogs but at three pounds a pop and 50% shipping (!!!!) it doesn't seem feasible to put together a large fleet. Daveshoe and I were mulling this over yesterday and we discussed sizes and building materials.

Today I went to Michaels while out on my errands and picked up some bass wood. The   I purchased enough to make quite a few hulls and a fair number of castles and set to cutting the wood I'd need.  this is my prototype miniatures.  A simple tubby hull 1 1/2 inches X 3/4 inch X 1/4 inch.  I made the base for the castle 3/4" X 3/8"X 1/8" trapezoid.  I cut 1/4" very thin plasticard and cut crenelations in it to represent.  Plastic pole mast with steel wire yard.  Voila.  It probably took me an hour to make, but it would be very easy to mass produce and make eight in an hour using my Dremel tool. 

Interested in your feedback.  Considering I would like about a hundred of these, do you think they're workable?

Play test: Airwar C 21

Today Dave Schueler and I got together at a deserted Game Matrix and pulled out our Airwar: C21 rules and ran through them using my Chinese and Taiwan jets that have laid dormant so many years.

Dave and I have lamented our lack of air games a number times over the past year, and because we already have a lot invested in mats, planes and flight stands for something like Mustangs, we're reluctant to plunge into Check Your Six.  While I'm sure it's a fine system, I'm not wild about sinking another hundred bucks into rules, flight stands, another size hex mat, etc. David Manley is a game designer I truly trust and when I ran across them and discussed them with Dave, it seemed the right thing to do to at least try them out.

Arrived at Game Matrix at 11:00 and found nobody there.  The shop stayed empty most of the time we hung out, about three and a half hours.  Hopefully everyone was just watching the Seahawks game.  It being an air game, things set up quickly.  The scenario was simple: A group of Chinese attack planes (Q-5 Fantans) escorted by J-8 fighters were attacking a Taiwanese frigate and encountered their air defense, a pair of Mirage 2000's that were later joined by a pair of Chin-Kuo indigenous fighters that are rated much like F-16 block 30 export fighters.

 While I was really more interested in walking through the rules than the outcome of the game, the Chinese always have it tough in these games.  They don't have the advanced missile capabilities the Taiwanese do.  Armed with all-aspect infrared missiles they just don't hit very well.  When trading fire with radar guided missiles, the IR 's are always at a disadvantage.  Even so, I had six planes with missiles and Dave's Taiwanese only had four.  Of course they had the ship too, another story.

The game turned out much as expected.  The J-8's couldn't effectively fight off the RoC fighters.  We actually did get into a bit of a dogfight and managed to damage a Chin-Kuo with gunfire.  Missiles got all of my planes.  Sort of.  One of the Fantans actually got through the missile screen, including those fired by the frigate and was about to drop its smart bombs when the ol' radar guided three incher blasted me out of the sky.  Such is life. I think we're set with a scenario for Drumbeat on the 29th.

I found the rules pretty easy.  Scale is variable.  Planes are rated for a maximum speed with maximum allowable turning rated by plane.  Trickier turns are done as maneuvers.  There are seven maneuver choices you can do, and each must be diced for to complete.  All the maneuvers are tricky and require a better than average roll.  Failed maneuvers leave you out of position and a vulnerable target.


 I liked everything about Airwar C21.  If you have a hankering to try some jet combat it's worth your while.