Wings of War before the Winds of E-Burg

Tomorrow I leave for Ellensburg and Central Washington University for eight days. It's the annual summer journalism activities and I really need to attend them. For half of the time I'll be focused on improving my meager understanding of the Adobe CS3 suite, and the other half I'll spend with my students attending what is called J-Camp. If it sounds like a drag, believe me it isn't. I attended last summer for the first time and it was incredibly helpful and fun.

I'm busy a lot of the time, but there is down time too. I'll get some reading in, and I'm bringing along my Replay Baseball game, so I hope to get some of that in too. It's going to be hot while I'm there--high 80's and 90's projected through the 9th. No painting, unfortunately, and probably no blog posts unless I am mindlessly bloviating about some trivial topic.

On Wednesday I made my way down to the cards and comics shop in Olympia to play Wings of War. I've certainly seen lots of folks with the planes and decks, and everybody seems to be having a good time when they are playing. Dale Mickel set up a game for Wednesday, so I drove down and had at it. First a word about the shop. What an amazing place. Lots of board games and RPG's, a few minis but no historicals except for the WoW planes. There was also tons of cards, collectibles and other stuff to look at-more than I had time for. I'll have to go back just for another looksee.

I'm not very good at air games. I admit it freely. I'm not a very good planner, and I'm just as likely to half-loop into a mountainside as I am to make a useful maneuver. In fact I have half-looped into a mountainside. (Ask any Air Pirate how Kevin puts out fires!!!) Wings of War is played with card sequences, and I think by the end of the night I was able to start figuring that out.

We played two games. In game one I ran a couple of Sopwith Camels, and teamed with Dale who ran a Snipe and a DH (we love to explode) 4. The two German players, Scott Murphy flying two DR 1's, and Jeff, flying two Fokker D VII's left Dale in the dust and headed immediately for me. My Italian Camel blew up rather quickly, and the second Camel was forced from the board with heavy damage-but it did survive. Dale eventually arrived with the cavalry only to find himself outnumbered. Surprisingly the DH 4 was the only Brit plane to make it off the board.

In the second game we each took one plane. I opted for a Spad XIII, which maneuvers a lot like a garbage truck. It's pretty fast and can take a lot of damage, but I managed to take more than a lot of damage falling out of the sky with all struts shot through and my top wing falling off. I did however manage to blow up Jeff's D VII first, which gave me a little satisfaction as my plane augured into No Man's Land. All in all it was a pretty fun night for my first time out. Good to make it down to Olympia too. The guys always make an effort to come up to Tacoma, and it's nice to be able to replay their effort.

I'll be back from Ellensburg on the 9th. I'll be heading back toward work the following week. Not every day and not all day, but I'll be getting started.

New Recruits-The Captal de Buch

At the Battle of Poitiers nearly the entire English force was dismounted. Arrayed in the traditional three battles of medieval warfare, Edward, the Prince of Wales, the Earl of Salisbury, and the Earl of Warwick commanded roughly equal sized forces mixed between longbowmen and men-at-arms. Though the exact numbers are unclear, it is likely the English army numbered about 7,500 men.

Not all the soldiers, however, were English. Some were Welsh, a few were German, and some were French, Gascons from Guienne, or Aquitaine, an English possession in France since the marriage of Henry II to Eleanor of Aquitaine in 1152. Among the Gascon participants at Poitiers were knights/men-at-arms, crossbowmen, and the tiny mounted force under the Captal de Buch.

The Captal was a feudal title. His actual name was Jean de Grailly, one of the Black Prince's loyal knights that like Sir John Chandos, Sir James Audley and a host of titled soldiers remained companions throughout his life. At Poitiers the Captal led his command of perhaps 180 mounted Gascon knights and crossbowmen around the French left flank and into their rear while they were engaged with the English to their front. This led to the disintegration of the French main battle and the capture of King Jean. The Captal continued in English service until his capture in 1372. He was deemed too dangerous to be ransomed and died in French custody in 1377.

The figures are Front Rank mounted knights from the Hundred Years War range. I bought these in a deal with David Sullivan some years ago, and I am thrilled to paint up most of what I had left. I decided to make this army as colorful as possible by trying to paint historically accurate heraldry to the best of my limited ability, and providing a fair number of banners. The banners those that I downloaded from Dansk Figursspilsforening and painted over. They are mounted directly on the sizable lances included on the figures. The Captal is mounted on the black caparisoned horse with the gold and black banner.

I also remounted some figures for Medieval Warfare. It's likely they will be the only figures I remount from my singly mounted pile of HYW miniatures. These are Irish kerns, originally made by Corvus Belli, but since picked up by Crusader Miniatures. Crusader/Corvus's HYW very nice, if pretty abbreviated. I've painted up the knights and mounted command figures, as well as a pack's worth of the kerns. Kerns were Irish skirmishers, noted for their skill as foragers, er, pillagers, em, looters, armed chiefly with javelin and clucking chicken.

New Product: Gorilla Super Glue

I was chatting with David Sullivan on Sunday. Our topics are wide ranging, from game projects to cats to work issues. David talked about a Gorilla Super Glue, a new product from the Gorilla Glue folks. Gorilla Glue is not a CA glue, but it is tougher than white glue. However it takes a while to dry, and wouldn't be very good at holding together those fiddly bits that CA glues together instantly. There is a new product out from the same company, however, that is a super glue. It's difference from other CA products is that it is less brittle, so that if something strikes the bond it isn't as easily broken. Though Gorilla Glue is widely available, the super glue isn't so easily found, so I used the store locater to find a vendor nearby. It was reasonably priced at $3.99 for .53 ounces. That's a little less than what I pay for Zap CA glue.

Of course, I had to try it out right away. I actually had some painted knights that needed mounting to their painted horses. Yes, I know that's a no-no, but for these figures it was just so much easier to paint everything first before mounting. There is a big drawback to the glue--there are no fancy schmancy applicators. Before I could say "Oh shit!" I had a Lake of the Woods sized puddle on the back of my dappled gray horse. My advice is be very careful, the glue comes out in torrents. The bonds took immediately. I'm anxious to see how well they hold-it is always embarrassing to have George Washington falling off his horse in one's Continental Army.

Dansk Figursspilsforening

I'm always hoping to stumble across free resources on the web--like posted copies of the Journal of Medieval Military History that cost $95 bucks a pop. Yeah, right. Every now and then, however, I do stumble across something truly useful that fills a need, saves money, and saves hours of work. One of these is Dansk Figursspilforening. No, I can't say it, and I don't really know what it means-I just know it has something to do with Danish miniature wargaming. It appears to be club site, perhaps with tons of information, all in Danish. However, It does have some super cool downloads. The site has many flags for a variety of periods including the American Revolution and American Civil War, Russian Civil War and the Crusades. Along with the downloads is information about printing and resizing in English.
For my money, however (ironic, since everything is free) the most valuable downloads on the site are all of the heraldic banners from the Hundred Years War. The site offers banners for Crecy and Poitiers. Obviously they have English and French heraldry, but they also include Gascons, Flemings, Germans and other mercenaries who made an appearance. Not ten or twenty different designs, but hundreds. Below are a couple of examples.












As you can see, many of the banners often come with a certain amount of narration explaining if the noted knight or noble carried that device into other battles as well. Typically, I paste these into a word document and size them in a way I can best use them. Then I paint over the colors to give it more of a hand painted look before gluing them on to a brass standard, finishing off everything with a gloss varnish. I'm thinking about looking into different printer paper that may look more standard-like.

In any case, I hope you find this a useful site as well. It's linked on the right. I think the site owners have done a super job and provided a very handy resource.

The Trouble With Ancients

I am a battle guy. When I think of miniature wargames I've never been one to get stuck on points or equal sides, I more often get set on scenarios and particularly historical battles. Maybe it's just the history geek in me, or too many readings of The Face of Battle, but that's just where I am. When I take on a project, what usually drives my interest is a famous battle. Cowpens in the American Revolution, Battle of the Wabash in the Wayne's Legion era, Chippewa in the War of 1812, those are the visuals that helped me get going. I also was able to either find rules, or create rules that helped me realize my visions.

Ancients are different. I have purchased more sets of Ancients rules than any other period, or maybe I should say periods. WRG 6th and 7th editions, Legion (you're probably too young to remember them), The Universal Soldier, Tactica and Tactica Medieval, Warhammer Ancient Battles, DBM, others unnamed, and now Fields of Glory and Medieval Warfare. The problem with each of these rules sets are points. Everyone wants to play them as a competitive set of rules-make your army, set up the terrain, line your troops up and have at it. I guess what I want to see is Chaeronea, Pharsalus, Clontarf, and Agincourt. Maybe it's because ancients rules cover such a wide range of history-4,500 years-that such is necessary, I don't know.

Yes, there are some rules systems that have catered to specific epochs of the ancient/medieval millieu-WAB and FoG come immediately to mind. However, with some special exceptions, those are still tied to the rules and point systems, which may not effectively represent historical armies. Those that come immediately to mind are Republican Romans and Hundred Years War combatants. Naturally, I beef because these are the armies I have or am building in 25mm. However, no rules set have ever properly allowed the Roman Quincunx to exchange ranks, and I haven't seen much that convinces me that English longbowmen function properly. It would be nice if there was something more period specific. Even the army lists recommended in Medieval Warfare and Fields of Glory show the English and French knights as mounted, though the Goddamns never mounted their knights except for a small reserve according to a well established system, and les Crapauds decided that arrowstorms were too tough on horseys to fight mounted after Crecy. Excuse the notable exceptions. This is all a product of catering to the ancients at tournament generators crowd. Makes me a little crazy. Just give me a set of rules in which I can fight the battles with lots of little men.

Reports From Afar

This post has a number of purposes. First, it is my 100th post. I know they were pretty few and far between the first couple of years, but I'm pleased that I've settled into a system of regular posts in 2008. Maybe it's my own form of journalism now that I'm a student journalism adviser (yes that's the correct spelling in journalism-land.) The other fact I'd like to point out is that nearly 1700 visitors have landed on this blog, and I'd like to thank you for visiting. Thanks too for those of you who have had something to say. It's been nice to have posts to respond to.

Next, there are a couple of events coming up if you happen to be in the proper neighborhood. In eastern Washington SpoCon is a multi-genre convention at Gonzaga University in Spokane August 1-3. Information about the con is here http://spocon.us/ . Though this is more a sci-fi convention than anything else, there appear to be board games, rpg's and historical miniatures as well. Mike Clinton has mad noises about hosting Watch Your Six! air games, and there seems to be some Flames of War and other games planned.

The following weekend is Dragonflight in beautiful Bellevue, WA. Again this is a multi-genre gaming convention, probably the largest in Washington state. It's a good con, though historical miniatures are frequently under-represented. It's a tough gig. The con isn't cheap unless one pre-registers, and not only are games needed but gamers are needed. Information about Dragonflight is located here http://www.dragonflight.org/

My good friend Doug Hamm likes to keep me posted about game nights at the Bonsor Centre in Burnaby, B.C., home of the Trumpeter Club. They meet one Friday per month and host some fabulous games. The Bonsor Centre is a community center with lots of stuff going on, and it is a very practical, affordable venue for a gaming club. This month Doug and others played a 15mm Fire and Fury ACW game. How long has it been since you dragged your 15mm ACW out of the closet?

Doug wrote:

Here are a few photos from the recent game of the fictional "Cedar Run" 15mm ACW game hosted by me.

As usual it seems, I remembered most things one needs to put on a good game: terrain (woods, roads, fences, houses etc etc) but forgot the more obvious: like the dice and the rules!! Luckily, my friend Dennis brought his so all was good. Had more players than anticipated but I was making up the scenario anyway :-)

Will not bore you with all the details suffice it to say that my die rolling was a poor as ever as my two brigades never got into action as I rolled six 1s in eight attempts to get any of them off the road!! (the remaining two throws were a 2 and 3 - again not helpful! For the "Fire and Fury" rules 1s are bad and thus I could not even shake out of road column (I was in reserve). Luckily the Union were not in position to hurt me and the other Confederate players were busily defeating a Union force almost twice their size!

I used many of my 'special' units for this game; brigades represented by actual regiments of the war. The picture of the clash in front of the barn shows Wheat's Zouaves defending again the 165th NY Zouaves in the foreground. The close up shot from the back shows the 146th NY Zouaves (please be kind to the painter as these ARE 15mm and I paint fast) and another unit of 72nd PA moving through the woods. The final shots shows part of the action.

If you don't know Doug, he is a fabulous painter and creates some very nice, very practical terrain pieces. He is also half of the creative team of Larry Leadhead, and yes one is the most likely number Doug will roll regardless of the game system he is playing.

Finally, David Sullivan has begun writing a blog. David is another dear friend, possibly the smartest person I know and he loves ancients, cats, conservative politics, and shooting his cool collection of firearms. He is currently the director of Enfilade and has done loads of stuff for NHMGS. I've put a link to David's blog "I Live With Cats" in my links section. He is a great writer and a wonderful photographer. His entry on FoG is awesome.

Thunderboats!--the Extended Version

Yesterday seven of us gathered at Game Matrix to run out Daveshoe's revisions of Thunderboats for cup racing, meaning multiple heats. Dave ran the games while Dave Demick, son Casey, Mark Waddington, Dale Mickel, Chris Bauermeister and I pushed around the boats. Any excuse to race hydroplanes makes for a good day, but the additional rules for pit crews, enhanced build points, and the fickle nitrous bottles were especially fun.

I don't know what strategies others used, but building a boat with 21 points to spread over three heats was a challenge. I took Miss Wahoo, one of my favorite boats, and chose a top driver, a top pit crew, three engine points, four hull points, a couple of re-rolls, and one nitrous bottle. I figured it would allow me to take some extra chances, and the strategy worked pretty well-through one heat.

In heat one I finished third. I was actually positioned pretty well to compete for the win, but stalled just before the finish line. That's a tough place to crap out. I had good die rolls-no, great die rolls-until the bad card draw. Unfortunately everyone else had good die rolls too, so I couldn't recover. Dale won the first heat. In heat two, in the first turn, I took hull damage and lost three of my four boxes. I stayed pretty conservative for a full lap and decided to take a few more risks. This became more difficult when my driver lost his nerve, so his plus three die modifier became a plus two. Mark Waddington won, but I used my nitrous bottle on the final corner and rolled a perfect twenty to pass Dale and take second. I hadn't won any heats but with nine points was still competitive. I needed to win the last heat to win the race. Didn't happen. I had pretty mediocre speed rolls, and lost my nerve again, so I was only a plus one driver. That meant taking risks were, well, risky. Through a series of card draws and a nasty collision roll Wahoo got pretty well beat up. Worse, I just couldn't get a decent die roll and was in danger of becoming irrelevant as I fell further off the pace. Finally, on the last lap, I rolled a fifteen, trusted to luck and made a move that pushed me right into the crowd of leaders. The downside is I had five rolls to make for engine pushes, corner pushes, roostertails and the like. I only passed one and my boat's fragile hull sprung a major leak and my racing day was over. Mark won the race in a close finish with Dale. Well done. All seemed to enjoy the new rules. I thought they demanded a lot more strategic thinking.

I should explain the pictures. First-as usual-I nearly forgot to take any pictures. The camera remained in its bag until the third heat. The first picture is coming out of the first turn--probably turn two of the heat. Everyone is still racing. Hawaii Kai leads the pack. I'm the brown boat running second on the outside with Mark's red Miss Exide running inside. In the second pic Dale and Casey are counting hexes as Casey prepares to move his blue Revenge. "Ah geez my driver lost his nerve, can I manage to push that corner?"

Below, Dale's Mariner Too has a mishap with his nitrous bottle. Not many drivers took them as there was a chance that they could result in an engine fire. I only used mine once, and it was very successful. Dale used his twice, and the second time, bingo, engine fire. I happened to have a Litko fire marker to decorate his boat with. Dave contemplates the cluster of racers in the turn second turn of lap one. His Hawaii Kai is still leading, but he'll suffer engine damage in the second lap and have to drop out. My boat is in hanging in there, but in fifth place.

Tomorrow's Big Race

Lots going on tomorrow. We have an Enfilade wrap-up meeting tomorrow in Fife. I don't think there are any big issues, just the opportunity to de-brief the convention. After that we head to Game Matrix for a running of Thunderboats! This time we are doing an extended version with heats, pit crews and the option of purchasing nitrous bottles with their attendant risks. It should be fun. There is room for twelve players, but I only know of seven or so who have committed. We'll see. I'll have a report and pictures for this weekend.

I've made more progress on my English HYW army for Medieval Warfare. I finished fifty archers to go with the Black Prince. I'm going to paint up my dinky mounted contingent before moving on to work on some dismounted men-at-arms. I feel my enthusiasm waning slightly, but I'm trying to stay focused by painting a little something different than archers.

Painting with BB's

I dunno about you, but I really like Vallejo paints. Yes, they're expensive, but they are also really pigment heavy and cover everything. Even those problem colors like yellow and orange are so much better than anything else out on the market. In their little bottles, they last seemingly forever. I have some bottles that are probably five or six years old and they aren't dried out or even particularly thick. I don't use them for everything, still favoring a lot of cheap craft paints, but they are definitely a great tool in the toolchest.

I do have an issue with them however, and that is getting the paint out of the bottles. The pigment tends to stay at the bottom of the bottle, and sometimes no amount of shaking seems to mix the paint very well. And the tiny pin-hole spouts clog--ack, don't get me started.

On TMP I've heard others suggest dropping a BB in the bottle and using it for an agitator that flies around when the bottle is shaken, moving the pigment around and mixing it with the fluid inside. While at Long Beach, at a general store with BB's handy, I picked up a tube of Daisy's best steel shot. I've been using them since I got home, and eureka!! it works. Another measure I've taken to make my Vallejos a bit more user friendly is actually a little tool I've pilfered from my wife. She's a quilter, and uses long pins with a big head to pin her quilt squares together. These work much better to clean out the spouts than my collection of straight pins.

Anyway, these make me much more inclined to use my collection of Vallejo paints. Which means I'll use them up, and have to buy more at their inflated Spanish prices, meaning I'll be spending more on paint. I guess I can't win.

Loafing in Long Beach

Our sojourn in beautiful Long Beach, WA is nearly over. I can't say it's been the most fun vacation I've ever had, but it hasn't been bad. I've gotten some down time. I've read a couple of books. I've purchased six books. I've also been able to make it to some of my favorite Lewis and Clark sites. We brought the dogs with us, which has been at best a mixed blessing. It's been fun, at times to have them, but it's hard to leave them in the house-they hate being crated in a strange place, and taking them around in the car is no fun because they bark incessantly at almost anything on the street. So we've gotten out a bit less often than I'd like.

I brought a display figure to work on. It's a 75mm AWI figure of Glover's Marblehead Regiment. I have about another twenty unpainted display figures. This one took about ten or twelve hours to finish. I think this is an Imrie-Risley figure cast as a bicentennial keepsake. It's an okay figure, but more than anything else I liked the subject. I kept the miniature's dress as unconventional as possible with a blue sailor's coat and simple shirt and trousers. The miniature is based on a Charles McBarron painting for the Company of Military Historians. That figure was dressed in pretty much linen everything, the dress being pretty much non regulation. From the same series, I have a figure from the 3rd New Hampshire regiment, and that will likely be the next display figure I take on.

We return home tomorrow, Saturday. I'll be back at work on the Hundred Years War. I just finished reading Hewitt's book on the Poitiers campaign. It seems that about 600 or so of the 3,000 English archers from Cheshire and North Wales wore the green and white shirts and hats of the Prince of Wales' retinue, so there's something to focus my painting a bit.

Slidin' off to Long Beach

Lorri and I are leaving for Long Beach, WA today. Yes I know, Long Beach isn't sexy or popular, but it should be a good place to grab some down time. I'm taking paint and a 75mm AWI figure, as well as some books. I'll make time to drive over to Astoria and Fort Clatsop, two places I consider holy ground, with their close connection to Lewis and Clark and early northwest history.

I got a few more pictures taken last night. The first is of of my first twenty four archers. They are mounted for Terry Gore's Medieval Warfare rules. They turned out well and are a combination of Foundry and Old Glory figures. The OG minis come from the Agincourt range. I love the Foundry figures, but tend to stay away from the because of the cost. The Old Glory figures have enough variants to keep them interesting.









The last two pictures are of my command stand. The general for my English army is Edward, the Black Prince of Wales. Because my army is modeled along the one that fought at Poitiers in 1356, I decided I needed to have a miniature Black Prince to run the show. I chose to make something of a vignette for my command figure. Edward is simply a Front Rank knight mounted on a caparisoned horse. He wears the quartered arms of France and England on his caparison and his jupon. I gave him a nice, big standard carried by a Perry knight from their Agincourt to Orleans range. The flag was downloaded from the files section of the Warflag yahoo group and then handpainted. Edward is attended by a shield bearer pilfered from Henry V from the same Perry range. I didn't quite know what to do with the very large lance, so I quartered that too. All of the heraldic devices also carry the silver "label" (label argent) that denotes the owner is the Prince of Wales rather than the king.

Hydroplane Pictures

I've taken some photos of a couple of my newest hydroplanes. The first one is Casey's boat, the Revenge. It's not a historical boat, and the only one I've painted that is not historical. He likes the game and wanted a custom craft. We shared some ideas and agreed on a pirate theme, hence the Jolly Roger and the name Revenge in Old English characters.

The second boat is the Mariner Too. It was an entry in the 1965 Gold Cup and was driven by Fred Alter.

Just a reminder, if you are a regular reader and live nearby, we're running a hydroplane race on the 19th at Game Matrix around 11:00 Daveshoe has put together some rules for multi-heat races including pit crews and a rule for nitrous oxide bottles that should make racing a bit more strategic and interesting.

Buckets of Dice

Got together today with Gene Anderson, Dale Mickel, and Scott Murphy for some mid-week summer gaming. Aaahhh, nothing better. We met at Game Matrix and I dragged out my 25mm HYW figures. We actually planned to play a Zulu War game with Mark Waddington, but due to a family emergency he wasn't able to make it.

It gave me an excuse to pull out the figs, and re-run the Storming Party scenario I've had success with in the past. It actually makes a great three player game and using the old Tactica Medieval Siege rules, it's also very easy. There's just enough decision making in the scenario to give a non-playing GM something to do, plus the guys are just a lot of fun to play with. The scenario is easy: The French are defending a barbican at a river crossing and the English have to take it. Both sides have some goodies they can buy. The English have a loads of bowmen, some knights and a fair number of men at arms. The French have half as many troops as the English, but the English are faced with making a ladder assault. I have the Miniature Building Authority gatehouse and towers, so it looks good too.

The English opened by raining death on the French defenders, forcing them to seek cover in the protection of the fort. However when the English tried to scale the wall they were met with a cascade rocks and boiling water they never recovered from. They could never seem to stay on the wall long before some French defender either ran them through or tossed them over the wall. It was a lot of fun, everybody had their moment, and all got to roll buckets of dice. The only sad thing is that I forgot to take my camera.

On the painting front, I'm making some progress on more HYW figures for Medieval Warfare. I've got 24 archers painted, with more primed. I'm currently working on the general stand, painting up the Black Prince with a standard bearer and shield bearer. I hope to get some pictures up before I leave for vacation on Sunday.

Fields of Glory: First Impressions

I met with David Sullivan today and played my first game of Fields of Glory. I really enjoyed it. I didn't run many of the charts-David did that. I cannibalized some of my DBA armies to build an Early Ostrogothic army, the same army I used for DBM. It's mostly a foot bow and cavalry army. The horse is mostly the equivalent of medium cav, with one unit of armored horse. The bows, while there are many of them, and they get to roll piles of dice, aren't in a position to be decisive. Bow fire really has to be followed up by some kind of shock troops.

While I did get pretty much hammered in the game, it was still enjoyable, and worth playing. I need to paint up some more cavalry figures, and try it again!

I did add Mariner Too to my list of completed hydroplanes today, as well as Casey's custom painted Revenge. I'm looking forward racing them on July 19th at Game Matrix.

Hundred Years War: Phase 3

It's been a while since I've done anything with my Hundred Years War stuff. When I began this blog in 2006 it was my chief interest and passion. I've spent the past couple of years working on the American Revolution (another era I am incredibly passionate about,) as well as working on my Martians and hydroplane racing.

I would love to say I'm just getting ready to add more stuff to my HYW armies--I have about 300 figures of French and English, all individually mounted. However, that's not the case. I'm going to keep my figures individually mounted and paint up figs for both sides to play Terry Gore's Medieval Warfare. I own them, I've looked at them (a bit, sort of) and determined that I can play another one of my favorite battles, Poitiers. Actually my HYW super duper favorite game is Agincourt, but nobody can play the French dumb enough to make it competitive. Poitiers is an interesting battle--a real slog. In any case, I have enough figures to do the English. The army should look like this:
24 stands of longbowmen--96 figures
12 stand of dismounted knights/men-at-arms--48 figures
12 stands of billmen/hobilars/lesser melee troops--48 figures
4 stands of mounted knights--8 figures
Prince Edward
Some other general figure of note

I finished the first longbowmen this morning, and should have at least another dozen and Prince Edward by the end of next week. Because it is a mid 14th century battle, the knights wear heraldic jupons, but I'm going to leaven them a bit with a fair number of men at arms wearing the Cross of St. George. All things being equal, this army should not take forever to paint, though it will take longer than this summer (duh!!) I'll keep working on hydroplanes as well because they are such an interesting distraction.

Maxmillian on Horseback

I have a lot of figures for Maxmillian's adventures in Mexico. They are 25mm Wargames Foundry figures, back before the hated formation of Foundry. I love the figures; between the French and Mexicans, I probably have in the neighborhood of 300 infantry. I've used some ACW 25mm figures to cobble some guns together for both sides. The big problem, however, has been cavalry. Though they had them planned, WF never made any horse. The Mexicans had the ubiquitous volunteer lancers, as well as some fine regular cavalry. The French and Maxmillian's imperial forces had a lot of interesting and colorful horse as well.

Last summer I broke down and picked up three units of horse from the Houston's range of figures carried by London War Room. They are old, would not pass muster as state of the art, but were serviceable and cheap. This morning I finished painting the ten Austrian hussar figures that fought in Mexico. They're colorful, and will add to the gaming experience. I have one more Imperial unit, as well as a unit of Republican lancers. Together with the irregular Mexican cav unit I already have painted, that would give two units per side.

I'll try to finish the other two units some time this summer, but for now, I'm shifting gears a bit. I'm working on some HYW English. Starting with archers-who doesn't. I figure my Poitiers themed army for Medieval Warfare will require about 200 foot figures and about ten mounted. Don't know how long it will take to finish, but I will never know if I don't get started. Today I also started two more hydroplanes.

New Pics

It's Thursday the 19th, so I must be on vacation. Yippee. I've been busy too. I've made some painting time each day, as I promised, and I finished a couple of hydroplanes, and mounted up my Anglo Danish DBA army. Tonight I move on to the Austrian Hussars, before taking on yet another DBA project--the III/5b morph of the Byzantines. Here are some pictures

The Anglo Danes are a dark ages army. Yes, they are the folks who clobbered Harald Hardrada's Viking invasion of England in 1066. Of course they lost at Hastings a short time later and opened England to the Norman Conquest. You remember: King Harold Godwinson-arrow in the eye, Bayeux Tapestry and all that stuff. They are a remarkably boring army. Mostly spears, with three stands of blades and a stand of psiloi. I painted them with some sort of representation of Harold's dragon standard. It looks better in the picture than in real life--however it does pass the three foot test. The figures are 15mm Old Glory figures.

These are my two newest hydroplanes. The dark one is the Slo-mo-shun IV, the first three-point hydro. I believe her first year was 1952, and made Seattle the home of the thunderboats for many years. It had a very large aircraft style tail. This is a boat I painted for Dave Demick. The white boat is the Miss Century 21. It was originally Miss Thriftway, an extremely successful boat that Bill Muncey drove. It changed its name for the 1961 and 1962 seasons, and continued its success, winning the Gold Cup in '62. I don't think I got the striping quite right, but I did the best I could. The next boats I paint will be the Mariner Too for the '65 Gold Cup, and my son Casey wants a custom boat in blue. I think I'll call it Casey's Revenge and give it a bit of a pirate motif.

Fathers Day Peace

It's been a great Father's Day. Lorri has rewarded me with some cool stuff. She bought me a refurbished Inno, which is a satellite radio for XM broadcasts. Unfortunately it's not working, so it needs to go back to the factory. She also got me the HBO John Adams series, which I was really interested in. I read the David McCullough book years ago, and I really like Paul Giamatti, so I'm looking forward to the discs.

I also had a great day out with the boys. Love 'em both--just enjoy spending time with them. They picked me up at about 11:00 and took me down to see The Hulk movie, which I heartily recommend. Yes there's lots of violent superhero mashing of people and equipment, but what really makes the movie is Edward Norton, Jr., who plays the tortured Bruce Banner. Norton is truly one of the great actors of his generation, as well as a great writer and and filmmaker, and he gives the movie instant credibility and gravitas. Yes the mashing scenes are great, but it is the tortured Banner who keeps us grounded, and the supporting cast of Liv Tyler, William Hurt, and Tim Roth are excellent too. Hmm, real acting and a real story in a comic book film. After the movie we went to Rock Pasta, one of the few limited chain restaurants on the hill. It was a great day.

I came home and made some real time for painting today. I managed to finish up the last of the Anglo-Danes, even gave them King Harold's dragon standard. I also wrapped up Slo-Mo-Shun IV for Dave. I'll mount up the DBA army this week and continue working on the Austrian Hussars from Mexico. After that it's Byzantines for DBA, and Miss Century 21. It looks like I'll get to play some games next weekend, so David Sullivan may school me in Fields of Glory. I'll have to reconstitute my Gothic DBM army. School's out on Tuesday, so I'm hoping for lots of painting while I rest and work around the house.

Fighting the Funk

Been in a bit of a funk this week. I'm still recovering from a touch of the bug Saturday night, which has left me tired and feeling cranky. I am still picking at the Anglo Danes, though they are getting close, and have made zero progress on Slo-mo-shun IV. The latter is tricky because the paint I've used for the cowl and tale is just not going to cover the mahogany deck coloring, so it will likely take twenty-six coats. More margin for error.

David Sullivan called the other night to let me know he's received his basing material for Medieval Warfare. That's generated a little more interest for me in that project, so I may just take that one on for the time being. I got my Litko bases last week, so I am able to put together a bunch of stands too. I do need to finish the DBA army, Slo-mo, and my Austrian hussars for Mexico, but then I think I can work on the HYW stuff for real. I've got a dozen longbowmen ready to paint, but think I'll focus on the French around Poitiers.

One contributing factor for the funk is no games. I'm up to my eyeballs in family and social obligations this month. I've got stuff going on every Saturday. That doesn't include Dave Demick's 60th birthday, and I can't miss that. At least school is out in a few days. Maybe I can squeeze in a couple of weekday games.

Temptation: The Mother of All Evil

We've just finished our last deadline week. They are long difficult weeks. I'm typically at school until 9:00 on Monday, 10:00 Tuesday, and 11:00 or later on Wednesday. I get home too wound up for sleep and so I'm up until 10:30 or later most nights. There's no painting, a little reading. Next morning and for the next few days I feel like I'm walking about in a haze. I often feel the need to give myself a little treat with a new book or two or a figure purchase. I've been desperately been trying to resist the last two. Frankly I have plenty of books to read and loads of figures to paint as you do too I'm sure. I've been looking at the Historifigs Spaniards for the American Revolution. I would need these for a U.S.-Spanish clash in the Lousiana Territory in the early 19th century, or in the Mississippi valley. I'm also intrigued by the black and tan figures by Musketeer Miniatures. I don't even need many of those--maybe two dozen for a skirmish game for the Irish Rebellion of 1919. The trouble is that I have plenty of Americans to paint for the former, some Irish and British regulars to paint for the latter, so purchases can wait. Of course, that's logic speaking, and who knows how long I can hold out against the little voices inside my head.

I have gotten some painting in the last few days. I've made progress on Slo-mo-shun IV, and I only have another 20 15mm figures to finish in order to complete my Anglo-Danish DBA army. I should have them both done mid-week or so.

A Twist on Thunderboats!

One obsession that's stayed me with for much of the last year is my interest in hydroplane racing. Daveshoe and I are discussing some slight changes and additions to the rules, including points for pit crews. Rules for pit crews could be important if I proceed with my next big idea--historical races.

Hydroplane racing in Seattle has a proud history, and wouldn't it be fun to do some historical races. Not only that, but it would help me direct my building and painting plans. I've taken a look at three Gold Cup races in Seattle-1959, 1962, and 1965. There is a great list of boats for each of these races. Some of them would be hard to obtain pictures for, but it would also give me something to do. For the time being, I'll start with the 1965 group, which has some fun boats. I don't quite know how I'll recreate the enormous Such Crust with its twin engines, but I'll think you just stick with the models I have. The boats for the 1965 Gold Cup race are:

Miss Exide
Miss Bardahl
Miss US 5
Mariner Too
Gale's Roostertail
Tahoe Miss
Miss Madison
Notre Dame
Miss Smirnoff
Miss Lapeer
Savair's Mist
Such Crust

Added: Painting Log

I used to be fastidious about keeping a painting log and participating in the PLEDGE feature on TMP. Now I don't visit TMP very often and haven't kept up with a painting log in over a year. So I figured, what the heck. I can keep it here on my blog with handy little format feature. I'm keeping it simple with some very basic categories. We'll see if they change over time.

A New Year Begins

As I babbled earlier this week, my painting/project year always begins after Enfilade. I've actually had a pretty busy and productive painting week, though it's unfocused, scattered and just kind of painting for fun--never a bad thing. When I got home from the convention I was in a bit of a painting mood so I looked at some things on my desk and thought about some figures I had laying around and decided to work on those. This week I finished another hydroplane. It was Miss Spokane. It was a boat from my childhood. (Photo courtesy of the Hydroplane History website.) This particular boat also appeared in a beautiful lilac and lavender color scheme, but there is no lilac paint available. I could have mixed it but my concern was for when I would have to match that base paint after I made my inevitable errors. I'm looking forward to continued painting of boats over the summer. I'm actually considering painting all the boats that appeared in the 1965 Gold Cup in Seattle. Then I could have a real historical miniatures game. Ironically Miss Spokane was in that race as the Miss Lapeer, weird tail and all. However, my next boat will be Miss Century-2, the former Miss Thriftway, with all the striping. Hope I'm up to it.

Another wild hare that took my attention were my old Houston's 28mm Maxmillian adventure cavalry. I've had thirty of these sitting in a drawer for over a year. I mounted up the Austrian hussars, and given their colors they should be something to see. I'll take pictures when I'm done with them. I'll have enough horse for two units per side, which should make things a bit more interesting.

However, what I'm really hot and heavy to finish is another DBA army. I'm working on the Anglo-Danes--you know them, the guys who lost at Hastings in 1066. That Harold fellow got it through the eye (ouch!) Anyway, it's one less DBA army awaiting paint. I've finished the huscarles and psiloi, and am working on the eight stands of fyrd spearmen. Don't know when I'll have them done, but maybe by next weekend.

It's our last deadline week of the year. I don't expect to get much done in the evenings this week. However, with the summer vacation not far away, I'm already beginning to plot about how I'll spend my time.

Enfilade 2008: Final Thoughts

I just wanted to post some final words about the con. I actually thought it was quite good. David and Allan did a great job of enticing folks to attend with plenty of people to play the games.

Speaking for myself, it was one of my less favorite conventions. I tried to do too much, and didn't get around to see the other games. I'm chalking it up to lessons learned.

I would be remiss if I left out my list of purchases. I had purchase plans--which I exceeded of course, but here's my list of ill-gotten treasure:
1. Two of the excellent Acheson Indian longhouses from Reviresco. They were on my buy list, and with the two I picked up last year, should give me enough for a small village. An incentive to work on my Wayne's Legion stuff a little more seriously.
2. From Stonehouse Miniatures--a steam powered elephant in 28mm. Every VSF army needs one of these babies. Armed with a revolving turret and a cannon in the elephant's mouth, don't leave home without it.
3. Ten more hydroplanes from Shawn McEvoy at Craftworks. Hell, it could have been thirty more and I don't think I would have run out of ideas.
4. The last purchase is the goofiest purchase. As things were closing down on Sunday I walked by the Reviresco booth, and saw the interesting gigantic tree house John McEwan assembled the day before and commented on its coolness. It's about ten inches tall with room for a few figures or a light or swivel gun. When John offered me a deal, I took it though the $40 price tag was a bit steep. I gotta figure out something to do with this damn thing.

Hey kudos to all of my Enfilade colleagues--David Sullivan, Allan Dyer, Damond Crump, Bruce Meyer, Bryan Shein. A special thanks to all who helped on the reg desk--they were simply fabulous--Mark and Joe Waddington, Arthur Brooking, Mark Serafin, Bryan Shein, Scott Williams, Mike Snively, Ted Henkle, Wes Rogers, Matt Rocco, and Chris Bauermeister.

Last, but not least, I was incredibly impressed by the careful consideration given by the judges in the painting competition on Sunday. (It didn't hurt that my beloved hydroplanes won in their category, but I was impressed none the less.)

Cowpens at Enfilade

This was my big project for Enfilade. As I've said before, it is a battle I've always wanted to do, but due to the unique nature of the battle--the British fighting in open order and the American militia's defense in depth, retirement and subsequent return to the battlefield, there are a lot of moving parts. My goal is and was to create the conditions for a historical result, but not build a simulation in which the results were pre-determined.

In my final reading for the battle, I learned that McDowell's troops-they formed the first line of sharpshooters reformed with the second line, adding twelve figures to them. In addition, the third line had two small additional units of militia. All militia was set up historically in a single rank-open order. The British infantry was also set up in a single rank-open order. I also added some dense woods on the very edge of each side of the board. This represented the swampy ground that prevented a flanking movement by the British during the battle.

The conditions for turn one were pretty much the same as they were for the last game test in May. The Brits rolled forward--quickly this time as they didn't have to slog through the woods in close order. The Americans fired per their scenario table and did significant damage only to the British lights. Being elite veteran infantry, they shrugged it off when it came their turn to move. None of the 2nd line militia routed from the table, and they were all able to make it behind the third American line and were removed from the table.

The British line continued rolling almost up to the third American line, where things began to fall apart. On the British right, the 17th Light Dragoons chased off the Beatty's small militia company, and was blasted by the Brandon's Fair Forest militia when it reentered the board. Tate's Virginia Rifles, firing at long range and low on ammunition rolled double tens at the British lights just as it looked as though they would be swept away. It disordered the lights, killed their commander and caused them to spend a turn just milling around. The American left held when Hayes' militia battalion returned in time to reinforce them. The British light infantry escaped--the only British unit to do so.

In the center, the big British Legion infantry unit marched right up to the American continentals in close order, only to receive a withering blast. Losing three stands, the British traded volleys ineffectively with the Americans before taking one more stand loss. They retreated one move in disorder before routing ignominiously while trying to rally. This left a huge hole in the British center and unmasked the right flank of the two British battalions-7th Fusiliers and 71st Highlander, which the Continentals gradually moved to occupy.

On the British left, the three squadrons of the British Legion Dragoons advanced cautiously toward the Virginia/South Carolina State troops and a pesky unit of militia. Expecting the American cavalry reserve to pop up, they were not disappointed. The Brits quickly disposed of the S.C./Georgia Dragoons, but had no answer for the 3rd Continental Dragoons who routed to of the squadrons, while the third was shot to pieces by rifle armed militia.

With both flanks collapsing, and the cavalry destroyed, it was impossible to cover the withdrawal of the fusiliers and highlanders, and at that point the game ended.

Game-wise there was no fault to attribute. The Brits attacked fearlessly, and I really thought the Americans were done. The devastating fire on the British Legion followed by their rout was just some die rolling gone awry. The case was similar for the die rolling by the British Legion Dragoons commander. Rolling ones in melee for a Fire and Fury based rules system is just bad.

I really enjoyed all the guys who played-Lloyd Bowler from Astoria, Gene Anderson from Chehalis, Lawrence Bateman and Damond Crump from Tacoma were the Brits. Shawn McEvoy from Normandie Park, Mitch Berdinka from Silverdale (?), Norris Hazelton from Lake Forest Park, and Andrew Mah from Vancouver, B.C. were the Americans. They were great to play with and I appreciate their kindness.

What Next?

Enfilade always marks the beginning of my painting and projects year. It goofs up what is already a strange year in my other, teaching, life. I can honestly say I have no interest in beginning a new period, though I can't exactly say I'm not interested in a new project.

I'm in negotiations with Daveshoe about perhaps doing the Raid on St. Nazaire in 1/600. I've mentioned this before. It would likely be a project for Enfilade and it would take some doing. The miniatures aren't difficult, but they are many, and we would also need to buy the seawalls, lock gates and etc., from Skytrex.

I'm interested in cleaning up some of my other incomplete projects. I actually have begun preparing some of my 30 Maxmillian in Mexico cavalry figures. It is likely these will be the first 25mm figures I work on.

I have some Martian figures that need painting too. I have lots of mounted figures to do as well as some sepoys. There is also the matter of the two lob cannon I bought earlier in the year. This would be a clean up activity together with Maxmillian.

I still have a skazillion DBA armies (okay, that might be hyperbole, but I almost certainly have ten) that need some paint. I am currently working on the Anglo-Normans. I'd like to also get the Early Byzantine Cv morph done I've been holding onto for years. I'd also like to paint up the Alans.

Just some thoughts for summertime painting activities.

Thunderboats at Enfilade

As planned I ran Thunderboats at Enfilade. Or maybe Daveshoe really ran Thunderboats at Enfilade. We raced on Friday afternoon and Friday evening. We had full heats in the afternoon session, and I think that those who raced had a good time. Some guys tried different things and it looked like the Enfilade Cup race would be full and fun.


Actually, we had difficulty attracting a full house for the Cup race. However we did eventually get six. Unfortunately I didn't see much of it as I had to run home to retrieve items important to the con, so Dave did yeoman service running the races. Darryl Allison won the race and I'll be ordering his trophy from Crown Awards in the next day or so.

We didn't see Shawn McEvoy until Saturday, and unfortunately it was with only a handful of boats. He did hand off the first production buoys which should paint up pretty interestingly. Shawn explained that he had smoothed out his production process, so that should make getting the next batch of boats easier. I ordered another ten, which was one of my projected purchases.
We planned some racing on Sunday, but it simply didn't attract a crowd. Arthur Brooking and Steve Winter ran against Dave and I, just one heat. Dave, playing against type won, while Steve and I tied for second and in a runoff I won.

Though the the enthusiasm for Thunderboats did not quite reach my expectations, I did have one source of support for my interest in this game. I entered three hydroplanes-Miss Bardahl, Miss Exide and Miss Pay 'n Save-in the painting competition. They won in the vehicles category, which was quite gratifying.

I have primed another boat--Miss Spokane--and I will paint her in the black and white paint scheme of 1960. I owe Dave one more hydro, and it will be Slo-mo-shun IV. The large aircraft type tail should pose a challenge.

Eniflade '08 is History

Made it back from Enfilade a few hours ago. It was a remarkable convention in many ways and one I found frustrating in others. I'll be devoting several blog entries, with photos to the convention doin's in the next 48 hours or so. I thought I'd just share some general high points along with a few of the lows.

First, it was a hugely successful convention. Not sure of the final count, but I'm guessing attendance was in the 250-260 range. It was the largest count since we've located at the Olympia Red Lion, and one of the largest in the convention's seventeen year history. When a convention has great attendance, it's also important that there be lots of games--preferably some really good ones. I confess to being very busy with "duties" at this con, so I didn't have a chance to get around and see as much as I usually do. However, I got impressions from lots of the guys, and all seemed to be happy with the number and variety of games. Tables were full in almost every game period.

It was also a pretty smooth running convention. I put in a lot of work on the front end to get the reg desk to run easily for the volunteers. We had great volunteers who took on the responsibility of the Bring and Buy. Very rarely did volunteers have unanswered questions, and I think that was really a testament to their quality. There seemed to be few hassles in terms of game schedules and table locations. That might be because Allan Dyer did such a great job of filling the game tables. I was really impressed with the number of games and the very few number of empty tables (but I've said that already.)

The best part of any convention is seeing old friends--I hesitate to call them convention buddies or once a year friends, but I really do have a fondness and feel a connection to so many. I missed seeing Doug at Salute this year, and I was ridiculously busy this weekend, so I didn't get to spend as much chat time with him. I'll do better next year. Loved seeing the other Canadians too, Bruce, Wayne, Tom, and Andrew as well. I also got a little bit of a chance to talk with Matt and Lloyd from Oregon-two of my favorite retired teachers. Met some new folk as well. David Kujit was our special guest-the creator and moderator of the Fanaticus page. Though I didn't get a chance to play DBA this year, I did have breakfast with David and Doug Saturday morning, and had a great chat.

I guess there was only one downside to the convention and that was the my own doing. I was just over-committed with games and time on the desk. I'm going to commit to max two games and one period on the desk year. I found myself exhausted, frustrated and on edge much of the weekend--unable to appreciate the convention for the success that it was until I got home--and that's just wrong. As with all things there is room for improvement that I'll share with the organizers, but all in all a very nice gathering we can all be proud of.

In the next couple of days I'll have at least two entries about games at Enfilade, particularly Cowpens and Thunderboats. While I didn't get as many pictures as I'd like, I will have a few to share as well as some reflections on lessons learned from the games.

New Hydroplanes

It's off to Enfilade tomorrow.

In addition to preparing for Cowpens, I've painted some more hydroplanes. Painting hydros has been really fun. They are all historical from 1951-1965, so they are classic hulls. I painted a couple for Dave Demick. Miss B and I is interesting because it has the pink sides and cowl. It's supposed to have big block letters and I just couldn't get 'em right. I also painted Gale V for Dave. It is one of my favorite boats from my childhood. It is a foreign boat from Detroit, but it has great colors. The model turned out well too, despite my endless search for the right shade of yellow.

For myself, I painted boats that would have had dropped sponsons. Because the models don't show this, it means that some details that would have been easier to paint require a bit more care. I painted Miss Pay N Save. It's a beautiful boat with the striped tail. I just couln't get the pin stripes straight, but I really did enjoy painting the unique striped details on the hull. Miss Madison (1962) was a boat I chose because of the interesting color scheme. The blue on mahogany scheme was attractive, but the odd shaped tail with the black and white pinstripes was difficult.

The hardest part of painting the hydroplanes is trying to shape the tails properly. At the bottom of the tail it is difficult to fit it into the slot of the body. The other challenge is shape the top of the tails. Miss Madison and Bardahl had odd-shaped tails. I really struggled to get Madison's correct. My next boats will be Slo-Mo-Shun IV and Miss Spokane. Sl0-Mo has a tail like Bardahl's only larger, and Spokane has a free form tail. They'll be a challenge.

Countdown to Enfilade

I have four days to finish what must be finished. Chief among these are my Enfilade duties. I am in charge of organizing the registration desk--rounding up and scheduling volunteers. Thankfully we have enough, and I am eternally grateful to them for giving up their time. It's a little different, as they will also be running the Bring and Buy feature, which replaces the old flea market tables. The pre-registration is my other job. We had a huge number of people go through pre-reg--145, which is an increase of thirty five over last year. This might be due to the PayPal feature we used. In any case it makes a lot of work for me, making badges and organizing all those who who have pre-registered. However, it should make life a bit easier for the reg desk volunteers. My work with this is almost done, but between typing badge names, assembling and stuffing badge holders I bet I have at least twelve hours in. The good news is I'm not waiting until the last minute.

I am running a passel of games as well. The painting is pretty much over. I am still wrapping up a few things. Cowpens is all painted. I finished four of the five 1/600 scale boats for Action Stations today. I have two hydroplanes 75% complete. However, there is still some work to do on the Cowpens scenario and the accompanying quick sheets. Once I get started it shouldn't take too long. I also need to organize all the militia units and determine what goes where as I do the set up for both sides.

I'm hoping to do one more entry before Friday. I have some pictures I'd like to take and post of at least my new hydroplanes, and perhaps some of the Cowpens minis as well.

Preparing for Enfilade

With Enfilade next week, I've been trying to get as much as possible done in the evenings to do my share of the planning preparation, as well as readying my games for the big hoedown.

I'm responsible for all the pre-registration prep, and this year I agreed to take on making the name tags for pre-registration. I finished that last night, only to realize that the font size I used was too small. Because I saved 'em as PDF's I couldn't simply change the fonts, so I actually re-did them all. I hate myself. My next big chore is to double-check the front desk volunteers and see if or where there are holes.

Last night I finally put to bed all the Cowpens miniatures. I rebased the highlanders, and magnetized the bases on the all the cavalry figures, highlanders, and Continental infantry. I still need to update the rules and charts a bit, and I need to write up the scenario stuff for both sides, but that is a project very nearly complete.

My last big must-do gamewise is painting and basing some Action Stations minis. Really not much to that, just enough to keep me busy for a few hours over a couple of nights. I have five mostly PT boats to finish. It's the basing that is time consuming.

On Sunday I finished Dave Demick's Miss B and I and my Miss Pay 'n Save. I just couldn't quite get either of them right. The big block numbers on B and I completely eluded me. Pay 'n Save went better. It's a beautiful boat with a dark hull and interesting accents. I've begun two more boats that I'd like to have for the convention. Dave wants Gayle 5, and I'm going to do the first Miss Madison (1962) which has some beautiful coloring. Unfortunately the latter has a very oddly shaped tail that I haven't quite gotten right, but I don't know if I ever will.

Final Cowpens Test-Success at last

Mark Waddington, Gil Fussel, Jr., Scott Abbott and Lawrence Bateman helped me out with my last Cowpens test yesterday. I made some changes based on our last go-round about five weeks ago. We agreed that the conditions of the battle were, in fact, difficult to reproduce. It's not surprising-often battles turn on such small chances, it's those little things that generate such interest. At Cowpens, Tarleton turned out to be a rash commander, rushing into battle without reconnaissance, not knowing that he was facing a considerable militia force with just enough backbone to beat his brains in. However the mechanics of allowing a large American militia force to retire safely from the battlefield in the face of an advancing enemy, returning again to fight, is difficult to re-create.

After our last playtest-which was so discouraging, I put the advice of others into action. The Americans were able to fight their second line off the table and return, while the cavalry did arrive on the flank of the British and administer a crushing defeat. Though enough of the Brits were present to retreat a chunk of their troops off the table-avoiding the Tarleton calamity. However, with most of the British cavalry gone and the American horse relatively intact, it might have been a nasty show for the little force.

In any case I'm looking forward to Enfilade and trying the game for real. I need to finish up some troops, and make some modifications to the rules and the tables, but I'm much further along than I was afraid I might be. Thanks to Mark, Scott, Lawrence, and Gil.

My Desk is a Mess

I'm sure you all have this problem from time to time. You work in a small space, and you have far more crap than you can easily manage. I've also managed to distract myself innumerable times with a variety of different projects and activities. Hence my desk is just damned messy right now.

I inherited my game space from my youngest son when he moved into the bigger bedroom eight years ago. It's 8' X 8' so the name game room is a bit of a misnomer. It's nowhere near big enough to play games in. It's really just my work space. I have my painting table and all my supplies here. To the right of the table is a large closet, which has a lot of storage. I keep almost all my unpainted figures here. Across the table, which you can see, is a bookcase with all my Ospreys, rulebooks, and other game related writing--some history books too.

Usually I amuse myself with movies while I'm painting. I've got the DVD racks against the wall, and like everything else, they've overflowed to other areas. I love to watch BookTV on CSPAN-2 on the weekends, especially since the Mariners are in the proverbial death spiral to the bottom of the American League and are difficult to watch today-down 8-2 to the hated Yankees. Lorri bought me a 36" HDTV a couple of months ago--bigger wouldn't fit in this space, and that was a nice upgrade.

I have too many things on my desk at the moment. The white pile of 15mm figures is an Anglo-Norman DBA army awaiting paint--has been for months. I have some of the Bronze Age 25mm Martian heroes range (I know they don't actually call them that-there is a copyright issue) The figures I'm working on and desperately hope to finish soon are the redcoated 17th Light Dragoons. I need these for my Cowpens scenario at Enfilade.

What does your painting space look like?

Doin's

I know, It's been a long time since my last post. I was away yet again, this time to the JEA convention in Anaheim. Yes, I was within five miles of Brookhurst Hobbies, but managed to stay away. I spent a lot of time learning about student journalism, and a lot of time at the happiest place on earth (Disneyland) chasing around high school juniors and seniors. It was fun, but I can assure you I did little that had anything to do with miniature wargaming.

Since I returned home I've worked on a few things. I've been painting up my itty bitty unit of 17th Light Dragoons. I should have them done in a couple of days. I've also worked on a couple of hydroplanes. I am nearly done with the Miss B and I for Dave Demick. It's a Tacoma boat from 1958. I've also begun working on Miss Pay N Save, which is a very pretty boat out of Seattle. I'll have both of them for Enfilade.

When I arrived home on Monday I found my copy of Medieval Warfare by Terry Gore waiting for me. I had hoped to have it to take it with me to Anaheim, but missed it by a day. The rules look really good. They reflect the period better than lots of other more generic ancients rules, such as Field of Glory. This looks better for me that the HYW.

Mountbatten Pink

I am back from Palm Springs. It is my second trip to that wonderful community, and I found it almost as enjoyable as last year. Just to be clear, there are no wargaming shops in Palm Springs. There are hardly any book stores in Palm Springs--I brought my own. Just lots of golf courses. The weather was good-about 80 degrees most days.

That said, I haven't touched a paint brush in almost two weeks, which means I need to get it in gear. I still have two units to paint for Cowpens, plus some hydroplanes and wee boats for our Action Stations game. In addition, I'll be shuffling off to Anaheim in about ten days for the JEA conference, so there's no time to waste.

Mountbatten Pink is the color of the Campbelltown and the MGB's/MTB at Raid on St. Nazaire--that's a mix of gray and dark red: heavy on the gray.

Campbelltown Arrived Today

My 1/700 HMS Campbelltown arrived today. The manufacturer is Russian, called B-Resina. It's very nice. The hull is nicely shaped, with almost no flash or mold marks. There are few large parts to assemble, the funnels come as part of the hull. There are some superstructure pieces to assemble and the 20mm guns come as two part castings. They'll be tricky (but they sure look nice.)

Probably won't get far with this until summer.

Away, Away, Away

It's deadline week and I'm writing this from school. I haven't gotten much done since the weekend. To complicate things further, I'm heading off to Palm Springs next week during spring break. I am so ready, and I'm even happy to leave my miniatures behind.

Just a couple of quick things. We tried a Cowpens playtest on Saturday. My original concept for the game simply didn't work. The first line of sharpshooters we'll definitely eliminate. The Britsh attack stalled out attacking the second line of militia, and the militia simply didn't function as it should. We tried a second playtest eliminating the first line, and the Americans were overwhelmed, so it's back to square one. I've had a couple of suggestions. Wes Rogers suggested eliminating the passage of the second line altogether, beginning with the British wounded, and the militia bolting through gaps in the American third line. Jerry Nordbye is of a mind that there is a way to make the militia behave like freakin' militia, and play through the passage of the second line.

Anyway, we have another playtest scheduled for April 26th, and I'll worry about it then. For now I'm going away to Palm Springs--hope to see a road runner as I did last year, have some fun in Joshua Tree National Park. Fun is good.

Raid on St. Nazaire-hmmm

I'm still painting away on my Cowpens minis, but I am beginning to see the end, and I can begin looking ahead to future projects. As Daveshoe and I began talking about an Action Stations game we also talked about the Skytrex range of harbor accessories. Dave suggested that these were intended to build the port facilities for the commando raid on St. Nazaire in 1942.

I was intrigued by the possiblity of the action perhaps as a project for Enfilade '09. I also picked up David Mason's little Ballantine book on the raid from 1970. I polished it off, together with all of its fabulous illustrations and maps in a couple of days. It really whet my appetite. There are lots of things to work out, such as how the commando units would work with the rules, spotting and the like. However, the most important question was the miniatures. All of the motor launches are Fairmile B's, which are available from PT Dockyard. The funky MTB with tubes over the deck is available from Skytrex. What about the Campbelltown, the former American destroyer, modified and packed with explosives to blow up the Normandie lock gates? There is a resin waterline kit offered by B-Resina of the ship as it was modified. Cool eh

Format Change

I finally updated the format for the blog. It had some unintended consequences. The posts remain, but I had to re-do all my links, my library, and managed to lose my beloved counter. In any case it should be easier to look at the older posts, the photos are formatted better, and it is much easier to update links and post other information.

I'll even try to add another counter some time soon.

I've added a couple of new links to the blog. One is a link to a hydroplane history website. If you're interested in Thunderboats! at all, this is a treasure trove of photos and information. Another is a link to a Danish wargame site. It's mostly in Danish (shocking!!) however they have some great flag downloads including the American Revolution and the Hundred Years War which I've found quite handy. Last, I've included a link to the Company of Military Historians. These are chiefly artists creating color plates of uniforms in American military history. Many of these guys have been around forever and include names like Clyde Risley and Charles McBarron. Others are of more recent vintage. It is a treasure trove of information, and it is possible to become a subscriber and receive their work in your hot little hands. Hmmm, better references or more lead? Which would you choose?

Closer to Cowpens

This weekend I finished some more American troops for Cowpens. I wrapped up the Virginia/South Carolina State Dragoons, as well as the volunteer horse that filled out William Washington's mounted arm at the battle. I also got a bit of a start on the last twenty-four American militia I'll need to paint. This leaves only some British dragoons (6) and some unkilted Highlanders (24), plus some leader figures for both sides.

I've scheduled a playtest at Game Matrix. I'm hoping to have the militia ready to go for that practice game. I'll try to get some pictures of the new minis up some time early in the week.