Arrowstorm Part Deux

Last weekend my band of supportive friends met at Game Matrix to give a second run through of my Hundred Years War rules. I changed the name from Kevin Does the Hundred Years War to the somewhat less ego-driven Arrowstorm.

I decided that a good way to test out the rules was to try a scenario from a historical situation. I arrayed the English in a historical line of battle-knights and men at arms in the center with archers on the flanks. The French had one sixty and two forty figure blocks of dismounted knights and various lesser infantry. They also had a thirty figure unit of crossbowmen, and two ten figure units of mounted knights. I confess to messing with the French and their set up, having two of the infantry units become impetuous and run ahead of the army. However it seemed to have little effect on the game. Though the archers made life difficult for the dismounted knights, the cavalry, relatively untouched by arrow fire, drove straight through the middle of the board and through Prince Hal's dismounted knights. 15-love French.

That was quick, so we set 'em up and tried again. We really didn't get to a decisive conclusion. the action really mired in some lack of clarity in the rules. It's clarity I really hoped wouldn't be needed. Should French knights be allowed to rally when disrupted by arrowstorms? Could they rally back through other units? How long should the effects of arrowstorms last?

In any case, I've had lots to think about as I plug holes in the rules and re-imagine what they accomplish.

Shastapsh and the blogosphere

Two of my passions (I have so many) are Space 1889 and the Hundred Years War. Last weekend, while playing a Hundred Years War game, Mark, Dale, Scott and I met to discuss the future of our Space 1889 games. We've hosted many of them at conventions, the Game Matrix, wherever we can gather together and get out the figures. Mark's very cool toys makes the games very popular and we always attract a crowd. Last year at Conquest, our game planned for a dozen turned into a group of twenty. Even with Mark and I running the rules together, we were completely overwhelmed.

We've formed our own little group called The Red Captains, drawn from Chadwick's universe. About eight of us have painted the figures and played through the rules playtests, yet we rarely have an opportunity to just enjoy the games and one another because we're too busy showing newbies in massive games how it's done. We've agreed that one answer to this problem is to run a campaign. Because I've run some Sky Galleons of Mars games around the canal town of Shastapsh, we are in the process of conceptualizing a campaign around that city. I've even written an "official history" of the Shastapsh War. One other thing I've done to focus our efforts is I've created a new blog called The Shastapsh Chronicles . I'm hoping that may draw a little more interest from those who are inclined in the direction of VSF or Space 1889.

Hydroplanes: The Global Reach

The past couple of weeks I've had lots of contact about hydroplane racing outside the Pacific Northwest area. Yes, I know it's hard to believe that there are that many sickos out there, but it's true. First, I was contacted by a Washington DC area gamer inquiring about boats. I think Daveshoe sent him the rules, which is certainly helpful.

A short time later, Paul Hannah, back from Fallcon in Calgary sent me pictures of Ray Sam's boats. I know Ray from air games, and he raced in our Enfilade Cup in May. These are beautiful boats with great Canadian themes. Ray reveals:

The Molson and Tim Horton's art are hand formed decals from various logos and then printed by a friend of mine. Trust me, I would probably been better off hand painting them in the long run. Just the decals alone took somewhere in the region of 36 hours of work just to get them to look right.

Ray indicates that a Can/Am cup may not be far in the future.

Finally, on Sunday, I received an e-mail from Daveshoe, indicating that a British gamer has followed the topic on this very blog. He was interested in the rules, and had hand made some boats. Not a bad job. Love the roostertails.

Incidentally, our counter passed the 3000 hit mark last weekend. For some of you, that may not seem like a lot. However, given the regional appeal and the goofy scheduling and content of these self-indulgent ramblings, I thank you for your support. I don't know who you are, but I'm glad you're here.

Gunboats and Gambesons

I've finally finished mounting all of my completed HYW miniatures. I know what you're thinking-"Yes, I've already seen these in your previous posts." Well, no you haven't. You see, I have two different HYW projects-one mounted on individual bases for my own semi-skirmish adventures, one mounted on multiple figure bases for Medieval Warfare. I know Bill Stewart would simply slap me around if he heard of such a thing.

Three years ago at Enfilade I bought one of Reviresco's multi-media (re: paper model) kits of a gunboat. It was $15 and a great deal considering the boat was (supposedly) easy to assemble and came with a wealth of white metal parts. The past week I've been putting the little beggar together and I've included pictures. It still is a great deal, a bargain compared to a comparable resin kit. I don't think it was quite so easy, and I could have easily botched the whole job and be stuck with a bunch of landlubbers and their two six pound guns.

Nevertheless, I did finish with only a few scars to show for it. The biggest problem I had was properly assembling the hull, which accounts for the very bulgy looking stern. I also had difficulty with the paper funnel. I just wasn't going to be able to make it round. Maybe if I had a proper sized dowel to wrap it around that would have been fine, but I just have a feeling it would have looked lumpy. My solution was simply to replace the paper funnel with a 5/8ths inch dowel. Problem solved.

The bits that came with the kit are great. I finished painting and rigging last night. Though mine doesn't look nearly as nice as John McEwan's fabulous work, I was pleased.

I've decided to name the gunboat Papyrus in honor of the building materials.

Museum of Flight '08

Yesterday NHMGS returned to the Museum of Flight in Seattle. We've been there each year since about 2000. Some of the days have been great, some not so good, but yesterday's MoF day was the best yet.

We've had difficulty attracting game presenters and gamers to play the games, but yesterday that wasn't a problem. Bruce Meyer had a full house for his Napoleonic skirmish game. John McEwan hosted his balloon race to a crowd. Dave Schueler and I had nine hydroplanes going in the afternoon (in a game designed for six.) We also had a lot of curious onlookers and some players from those attending Educator's Day at the museum. I think it was a great symbiosis, one I'd like to repeat next year.

I've included a few pictures, but have many more available on Photobucket

The first photo is of our air racing game, using the Daveshoe's newly modified rules. It was fun, though my plane, Mr. Mulligan, the big white plane at the rear finished dead last.

The last is a view of the DBA games, balloon racing and Napoleonic game from the second level.

The last picture is of the hydroplane racers at the finish. Exide, in the middle, is being lapped at the end by Miss Spokane and Miss Madison at the finish line. Mark Waddington's Miss Spokane won with a final burst at the finish line.

Desk Clutter

I'm kind of betwixt and between projects right now. I guess that's not really true-I'm working on cleaning up my Space 1889 figures and getting everything done. However, I'm still trying to finish basing my Medieval Warfare HYW figures.

Basing is a chore for me. It takes me a long time because of the basing material I use-Celluclay really takes about 30 hours to dry, especially during our current clammy weather spate. And then there are base painting and flocking stages, which take additional time.

In any case I've finished my first couple of Space 1889 units. Only the first unit can be seen here. This is the 1st Virginia Steam Cavalry unit in the service of the Shastapsh City State. I use the mechanical horsey figures from Mage Knight and stick a Dixon Confederate cavalry figure on top. It was something fun and different to do. I've also finished one of my Shastapsh militia units, but they're still in the garage awaiting some desk space and the basing process.

The second picture is just some desk related flotsam. The figures on the left are longbowmen who have just received their helpings of Celluclay. They'll be ready to paint some time around the election. Just kidding. Hopefully by Tuesday night I can come home from my writing workshop and finish these babies while watching reruns of the debate. You can see them there with my ever present can of Diet Coke.

I've also adopted a new "go with what grabs you attitude." I'm going to stick with painting units of whatever interests me for the present time. After I finish with my militia unit I'll be doing a couple of things. First I'm trying to finish my Reviresco multi-media patrol boat. It'll be used for patrolling the Canals of Mars. Unfortunately I'm about as adept at assembling the paper model as Edward Scissorhands. I'm going to do the best I can, but it doesn't look quite like John McEwan's examples. After (or maybe even during that) it'ss on to the second of my three Houston's cavalry units for Maxmillian in Mexico. This will be a Mexican Federal Lancer unit. They look pretty decent for their very reasonable price, so I'm looking forward to getting them done.

The things I do

I had to break down and order brushes today. Yes, I know, bid deal, you can't paint without brushes.

I don't skimp on brushes, I buy the best I can find. I paint a lot, maybe 600 figures a year or more, and I can usually get a year out of a brush. I buy Kolinsky sable brushes. My favorite brand is Dick Blick from the art supply chain of the same name, mostly located in the East. When I started buying brushes from Blick about ten years ago, the 0 brushes I use most were less than five dollars each. Today I ordered, and on their current 30% off sale they were about $8.50. I get good mileage out of a brush-they often last for a year or more. They keep consistently sharp points, don't bend or have the hairs fall out. Maybe one brush in four is a loser. I ordered three single 0's and one 00. I wouldn't have ordered any brushes right at this moment except both 0 and 00 seem to have died on the same night. Makes painting rough. If the brushes seem costly, the shipping is a killer-ten bucks for four wee small brushes.

I know, there are some of you who are thinking-but what about Windsor and Newton series 7? They're Kolinsky sable, and you can even get them locally. I have some of the W and N brushes, and I just don't like them as much. They aren't quite as fine and the brush handles are thicker, I don't get as good a feel for what I'm doing. Picky, I know, but this is a picky hobby.

Arrow Doom

Saturday was the first playtest for my Hundred Years War rules. So many came to try out the game at Game Matrix on Saturday-David Sullivan, Mark Waddington, Dale Mickel, Scott Murphy, Gary Griess, Steve Ghan, Gene Anderson-and because these are always works in progress and the game might really stink, I really appreciate the long distance they travel and the time and patience they give.

The rules are intended to foster two important truths:

1. The mounted knight in melee combat was superior to foot troops most of the time.
   
2. The longbow generally was the ruler of the battlefield as long as they had arrows and could fight securely in a defensive position.
   

I wrote a simple set of rules for a semi-skirmish level game. The mechanics are pretty basic. I intended them for something I could easily run at a convention. I think that on that level the rules succeeded. However there are some content issues that need work.

Let's back up. I planned a basic chevauchee scenario. The English are trying to carry off their swag when they are attacked from the front and flank by a French force, and harried from the rear by the bereft peasants. The result of the game was unimportant. Each side earned some victory points.

The chief problem was with the strength of the longbow. When using the arrow storm the units simply were able to roll too many dice and kill too many troops. This was a trap I was afraid of, and I really need to work on that. The rules limit the number of arrow storms to scenario design, and there are rules for arrow depletion. I also allow that an arrow storm does some intrinsic damage, reducing movement and causing disruption that reduces melee value. The casualties caused need not be massive, but the effect of disruption should be very significant. Something to work on. I'm looking forward to running a similar game on October 18th.

I was able to pull out a fair amount of stuff for the game. The fields are my Barb's Bunker goodies, which I really like. The buildings are by Pegasus. The minis are all mine, a mix of Old Glory, Foundry, and a few Front Rank figures. The top photo shows the initial English















deployment. They generally used defensive positions quite well, and hoped the French would obligingly attack them. I allowed the French to divide their forces, and use some militia troops to flank the English which shook things up a little bit. The lower picture on the left shows the French massing for an attack on a unit of English dismounted hobilars. The picture at right shows the militia fording the stream, preparing to attack the English position (they were slaughtered.)

Moving Along

In my last post I confess to being a bit in despair. I've actually moved along a bit. The remaining figures for my first 48 men at arms in my Hundred Years War army are now finished and mounted. I'm still working on the basing, which will probably take a few days. I've stopped using Liquitex acrylic glop as my basing compound and gone back to Celluclay, which is a papier mache material. I just like the look of the Celluclay better, though it takes much longer to dry. All of the HYW bases are "clayed" but I still need to paint and flock them.

I included a fair number of flags on the twelve bases-okay five flags, I don't know if that's enough. My wife is a quilter and sewing person, and she has recently discovered a super cool looking silk and cotton material that one can print on from the printer. Lorri is still experimenting with the material, but I've seen some of what she's printed out and it looks pretty spiff and I'm considering it for some flag material. The only problem I can see is actually attaching it to a standard. I don't know that it would glue very well, or look very good if it was glued, and it might actually have to be stitched. That would be hard. Anyway, just a thought.

I've written a set of quicky HYW rules that I'm going to try out this weekend with my individually based figures. They are pretty simple, and steal conceptually from the Tactica Medieval Siege rules, and from Don Featherstone. I'll take pictures and report.

I've begun preparing for my next painting activities. I've got some mechanical cavalry to paint for Space 1889, as well some interesting foot troops to follow on.

Stuck!!!

I'm stuck. I am definitely trying to move on to my next project-finishing my Space 1889 figures, but I can't seem to make the time to wrap up my remaining handful of HYW figures, get them all based and finish a handful flags so I can move on.

School is taking a lot of my time, I have a return of school year insomnia, and I'm about to be embroiled in a first amendment fight with my employer that may be difficult and time consuming. Who has time for a painting extravaganza? In any case, I'm down to the last eight figures and then I can get on with fore-mentioned flag-painting, basing and final photos.

My next game is scheduled for Sept. 20th. I'll be running a game with my singly mounted HYW figures. I'm writing my own set of rules called "Kevin Does the Hundred Years War." They should be easy, fun and bloody. We'll see. Look for some pictures here.

Every Man a Food Source!!

On Saturday I choogled down to Olympia for an all day game fest at Scott Murphy's house. Scott hosted a potluck and some garage gaming, which would have been perfect except for some unseasonal ridiculous rain.

This was a showcase for a couple of Mark Waddington's games. He's been wanting to run a Zulu War game in which each of the players has a stake in overall victory, but each of the commands has competing objectives. I had three specific commands. The first was a light horse unit in which I had to visit more terrain features than the other light horse unit in our army. I also had a martinet captain that could chirp at each of the units of the 24th (I believe there were six,) and could improve their movement and shooting, but gave a -1 to morale. The bonus was that I could also be shot by my own troops. Finally, I also had the Naval Brigade unit, clearly an elite shipboard force, but not so much on dry land. They couldn't shoot straight, melee properly or form square, but you should see them row a longboat.

Things got off to a super start with Whitehall's cavalry heading off to their first terrain feature, Snosworthy barking at whichever poor Welshmen could hear him, and the sailors dutifully covering the rear of the baggage train. By turn two, however, Zulu signs began to pop up. Where would the impi arrive, and would those we see simply be part of a feint. On turn four Whitehall's horsemen made it's high water mark, and encountered the right flank of the Zulu advance. The rest of the game would be spent running for their lives, shooting at the Zulus and keeping the unit intact (averaging two kills per turn shooting over their shoulders.) Snosworthy was an albatross around the neck of all those redcoats he could find, sticking too close to them to be shot in the back by his fellows. The sailors tried to form part of a brigade square, but couldn't form up in close order. Sent into a hole in the British center, it looked like they would play the heroic martyrs against an advancing Zulu regiment, but got the last laugh when they ran away instead. Well, I laughed anyway.

We played out the game for four hours until the food was officially cooked. I don't quite know what the status of the game was at the end. The Zulus seemed to be moving pretty handily through the center, while British troops were just beginning to flow to fill in the gaps. It certainly looked dicey for the Brits, I only know that my cavalry and sailors were quite prepared to run away the fastest.


After some great eats we settled down to game two--colonial adventures on Venus!! The Brits were on a mission tramping around the marshes of Venus to rescue some missing archaeologists. Yes, you're right the archaeologists were actually were in the evil clutches of the meddling Germans, mwahahahahaa!! The Germans were meddling in the affairs of the Skinks, the slimy little reptiliad Venusian lowlifes that inhabit most of the stinking swamps of the "morning star." You might be wondering what my command was during this episode of "My Venusian Vacation." Was it the 1st battalion Grenadier Guards? No! How about the Kings Royal Rifle Corps? Be real, they are so effete. Perhaps a squadron of Royal Marine Light Infantry, with all their expertise in boats and all? Nah, in fact I was a commander of the corps of Venusian lowlifes tasked with making life miserable for the Brits.

And I must say I did my best. I swamped about shooting tiny little Skink arrows at the Brits in their boats, and those slogging through the swamp. I heroically made 5 to 1 attacks on shot up British units. We made life pretty miserable for them, and by the end of the game, things were looking pretty bad for the redcoats.

It was a fun, fun day, and thanks to Mark for putting on the games and Scott and Dale for hosting the party.

Time For a Change!!

No, this isn't an Obama post. I have another blog for that. As the summer nears an end, however, I'm going to shift gears very shortly and put down the HYW for a few months. I'm losing some painting enthusiasm, and it's time to take a break from them. Since Enfilade, I've finished the following:

• 64 longbowmen
• 16 crossbowmen
• 6 mounted men at arms
• 24 dismounted men at arms

and I have another 24 dismounted men at arms primed and will complete them. It's not a bad start. The 48 dismounted men at arms represent the Prince of Wales command at Poitiers, according to David Green he had no archers in his battle, the center. When I am finished with the lot it will represent about 130 figures. Just a down payment on the period and the project, but I'm pleased with the progress.

My Space 1889 order arrived from RAFM today, and I'll work on wrapping up the unpainted figures I have for that project. Including what I've received, it's probably less than 150 25mm figures, and includes some gunboats, mounted troops and other funky stuff. However, I don't really need anything else, and will consider the project complete.

Coming Down the Home Stretch

It's the last week of summer break. It's been a nice long break, and I think I've used the time reasonably well. I've painted a lot. In fact, you can see my painting calculations on the right. Mostly I've painted 25mm HYW figures. Because this is a new project, and I want sizable armies, it's going to take a while to get everything done. I've now finished 15 bases of archers, four bases of crossbowmen, three bases of cavalry, four bases of Irish kerns, and two bases of dismounted men at arms (with another six bases started. All in all, that's 114 figures painted or under way. Throw in a few hydroplanes and that doesn't look bad for a summer's work.

I'm going to finish the men-at-arms under way, and then take a little break from Poitiers. I'll probably take a little trip to Mars and work on some of the goodies I have there. There are some mounted troops, a some sepoy types, and I'm hoping that my order of militia men arrive soon. After that, it may be back to the HYW, or maybe a different direction. I still have about ten DBA armies to paint, more AWI, the War of 1812, and Wayne's Legion. Let's see what gets my attention.

Ironclads on the Meyerhootchie

Let me just state right up front that, once again, I forgot my camera so I have no pictures. Doh! Michael Koznarsky, in the last issue of Historical Miniature Gamer, reviewed some newish Thoroughbred Miniatures, as well as discussing 1/600 ACW ironclad games using Ironclads. Being an Ironclads enthusiast for many years, and possessing about 60 painted ships as well as a few unpainted, I broached the idea of a game at our August game day. Michael was interested, and yesterday we played it out.

The scenario required a flotilla of Yankees to escort a trio of transports up river to invade Fort Shein. No problem, right? Ahhh! The Johnnies had two nasty ironclads and a few river rams to keep us from exiting our transports from the board. I commanded a double end gunboat, one of my favorite ship types. Though I was pretty much on the periphery of the action, the two 100 lb. Parrotts on swivels allowed me to reach out and touch the wooden rams from quite a distance. On turn three at medium range, I inflicted a boiler explosion on Dale Mickel's Gen. Bragg, which soon burned and became a non factor. Two of the Yankee gunboats ran interference for the transports, commanded by Gene Anderson and Michael and were shot up and rammed by the combined fire of the Confederate ram Richmond and the river rams. The Confederates made their job much more difficult through a couple of self inflicted collisions. The Richmond sailed through the Union squadron, only to find itself unable to chug back into the action, though it continued to shoot up the Mark Waddington's Keystone State. Picture below is of the USS Octorora, the gunboat I ran in the game. The ironclad ram, Richmond, commanded by Gary Griess in our game is below it. Illustrations from the Naval Historical Center, U.S. Department of the Navy.

After my initial moment of glory, I found myself in the difficult position of trying to steer my ship back into the action. Scott Murphy's Chickasaw and Keystone State seemed to be traveling in the same arc I was, and a sudden right turn would have resulted in a collision. I kept finding my gunfire masked, as well as my ship protected from enemy fire. I took one shot from the ram Fredricksburg, which did minor damage. I finally hit the Queen of the West, which did some good flotation damage and was able to run interference on the last turn protecting the transports hotfooting up the river, and the game ended.

I love Ironclads. It was a crowded game, and it did take some time to get through the turns, but it was still a lot of fun.

Poitiers 1356 in the present

Poitiers, from the Hundred Years War (as opposed to Poitiers from the 8th century, also known as Tours) is now one of my battles. Along with Cowpens, Agincourt, Battle of the Pelennor Fields and a few others, Poitiers is one of the few battles I just have to game. I feel compelled.

Of course, in order to fight the battle I have to paint the figures. For the English that's about 250 wee men. For the French, double it. Needless to say, I'm nowhere near the number for the Anglais, and I haven't even started les frogs. Poitiers in 2011. Maybe sooner if the wind blows right.

Why Poitiers? It's an interesting battle. It comes at the end of Edward the Prince of Wales' destructive chevauchee or raiding mission. He is forced to battle by an army led by King Jean the Good (not good as in good general.) The English choose a strong defensive position and are obligingly attacked by waves of French infantry after shooting down the handful of mounted knights. What makes the battle unusual is that the English longbowmen play a diminished role in the battle for several reasons. One is that this is a fairly small army so there aren't that many of them, 2,500-3,000. Another is that proportionally they are actually outnumbered by other infantry types. Figure 3,000-4,000 dismounted knights and men-at-arms, while at Agincourt the ratio of archers to men-at-arms was three-to-one. At Poitiers, the archers have an important role, shooting down the French cavalry, but are less effective against the dismounted knights, and run out of arrows after the third wave of the French attack. So, this is much more of a medieval slog. Armored men bashing on armored men until one side tires of the whole business. In the end the French succumb to a daring mounted attack, King Jean the Good becomes King Jean the Captured throwing France into a tizzy for the rest of his life.

One thing I have done is acquire books and read about the battle. The first of four is by Donald Featherstone. Published as part of a series of wargaming guides back in the 70's, Don used some pretty traditional resources to provide a spiff little resource to gamers, giving a background on the battle, suggested commander ratings, and other suggested factors to figure into a miniature scenario. Also included, is a very simple set of rules for gaming Poitiers that seem like fun. I think I may use them with my singly mounted figures just for laughs. Being more than 35 years old, Don's recommendations for figures is pretty amusing. Though he names Minifigs and a few other old manufacturers, his chief recommendation is Airfix due their price and the suitability of the Robin Hood range as longbowmen. Times have changed.

I've also picked up two important books by Richard Barber on Edward the Black Prince. The first is a biography. It's a bit of a slog, written in 1976, that tries to debunk the mythology surrounding Edward. I learned a lot about the way he made war, his close companions that fought with him pretty much all his life, and I also learned about the large gaps in our knowledge about the Prince, and the assumptions we've made because of those gaps. The other Barber book is actually a documentary history of Edward. This includes the journals of Geoffrey Baker and the anonymous herald for Sir John Chandos, the Prince's great captain and friend. I haven't read this book yet, but it's high on my list.

Poitiers 1356 was a recent birthday gift, and a wonderful one too. Published in 2002, and relying on more recent scholarship, author David Green does his best to focus on the battle and depict the action. His wife is an artist and she provides some nice color plates, while Green adds color maps and even a section devoted to wargaming Poitiers!! Though brief, it is a very handy guide and unfortunately out of print.

Like many Hundred Years War battles, our knowledge of this battle is imperfect. The troop positions, their movements and motivations are simply unclear. Though we've stepped back from the belief that the French regularly outnumbered the English ten to one, actual numbers are simply not known and are based on some records, but tainted by supposition and common sense. Even so, this action has my attention and I look forward to actually fighting the battle some day.

Getting back into the swing

I'm back from Ellensburg at last. I got home Saturday evening, celebrated my birthday on Sunday, had to chase around for school most of the day yesterday, so this is the first time I've been able to devote much thought to gaming. I am playing in an Ironclads game on Saturday, and those are always fun.

On Monday I was able to drag out my painting, and have begun working on sixteen crossbowmen. We don't often think of the English as having a lot of these, but their Gascon allies did not have the tradition of the longbow. So, these four stands of guys represent a portion of the Gascon element in the Black Prince's army during the Poitiers campaign. Should be finished with these in the next day or so.

I just finished reading Richard Barber's biography of the Black Prince, a title that didn't fall into use until at least he 16th century. Though a bit textbookish, I learned a lot about him. I also ordered Barber's collection of sources about Prince Edward's campaigns, and hope to have David Green's 2005 book on Poitiers soon. So much that we don't know about this battle, it's hard to know how to represent both armies.

I received a stipend for my supervisor's work at J-Camp. I invested part of it in the RAFM sale. Their Space 1889 figures are 40% off, which makes some of the later Martian figures affordable at $1.75 each. I ordered 55 figures and a medieval organ gun to use as a sweeper. These will be militia in the rebellious city of Shastaphsh from the Frank Chadwick world. They'll be a nice break from medievals.

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.