new year

A good new year to all. 
I didn't quite manage to get as much painted as I had intended by the end of 2011, but I made some progress on the GNW stuff. Here is the latest work in progress. Figures are mostly done, but the bases and standards have to be finished. 

Generals and cuirassiers.

Fynske finally getting near completion after many months.

And dragoons, with scratch build horse holder stand. I tried to make the dragoons a bit scruffier than most units.

And 3 infantry units nearing completion. Prince Charles regiment in the yellow facings has the battalion gun.

And so, not quite complete by the end of the year. But getting there. And just a few more to do after this lot. 

An appeal for a boardgame

Most of the past two months have been spent dragging old boardgames from the shelves and playing some of them. Lots of Napoleonic games and some WW2.  

One game I don't have but which I'd like to get is GMT's Barbarossa: Army Group Centre. Sadly it's out of print.  

I'm actually thinking of going to the Miniatures Page or elsewhere to see if anyone would be prepared to swop a copy for some painted miniatures armies. I have several 15mm armies which I'm intending to sell - Philistine, Mongol and Seljuk Turk. I'll post photos of them later. 

Could this be a good idea? To swop a minatures army for a boardgame? Maybe. 

And update ... I got a copy via ebay. That's me now got all the GMT Barbarossa games. WW2 East Front games for nutters. Sadly at the moment they only cover the 1941 campaign, but future releases will go to 42 and beyond. 

changes to the GNW stuff

I was doing some GNW stuff, then got fed up with the 120mm wide basing I was using for Impetus Baroque and the finish on the bases. So I decided to change the bases and use some gravel that a friend had given me. So now the infantry are on 3 bases and the cavalry on 2. It took a bit of time but I find the units physically easier to handle. 

Also did a bit of culture shock for me here on the bases. I used a dark-ish brown base coat and dry brushing sand and finally cream for highlights. Then I added the flock grass. I might still add a bit more longer flock grass in places. Overall, I'm quite happy the way they've turned out.

  

Now I just to finish off the rest. Grenadiers in red coats and dragoons in yellow coats are started, along with a couple of infantry units.

Of course, one of the sad things at the moment is that I'm kinda going off the big figures. So I may well sell the GNW Danes next year. Maybe a game with them might change my mind.

shake up for the paints and brushes

Finally got off my rear echelon this week and started using the paints again. Bit of a shocker for the brushes and paints tho' - they must've thought they'd gone into hibernation for the winter. 

First paint went on some more Late Imperial Romans.

Legion archers at the front - ones on the right have their red tunics.  Legion and Auxilia in the middle - I still have to decide on shield colours. Then scruffy asiatic horse archer types at the back. I usually choose a colour 'theme' for my irregular troops, then do lots of variations on that. The guys on the right will be mainly yellows and reds, the guys on the left mainly greens with some reds. 

This pic is the other half of the paint tray. The painted guys in the middle were used as a bit of a reference on what I'd already done many years ago.  

Now there is a motive with all this, because I'm going to part with a few 15mm ancient armies. The fully painted armies will be first and the mostly painted (like the Romans) will be next, as soon as I can get them finished.  

big hex wargames - part 2; Napoleon's Last Battles

And another vintage and great game. Napoleon's Last battles was designed by Kevin Zucker and published by SPI in the 1970's. I think it's a great game and still stands the test of time. It was a 'quad' game in that it was 4 individual games (each with less than 100 counters) which could be joined together to get a campaign game of the Waterloo campaign in 1815. 

In this picture is half of the overall campaign game map with my big version at the back and the originals at the bottom front. The two maps are Quatre Bras on the left and Lingy on the right. These two games make a great start to the campaign, with the French player having to make an important decison about where to send his 1st Corps. The other two game maps are Waterloo and Wavre and would add the same size map to the north (top) of these maps. 

And the counters for the game; 1/2 inch originals on the left and my home made versions on the right. All the home-made counters are scanned from the originals, printed and then mounted on 3mm foamboard which is very easy to cut. After scanning the counters, I added a coloured stripe at the bottom of the counter to indicate the corps or division. This helps to identify the units and their commanders for the command and control system in the campaign game. All this takes time, but the end result looks good on the table top. 

big hex boardgames - part 1; the Battle of the Bulge

No posts for a while. Simple answer really. A friend mentioned a couple of boardgames I liked, so painting was abandoned for a while in favour of pulling old and favorite boardgames from the shelves, setting them up and playing. 

But it also put me in mind of an ongoing project I have. I'm scanning the maps and counters of old classic games and then blowing up the maps and counters to double size. This means I can spread out a game on a 6 x 4 foot table and it can look quite impressive. Here are a couple of examples - photos of others will follow in due course.

First is Avalon Hill's classic Battle of the Bulge - the 1981 edition. My home made map is in the background and the orginal on top at the bottom. The original game has 16mm hexes and 1/2 inch counters. The big map is about 5 x 4 foot with double sized hexes.  

And the counters.  On the left are the original game's 1/2 inch counters and on the right my 1 inch counters. I took the strengths from the Battle of the Bulge 81 but took the counter artwork from another Bulge game; Bitter Woods, because each unit counter in that game has the divisional symbol on it. 

From the left and top to bottom are a German parachute infantry regiment, part of 2nd Panzer, part of Panzer Lehr and the panzer regiment of the 116th Panzer (the greyhounds). Column two contains 1st SS Panzer, a regiment of 12th SS, an infantry regiment from 352 division and a Werfer regiment. For the Allies in column 3 there is an artillery regiment, the 506th Parachute regiment from the 101st Airborne (the screaming eagles), CCA of 7th armoured and a regiment from 2nd Armoured. Last column has the British 33rd tank brigade and the 26th Infantry from the 1st infantry division (the big red one). 

More ancient history

Recently, I was looking through some shelves and papers for my copy of the Charge rules, but I think I've lost or parted with them. However, I did find these old books.  Anyone remember them?  :)

Not all are mine. My first copy was WRG 3rd Edition. This was still an era of Airfix plastic Romans and Ancient Britons though I did eventually progress to buying 6 Roman Legionaries from Minifigs. I was a long, long way from an ancient wargame at the time but I did put some plastic figures on bases and pushed them around.

Various other things and interests took over and the rules lay on a shelf. I returned to WRG with 6th Edition but still couldn't quite get into it. Then I met many gentlemen who are still my gaming opponents and got 7th Edition. I inherited the 4th and 5th editions in the picture but never read them. I got armies in 25mm and 15mm; Arabs and Selucids in both scales. At last, with 7th Edition, I was playing ancient wargames, though the rules gave me a good few headaches. At times I did wonder if these rules were meant to be fun - but thankfully a wargaming revelation was approaching....