A few 6mm Napoleonics Russo -Turkish - Balkans 1812

A couple of draft shots of some 6mm Nappies,  Irregular I think. They were originally French but with a green coat  I couldn't tell the difference! I hoping to  refight some of the battle from the Balkans once my General de Brigade (no. 4) scenario book arrives. I don't play GdB but the scenarios are supposed to be generic so I can adapt them to Naps Battles  or my own Grasp rules.  Damn, that reminds me! I was seduced  by the Amazon credit card which offered me £10 off if I completed the application! I haven't had a credit card in eight years  or so. I hope I'm a little more disciplined than I was in my previous incarnation otherwise I will shortly be drowning in a sea of lead and rules!

Thinking of purchases for the future -  a  tripod mount for my camera would be useful if I'm going to get  some better pics.

These are my first batch of Russian infantry. No particular regiments at the moment -  experimenting with  the close and looser order looks to see which I prefer. I'm tempted to try the close formations but without the long flock - looks a bit scruffy.

Sorry for the blutrry shot - I('ll update this asap. At the front - Ottoman fellahin taken from Irregular's renaissance range. Below, a base of Janissaries with a couple of Nizam Jedid, not sure if they would have  brigaded together ( can  I used Brigade as a verb?) but I'll find out when my book arrives :)

Thanks for dropping by.

DBA 'Big Battle' Hungarians versus Mediaeval Germans

Had a great evening's game, playing double DBA, using cards rather than dice. Each player had 24 cards  (4 sets of 1-6) and I felt the game was much more fun than with dice.  See the DBA link on the right for more details and pics.

The pic shows the Hungarian knights - bottom centre -  about to crash into my Crossbows. The Hungarian C in C is already gnashing at my mercenary pikes but about to come unstuck :)

USS Bunker Hill Ticonderoga Class 1/3000 Navwar Modern Naval USA

So maybe there's only two years before these start getting decommissioned, but that's two years of good gaming time before I need to get their replacements painted.





 So here are Navwar's USS Bunker Hill models along with six Boeing AWACS I've painted this morning. The AWACS are split between the USA, NATO and Japan. I'm about to start two Knox family ships but since they are  no longer active ( another redundant set from  Navwar fleet pack) my enthusiasm is a little short. One useful thing I discovered from painting the Bunkers however is that I prefer a soft tone wash as on the Arleighs and Spruances to the dark tone wash I used on the bunkers.

Thanks for looking :)

Navwar 1/3000 Soviet and US Modern naval Spruance, Los Angeles, Ohio

A nice package of figures arrived from Navwar last week - A battle-pack  for  modern US naval forces and a selection I made of Soviet ships to augment those I already have. I get the feeling that with the demise of Devian figures there's no-one currently making up to date naval stuff in 1/3000th. After I had cleaned up and based the castings I decided to start with the US subs - Ohio and Los Angeles classes. Next in line were the Spruance class ships, so after a good search  for pics on the web I had a go at them.

Work desk overflowing with  ships

After achieving something which I was happy with (although I can see much room for improvement) I set off to find out what had happened to them since the Gulf War only to discover that before 2000 they had all been retired! I was slightly deflated to realise that not only are the current  figure manufacturers seriously lagging and that their fleets are in serious need of modernisation but that if I want up-to date fleets, unless I'm prepared to pay the comparatively high cost that 3D printers are asking for their models, I might need to do some scratch building. I guess I can still simulate conflicts up until and including the nineties, but I need to rethink if I want to explore the hypotheticals.

My now redundant Spruance Class

 I do understand that costs of new models have to be offset by sales. Perhaps there's not enough interest in this scale and genre to justify the cost of new masters and moulds. I also  understand only too well how fast the years pass and  the nineties may be recent history to many. But these ships were retired 20 years ago. Time the battle packs were updated I think and if I can make a castable master I'd be happy to let someone cast them up for sale.'If you want something done - do it yourself' comes to mind.

I think at least the Los Angeles are still in service

I suspect the Ohio Class will be around for a while yet

New GRASP Rules - Play anything :)

I've uploaded a new set of rules I've written  that should enable anything to be played against anything.
If you have time and inclination to try them I would love to hear any feedback.

The Scene Scifi Assault Hovercraft

Bought these two hovercraft from The Scene last year. I've been sent a pile of  stowage to paint including some radars so I thought I'd try fitting a radar to one of the hovercraft as a command / scout vehicle. Mike was kind enough to throw in some mg mounts so I could give these units some visible weaponry.



My first job was to hide the join between the hulls and the skirts. I used different methods on each vehicle since they could easily have different mods for their different roles - I gave the assault team carrier a heavier, reinforced channel to better withstand the wear and tear of men climbing in and out. The command/ scout got a big GSR unit high up on the roof so they could spot from a hull down position. I considered giving them a satellite dish style radar too so they could communicate with airborne or space borne command centres but thought better of it.



I added some tread plate so the crew wouldn't slip so much on a wet surface when using the forward hatches and applied some textured paint to the tops of the skirts to make it easier to carry out inspections walking around the vehicles. A couple of steps were provided from copper wire to help to crew up onto the roof and I was done with modifying. There would be room for some stowage on the rear roof to be added after painting.

DBA 22a New kingdom Egyptians

Here's my latest rush job, ready in 2 days for a competition at PAWS on Saturday 9th March 2013. I've not much chance of winning but it was good to be motivated to paint something. I'd like to add stripes to the tea towels and  maybe kohl to the eyes, but only if they win!

These are 15mm Lancashire figures; probably had these sitting around for 10 years or so and there's easily enough for a DBM army. Found a Kushite army too, 3 boxes of them. About time I got them painted. I'll be moving my DBx armies to a seperate site soon as I've got stacks to photo and upload.

Vintage 25mm Greek Hoplites

Greeks in Column

Just finishing off some old  Greek hoplites that have been hanging around for ages. One of them had lost a head, so I replaced it with a resin cast 'Amazon ' head, only to find a spare figure a week later. Another round of tidying in the magic cave of wonder ( a.k.a. the loft ) revealed a packet of 40mm spears (Foundry), ideal for the  2 metre spears they would have carried, but not as nice as the Warlord  examples I was originally going to use. With most of the figures holding their spears horizontally, it was going to be difficult to arrange them so they could all  form up together in column. With some faffing I managed to sort them out into compatible 2-deep pairs which could then mesh  as a full column although some of them are at risk of  killing the guys in front :(

I spent over 40 quid yesterday on Dutch plate leaf (fake gold) and some new gilt finishes to try and improve the look of the polished bronze armour on future figures. On these ones I used a mix of  gold metallic acrylics with various brown,  yellows and whites added to  form highlights and shadows. I'm not entirely convinced. I also used  Little Big Men Studios 20mm Hoplite  transfers, with some Noch grass clumps and scatter to make wild flowers. Spears are all painted up, just  need to find three swords and Ill post a close up.

German Medieval DBA

Got a competition on at the end of June and hoping to get three German Medieval armies ready for me and my posse. That's assuming the fella from Lancashire  Games gets the order to me in time. Whilst I'm waiting I thought I'd get cracking on my Landsknecht Pike.

:) Confirmed the order with Lancashire Games on Monday and received them Wednesday morning, can't speak highly enough of this supplier. I've spent the day  filing my  gothic Knights but with a mate coming over on the weekend for a practice game I'd better get a move on.

Managed to patch together an Med. German army from assorted late medieval stuff I had sitting around. The game went well  but the Medieval Germans may be the most tedious army ever to fight. Definitely defensive, formed around a  BUA garrisoned by artillery. The real weakness  is  with the war wagons which are very sensitive to artillery fire!

19/06/12 Finally got them all undercoated today but I need to start painting soon! Now distracted in a search for Roman troops for the PAWS Summer Comp in Portsmouth on the 7th July.

Enjoyed the comp at Sussex Shield Chichester. Didn't get as much painted as I would have liked but here are the guys all lined up for a post battle memorial service!

Still have handgunners to crew the wagons, Landsknecht Pike, Arquebusiers and Artillery to finish. Volunteers from my Late Burgundian army filled in for them for the competition.

Just got back from Alton comp ( March 23rd 2013 ) . Had plenty of good fights with two identical pairs of Med Germans  IV 15d. -  4 Pike inc General, 2 Warwagons, 2 double based knights, 1 normal Knight, 1 Psiloi,  1 Artillery and 1 Cavalry.  Being the defender allowed me to avoid the enemy artillery although I hemmed myself in with a gentle hill that I kept thinking was a wood! My dice started off good but deteriorated over the day. The most consistent weakness was my deployment - I had no plan - and my army was soon broken up as I tried to firefight everywhere.  despite some great dice  and some rotten timing the general takes the blame.