Stand down & fall out...

Off for three weeks home leave back in Vancouver starting this week, so no posts for a while.  

Aside from the usual R&R activities, I may get some gaming in with some old friends, and a trip to Imperial Hobbies for some more plastics is on the cards too.  I'll be bringing back some more books from my (fairly extensive) collection as well, including that old favourite, Bruce Quarrie's Napoleon's Campaigns in Miniature and the Osprey books on the Prussian Army just to name a few. 

First Shots from my new Canon!

And no, that's not a spelling mistake! 

Lots to juggle these past few weeks.  I'm off to Vancouver for three weeks home leave starting next Monday, and the amount of things that have to be taken care of before I go would have taxed all of Berthier's powers of organization, let alone mine!  

No time for much painting, but we did have a rollicking game of Black Powder on Sunday, and I was able to try out my new digital camera.  A Canon S95, and I'm really happy with it so far, even though I'm still learning the ropes as to all its features.  It has a great macro function, and I also bought a tripod to go with it so hopefully I can pull my cellphone camera into reserve, and post better pictures.  

For this game, though, I simply made use of the zoom function for close ups, and didn't play around much with the white balance. Still, I was very happy with the way they turned out, especially given the generally crappy lighting on the day of the game.

Here are a whole bunch of them, to make up for a lack of recent posts.  Click on any picture to enlarge.

Rod made some great disorder markers, using printed out paper flags and toothpicks.  They really added to the game.

Johnny Crapaud et cie. arrayed in serried ranks.  Rodney and Matt were the Allies, Achilleas and myself were the French.  You can see Achilleas' version of events here, although I wouldn't put it past him to "doctor" the reports to deflect some of the emperors' wrath when he finds out the butchers' bill!

 

 General Tallon harangues his staff.

Position of Shame on the left flank, my unfinished cavalry.  Units that are not fully painted receive a morale penalty in our games.  That way we get the numbers we need, but also have an incentive to get them painted!

The Allies consisted of British, Brunswickers, and Russians.  My formidable horse artillery licorne is now joined by a battalion of infantry as well.

Achilleas did a great job on his first unit of Russkis.  Of course, the Church Militant (eastern branch) was there in support.

 GdB Bouillon-Cantinat sends his command forward.

Achilleas laughing maniacally at the sight of the imposing Gallic Horde.  Matt, as usual, lounges unimpressed at the notion of even more potential fodder for the prison hulks.

Matt's British.  He recently increased the size of his units, and they look very nice indeed.

En avant!! Sound the "old trousers"!

This is one of Achilleas' nicest units.  Perry metals, here going off on their merry own way after another one of Gen. Tallon's trademark command blunders.

Gen. Tallon has always been a very aggressive cavalry commander, and this game was no exception.  In fact, the rumour among the cavalry is that he really hates their guts.  Here are Achilleas' beautifully painted hussars. in their all-too-brief battlefield debut. 

New unit syndrome, of course, and his Swiss also fell victim again to the cruelty of fate and Brown Bess.

Things heat up!  The scenario was childishly simple.  The side who has the most troops in good order and left on the opponents side of the table by the end of the day wins.  The chateau and the woods created a funnel which didn't help the French, although they considerably outnumbered the allies.

  "Alphonse, do you smell borscht?"

The 28e legere scored well on their command roll, and pushed the 60th Rifles into the woods, passing alongside the Russian licorne battery in the process.

  Puleez, let the Russians fail their next command roll!  Puleeeeeez?!? Pretty please?

No chance, pal: ka-boom!  What goes around in Black Powder, comes around.   This wasn't pretty; seven hits and the unit breaks in a puff of smoke.  Howitzers normally have a minimum range of 6". but the Licorne had a direct fire capability too.  Merde...

Russians and French going toe-to-toe.  We opted to give the Russians an automatic pass on their first break test, as a way of reflecting their legendary tenacity.  This made them a very tough proposition indeed, and the French were repulsed- taking their supports with them!  Grrrr!!!

Clergy and rifles rejoice...

The game ended in a technical French victory, but things were clearly going the Allies' way and had nightfall not come it would have been a real debacle for the French.  So honour was satisfied for both parties, and the game was a real hoot.

As I said I had nothing new painted for the game, but that was in part because I got distracted making putting together plastics!  Warlord Landwehr and Perry French.  During the game Matt gave me a box of Perry Prussians that he had ordered for me in exchange for me giving him a bunch of Baccus 6mm Austrians, part of a stillborn project that I just couldn't get into.  

The Prussians are exquisite, and are a little larger than the French.  Which is fine, as they will go very well with my Landwehr and Front Rank Russians. 

Black Powder Roster

The day before the game, and I'm painting my fingertips off trying to get the cavalry and artillery finished! 

I did manage to find the time to put together a unit roster for the Black Powder rules, which I heavily adopted from one that was posted in the Black Powder Yahoo! Group files.

 click to enlarge

I just have the two more units to finish, and this brigade is complete.  

A few evenings ago I starting putting together my first plastic units- Perry French infantry and Warlord Games' Prussian Landwehr.  While the Perry offering is the best of the two, I've been enjoying working on both.  The Warlord models will be very simple to paint, and I'm getting to the point where getting units painted and on the table quickly is a much, much more important consideration that any amount of detail on the individual figure.  

I also realize that less is more, in that this time I'm not going crazy with different shades of greatcoats on the French.  Less variety "works" better visually, and the eye has enough to take in what with the elite company frippery, facings, and all that kind of thing.  Keeping things simple also speeds up painting time!

Over the Hill.

I finished a trio of hills and rough ground to go with the trees for this Sunday's game.  I wanted them to be quite rocky, as it makes them more interesting visually.  That, and I was running out of (pricey) flocking so I didn't want to cover them completely in "grass".  

They are simply carved pieces of foamboard, covered with a sand and PVA mix, with cork chips and small pebbles added as boulders and rocky outcrops.  They were then sealed with a final coat of brushed-on undiluted PVA, and then painted using artists tube acrylics.  Static grass was again glued on using- you guessed it- PVA. 

I tried to make them generic enough to pass muster in battles ranging from the Peninsula to Russia, but also with an eye for a future project we are thinking of where something along the lines of Gettysburg's Devil's Den may prove very handy.

I had fun doing these, but I'm ready to get back to working on miniatures again after a refreshing break. God knows where I'll store all these, but I'll find a way.

Out of the dark woods at last!

It has been spring vacation time here, and I spent a few days in Sendai with family and friends.  Sendai city itself is very much on the mend, and while a few buildings remain damaged or shuttered up due to the earthquake, things are otherwise getting back to normal, with well-stocked shops again.    

However, to the east of the city- the port side and the areas all along the Pacific coast- they are still dealing with the huge task of cleaning up from the tsunami.   

 

Natori, a suburb of Sendai, a photo taken by a reporter not long after the tsunami. Much of the area still looks like that now. The desolated landscape reminded me of one of those bleak pictures you see taken during the Passchendaele battles in 1917, but with wrecked and abandoned Toyotas and Hondas instead of tanks. 

 

Very, very sobering.

So when I got back, it took a while to get into a hobby frame of mind, but I really wanted to finish those trees- if for no other reason than to clear my painting table!  And finish them I did.  Here they are.

The bases were textured, with cork chips and small pebbles added for variety.  I then "fleshed out" some of the trees with more hobby flocking, and sealed it all with a clear matte lacquer spray.  

After that, I took a can of matte black acrylic spray and sprayed some of the interior areas for depth.  Then I gave them all a few passes of Armour Yellow spray paint, from one direction only.  

 

After looking at some trees in the sunshine, I realized that the sun and sky can make them appear many shades of green, yellow, and even white.  So I decided on an impressionistic approach, and using the side of a fairly broad brush I just "tapped" on successive layers of light green,  mustard yellow and finally (and sparingly) bright yellow.  I'm very pleased with the way they turned out.  

The bases were painted with artists acrylics, raw umber drybrushed with some raw sienna.  I picked out the rocks with various shades of grey, and ran a brown ink wash over them for depth.  Finally, I just added some static grass and that was it.  In a few days I'll seal the flocking with another spray of matte lacquer spray.

So they are all set to go for our Black Powder game this coming weekend.  No doubt they will be used by Matt's riflemen as cover from which to shoot up my Frenchies.  

"It's a Fair Copse"

Work on terrain continues, and I textured the bases of the tree stands that I posted last week.  Since then I've made some more, along with the first part of what will be a Russian village that I hope will do service with both my 20mm WW2 Soviets and my 28mm  Napoleonics. 

The village unit consists of a resin cottage from Britannia Miniatures, and one of the wonderful Pegasus Hobbies Russian farm houses.  The white patches are glued-down bits of old dishcloths, with the rest of the base textured with a "putty" made of white glue and sand.  Once it has all dried out, I will prime and paint it all.

 

click to enlarge 

The buildings are fine for my 20mm miniatures of course, but they should also do for 28mm as well.  The Pegasus Hobbies building kits in particular are on the larger end of 20mm, and given unit footprints for Horse-and-Musket games, going down a bit in size for terrain pieces does not look out of place.

The pine trees were easy enough to do, and are ready for painting but the deciduous trees will require some more work, as the flocking drops off the branches at a drop of a hat(chet?).  I will just do the messy job of soaking the foliage with watered-down white glue to seal everything together, and adding more flocking to the trees for depth.

Pining away

Yesterday saw the West Tokyo Wargamers hold its first gaming day since the big quake on 3/11, and it was great to see so many people turn out- even if it did mean space was cramped!

No Napoleonics this time, as Achilleas was celebrating the Easter holiday while Matt was playing host to a visiting friend, so instead I took part (sort of) in a fun British vs German WW2 game.  

However, I did get to meet a first-time visitor to the club, Rod, who is interested in doing 28mm Napoleonics and even has his own copy of Black Powder.   So at our next outing it in May it looks like there might be five of us playing Napoleonics! 

In the meantime, here is a work-in-progress photo of a quick and simple terrain project I've been working on.  

I've long been meaning to put some effort into "tarting up" our table with some better looking terrain pieces.  So inspired by an article I was reading in a past issue of Battlegames magazine, I took a hot glue gun and tacked down some old GW trees onto some unwanted CD's (after gluing card over the holes, of course).  

I then took some papier-mâché and spread it thinly over the bases.  When dry the papier-mâché set rock hard with no warping, and this evening I will be adding some patches of sand to the bases for more texture.  

After painting, I'll then glue down some foliage, fallen branches, and flocking around the bases so as to match our table mat.  

These are looking pretty good so far, and when complete I have some deciduous trees ready for the same treatment.

One of the discs is/was an old compilation of country music that somehow managed to find its way into my otherwise-country-&-western-free CD cabinet.  The only decent use I could find for it, in my honest opinion.  Sorry, Garth Brooks, but different strokes 'n all that.