Redevelopment Underway

Mark and I spent a couple of hours on Saturday afternoon in various DIY shops acquiring materials and I then spent Saturday evening and Sunday morning clearing "stuff" out of the games room. So no painting or gaming this weekend!

Of course, clearing the shelves has reminded me of games I want to play. I haven't tried the Victory Games Fleet series of games for years. Now I really fancy a game of Second Fleet.

Next week will have to see a break from construction work as I've scheduled in advance a game of Cold War Commander. This time we'll be returning to the 1980s and trying an opposed river crossing.

Redevelopment

Having recently received some money from a relative, I've been persuaded of the wisdom of getting my games room / workshop organised. Our friend Mark is a whizz of a cabinet maker and is going to construct some shelving and work surface for me.

So, for posterity - here are the "before" shots.

Star of the show, I'm hoping, will be my ex-V&A plan chest which will get castors and a new top so that it can store my 20mm figures and act as an occasional gaming table.

I've decided the room is too small to hold a permanent gaming table. I shall continue to annex the kitchen table for large games.

Great Northern War - part four

My current rush of Great Northern War painting will come to an end soon, if only because I have to organise the SOTCW game at Hammerhead in February.

But for now I'm stating on the Ottoman Turks I ordered from Irregular Miniatures between Christmas and New Year.

I've ordered enough to make four more units of Janissaries, three of European Sipahis, a horde of irregular light infantry, and four or five units of Arab light horse. There are also two guns and three General elements.

One units worth of Janissaries are already mounted on wine bottle screw caps and undercoated for painting.

Great Northern War - part three

I'm thinking that there might be some mileage in the idea of running a small early 18th century campaign using my GNW armies. The setting needs to be somewhere the Russian and Ottoman Empires met and given that the only GNW-era campaign ended in something of a damp squib (The Pruth Campaign, 1711) I think a semi-fictional setting is called for.

Fortunately, in Andreivia I already have a suitable setting semi developed.

So for a campaign I'll need some logistics elements and I think these could be useful.

They're 1/300th scale Arab Dhows by East Riding Miniatures.

Nice castings. Now I just need rules for boats in Polemos GNW.

Great Northern War - part two

Another project sort of completed during 2010 was my Ottoman Turk force for Polemos. I say sort of completed because today I took delivery of another consignment from Irregular Miniatures.

My new batch includes some command elements but for now I have these figures cut from a block of Irregular's Sipahi of the Porte.

You can't have an Ottoman army without Janissaries. These are a mixture of Janissaries and repainted Prussian Jägers, both from Irregular Miniatures.

I'm quite please with the effect of them en masse.

I've had great fun producing Turkish light infantry bases. This is a rocket team. I've no idea whether the Ottomans used gunpowder rockets in the early 18th century but it was too good an idea to resist. I may add some cotton wool smoke to the end of the rocket's trail. Sorry the rocket's out of focus but at least you can see the crew and baggage camels.

More light infantry - irregular musketeers.

And some more...

Sipahis form the main cavalry striking force of the army. Three or four Irregular strips per element on 60x60mm bases.

Also on 60x60mm bases are these Arab light cavalry.

And finally, some artillery. The Ottomans tended to use big guns - field artillery in Polemos terms.

I'm not sure yet how this force will perform against my Russians. I don't have a feel for how Polemos plays and balances. Going to need to try it out in one of our Saturday afternoon games noon.

Great Northern War - part one

The year 2010 has been, I think, my most productive ever in terms of getting stuff finished. The most recent completed project is my small Russian force for the early eighteenth century - the period of the Great Northern War. The army is made up from a Baccus 6mm army pack with a few additions.

The Baccus pack contains enough mounted officer models to make up several General stands. This one, on his prancing grey horse, will be my CO. I've been forced to add some Green Stuff undergrowth to strengthen his horse's weak ankles. Do horses have ankles? Fetlocks or something?

Another command stand features an Irregular Miniatures farm wagon.

This General receives directions from a friendly peasant boy. I think he's a Roman ballista crewman - not sure from which manufacturer.

The infantry are based and painted as four, two-battalion regiments.

These guys in the red-trimmed tricorns and grey coats are Gulitz's Regiment. I've still got to add a flag to the front rank command figures.
Next come the Semionevski Guards in their blue coats and yellow-trimmed tricorns. Again, a flag is to be added.

The Baccus pack doesn't include any figures for dismounted dragoons so I've based the cavalry as "Horse". These are Viatski Regiment. The plain flags are until I can find the historically correct colours.

My other, larger Dragoon regiment is that of Meierfelt.
The Baccus artillery is lovely. Definitely my favourite elements.

Finally, I've added some train - wagons converted from Irregular Miniatures Hussite war-wagons.

Actually, that's not quite final - I've just realised I didn't photograph the Cossack allies. Maybe next time!

Design Innovation!

In a major departure from previous Land of Counterpane practice (and following Tom Zunder's advice) I have instituted a major revision to the design of this blog. You can now see two buttons linking to the other two blogs I administer!

The SOTCW Events Blog is used in developing games to be put on by members of the Society of Twentieth Century Wargamers. We're currently working on a Boxer Rebellion game for the Gauntlet show in North Wales in July 2011. Dig back through the archives, though, and you'll find details of previous games too.

Andreivian Tales details the events in our fictional Black Sea coast nation. Several games over the past few years have explored the history of the 1990s civil war in Andreivia. Next I might be going back to explore Andreivia in the 18th century.