Reinforcements arrive!

I popped down to Wargames Emporium yesterday to make sure I had some models to keep me going for a few more weeks.

The Victrix French artillery (or at least one of the three teams in the pack) will be converted into Westphalian artillery for use in our 1812 Livonia campaign.

I've decided I far prefer the visual impact of 28mm for Sharp Practice. I think I'll probably sell off my 20mm Napoleonics.

The Picts will get based up for Lion Rampant to join the metal ones I finished recently.

Ebor Lard 2022 Report

On Saturday Tom Davis kindly drove Alex Sotheran and I up to Green Hammerton (near York) for the annual Ebor Lard games day. As usual there was a feast of gorgeous looking Too Fat Lardies games on offer.

In the morning I played in John Savage's The Eagle Has Landed 55BC, an Infamy Infamy game in which a Roman landing party attempted to make off with the captured British king Churchilliax in a coup de main aimed at paving the way for Julius Caesar's invasion.

As usual with John's games the terrain was lovely.

I took on the role of commander of a party of Roman marines holding the beach while centurion Octavius Steinerus) led a strike force bringing in the captive.

Unfortunately, however, the Romans hadn't had time to scout out the wooded area either site of Steinerus's route and we were soon up against "Britons... fahsands of 'em" (if I can briefly switch filmic references).

My marines had, perhaps foolishly, deployed into column as I thought I might be able to rush them forward and close down one of the British ambush points. The front group of Marines was immediately routed having been reduced to half strength.

Fortunately, I rolled a relatively low score on the dice to see how far they fled and this left the two Marine Leaders handily placed to join the one remaining group on the edge of the beach. This would prove crucial as events developed.

Meanwhile the Roman force under Steinerus was being swamped by ambushing Britons.

From this point onwards the battle was remarkable for the continued resistance of the second marine unit. With two officers they were able to continue rallying off shock for turn after turn...

... even with British cavalry in their rear!

In the end, after we'd been convinced for ages that the jig was up for the Romans (they were on 1 point of Force Morale turn after turn) Steinerus managed to reach the headland above the beach... and that was it - with escape in sight the final point of Force Morale was lost and the Roman mission had ended in failure.

The game was hugely enjoyable despite (or perhaps because of) the late defeat. If you get the chance to play in one of John Savage's games at a convention I'd strongly recommend it.

My afternoon game was Jeremy Short's What Sins Have We Committed? This was a Dux Britanniarum game featuring the full cast of Arthurian characters. I played the aged Arthur!

The set-up was very pretty!

I have to say I found this game somewhat frustrating. Dux Brit is one of the older Too Fat Lardies games and in my experience they seem (like first edition Sharp Practice) to get the balance wrong between player control and chaos. At most points in the game I didn't feel in control of my own troops and when I was able to get them to do what I wanted, the result was distinctly disappointing. And yet, when we came to tot up the victory points Arthur had won!

As usual the other games were equally gorgeous looking...

I strongly recommend your getting along to a Lardy day if you get the opportunity.  

Steel Lard takes place in Sheffield on 19 November 2022. If you'd like a place, please let me know by commenting here.

I'm not long for this world!

Barring a few bits of assorted junk, these six Goth cavalry represent the end of my 28mm lead (and plastic) mountain. And as we know, a wargamer with no figures left to paint must soon meet his maker!

They are built pretty much straight out of the Gripping Beast plastic Dark Ages Cavalry box. I may have used a few parts from the Late Roman Heavy Cavalry pack.

As usual, I've tried to go with reasonably muted colours appropriate for pre-industrial dye technology but I used a few greyish-blue colours as these guys are likely to be among the better off elements of a Goth force. The blue tunics look rather brighter in the picture than they do in reality.

The plan is to use them to play Lion Rampant but I may also have a go at adapting Infamy Infamy to the fourth century.

More adventures in VFM 28mm

When I get enthused by a project, I often want to produce more units for the project even when I've exhausted the available figures. Thus with my American Civil War Sharp Practice forces I've been casting around to see what I could use to create more toys to play with.

My Confederate force is intended to represent irregulars operating somewhere along the Mississippi River, It provides opponents for my Union's Mississippi Marine Brigade fellows. I have two Groups of line infantry and three Groups of cavalry. 

I want to have the option to deploy the cavalry dismounted so I've been gradually accumulating suitable figures. One Group of six came from a pack of Perry's metals (Confederate dismounted cavalry, civilian dress) I bought at Partizan. For the second Group I repainted some old Dixon's minis I got from Richard Phillips. I still "needed" a third Group though. These are they...

The marginal cost of these guys is negligible (at least in financial terms). Their existence depends on some key facts:

• The Perry plastic Zouaves box gives lots of spare heads
• The Perry plastic ACW infantry and cavalry boxes provide spare hats and weapons
• The Warlord War of the Spanish Succession infantry box provides a multitude of spare torsos, and
• The Warlord Gallic cavalry set provides a load of spare legs as it mates the standard infantry sprue with white metal horses with cast-on riders' legs.

I have all of those boxed sets left over from previous units.

In addition I had some Perry ACW wounded figures left over after creating wounded versions of my existing Leaders.

The figures are, left to right in the picture below:

First is a metal figure out of the "wounded" blister pack except that I replaced the right hand with one holding a pistol from the ACW cavalry box. I actually cut both recipient and donor arms at the top of the cuff to make sure there was sufficient plastic on the new hand that I could drill a hole to take a brass reinforcing rod.

The next guy is straight from the Perry wounded pack.

The remaining four are cobbled together from ACW, WSS, and ancient bits. I decided the WSS cavalry torso that has neither neck-cloth nor cuirass could pass for an ACW-era undershirt. These were grey by regulation but I thought it reasonable to change one of them to pink to give some variety. The torso has a cross-belt so I glued spare cartridge cases to the appropriate hip of each model.

Attaching hats to Zouave heads required a bit of careful carving away of the cast-on fezzes but nothing I couldn't happen. 

I squared off the pointed Gallic boots and decided the legs could represent trousers tucked into socks.

A bit of Greenstuff to fill I the gaps where parts didn't fit perfectly and I had another Confederate unit!

Value for Money 28mm

Of late I've been painting some of the figures I picked up cheaply at my local friendly local games shop (Wargames Emporium in Sheffield).

First up is a small selection of Bavarians. They come from a Victrix command sprue that was cheap because the horse was damaged. I thin they look fine.

Next up is a familiar chap who came from the assorted-bits-for-a-fiver bag I picked up six months ago. In the words of Charles Boyle, "Yippee-ki-ay other buckets"!

And finally, we have this WW1 German officer from the same bag as Mr McClane above. I don't have an obvious use for him. Maybe useful for a Pulp Alley game?

Second-hand bookshop find

The other day I decided to check out Porter Books, a second hand bookshop in Sheffield. I'd been unable to find any such while we were on holiday and really fancied a leisurely browse.

When I found the four volumes of Battles and Leaders of the Civil War - a history of the ACW that makes use of the writings of the commanders involved, I thought I'd treat myself. 

I hoped we wouldn't be looking at something north of £100 for the full set. As it turned out, the cost was just £20. Really good value for what looks like being excellent research material to support scenario design!

Tank Riders

I've struggled in the past to find a visually attractive but practical way of indicating that a 1/300th scale armour unit is carrying tank riders.

Yesterday I had an idea and today I completed a couple of test pieces.

As my tanks are all on 20mm wide (and generally 30mm deep) bases, I decided to create a 30mm square base out of thinner-than-usual card. It's actually the type you get on the back of a note-pad. To this I added two strips of 5mm x 30mm artist's mounting board to create a "gutter" into which a standard tank base would fit.

I then glued on some SMG-armed Soviet infantry to the rear end of each strip and textured the strips with Tetrion, being careful to leave the gutter clear.

The result is a base that makes it clear that infantry are being carried without having to balance units on top of tank models. When the riders dismount I'll remove these and replace them with normal units.

I'm pleased with these as prototypes. Now I'll have to make some more and some British and German versions too!