On the Workbench - October

This month I'm hoping to complete the process of rebasing my old Wars of the Roses figures for use with Basic Impetus.  Most of the decent figures are done now and what's left has an increasing proportion of old RAFM figures I bought in a sale at Games Workshop in Sheffield back in the days when (a) it sold non-GW products and (b) its staff included Pete Berry now of Baccus fame.

This lot have made it onto a BI base.  Because the bases are quite large (12cm frontage) I'm using artist's mounting board of a thicker  grade than usual.  The terrain texturing is my usual mix of tile grout and brown poster paint.  It'll get painted in two shades of earth brown and then dry-brushed with progressively lighter shades: Graveyard Earth, Camouflage Orange Ochre, Khaki, Iraqi Sand, and 50:50 Iraqi Sand and White.

In both pictures there are figures from a variety of sources.  The RAFM dismounted knight in black and white below (second left, rear) is in the process of conversion.  His head has been removed, turned, and pinned back in place.  He'll get the join disguised by building up his mail aventail in Green Stuff and will have a polearm held with the buisness end down and to the left rather than up and to the right.  This kind of simple conversion can disguise the fact that you have several of the same figure in a single unit.

Investigating the Lead Pile - part two

Not so much lead this time but lots of plastic.  We move on to look at my accumulated 20mm scale stuff.  I don’t tend to regard the plastic figures as needing to be painted.  Often I buy a boxful knowing that only really need a dozen or so for a particular game but let’s have a look at them anyway.

So, plastic figures:

• Revell WW2 Soviet infantry (2 complete boxes, 1 partial)
• Revell modern British infantry (0,1)
• Revell WW2 US Infantry (0,1)
• Revell modern US infantry (0,1)
• Revell WW1 French infantry (0,1)
• Revell WW2 Siberian infantry (1,0)
• Revell WW2 German sailors (0,1)
• Revell WW2 German engineers (0,1)
• Revell Napoleonic British Rifles (0,1)
• Zvezda Napoleonic Voltigeurs (0,1)
• HaT Numidian Cavalry (0,1)
• HaT WW1 French Infantry (0,1)
• HaT WW1 Royal Horse Artillery (1,0)
• Box of assorted Napoleonics (Airfix and Esci) about 150 figures
• Airfix WW2 Soviet infantry (2,0)
• Esci Muslim Warriors (0,1)
• Esci Russian Spetsnaz (0,1)
• Esci Modern US infantry (0,1)
• Italeri Napoleonic French Dragoons (0,1)
• Italeri WW2 Russian Inf (winter) (1,0)
• Italeri WW2 Russian inf (summer) (0,1)
• Orion Chechens (0,1)
• Orion Russian Federals (0,1)
• HaT Spanish Guerillas (0,1)
• HaT French light ambulance (0,1)
• Airfix Eighth Army (0,1)
• Airfix NATO Ground Crew (0,1)
• Airfix Napoleonic Highlanders (0,1)
• Airfix WW2 Germans (1,0)
• Airfix British paras (1,0)
• Esci NATO Infantry (0,1)
• A-Toys WW2 French infantry (0,1)
• Imex American Pioneers (0,1)
• 9x Airfix Italian infantry
• 9x Airfix Gurkha infantry
• HaT 81mm German mortar team
• 2x Airfix WW1 German infantry

Metal figures:

• Blitz US bazooka team
• Tumbling Dice WW1 Colonial Lewis Gun team
• FAA WW2 French HQ and Hotchkiss gun team
• 3x Hinchliffe MG38 MMG teams
• 1x FAA MG38 MMG team
• 6x FAA assorted Soviet types
• 12x Wargames Supply Dump late war Germans
• 1x Raventhorpe Fallschirmjaeger AT gun crew
• 2x Raventhorpe Fallschirmjaeger MMG team
• 1x Raventhorpe Fallschirmjaeger 81mm mortar team

Kits and stuff:

• 1x Revell A34 Comet
• 5x Atlantic Jeeps
• 1x Airfix Diesel Loco Crane
• 1x Hasegawa Jeep and 37mm AT gun
• 1x Fujimi T-34/76A
• 1x PST 120mm howitzer and ZIS-6 truck
• 1x Zvezda medieval boat
• 1x Lesney Scammell awaiting conversion into a passable Laffly artillery tractor
• 2x Akheton French 75mm guns
• 2x resin cast T-80s with ERA
• 2x Airfix Panthers (soft plastic)
• 3x Airfix Tigers (soft plastic)
• 1x Airfix 88mm gun and tractor 
• 2x Airfix Kubelwagens
• 2x Matchbox Comets (needing repair and repaint)
• 2x Airfix Churchills (ditto)
• 1x Matchbox Panzer III
• 1x Matchbox Jagdanther
• 1x PaK 40 needing repair and painting
• 2x Black Star DFS230 gliders
• 2x Airfix DUKW (soft plastic)
• 2x resin Bedford QLs
• 1x white metal 6pdr AT gun with Royal Marine / Para crew
• 2x Akheton generic Italian field guns
• 1x Airfix SA-2 tractor
• 1x Matchbox Henschel Hs-126
• 1x Fujimi Kubelwagen
• 1x white metal German ammo trailer

In addition there’s a shoe box full of assorted plastics that I haven’t the heart to try and classify.  Another three hundred figures?  Oh, and a drawer containing about 100 old Airfix American Civil War types that I've based on pennies for skirmish gaming - their bases need painting and then I'll... probably not use them.

Investigating the Lead Pile - part one

I've been thinking of late that it might be interesting to see just how much stuff I have left to paint.  So here's the result of a trawl through the boxes for 25/28mm figures.

Now this isn't usually a prime scale for me - mostly just Gloranthan Hordes of the Things but of late I've been basing any suitable figures I can find for Basic Impetus so what I have here might see action via that route.  So what do I have?  Well...

For Glorantha:

• 2 Scorpionmen
• 4 Dwarf musketeers
• 6 Broo
• Jar Eel the Razoress
• A Lunar warrioress with two scimitars
• A Jack-o-Bear
• A giant bat
• 4 Sun Domers (some of them dead)
• 1 dead Praxian
• 4 Egyptian infantry (could be Esrolians?)
• 1 Cave Troll
• 5 Trollkin
• 3 Zebras
• 1 Rhino
• 7 Morokanth (all in need of conversion - I'm going for an all-figures-unique army)
• 1 slave/herd-man
• 3 Sartarites
• Kallyr Starbrow
• 10 Ostriches
• 4 Gladiators (wouldn't look out of place around a Lunar army)
• 8 Lunar Peltasts (very like Persians with Greek shields)
• 1 Giant beetle
• 1 generic female warrior

Potential Basic Impetus stuff:

• 8 Roman Legionaries
• 5 Greek/Roman skirmishers
• 7 Cataphracts
• 6 Ancient Britons

Assorted other stuff:

• 8 Assorted horses (some may get converted into pack horses)
• A fishing boat
• A rowing boat
• An adventurers' raft
• 1 Boat crewman
• 1 16th century man at arms
• Giles and Drusilla (from Buffy the Vampire Slayer)

So, can I get all this painted (or sold) in the next twelve months?  Can I be bothered?  What else is there waiting completion?  Look out for more news here.

Barnsley Pics

Some pictures of the SOTCW Barnsley event here:

http://sotcw.blogspot.com/2011/09/saturday-in-barnsley.html

Off to Barnsley Tomorrow

The life of the Events Co-ordinator for an international wargames society is perhaps not as glamorous as some would suppose but every so often one does get to experience the highlights.  And what could be more redolent of glamour than a trip to Barnsley, that jewel of the West Riding?

SOTCW will be "gathering" at the premises of Barnsley Association of Wargamers tomorrow to play the odd game and maybe drink the odd pint.

I've been suffering of late from the twin evils of pressure of work and demotivation brought on by society politicking so I've not done as much as perhaps I should have in terms of promoting the event but there has been a rash of volunteers to put on games so things shouldn't be too awful.

Maybe I'll manage to off-load some of the lead pile.  Maybe I'll come back enthused to get on with some of my old projects.  We shall see.    

Sartarite Weaponthane

Whenever I finish a project like The Wolf Pirates I usually go one of two ways.  Either I stop painting for weeks on end or I have a rush of enthusiasm for some other scale or period.  This time, though, the old noggin has obviously not had enough of 28mm Gloranthan goodness and has pushed me to paint this Sartarite weaponthane:

He's a Black Tree Celtic Chieftain (or something like that).  He'll doubtless eventually end up on on a HOTT Warband base but for now he can sit in the display cabinet with some as yet unbased Sun Domers and Lunars.  

Best Shirt at Berkeley

There wasn't a prize for "best shirt" at the Berkeley Hordes of the Things tournament but if there had been it would have been won by Tony Horobin with this one:

The Latin "Ludus stultissimus est et nunquam amavi" apparently means, "It's a most silly game and I never liked it"!

More Berkeley Pictures

I thought I'd post some more pictures from last weekend's Berkeley HOTT tournament.  Firstly, here's a shot of the crucial moment of my game with Jane Williams.  Jane has just realised that by moving her two Heroes (Kallyr Starbrow and Kostajor Wolf Champion) into the bad going, she has slowed them down and lost her chance to prevent Harrek and Gunda (top right) taking Boldhome.

Next, another Wolf Pirate victory.  Sorry, I seem to have more pics of my victories than my defeats!

Steve Price has just two skeleton Hordes left on the table at the end.  His four Lurkers were taken out of the picture by my carefully avoiding entering any Bad Going, whilst Steve did roll 6 PIPs once but couldn't spare them to bring on his Dragon!

As usual there were some lovely armies hanging around.  Here are some Elves I snapped.  They could be by James Ewins?

And finally, Gus Woodward's "interesting" Aliens terrain.  I've been instructed to vet Gus's terrain for playability before next year's event!

Wolf Pirates' First Raid

So I'm back from the annual Berkeley Hordes of the Things tournament (it's actually at Slimbridge but it used to be held at Berkeley) and I had a great time as usual.

Most pleasing was the Wolf Pirates' performance.  I got to use them in five games and they won all five!  Apparently they suit my style of play - which is a nice result given that I was very much driven by the source material when it came to allocate the models to unit types.

Here we see the Wolf Pirate mass about to hit Steve Price's skeleton battle line.  Soon the Skeletons would be a large pile of bones and their necromancer general would be dead.  

To be fair, though, Steve did say that the Wolf Pirate army make up was exactly the worst for his army to face.

More pics to follow soon.