Wargames Review of the Year 2018

Victrix Carthaginian war elephants.  A good start to the year.

Determined not to issue my wargames review of the year when the crocuses are coming out I have decided to start it before Christmas. In fact, 2018 saw very little wargaming but an otherwise disastrous hobby year was saved by a late flurry of painting.


Figures Painted

The Army of the Dead from the Lord of the Rings Painted in just five weeks!

I began the year full of good intentions and a nice project of the lovely Victrix war elephants but having finished the pachyderms I had a failure of nerve as regards shield transfers on curved surfaces so haven't quite completed them. I have just four crew to complete so will try to get them done in January. I counted each rider and elephant as two figures so I had completed just four figures come October.  I did do some odd bits on my Fireforge Byzantines and started some Napoleonic British but was stymied by continued struggles with my eyesight and can now only paint in bright daylight.  I have had a series of injections into my left eye and it has really improved my vision in that eye, which was my weaker one but is now the stronger. Today, the hospital has recommended that I get my right eye done too over the next six months.

My painting year was saved, however by the Sculpting Painting and Gaming Facebook Group. Someone had the brilliant idea of having a 'paint 30 minutes a day' challenge. I set to work to do some more figures for the Lord of the Rings and although I haven't managed to paint quite every day I have painted the most for about four years. So my completed totals are:

Lord of the Rings: 89
Punic Wars: 4
Total:93

Ninety-three figures in a year is my best total since 2014. I have also finished another nine Byzantines in the first couple of days of January.  I tried using washes for the first time (hit and miss) and acrylics (definitely a miss) and I am slowly coming to terms with the fact that I just can't see to paint as well as I could even two years ago.  Figures with shield transfers, even though they are a pig to put on, make my figures look much better than they are.


Wargames played 

Just one wargame, again, in 2018 with a Napoleonic game for Richard Sharpe and associates at Eric the Shed's.  Epic scenery, of course, and an entertaining large skirmish which also incorporated offshore naval; bombardment.  Sadly, that was my last visit to the Shed as I am too unreliable an invitee because of evening conference calls as well as my total inability to remember or understand rules. Although I have now discovered the reason for this, as it turns out that I am dyspraxic. This explains many things about me; such as the fact that I didn't learn to tie my shoelaces until I was about fourteen, still struggle with tying ties and cannot do knots for sailing. It also explains my total inability to play ball games such as football, tennis or golf or play computer games. This may also be why I can't use tools, do DIY, constantly drop things, trip over all the time, can't parallel park and have difficulty reversing the car (I cannot comprehend how people can reverse into a parking place at a supermarket and always choose those slots with an empty space on each side). I basically cannot envisage stuff in three dimensions and my brain just freezes.  Difficulty in interpreting rules of games is part of this, it seems, which may explain why I can read them but cannot imagine how they work out in practice.  I'm too stupid for wargaming, basically, as I have long suspected.

So it will be solo gaming going forward, if any, where I don't feel pressured to think quickly, so I am going to focus for next year on rules that allow for this (like The Men who would be Kings and the new Sons of Mars gladiatorial set).


Scenics

I started a number of scenic projects in 2017 but haven't progressed any of them at all in 2018, apart from some undercoating.  Several projects have got stuck because I started painting them and now can't remember what colours I used on them.  I did buy some more stuff from Grand Manner before they went to only selling painted items, principally a Zulu village and some Sudan type houses. I really hope to move some of this along this year.  I have been buying the occasional piece of aquarium terrain, and plastic plants though, for my Lost Word/Savage Core project.

Shows

Sixth from the left

I did get to Salute this year and it was, as ever, nice to catch up with other bloggers but that was my only show as I didn't get to either Warfare (I hate driving into Reading) or Colours, due to having to collect Guy from Oxford for the end of term. Anyway, I really do not need any more hobby stuff!


Lead (plastic and resin) Pile 

I stopped recording my purchases this year so have no idea how the lead pile increase went but I bought a lot, mainly in the second half of the year.  I bought the Red Book of the Elf King figures but may sell these on as I can't do them justice in paint, especially now that I am painting Middle Earth again.  I also bought the Star Wars Legion boxed set but I have seen so many exceptionally well-painted figures for this it has put me off painting them, even though I have wanted such figures since 1977.  I have bought quite a few plastics (Victrix Republican Romans, Perry Zulus, Lord of the Rings Pelennor boxed set and Fireforge Byzantines) and some metal figures too, such as more North West Frontier, Stronghold female Vikings and even some English Civil War.   I also bought some more resin Raging Heroes figures although assembling them looks to be a nightmare!


Kickstarters

I did buy into a number of Kickstarters.  I couldn't resist the 28mm Bunny Girls from Dark Fable miniatures even though I have no idea what I will do with them but I did create this Osprey cover for them!  Not that I would need an Osprey as I know pretty much everything about the evolution of the uniform! At least these have arrived, as has another load of Ancient Egyptian ladies, also from Dark Fable.  Other ones I backed and am still waiting for are the John Carter of Mars roleplaying game figures, the Black Hallows townsfolk and the War and Empire Dark Ages figures.  I am still also waiting for anything from Kongo Acheson Creations African scenery which I supported back in 2017. In February, nearly four years after I ordered then, my Wargods of Olympus figures arrived. I am not planning to play the game but use the figures for Jason and the Argonauts.



Wargames Rules

I didn't get many sets of rules this year, which is just as well as I never use them! The new consolidated Middle Earth rules were in the battle of Pellenor Fields set. I also got some Back of Beyond scenarios. The main rules were the Red Book of the Elf King ones and the Sons of Mars gladiatorial rules which are supposed to work for solo play.

Wargames Blogs and Facebook

I only posted twenty times on my main blog (this one) in 2018, which is the least ever. Mainly this is because, of course, I didn't really paint anything until the last quarter of the year. I also only posted on four of my other blogs.  The most popular of these, with nearly 200,000 visits, is my Sudan War one and I haven't posted on that since 2012, although it still gets around 2000 visits a month.  I passed 750,000 vies on this blog this year and the most popular post, with 2025 views, was my Salute post.

I am posting more on Facebook, hence the lack of blog posts and in the last few months there have even been some wargaming posts! This time last year I had 151 friends and today I have 246, although I have deleted a lot due to political posts. The real positive aspect of Facebook for me is the groups and I have joined a lot of these this year. The most influential was the Sculpting Painting and Gaming group as someone came up with the idea of a paint for thirty minutes a day challenge and this has re-energised my painting.  In the last 9 weeks, since the challenge began at the beginning of November, I have averaged four hours forty two minutes painting a week.  I hope to keep this going!

Plans for this Year

I want to keep my painting momentum going but need to finish a few odds and ends including the War elephant and the Byzantine spear unit. I have the first unit of Byzantine archers ready for painting now (undercoated today). I also want to dig some figures out of my 'under way' pile which I can complete fairly quickly. I'd like to do some more ACW, some more North West Frontier and also some more on the 1864 Danes. If I am brave I will go back to my British Napoleonics too, although I am stymied on those by not being able to work out which arms I need to fit for which pose and I don't want to paint them all and find I don't need half of them! . It's the dyspraxia again!  I have also, at last, found the painting reference I have been looking for for my Franco-Prussian War figures so they might get some attention this year too.

Distractions

Another Facebook group I joined was the Mediocre modellers group on the basis that I might have to move onto making model kits if I couldn't paint figures any more.  The name proved to be a total misnomer, however. with people posting the most amazing things. any of these (and on some of the figure groups too) have the poster saying something like "Hey, guys, this came out OK, I suppose, what do you guys think". They then show some incredible example of construction/painting.  One day I am going to tell them not to fish for compliments because it is vulgar, desperate and arrogant. The false humility does not fool me. These are my most hated hobby group of people of the year (even more than the 'we shouldn't paint small figures of objectified women' types.  Sorry, I will continue to appreciate women as beautiful objects (as long as you don't treat them like objects) and that includes tiny sculptures of them. You are girly men (like Chris Boardman banging on about abolishing podium girls at cycling races).

Anyway, I bought a Tamiya Sherman to have a go at in the a dark evenings when I can't paint.


Musical Accompaniment

While writing this post I listened to John Williams' soundtracks for the first three Harry Potter films although I am not really a fan of the films and certainly haven't read the books. I have just ordered the limited edition seven CD extended soundtracks for the first three films.  Charlotte has been trying to persuade me to get the new Harry Potter miniatures game but I have heard bad things about the quality control of the set: broken and missing parts, mainly. The real issue is that I just wouldn't be able to paint them properly!

Next time it will be my non-wargaming review of the year.

A Back of Beyond Wargame

In a particularly green part of Central Asia the Warlord sends his White Russian lancers forward to recce

Thanks to Alastair for setting up a very rare game for me at Guildford last night. The first I had played on a regular club night for two and a half years, I think!  It was a Back of Beyond game with his Bolsheviks against my Warlord Chinese using the Triumph and Tragedy rules, which neither of us had played before.  His take on it is here

Getting me to explain how a set of wargames rules works is like asking Kelly Brook to explain the workings of the Large Hadron Collider (does it collide large Hadrons or is it just a large machine for colliding normal sized Hadrons?  I suppose I could ask my daughter but she is upstairs with next door's cat asleep on her bed again).  

The right teacher is so important to proper comprehension

Basically, each unit has a card and you can chose which order to activate your units and what they are going to do (move, shoot, recover, charge etc).  Each player lays down one card per unit in whatever order they chose to activate all the units until they are all done. This made the choice of which units to activate in which order quite tactical and I was nearly getting the hang of it by the end.  Small units of about ten figures gave a nice manageable game with throws to hit (on a D10) and throws to save (in a D6).  All in all I thought they were good rules and, initially at least, there were far less casualties than in the Chris Peers Contemptible Little Armies set which I used in the only other Back of Beyond game I have had.  It does require markers to indicate the status of units which I am not a big fan of but Alastair had some funny Litko skull markers which were better than most I have seen.

What Russian sailors are doing in the middle of Central Asia I am not quite sure.  You can tell it's the Back of Beyond because there are Yaks!

The scenario had a group of Russian Navy sailors holding a railway station with the Chinese attempting to blow up the railway.  There was also something about the Russians telegraphing for an (invisible) armoured train.  Given its invisibility I don't know whether it arrived or not.  

Somewhere I have an armoured train model for the period which I bought from Mark Copplestone.  It all reminds me of the Anthony Conway Caspasian novel The General's Envoy which featured a Chinese armoured train and a warlord army.  I must read it again!

I didn't have a lot of cover on my side of the board so just advanced in lines.  Obviously my army had been trained by a German officer who had gone to China before the Great War.  I was worried about the close proximity of my troops faced with a machine gun but the rules don't penalise this; it is just a score against the unit - how closely packed they are doesn't matter (unlike grenades).

Although advancing into a machine gun is not usually a good idea I was lucky and my own machine gun soon put paid to it.

I had attacked Alastair's weak flank but he soon had some troops racing to plug the gap which they did quite well but eventually I ground them down.

My general makes a break for the abandoned station while my elite unit prepares to engage yet another wave of Bolsheviks.

At first I had no idea what I was doing (as usual) but by the end of the game I had a plan and was using the threat of my cavalry to pin down a couple of units while (I hoped) my force on the left could turn Alastair's flank.   All was going well until my cavalry charge came up short (it's a set distance plus the best of two D6) and my lovely newly painted lancers were sent off.  Still, they did better than most newly painted units.

Meanwhile my general had dismounted inside the station and was soon involved in a vicious hand to hand fight where he put his sword to good use.  Things were looking bad for the general but some more of my troops piled in and he survived (admittedly by running away).

One more move failed to resolve things.  I had lost my machine gun and my lancers but still had three viable units, one of whom was still at full strength.   Alastair had four units left (I think) but they were down to a handful each.  I could still have gone either way which is why we decided to leave it there (and it was late and he had to walk the dog!).

I am very grateful to Alastair for the game as there was a fair bit of paperwork he had to prepare in advance for it.  He even made me a unit card for my cavalry which had a picture of my actual figures on it!

Now, hopefully, it won't be two and a half years until my next game at Guildford!

Warlord Games Caesar's Legions and other shopping

I headed down to Orc's Nest this morning, after my morning meeting near Euston, only to find it didn't open until 11.00am.  Given it was 10.30 and absolutely freezing again I went around the corner to Foyles bookshop, which was a mistake.  Three rapid purchases followed in their very good military history section.  

The first, at least, I had intended to buy, which was the Bolt Action British supplement.  Some useful lists although an almost total lack of mention of either Norway or Crete in their focus on the different theatres the British Army saw action in.  Warlord have re-issued the old Mike Owen sculpted BEF early war British with interchangeable heads so I might have to get some more of these.  Much of the book focuses on stats for various vehicles and some theatre specific army lists.  I would really like a 1/56 Matilda!   I need the German one, which they also had in stock, but feel a bit odd buying WW2 German military books.  People might think I was one of those ghastly Nazi apologists they had at Salute a few years back.   Best to order anonymously off the web for delivery in a plain paper cover.

I also picked up a book of American Civil War paintings by Keith Rocco.  I hadn't heard of him before but there are some very nice illustrations in this and they will get me to finish my ACW unit I hope!

Finally, I bought another Peter Hopkirk Back of Beyond book Foreign Devils on the Silk Road which is so fascinatingly readable that I am already well into it.  Some definite scenarios spring to mind around competing treasure hunters from different countries.  I would then have an excuse to buy some Copplestone Castings pack camels!

So, eventually, back to Orc's Nest, and, sadly, no sign of the new Black Powder Hundred Days supplement yet but I did pick up the Rome's Dacian Wars supplement for Hail Caesar.  Since my trip to Romania last year I have had a hankering to do some Dacians and this may well tip me over the edge.  Apart from the usual army lists there are a few tweaks to the rules (allowing Roman archers to shoot over the heads of an infantry unit in front of them, for example) plus new (basic) rules for ship movement and rather more in depth rules for sieges.  There are new skirmish rules included but these are really very small scale as they envisage just six figures a side.  Excellent news for me!  Essentially for one unit in the main rules read one figure.  I might have to try these out.  There are five short skirmish scenarios (lost patrol, the scouts, working party, the lost eagle, the prisoners) all designed for a 2' x 2' board.  Most of the book is made up of nine scenarios for big battles (siege, river crossing, hold the pass etc).  They are big too, with the first one requiring over twenty units of Romans and the same for the Dacians/Samaratians.  They would all equally work as well for any barbarian opponent and I will be using some for my Marcomannic Wars forces (eventually).  Altogether a worthwhile purchase and full of pretty pictures, as ever.

Most satisfying buy of the day was, rather to my surprise, the new Warlord Games Caesarian Romans.  I saw the three-ups of these at last year's Salute.  I have got quite a lot of the Foundry Copplestone sculpted ones which was making me hesitate about buying these but, blow me down, they work perfectly together.  You could put them in the same unit with no problem at all.  

Warlord (L) and Foundry (R)

I wasn't convinced by them in photographs as I thought that the chainmail rings were too large and crude but they look fine in reality and are the same size as those on the Foundry figures.  In fact, I think they are actually nicer than the Copplestone figures but it means I can use all the Foundry character and command figures with the Warlord plastics.  The Warlord figure looks bigger but it has a much thicker base.  If I mix in metal Foundry command (although Warlord have released a nice metal command set today) I might put something under the base of the Foundry figures. Unlike some Warlord Romans they don't come with shield transfers but you can get them separately.  The only bad thing is that now I am going to be building Roman units from three separate periods at the same time.  I'm turning into Big Red Bat!  They should be quick to paint too!  The most exciting plastics since Pamela Anderson in the opening of Barb Wire!  Simple but effective (just like Pammy!).  

Anyway I know exactly what to drink while putting them together (separate heads and right arms) as last year I bought a few bottles of a delicious Spanish wine called Legio from the Bierzo region which actually has a Roman shield (albeit a standard bearer's, by the look of it) on the label.  I Have a bottle already to go!

I also managed to pick up last month's Playboy which, again, demonstrates a marked improvement in cover design over the frantically busy and uninspiring covers of the last few years.  There have been just over 700 issues and I have about 580 of them.  They take up a lot more room than model soldiers though, bearing in mind that, as an example, for the seventies (for which I have all 120 copies) they take up 20 box files ( I only have 56 box files full of soldiers).  I only need six more from the sixties to complete that decade too. I need a bigger study!  I must stop putting half dressed women in my posts or someone will label it an objectionable blog. 

Speaking of which, following all this retail activity (I did work pretty much all day Easter Monday) I then had a long lunch at the National Gallery with the lovely D who, disappointingly was not wearing one of her usual low cut tops.  Curse this weather!  D is, rather dubiously, the friend of one of an ex colleague's daughter so is less than half my age.  Never mind, she keeps me young and we had a lively debate about tablets (not the sort I need to take, as she cruelly pointed out), social media and the Cloud.  "We should be in the Natural History Museum, you'd be much more at home there!" she said in exasperation at one point.  How rude!

Well I have just put together a short Roman playlist on iTunes (Respighi's I pini della Via Appia, the Triumphal March from Quo Vadis and quite a lot of bits of Ben Hur) so I need to start clipping Romans off the sprue (although I gather that the sprue is only the thickest parts off the whole thing).  

New quarter, new figures.

So, I have completed a few more figures to get the second quarter of the year off to a good start. A strange mixture of Argonauts, Romans and a Back of Beyond Russian.  All of these I class as characters rather than rank and file and so, in theory, I should spend more time on them. I'm now aiming to get as many figures done in the first six months of this year as I did in the whole of 2012.  Next up I want to finish my unit of Chinese warlord cavalry.  At the same time I want to base and undercoat my Aventine Praetorians; the next shipment is already en route from Northern Ireland!  Then I really must finish either the Prussians or the ACW Federal troops.

Copplestone castings Bolshevik girly

The warlord cavalry are a bit dull, colour-wise, so I need something bright to paint at the same time so am going to do Marcus Aurelius' co-emperor, Lucius Verus.  He liked a good time (unlike the philosophising Marcus Aurelius) so maybe that is the excuse I need to paint the Warlord slave girls who are far too tall for the Warlord soldiers but would look OK with the Aventine figures.

Accurate colour reference is so important, even for slave girls.

They are more Spartacus the TV series than anything remotely historic so I will paint them as such.    In fact, this serves to highlight the greatest enemy of historical accuracy in films.  It's not the director, it's the costume designer.  I seem to remember the costume designer for Spartacus said that they made the crowd in the arena's clothes very colourful as plain old white and natural linens were too dull.  The producers of the recent (and not very good -except for Jenna Louise Coleman who was just gorgeous) TV Titanic mini-series explained how she chose a particular palette for the costumes so they looked harmonious.  Grrr!  Stop being arty!  I know it makes your job more interesting but how about just trying to recreate costumes as they were in the period?  Don't design the clothes so as they make the sets look good or, worse, reflect the characters personalities.  

One thing I am struggling with at present is finding a good metallic gold paint.  The Citadel acrylics I have been using are horrible and don't dry brush at all well (the "grey" metallics, oddly, are fine)  The Vallejo bronze I use for my ancients is a bit better but maybe it's time to look at the good old Humbrol range as in days of yore.  Anyone else know of any good gold metallic paints?

Off to London tomorrow so maybe a trip to the banana coloured bunker that is Orc's Nest is called for.  On my list is the Hail Caesar Dacian Wars supplement, the new Albion Triumphant 2 - The Hundred Days Black Powder supplement and the plastic Caesarian Romans. 

Copplestone Castings White Russian Lancers in Chinese Service

Although I have, for me, a reasonable number of painted Chinese Back of Beyond figures I haven't done any for years.  When these came out just before Christmas, however, I knew that I had to get some for my Chinese warlord army.  

It's a very small unit but then they were just bodyguards for the warlord Chang T'sung-chang.  They were armed with Mauser automatic pistols, Da-Dao swords and bamboo lances.  The Copplestone figures don't come with lances but Foundry do bamboo lances so I got them from there. At present Copplestone don't make a command pack so I chopped off one of the lancer's hands and replaced it with a hand holding a Mauser pistol from one of my Bolshevik command figures. 

I actually had the relevant Osprey, Chinese Warlord Armies 1911-30, so painting reference was not a problem.  The only issue, really, is that my existing Warlord army is the one of Wu Pei-fu, the bitter enemy of Chang T'sung-chang, so now I will have to paint a force for Chang.  His provincial forces wore blue rather than the normal grey, grey-green or khaki so they might be a bit more interesting looking.  I have four unpainted foot soldiers I have just based but have run out of the model filler I use on my bases, annoyingly.  Off to Modelzone next week I think!

First unit of Bolsheviks

It's always a surprise when I actually paint a complete unit in one go but here is my first unit of Bolshevik infantry.  They are destined to be opponents for my Chinese warlord army once I have completed a few more units and some support.

Increasingly I am thinking about using these in a campaign similar to my Zambezi Campaign, with  a number of scenarios involving Chinese troops and bandits, White Russians, armed archaeologists and perhaps some other motley forces (Mongolians?) that might (but weren't necessarily actually) roaming around Central Asia in the nineteen twenties.  To this end I painted a  senior officer and tidied up a female Russian I painted some time ago.

Further development on this will be on my long neglected Pulp blog but it will certainly involve some of the vehicles and aircraft I have been collecting for the last five years or so.

I really enjoyed painting these Copplestone Castings figures and have enough for another unit of Russians so may base these soon.  I had terrible trouble trying to find early Soviet flags on the internet so had to resort to painting this one myself.  It is the first national flag for the USSR which was used until the hammer and sickle flag was introduced in 1923.

The Russians are Coming!

Well, there are many other figures I should be finishing off on the workbench at present but instead I have just completed these three Mark Copplestone Back of Beyond Bolsheviks.  Technically, the lady is a repaint as I first did her before I got my painting glasses and I realised that she was far too contrasty.  I have toned her down a bit, therefore.

The other two Russians weren't completed so I finished them off too.  The cause for all this Bolshevism is that I have been helping Guy revise the Russian revolution for his GCSE.  He asked if I had any figures for this period and, of course I did.  I have a reasonably complete Chinese warlord force for the Back of Beyond but they don't have any opponents.  I have started another unit of Bolsheviks, therefore.  Like all Copplestone figures they are easy to paint and not too complex as regards uniforms so I would like to get the unit finished this month.

I think this range was one of Mr Copplestone's best and I still have a fair few to paint.  I did play one game of Back of Beyond with my Chinese against someone else's Russians at Guildford a few years back.  You don't need a whole lot of figures for a good game so I will try and get another unit or two done as I know I have more soldiers in these peaked caps.  The other unit I am working on has the distinctive pointed caps.  The Russians switched to grey for their uniforms in 1922 but Back of Beyond has some non-historic aspects (or maybe it's alternative history) anyway, so I am keeping mine in khaki.

Artillery Piece of the Month

If there is one thing I hate painting more than cavalry it's artillery. I have only painted one artillery piece for my armies and that is this field gun for my Chinese Warlord army. However, I have several model guns floating around at present so have decided to try to get one painted a month. I am starting small with a mountain gun for my Belgian Force Publique force as part of my attempt to boost it a bit from the 48 figues I painted in November. Since then I have painted another 10 figures with five more under way and the addition of the gun will give it a bit more punch. I hope to finish it this weekend./p

I have a new set up for photographing my figures which means that I can use natural light or, as here, daylight bulbs when photographing at night. This removes the nasty flash shadows and also stops washing out pale colours.