Black Tree Design

BTD have a terrible and well-deserved reputation for abysmal customer service. On 4th August 2008 I ordered some BTD Normans to use as Border Kingdoms armies in our Talomir Tales campaign. About three months later, part of my order turned up. The infantry were fine but I was not impressed with the quality of the cavalry; one of the horses only had three legs and others had minor casting defects. Still, given how long it had taken to get even these figures, I was not going to send these horses back. For all I knew, I might never see them again or any others besides! So, I painted these figures up and waited for the rest of my order. A couple of months down the line, I enquired about my order by email and through their website queries forum. I received no reply. I repeated this every couple of months, even adding a couple of written enquiries by post. I received no reply. Then suddenly I actually received a response completely out of the blue on 31st July 2009 informing me that the rest of my order would be due in a few weeks and offering me a free pack of figures of my choice. I replied immediately that I still wanted the figures and informed them which free pack I would like. It all went quiet again and I never expected to see the figures.

- Cue fanfare -

Today (12th September 2009) I received the rest of my order! One year, one month and one week after I originally sent it in, it turned up on the door mat. It even included a pack of free figures as an apology. The freebie pack was not the one I had asked for, but it is still useful to me, so that is all to the good. I doubt I shall ever use BTD again. I shall certainly not use their mail order service again despite the hefty discounts available. I might consider buying from them at shows if they are present, because I do like the style of the figures. At least at shows I could check that the figures are not miscast, and I would know that I was getting what I wanted when I wanted it. It's a good job I still want these figures for our games. The Border Kingdoms can now recruit some new troops to their army.

Wolves from the Sea

My brother came to visit today. He was dropping off the Vikings supplement for Field of Glory, which I plan to try at some point in the future. Wolves from the Sea is a nice shiny army list book. I already have some quibbles with the Vikings list (Cavalry? What were they thinking?) but the book itself is well-produced and has lots of inspirational artwork from the Osprey books in it.

I suspect that Field of Glory will fall short of my desires in the same way as every other rules set that covers the entirety of prehistory and history up to the end of the medieval period does, but I shall try them first. The game play may be sufficiently good to warrant continued play. On the other hand, I may well prefer Impetus. Dadi e Piombo already scores well by making Basic Impetus freely available, and I like the fixed army lists for BI. One thing I hate in army lists is the ability to pick and choose every option that was ever used in history, even if it were only ever used once. My view is that army lists should produce representative armies, not the exceptions. Unfortunately, the Ooh Shiny Complex seems to creep into the lists. Wargamers want to be able to field flaming tar pigs and stampeded cattle at every turn, even if they were only rarely used, but I do not subscribe to that particular fetish. Anyway, I already have a ton of 15mm Vikings, Saxons and Normans to paint, so I shall paint these figures up and try the rules out.

My brother also dropped off a copy of Command Decision: Test of Battle. I have played Command Decision since its first incarnation and have both the second and the third incarnations and have always enjoyed it. I also have and have played the WW1 and modern versions of the rules (Over the Top and Combined Arms). The new version is nice and shiny and comes with Fog of War cards, which I understand are played like random events. It also claims to have streamlined the combat system (a definite plus because the rules are quite techie) and now includes a points system for pick-up games. You decide which theatre and time period you are playing and get a core force for your side based on that. The core force is fixed but you then have a number of reinforcement options. I have not looked at it in detail but it looks like a good way to produce historically believable battle groups without the usual problems that a points system brings. The rules also include 12 scenarios to introduce you to the game, so there is plenty to do with them. In addition to this, a quick glance at the index suggests that they are very complete in terms of combined arms attacks, air support and all the rest. I can't wait to try these out. Time to dust off the old Western Desert forces and break out my copy of the Benghazi Handicap. Tally ho, chaps!

End of June Update

This month's target was met about a week or so ago, which was nice. I am now looking forward to next month's objective. I have identified some Wargods of Aegyptus figures that I would like to get painted and some 6mm figures for variety. My plan is to paint all of my remaining Totanem (children of Ptah), which amounts to one unit of warriors, one hero and a stone colossus that I bought last year at Salute. Having seen the retail price for the colossus now that it has been released, I think I got a bargain. I also plan to paint the figures I had set aside for my Border Kingdoms army in our Warrior Heroes campaign. My original goal was to use Normans for this army, but there are none on the market in 6mm that I like, so I am going to go with more Wars of the Roses period figures from Baccus. This has the advantage of adding to my Wars of the Roses collection so that I can fight larger battles with those armies too. I recently bought Warmaster Medieval Armies and would like to try those rules. The army lists are a bit of a nonsense for this period, but the game is fun and I can always write my own lists if necessary.

Other options for the month include rebasing my 15mm Vikings for Basic Impetus and patching them up. I have had most of these Vikings since the late eighties and it shows. The paint jobs stand up well enough, but the paint is flaking and the figures look decidedly like grizzled veterans. I have a ton of 15mm Saxons and Normans to paint so adding them to the queue would be useful, and I could use them as opponents for the Vikings. I also have a half-painted Qin Chinese army that I bought to fight my brother's Han Chinese. We had planned to use Armati for this battle but my brother lost interest in Armati after a poor showing at a tournament, so I put my figures to one side. Now I am tempted to dig them out and try Basic Impetus with them too. I think I actually have enough unpainted Chinese to produce a couple of Warring States armies. I doubt any of these 15mm chaps will be the subject of a monthly objective because Steve has no similar figures to oppose me, but I may well treat them as a personal subobjective. With two armies on the table, Steve can hardly refuse to play me, can he?

Thinking back on the drive for thrift, I am quite pleased with what I have achieved so far. The challenge is now 6 months old so I thought I would pen a few words on that. Steve and I have managed to paint a bunch of old lead without buying too much new lead, which is a good thing. I have certainly curtailed my spending quite significantly, which is also a good thing, and I have dealt with a number of projects that had previously languished through lack of focus. This is brilliant. Adopting this project-oriented approach has really helped in getting things completed. Mind you, I have not really noticed any diminution in the lead pile, but that is probably because it was so large to start with.

One thing I have done each month is define a realistic goal. I have not posed any difficult challenges because I felt that over-facing myself would be counter-productive and kill my motivation. Therefore I have looked at what I wanted to achieve and what I could achieve, and have set my targets based on that. On the whole this has worked well. I have had moments when I did not feel like painting at all, and others when I felt like painting all the time. This has balanced out and I have been able to make steady progress. One thing that has really helped, has been playing a game with the new figures each month. By using them almost as soon as they are ready, I have been more motivated to complete the next project.

So, I now face the next 6 months. Steve and I have agreed to expand our Warrior Heroes campaign with new nations. We plan to paint and add a new army every couple of months to the campaign. This will give us more options for the campaign and will help to ensure that there is a continuous stream of battles. At the moment, there has been an unpleasant outbreak of peace among two thirds of the participants. We need to deal with that. We also have the annual Wargods tournament in November to work towards. I cannot decide which army to take and may well opt for some unpainted units just so that I get more lead painted. There are also numerous rules sets that we both want to try; rules are our real downfall. We keep seeing cool rules and getting them, although my thrift drive has led to me spending less on rules too.

If you have managed to read this far, thank you for reading. Pictures will follow as I tackle the July objectives. In theory I could have them done in early July, but I am still looking for a new job and working on my thesis, both of which take up rather more of my time than you might think.