So why Elenderil

I have a number of aliases from role playing games.  There is Del Gethlin the sneaky Scout and Intelligence Operative from playing Traveller back in the 1980s,  El Cid or more commonly Cid a real world nick name from my teens and of course Elenderil himself.

Elenderil was a 'fighter magic user' class character firstly in Tunnels and Trolls,who then migrated into Dungeons and Dragons gaming when that became popular in my university days.  He first sprang to life in 1973 and after I gave up on DnD and moved onto historical gaming was put out to grass, although he occasionally came out of retirement in odd games with my children.

The original 1973 little lead Elenderil

Apologies for the photo quality, its from my phone.  I found the original Elenderil figure when sorting through some boxes last weekend.  That pose looks a bit uncomfortable and the casting is a bit lumpen (Mrs E says its not unlike the real me - lumpen and uncomfortable!).  I have no idea who the maker was possibly a very early Citadel or GW fantasy figure.  Even by the standards of the day it's not a great figure but it has a certain sentimental value to me. 

In 1999 a new and exciting style of computer game burst onto the scene in the shape of a game called Everquest one of the early MMORPGs (that's a Massively Multi-player Online Role Playing Game!).  It was (and for that matter still is) a kind of computer moderated DnD set in a world called Norrath.

I was very interested in the interaction between real people via their computer avatars and having seen a couple of friends playing took the plunge myself.  I needed a character and essentially resurrected my old pen and paper persona as an online avatar.  The nearest thing to a fighter-magic user in EQ was a Ranger so that's what he became.  I still play him in EQ from time to time 20 years later (on the Antonius Bayle server if anyone wants to pop by and say Hi, or blow raspberries!).

The electronic Elenderil

I don't recall whether I did any research on his name or just took a name from Tolkein and changed it a bit.  Some years ago I did check it against a data base of the components of elven names from Tolkein's world and found to my surprise that it actually worked within the naming rules of his Sindaran language.  It roughly translates as a light shining brightly in the darkness with darkness having the connotation of a bad or evil place.  As I have always played him as having a similar set of ethics to myself (with the exception of killing anyone or anything he doesn't like the morals of - I restrain myself there) he really sort of represent my alter-ego.

So there you have it my guilty pleasure or possible dirty little secret!  From time to time I pretend I'm a four hundred year old wood elf who likes walks in the woods and killing stuff.  Or possibly it's that I play on-line role playing games?

Meeting at Bourne Vale - a BCW scenario

 My last BCW scenario was one of the most viewed pages to date so I thought that a second one may prove popular.  This is another early war action set in early 1643.  It's a tight battlefield about 1,000 - 1,500 yards square, so little chance of subtlety here, this is a case of line 'em up and let 'em roll.

The battlefield, lets call the bottom of the sketch 'South'

The battlefield - Bourne's Vale 1643
The battlefield consists of a shallow valley between two low ridges dropping towards boggy ground to the bottom of the table.  The contours would be about 10 foot changes in level if on a map so shallow hills giving some advantages for being uphill but not much else.  The boggy ground should be considered disordering and difficult for horse and foot and impassable for artillery.  The village (Higher Bourne) is a small hamlet of timber framed, wattle and daub, thatched cottages so not much protection from artillery fire.  Lower Bourne has presumably sunk into the bog years ago!

The forces
The Royalists deploy on the left of the map, south of the road and no more than 200 yards from the table edge.  The Parliamentarians deploy on the right also south of the road and no more than  200 yards from the table edge.

Royalist
The Royalists outnumber their opponents having the following troops:

1 x troop of 400 Dragoons - Trained and experienced.
1 x Squadron of 400 Horse - Trained and experienced.
1 x Squadron of 600 Horse - Trained and raw.
1 x Battalia of 600 clubmen - Untrained and raw.
1,000 pikemen Trained and raw
2,000 musketeers Trained and raw
2 light guns Robinettes or similar

The Royalist player may decide how to organise his pike and shot into units see the special rules below.

All Royalist foot are deployed in dutch style 12 ranks deep.  Horse are using Swedish tactics and deploy 3 deep.

They are commanded by Sir Henry Rawlinson a trusted commander with an ability of 4, (meaning he can command 4 units/subordinates directly). He is supported by:

Colonel Arkwright (able to command Foot) trusted and with an ability of 3
Colonel Peaseman (able to command Foot) trusted and ability of 2
Major Southam (able to command Horse and Dragoons) trusted and ability of 2
Captain Walker (able to command Horse) accepted and witha an ability of 2

The guns are commanded by the Gun captains and fall under Rawlinson's direct control

Royalist special rules - you may decide how to allocate the pike and musket into units but must have at least 5 battalia none of which may be below 400 men.  You may draw out a forelorn hope of shot or dismounted dragoons which may deploy an additional 100 yards onto the table if a named commander is with them.  Clubmen count as 1:5 shot to melee weapons and only have arquebus not musket (to represent older or poorly maintained firearms).  In melee they do not count as pike armed but as improvised weapons.

Parliament
Parliament has the following forces:

2 x Squadrons of 300 Horse - Trained and experienced
a further 900 horse - Trained and raw
2 x battalia of 600 foot 2:1 shot to pike - trained and experienced
1 x battalia of 700 foot 5:2 shot to pike - part trained and experienced
1 x Battalia of 600 foot 2:1 shot to pike part trained and raw.
1 x light gun Robinette or similar

All parliamentarian units are using Dutch tactics. They may decide how to organise the 900 horse into units.  See the special rules below.

They are commanded by Colonel James an accepted commander and ability 3.  He is supported by:

Colonel Humble (able to command Horse and foot)accepted and ability 3
Major Ferris (able to command Horse) trusted and ability 3
Captain Carter (able to command Horse and Foot) trusted and ability 2

An accepted commander can add a positive factor to a reaction test while a trusted commander has more of an effect (in my rules +2 as against +1)

Parliament special rules - of the 900 horse yo may divide these as you wish to provide two or three bodies but none of them may be over 500 or less than 150 in strength.

Command special rule
The named officers are able to have more units allocated to their commands then the ability factor.  however, in any given turn they cannot issue more changes of orders to units under their command than their ability value.

Background information
This is a meeting engagement Colonel James expected to meet poorly trained local levies who were assembling at a Royalist muster and is surprised to find a balanced all arms force coming towards him.  He is unable to evade them and there is no better site to stand and fight than this.  In turn Sir Henry having intelligence of Colonel James' movements considered this to be his best chance of defeating the enemy before additional Parliament troops are sent to the area he set out towards the enemy with the intention of bringing them to battle.  He was hoping for a larger advantage in numbers and quality than he actually has.  Both sides objective is to destroy the others ability to fight by breaking the forces facing them.  Its pretty much a traditional slugfest but with some doubt about the ability of either side to land a killing blow!

In the bleak midwinter

On Tuesday afternoon the weather finally turned to snow in Rugby.  About 2 - 3 inches fell in under an hour.  I was about to head off to an evening's wargaming at Trebian's (The author of the excellent blog 'Wargaming for grown ups' (which you can find via this link http://wargaming4grownups.blogspot.com/) so I was slightly worried that if it got much worse I would need to cancel.  As it happened once I was a couple of miles out of Rugby and on to the A14 the amount of snow fall was much less.  For anyreaders who don't follow Trebian's blog it is worth the time to read.  He writes his own rule sets and I was looking forward to his take on the Russian Civil War (1918-21).  A full write up of the game is on his blog titled 'More Russian About'.

We used his rules 'Return to the River Don' which gave a great game with all the chaos and uncertainty I expected from a RCW encounter.  The rules are straightforward and focus on command and control problems.  Each turn players dice for initiative and then try to activate commands alternatively between the two sides.  Poorer quality units are harder to activate then good ones but none of them are guaranteed to do what you want. If a unit fails an activation test the Red player must coerce them into action (commissars shooting people to motivate them sort of thing)  that gets the unit moving but they now carry a penalty for future activation and have less actions available once they are activated.  The whites don't have to coerce units but can do so if they wish and they have officers available to do it.  If a unit fails activation all the units in the parent formation stall and play passes to the other side to attempt to activate a formation.

Once a unit has been activated the player verbally states the actions he wants to take.  These may be changing formation, moving, firing, charging to melee, reserving fire and so on.  Each unit has a number of actions once activated but having specified what these are and the order they will occur in dice are thrown and depending on the result you may not get to carry out all the actions you declared.

It quickly becomes clear that you need to lead off with the best quality troops in a formation to prevent the entire parent formation stalling and that the order of taking actions is crucial as it is always the later declared actions that are lost if the dice are against you.

All in all enough fun was had for me to consider buying some Peter Pig 15mm WW1 Russians!

Reasons why I should have listened at school

Physics in air warfare that is.  I had to read some basic physics to remind myself of the rules of basic Kinetics, as it turns out that I can't properly understand the flight mechanics of WW1 dog fighting without it.  Specifically I was looking for the rules on converting potential energy into kinetic energy (trading height for speed) and how fast various 'planes would gather kinetic energy in a dive and then shed it again once they leveled up.  I also need to know how many g they experience in the pull up to see if structural damage is an issue.

It turns out its pretty meaningless other than as a very general rules because its almost impossible to decide what the VNE rating of the majority of WW1 aircraft was.  VNE is 'vitesse never exceed' aka 'velocity never exceed' in aviation jargon or what we would think of as the safe limit for dive speeds.  There are some useful anecdotes about that speed for a handful of aircraft but that's about it.  I suppose flight safety limits were a bit more elastic back then.

For example Bristol Fighters were built to handle a 6g load and had a design max safe dive speed of 400 mph!  Certainly diving at speeds close to 300 mph seems to have been common for them.  SPAD 13s could also dive at those kind of speeds. It has calculated that V strutters like Nieuports and Albatri DIII and DV would shed their wings due to 'flutter' (undampened oscillations in the lower wings) at 135mph.  My favourite though is the description of how to dive in an SE5a.

"After we had learned to handle the S.E.5a's fairly well, he called us together and said, "Now, I want you to do some fast diving with your engine full on, and diving vertically. You can get up to nearly 300 m.p.h., but I must tell you how to do it without losing your wings. The airspeed indicator only registers up to 180 m.p.h., so after that has been passed, you simply look at the fabric on the lower wing. When you see one buckle appear in it, you are probably doing something like 200 m.p.h.; when there are two buckles, you are probably doing about 250 m.p.h.; but you want to be careful not to get three, because then the wings will undoubtedly fall off. Now, go up and do some real diving."

The SE5a was able to dive to something close to 275 mph.  What I have been able to find is that the terminal velocity of most WW1 aircraft was low due to the inherent drag so most of them seem unlikely to have been able to reach the VNE limit unless in a steep dive under power.  The real risk was the g load on pulling out of powered dives.  While British and French built aircraft appear to have been designed with 6g loads in mind, early war German aircraft may have only been built to handle 3.5g (according to an article on the Aerodrome website).  Their ability to hold energy after leveling out from a dive was hampered by two things, they didn't gather much energy in a dive because they had little mass and the drag factor meant the velocity was low (the energy gained is dependent on the mass of the objective times the velocity squared).  That high drag factor also means they bleed energy quickly after leveling out so it needs to be utilised quickly at the end of the dive.

What that means is I can fudge the equations to create generic energy rules.  Which is good news for me as I don't think I was listening the week we did calculus either and that is what I would have needed if all the data was available.

Photo Reconnaissance

Another scenario for WW1 dogfights.

German Briefing
Good morning Gentlemen.  The High Command suspect the Tommies are planning a push in our sector.  You know what this means, the command wants photographs of the artillery park south east of Ypres off to the south of the road to Comines to see what the activity is there.  You have been there before so I don't have to tell you to watch for their aircraft patrolling out of Furnes to the North or Bailleul to the west of the target.  To get the best chance of a decent picture you will need to get your photograph from under 6,000 feet.  The bad news is that the staff want two shots of the target so you will need to make two passes!  I know that increases the risk but it's better than having to go back a second time when the British will know we are interested in the state of the ammunition supplies.  Good luck.

British Briefing
Settle down chaps, yes Carstairs that means you too.  Now we have some news that Fritz is showing an interest in the area South East of Ypres, if he is interested it makes sense that we should stop him getting what he wants.  So we have been tasked with patrolling the lines in that area to make life difficult for his photographic excursions.  If he is true to form then we can expect a two seater and escort to try a quick sortie over the area about an hour after first light when the light is good for his purposes.  As he needs to come to us I suggest you patrol just this side of our lines, no point risking Jerry Archie getting you now is there.  If he does come over you main objective is to down the two seater before he can get back over his side of the lines.  Right off you go, take off is at 0500, see you in the mess for a spot of lunch later,what?

The scenario
The mission is set in July 1916.

The Germans have a Roland CII and two Albatros DIIs as escorts.  The Roland is an old Irregular Miniatures model I have had for probably twenty years or more!  The two Albatri are more recent Heroic & Ros offerings.

The Germans, It looks a tad exposed flying the Roland

They enter the playing area at point 'A' at heights of the German player's choosing..  One fighter must close escort the Roland but the other is free to roam.  The Roland must over fly point 'B' before exiting at point 'C'.  To get the photographs the Roland must over fly point 'B' at 6,000' or less at a speed of  60mph or less and in  straight and level flight during each attempt to take a photo.

The view the British are hoping for?

The British consist of two Sopwith 1 1/2 Strutters who enter from point 'D'.  Their entry height must be below 13,000 feet but can be as chosen by the player.  They enter as a pair at the same height and within 180 yards of each other they may separate once they sight an enemy aircraft.

The table is the usual banqueting table and is laid out as below

Special rules
The German observer is the photographer, so cannot man his MG and take photographs at the same time.  To obtain a photograph he must be on the camera for 30 consecutive seconds before passing over the target (including the turn passing over the target).  After the first shot, he must spend a further 30 seconds (non consecutive) changing the plate ready for the second shot and for the second shot a final 30 consecutive seconds lining up the second shot again including the time passing over the target.  He can abandon the attempt at shooting to man his gun if needed but would have to start again to be able to take photographs.

Once a photo run has been carried out roll 1D6.  On a 1 the photographic plate is damaged or the observer is convinced the shot was spoiled and it has to be retaken.  That pass doesn't count!  On a 2-6 its OK.

Archie (Anti aircraft fire); if an aircraft passes over the enemy trench lines or (if a German aircraft)  the target  at under 1,000 feet or less they will come under small arms fire from MGs.  Each turn they spend more than half of their move over or within 1,000 feet of enemy trenches or the target throw 1D6 on a 6 the aircraft is hit, throw for damage as if hit by a single belt fed MG.

This is a tough ask for the Germans.  The Roland is a tough old bird but the need to take two photographs will make life difficult for them.  The table isn't that big (at least not with the rules I'm using) so the British will be able to intercept fairly quickly.  The Germans have to make the tactical choices here the British are focused on one objective and their choices will be reactive in response to the German's decisions.  I see three main options for the Germans firstly try to get in and out fast and then back over the friendly side of the lines ASAP.   Second stay on their own side of the lines and try hit and run attempts to get the photo's, third let the Albatri attempt to shoot down the British and then get the photo's at leisure.  If anyone comes up with a different plan do let me know in the comments.

Project management.....what project management

If you have been following this blog you will have worked out that I have a lot of wargaming irons in the fire, WW1 dogfight rules, the 2mm ECW rules project, the ECW in Lancashire project, the Dark Age campaign idea I have wanted to run for about 30 years the list goes on.  One thing this blog has been good for since I resurrected it is stopping my grasshopper mind from jumping from idea to idea without ever really finishing anything.

So to make sure things progress I have listed them in order of proposed completion.  It turns out that the voice in my head (you know the one; it's the one who looks at the Baccus 6mm catalogue and murmurs 'ohhh shiney' to my wallet) does do some project management.  I have decided that in order of likely completion I will focus on:

1. The WW1 dogfight rules
2. The 2mm ECW rules
3. The ECW in Lancashire
4. The Dark Ages campaign (796AD - whenever it ends)
5. Operation Seelowe in Yorkshire

Interspersed with this will be some painting and modelling.  Lots of 6mm stuff in the painting queue and I NEED more Heroics and Ros WW1 aircraft.  Oh and playing some games.  Lets see if this blog can keep me on target.

Chocks away part 2

The game was intended to test the new combat mechanic I have put in place of the very basic one originally used in SPI's Flying Circus back in 1972.

Now this brings back memories

I have used what are essentially the same four damage charts, one for single or twin MGs (split between belt fed or drum fed) but don't use them to create hits on the target aircraft.  Instead once the number of 'hits' is established a second D6 is thrown if that scores the same or less than the hits a critical hit occurs.  The hits scored on the original chart are instead deducted from the pilot's resolution.  Once that drops to zero that pilot decides that discretion is the better part of valour and tries to break for home.

Like the original SPI offering aircraft are managed by a play sheet where current speed, altitude and climb progress is recorded and damage ticked off.  Each turn is 10 seconds flying time and the hexes are 60 metres flat to flat.

All aircraft models in this game are from Heroics and Ross.  The Observation balloon is scratch built.  So Chocks away and lets have at it!

The British Pair enter at the top of the 8,000 foot flight band and head straight for the Balloon at 140 KPH while climbing to 9,000.  Meanwhile the flight of Eindeckers is also looking to close on the Balloon.  They are at 7,000 feet and making maximum speed at 140 KPH and climbing.  Meanwhile the Balloon unit start winching down the Balloon but it's going to take 30 turns to get it down to earth, time they probably don't have. 

Wings gleaming in the early morning sun the British Pair close on the target

The Sopwith stays at 9,000 and continues towards the balloon while the DH2 starts to shed height steeply while turning to port (left).  The Eindeckers stay as a pair and bore straight ahead.  By turn three the Sopwith has passed the Balloon to port and is shedding height to match the Fokkers the DH2 has dived steeply to 4,000 and is lining up for a pass on the balloon.

The British split their forces laterally and vertically

The DH2 then turns hard to Starboard and takes a shot at the Balloon.  No obvious damage is seen but the Balloonatic's (the period slang for Balloon observers) resolve drops by one.  50 seconds have now elapsed.  The Sopwith dives and turns hard to port getting a firing angle on the lead Eindecker with the rear twin Lewis guns.  The lead flying around the German reduces his resolve by 4 points and more importantly scores a critical hit.  It's possible structural damage but that won't be resolved until he makes a high stress maneuver.  Meanwhile the DH2 jinks to use up airspeed and turns in towards the Balloon. 

The DH2 is lining up his attack

In an attempt to get on the tail of the DH2 the leading Fokker dives hard and is rewarded by the sound of a wing spar cracking.  No more hard maneuvers for that aircraft then.  He does get a firing solution though but doesn't hit anything vital.  DH2 pilot's resolve -1.  The Strutter fires his rear guns at the Balloon with no effect and now has to reload the Lewis gun.

Oh Bugger (in German)!

It's all hotting up now as the DH2 pilot is frantically reloading his Lewis gun and trying to jink to make the damaged Eindecker overshoot.  The Strutter solves that problem by means of a turn and throttle back to allow him to engage the damaged Eindecker with his forward armament.  Its a big hit another critical and the Fokker is left with only one of his initial 7 damage points and is trailing smoke all he can do is turn for home and hope to land before the British finish him off.  The other Eindecker is turning hard onto the DH2 and holds a height advantage ready for a diving attack next turn.  His plan is interrupted by a loud 'Woomph' as the rear gunner on the strutter, having reloaded his guns scores a critical on the Balloon which bursts into flames.  Both balloonatics bail out safely but the balloon is a goner.

The Fokkers head for home and probably a stiff talking to!

At this point the second Eindecker out numbered and with a badly damaged flight leader to take  care of turns away opens up some lateral seperation and dives for home.  The British could pursue but decide that the job is done for the day and head home for a spot of tiffin.

The control sheet and yes those are dog biscuits as markers (don't ask)

The new combat rules seem to work OK but the balloon hit was a fluke and I really should have a separate critical hit table for balloons as without incendiary bullets they were extremely difficult to bring down.  The basic air combat maneuvers need updating as the 1972 rules are a fudge to cover discrepancies between speed over the ground and actual airspeed and don't include any actual special tactical moves such as yo-yos, Immelmans or barrel rolls.  I also want some kind of rule for energy management and overspeed structural failures (those Albatri wings don't just fall off on their own you know).  More on those issues after some more reading.

Chocks Away

No I'm not talking about the last of the Christmas confectionery, it's WW1 dogfight time.

As a play test of the rules I'm going to try an early war balloon busting scenario.  The runners and riders being a German Observation Balloon defended by two Fokker Eindecker EIIIs and ground AA machine guns v a Sopwith 1 1/2 Strutter and an Airco DH2:

Gentlemen, here is your target Boche Sausage

The Scenario
I will be using a standard folding banquest table measuring 180cm x 75cm (roughly 5' 10" x 2' 5").  The aircraft will enter from the narrow ends of the table.

The Balloon is at 4,000 feet with two MG positions along side, in the centre of the table The British may enter at any height they wish up to 10.000 feet.  They may enter together and at the same height or from two different points on their side of the table and at any height or heights.  Once any British aircraft appear on table the two Eindeckers may enter on their next turn.  They arrive as a pair at the same height and flying together once on table they may separate.  Dice for entry height using 2D6 x 1,000 feet to set the entry height.

For the defence two Fokker EIIIs

Special rules
The Balloon can be lowered at a rate of 500' per minute this occurs in the German turn.  The German player will start to lower the baloon as soon as British Aircraft enter the table.  The balloon has a defence factor the same as an Eindecker.  Once that is exceeded it is in flames.

The Germans have two ground based machine gun batteries these fire as aircraft mounted twin belt fed machine guns.  They can reach up to 1,000 feet altitude and have a range (as a ground distance) of  600 feet.

The attackers a Sopwith Strutter and a DH2

The game is set in April 1916 when the Eindecker was no longer the cause of the Fokker Scourge having been outclassed by newer allied aircraft such as the DH2 and Nieuport 11.  For the British the Sopwith 1 1/2 Strutter has just come into service with the RNAS (the RFC didn't receive the type until July 1916).  The DH2 has been in service since February 1916. So the two British aircraft would in reality have been RNAS and RFC types and unlikely to have flown together.

Last but not lease a close up shot of the lozenge camouflage on a Halberstadt CL class.  I'm really very pleased with how the transfers (decals if in the US) I made came out.   

Not involved but worth a look 

AAR in the next post.  So chocks away chaps, do try not to come down sausage side and remember it's a mans life in the Twenty Minuter's.  Woof Woof (tm Lord Flasheart)!

Other 6mm projects

Although my main interest has always been land warfare in Western Europe from the Romans up to around 1700 AD I do occasionally go off piste.  Two projects that have taken me a long way from my core area have been World War Two land combat and World War One air combat.

The WW2 thing comes from my first introduction to wargaming,  Charles Grant's 'Battle'.  Not from the book although I do have a copy, but from the articles in The Meccano Magazine which were pulled together to create the rules in Battle, except for the morale rules which oddly didn't make it into the book.  Those articles would have been published in the late 1960's when I was at secondary school!  In those days it was 20mm (well HO/OO scale) Airfix all the way for infantry and tanks.  For the WW1 dog fighting bug I blame Biggles and Airfix kits again.

A couple of years ago I decided to have a go at Early WW2 after reading a book set in East Yorkshire during 1940 it interested me because it was where I was then living.  The book is Seelowe Nord the middle of three connected books about WW2.  It is alternative history which looks at the double 'what ifs' of Operation Sealion both going ahead and having targeted the Yorkshire rather than the South coast.  German beach landings occurring between Scarborough and Filey with airborne landings at Spurn Point and Leconfield airfield .

Improbable I know but it was fun being able to stand on the ground being described and see where various things were meant to have happened.  Plus it wasn't a bad read.  The author's other two WW2 novels are set in France during the period running up to Dunkirk and one set in the days straight after D-Day.  Again both worth a read and all three available as ebooks for Kindle.

Of course I went 6mm for this and to date have a German armoured battalion (Pz 1, 2 3 and 4s) with the various attached support units (STuGs and SIG33s and recce elements) and a Panzergrenadier company as infantry support all from Heroics and Ros.  The Brits are a mix of Home Guard  and regulars supplied by GHQ and Irregular Miniatures.  Irregular miniatures have some of the improvised armoured vehicles used by the Home Guard and a mix of their WW1 and SCW infantry act as stand ins for the Home Guard's PBI.  GHQ have provided Bren Carriers, Matilda's, A9s, A10s and Regular Infantry.  I have their towed 25lbers as well and some towed AT guns.  Enough for a decent scrap.

German Armour pre-painting.

World War 1 in the air was supplied by Heroics and Ross plus a couple of Irregular miniature castings I already had in the bits box.  The H&R aircraft are lovely models but do require some assembly.  I replace the struts with copper wire as they are easier to use.  I even went to the lengths of creating my own lozenge camouflage transfers.  Five lozenge not seven I'm not completely mad!

Adding the lozenge camouflage

I now have a decent selection of aircraft and just need to complete the rules.

The assembled aeroplanes

The Eindeckers is a lovely little casting as are the Albatrii (Albatrosses?).  The Observation balloon is a scratch build and just needs a basket adding.  It's amazing what you can do with a toilet roll centre, two beer can widgets and some paper mache I will try to do some close ups in a follow up article at some point.

One disappointed reader

I don't normally do really short posts but I was checking the stats on the blog this morning and saw something that made me laugh out loud!  I have exactly one page view from what must be this weeks most disappointed web surfer.  They searched for "Small women perfectly formed" and  landed here!  I bet that was a WTF! moment.

Whats on the painting table - 2 January 2019

I have done the occasional how to do it article in the past  I thought a more regular update on whats on the work bench might give me an incentive to clear things off it!  Feel free to comment with constructive criticism, suggestions on techniques or to ask how (or why) I do things in the way I do.  If you see a review of a purchase that doesn't crop up in one of these posts it will probably be sat in the lead (or resin) pile waiting it's turn, and not in any way shape or form represent a project that has just stalled.  My projects don't stall they just sit patiently waiting for me to get my ass in gear!

At the moment the next job is terrain items. I have a small village worth  of Leven Miniatures buildings I need to finish off.  These consist mainly of Dark Ages period stuff.  Plus a Roman Villa which I couldn't resist as it was such a lovely design.  For those who haven't yet seen Leven Miniatures in the flesh, they are lovely castings.  The range is entirely 6mm and covers most wargaming periods.  If It's not in the range contact them and ask if it could be added, Mick (the owner) is very helpful and will seriously consider creating items to fill gaps in the range.  His customer service is first rate too.  I ordered some Small Saxon Roundhouses and received the Orc Huts from the fantasy range in error.  I contacted Mick who sent out the correct items by return and told me to keep the Orc Huts rather than send them back.  I'm sure I will find a use for them before long.

Leven 6mm village awaiting my attention

The buildings are cast in a resin which holds the details really well.  Apart from the very occasional small bubble I have never had a bad casting from Leven and they do paint up really nicely. Compared with the Timecast buildings I have the resin is slightly less weighty which may be why there is such good detail as I expect a thinner resin would allow a mould with more detail to be used. I like the fact that the buildings dimensions aren't changed to match game ground scale.  I have a church model which is an extreme example of this it looks tall and thin because of the distortion.  While it may mean that troops weapons ranges stay realistic compared to the footprint of the building it just looks wrong.  Take a look at the image below to see what I mean.

That church is just weird

I prepare the buildings by washing in hot water with a little washing up liquid and then pat dry to get the worst of the water off.  I then put them to one side for 24 hours to give them time to thoroughly dry out (that's the hardest part of the process as I'm itching to get to work on them by that stage).  I start off with an undercoat in white.  I use white because small scale stuff needs to reflect as much light as it can.  To me black undercoating dulls the colour too much.

I read a long time ago that the smaller the scale the brighter the colours need to be.   The logic is that a real person is still the same size no matter how small they seem to appear due to distance.  So the surface area from which light reflects is always the same and that is what determines the colour you see..  A model is trying to look like the actual thing but has less surface area to reflect light from (everything we see is light reflected from the thing we are looking at).  We have to enhance the effect of colour to offset the smaller surface area hence white undercoat and brighter colours.

I start by block painting the main areas and then add the details.  I go over and touch up any paint that has gone over the edges of the casting area I want it to be restricted to and then ink wash in a brown.  Lately I have gone over to Agrax Earthshade by GW.  The reason being it acts as a filter rather than just a shader.  Meaning it gives a very thin cover to everything rather than just pooling in the low points.  That ties the colour schemes together.  As a nod to zenithial lighting I hold the casting upside down while I apply the wash.


My two favourite models so far are the Saxon Great Hall and the Roman Villa.  It may not be a coincidence that these are both larger buildings.

Saxon Great Hall

Roman Villa - part painted