Happy New Year and a short reflection

Overall it's been a restful Christmas break spent reading, painting toy soldiers, watching TV and playing video games

I have spent a part of the break watching the new (fifth) season of The Expanse on Amazon.  This season was a short one, perhaps because of coronavirus issues,  however it was still worth watching.  In fact the whole series is well worth seeing if you like science fiction and it does stay remarkably true to the original books.  As an aside the books are also well worth a read.  They consist of the main story arc and a number of novellas exploring back stories and parallel events to the main story.  The TV series manages to blend a number of these into the main narrative in a fairly seamless manner.

Another unlooked for TV gem has been El Cid also on Amazon.  It is a Spanish production overdubbed into English, but don't let that put you off.  It's a more detailed version of El Cid's story than the Charlton Heston movie and seems more rooted in history.  Think Game of Thrones meets the Last Kingdom but with way better kit standards.  The first series covers the reign of King Fernando the Great of Leon until his death and the splitting of his kingdom between his sons.

On the book front, but as yet not started, I have the last of the Last Kingdom sequence of novels and the latest Simon Scarrow Roman adventure to keep me amused.

On the wargaming front I'm starting to map out a project which has been on the back burner for a number of years, which watching El Cid has kick started into life again.  Yes folks its the 11th Century, it's Spain it's the wars of El Cid.  For reasons which will not immediately (if ever) be clear but which involve the quiz show host Jim Bowen and a failed attempt to play football at age 11 my nick name at school was El Cid, shortened to Cid or as most people thought plain old Sid.  Ever since I started wargaming I have had a hankering to field the army of El Cid, so that means the project has been on the back burner since the early 1970's.  But 2021 is the year where I intend to create the three relevant DBA armies; Feudal Spanish, Andalusian and Islamic Berber.  There will be a lot of proxying if I'm going to achieve this using Baccus figures alone but it can be done.  The shopping cart is meant to reopen in January so I will be ready and waiting to pounce when it does.

So all that remains is to wish you all health, wealth and happiness for 2021.  'Lang mae yer lumb reek' as some Scottish bloke said. 

Made it! - I beat the lead pile!

There is nothing like leaving things to the last minute, is there?

I set myself the challenge of painting more figures than I bought in 2020.  That meant I needed to paint and base 758 6mm figures, I know some people could do that in a couple of weeks. but for me this is a biggie!  In 50 years of wargaming I have never before ended a year with less unpainted figures than I started with!

I finished and based a couple of DBA elements of early Byzantine Skoutatoi.  I need to texture the base but they are eligible for use under my house rule of no unpainted lead on the table for solo games.  As an aside I have finally found a way of using yellow that will not allow darker colours to show through.  The answer is to use a coat of pale sand or tan yellow over the darker colour then the bright yellow over that.  not my own discovery but something from one of the pro painters out there.  As I type this I am ahead by 5 figures overall but I have three days still to go.

And here they are the first over the finishing line.

 

Pushing for the finishing line

 The 2020 painting target is in sight.  It wasn't a huge amount of lead by the standards of some of the commercial 6mm painters out there.  No, I don't mean the painters are 6mm tall, the figures were what I meant, although it does create an interesting whimsy. What if the figures could be life sized and shrunk to 6mm once painted? I could paint them with acrylic house paint using an emulsion brush.  Even the sloppiest paint job would look sublime once shrunk back to 6mm.  But I digress (again).  When I look at the output of those commercial figure painters I know of via Facebook I am continually amazed at the numbers they can paint.  Daniel at Reveille seems to be able to get through the equivalent of my monthly out put ( and I mean a good month's output) each and every day with no loss of quality.  It would be nice to achieve that level of through put just for a few days every so often, but alas my grasshopper mind always has about a dozen other things vying for my attention which takes me away from the painting table! 

I finished work for the Christmas holiday on Monday evening.  I usually try to have a long break over Christmas and New year as it is the one holiday where I don't have to rush about packing and getting to holiday locations, instead I can spend a few days doing very little other than catching up on a few jobs around the house and doing hobby stuff.  So with a decent break in sight, the promise of the Baccus shopping cart reopening in January and nothing to get in the way, painting can continue apace.  As things stand I should hit my target in the next day or so even with interruptions for video gaming, TV watching and dog walking!  Which will clear the decks ready to restock in the new year.  

Will 2021 be the year of 6mm Wars of the Roses?  Or will it be more Late Romans and Early Medievals?  Oh and there is a small matter of the ACW side project where I'm thinking of trying 3 mm figures either 3D printed courtesy of Forward March Studios or possibly from Magister Militum.  So perhaps 2021 will also be the year of 3D printed armies.

Last but not least I wish all of you a very merry Christmas.

Unexpected gifts and In Deo Veritas

I don't think I have ever really mentioned anything to do with my working life.  I work in the world of tax, no not H.M. Revenue and Customs.  I did once work for them, well the Inland Revenue as it was back then, but not since 1999!  I now work for a niche tax consultancy which in turn is part of a larger US based corporation.  Usually at this time of year there are the usual corporate events to thank the staff for their efforts and this would normally include a nice bottle of something and a box of choccies.  Of course this year isn't normal, the Coronavirus has put paid to any staff get togethers and as we are all working remotely issuing physical gifts was going to be a nightmare.  So image my surprise, and pleasure to receive an email giving me the choice of a £100 Amazon voucher or a donation to a charity in the same amount in place of this years' Christmas get together and gift.

So there was I with an unexpected £100 burning a hole in my pocket and the whole of Amazon to go at!  I bought some additional Christmas gifts for the ever lovely Mrs E and the rest I spent on goodies.  A few painting materials and then military history/wargaming books.  In no particular order I splurged on:

• In Deo Veritas wargames rules for the 17th Century (Helion & Co)
• Twilight of Divine Right also 17th century rules (Pike and Shot Society)
• A rabble of gentility - The Northern Horse (Helion & Co)
• In the Emperor's Service - Wallenstein's Army 1625 - 34 (Helion & Co)

All books I wouldn't have thought of purchasing apart from my unexpected windfall.  The Helion & Co books are all from their 'Century of the Soldier' range which covers the pike and shot period with the current focus being on European conflicts in that period.  I'm very impressed with what I have seen so far.  Good production values, excellent content and coverage of stuff that hasn't previously been easily available in English language material.

I also downloaded a copy of the 'Tilly's very bad day' free rules for the Thirty Years War.  These are by Steve Thomas who co authored the first edition of Twilight of the Sun King, the predecessor to Twilight of Divine Right.  'In Deo Veritas' arrived on Friday so I have had chance to skim read both sets and I also read a few reviews of Twilight (as my set hasn't arrived yet).

The good production values start with the cover 

All three sets claim to be fast play and in each case they do this, at least partly, by using manoeuvre units which are brigade or tercio sized.  Less units means less things to move so faster play, seems to be the idea.  

One common criticism I keep seeing in reviews of all three sets is that the definition being used of these brigades or tercio sized units is imprecise both in terminology and unit size.  To be fair to the authors, I had the same issue with my rules mainly because there is no standardisation between armies as to what to call military units, especially of foot.  This leads to a need for rules to use a catch all title for all armies, at all places and times in the period which didn't really exist.  The complaint being that it makes it hard to convert orders of battle for use under these rules if you don't know what a brigade actually is.  I would have thought that this would have been easily dealt with by explaining the problem upfront.  IDV especially seems to play fairly fast and loose with the concept.  The rules include about a half-dozen sample battle scenarios and one of these is Marston Moor 1644.  This is a battle I know fairly well having lived close to the battlefield for a number of years and having based my 6mm army on the forces deployed at that battle.  The scenario order of battle reduces the number of actual units by between a half and a third.  Some of the amalgamations make sense as they match known composite formations but others don't.  Some description of the process would have been helpful.  As it is it presumes either no interest in the actual battle or an in depth knowledge good enough to allow the player to work things out from scratch! 

I can't help but think that this will loose some of the period flavour. The 17th Century was a period of military evolution and part of this showed as different formations and tactical styles at brigade level.  Now I may be wrong here and those differences may well shine through in play.  Reading has made me decide that as I have a fair few 17th Century figures in 6mm that I will give 'In Deo Veritas' a try out.  I will then be able to compare the feel with the rules I have written which are more flexible on formations and tactics as the manoeuvre units are less restricted.  I'm hoping for some inspiration on unit basing and victory conditions as a minimum out come and perhaps even a 'Road to Damascus' moment producing a conversion to this approach to fast play. 

My first painted 6mm ECW figures figures for a very long time

I have been trying to meet one of 2020's New Year's resolutions for the last few weeks; having less unpainted figures by midnight on December 31st then I had at January 1st!  So a personal challenge to reduce the lead pile by painting more than I bought over 2020.  It should have been easy, mainly because Baccus 6mm's shopping cart has had to close for a large part of the year to manage demand and I prefer to buy from Peter's range where he has the figures available, or something close enough to be a viable proxy.  As a result chances to splurge have been restricted.  On the other hand lockdown and the need to be strict in observing the social distancing that came with it dealt my painting mojo a blow and there were three months without any figures getting finished!

Additional Late Imperial Romans.  Legionaries, Auxilia and Equites Sagittarii

All of which meant that I entered November needing to pull my finger out.  At this point please imagine the sound of a finger making that popping noise as it flicks out of the side of your mouth.  You know the one, the cork out of a bottle sound, better yet...do it, go on... you know you want to!  Well I have extracted said digit (more popping sounds here) to the extent that I have run out of unpainted Late Imperial Roman infantry and proxy Byzantine infantry figures!  

Baccus Sassanid Infantry as Byzantine Skoutatoi.  Those shields need some work.

In desperation I turned to the deeper reaches of the lead pile and found unpainted Irregular Miniatures 6mm ECW figures lurking in the shadows.  ECW in 6mm was my earliest foray into sub 25mm gaming.  The bulk of the figures were purchased in the late 1980's from a wargaming store a few hundred yards from Kings Cross station at the end of Pentonville Road if memory serves.  Looking over the tray of unpainted lead made me realise how far 6mm sculpting has come in the intervening years.  The majority of the infantry look like clothes peg dollies scaled down to 6mm!  But in the middle of those were a handful of better sculpted casts.  These were the newer irregular miniature casts.  I have no idea when they were introduced or where I got them from.  I suspect some now long forgotten benefactor gifted them to me.  So onto the painting table they went.  Partly I wanted to reduce the numbers in the 'to paint' pile but also I wanted to see how my painting style had changed in the intervening thirty some years.  So here they are.

Older casts with older paint jobs in the centre.  At this range they all look reasonable

As you can tell the older casts are prone to snapping at the ankles.  A trip to the surgeon and a dose of superglue should fix that.  The new casts need separating so as to have a firing and a ported rank so they are more work than the old ones, but the animation of the figures is far better.  My painting was simpler back then but my eyes were better so I picked out more detail, or at least what detail there was to be picked out.  I'm more ambitious but probably less able now, well my eyes are 35 years older then when I painted the first figures

At the time of writing this I am 53 figures short of target with half of December still to go and with 98 figures on the painting table at various stages of completion.  Fingers crossed I may actually achieve a New Year's resolution for the first time ever this year!

The Dark Ages campaign - some musings

 The original campaign rules included some detail that I can't use in a solo game.  The main one was a system to provide some ability to create alliances and exert influence over other players.  Each ruler would have had points of influence allocated based upon the battles won or lost, and their personal ability to rule.  These were to have been used to maintain loyalty in their populations and sub commanders, or to create unrest in other player's home provinces and to influence other players policies through agreements.  

The idea was that a strong successful leader would be able to 'lean' on neighbouring players and if he managed to 'outbid' them with influence points to force through treaties and agreements.  The effect would be cumulative so a long reigning king with a high influence rating should leave a relatively stable country to his successor.  I say 'should' as a proportion of spent influence points would be lost on the death of a leader to represent the personal nature of kingship.  This would have been useful in the current situation in south west Wales as the attack on Devet would probably been replaced or offset by player negotiations and agreements.  In the original campaign the Welsh Princedoms were threatened by Mercian aggression and would have had an option to set up non aggression and support agreements which would have possibly left a small princedom like Devet less exposed.

Historically Devet (or Dyfed or Ceridigan depending on the source) had a tough time of it, Formed in the mid to late 8th century it was ultimately swallowed up by Seisslywch in the 840's to form a larger political entity under Hywel Dda.  Before that it may have been a client state of Seisslywch as there is an interregnum possibly due to Viking or Mercian attacks after which a new royal line appears which may have had links to their northern neighbour through marriage.  it seems to have been a thing with the Celtic kingdoms as the Scots and the Picts eventually merged through intermarriages rather than military conquest.  

In my mind, in this solo variant the conquest of a province doesn't automatically mean occupation and boots on the ground.  Instead it represents an extension of influence as much as conquest, although I haven't really thought it through in any great detail.  This gives me an option for these one sided battles. The threat of unresistable force exerts a lot of influence (well war is the extension of politics by other means as Clauswitz told us) so I could simply surrender control to Seisslywch.

In the far North I realised that I have missed an option and a playing faction.  So lets all say hello to the Norse the Norwegian Viking faction.  They have a toe hold off map in the Shetlands and historically raided and settled the North and Western Isles, Parts of Ireland, the Isle of Man and the North west of England.  At the start of the campaign, some areas are not under any player control which was originally intended to provide the Norse with options beyond ripping straight into Pictia.  Their first game action will be to attempt to occupy and settle the Orkney's.