The More the Merrier

Or in this case 'The Moor the Merrier' or Mauri, it's the North West African chaps who are the focus of this post.  I was looking through my lead pile and realised that I had bought a couple or three packs of Moorish Infantry.  These were used for various Dark Age types like the Welsh Princedoms and Dal Radian Scots.  The castings are bare legged and only have a tunic so they can be pressed into service as any number of lower class skirmishing foot types in that period.  I have sufficient of those for the time being so I decided to use them as Mr Berry intended, well I had quite a lot of them more (or should that be moor) than enough to cover the DBA3 infantry requirements for a Later Moorish army.

With very little variation in clothing choices, which meant a restricted palette, painting looked like it was going to be easy.  White(ish) tunic,  some dyed cloaks dark skin tone and then just animal skin shields in a mid brown, hair in a dark colour and weapons.   Well at least it it looked easy!  Moors didn't have the really dark skins of Sub-Saharan Africans  so getting that shade right took a few goes and as for the white tunics....Arghh!  White is one of those colours which is difficult to shade (I really must try a contrast type white paint at some point) and it took me a few attempts before I came up with an system that I was happy with.

I started with a white undercoat courtesy of Halfords ever reliable rattle can automotive primer.  I pre-shading on that but didn't like the contrast it gave.  So I had a cup of tea and a bit of a think ( but didn't take off any handles or things what hold the candles*) and decided on a new approach.  I painted all the tunics in Vallejo Bone white which is more of a pale coffee brown and all the flesh in Vallejo German Camouflage Brown a darker mid brown with a hint of something else in the mix possibly blue.  Only then did I apply a thinned wash of GW Agrax Earth Shade.  After which I dry brushed the tunics in Vallejo Ivory and then picked out some high spots in Vallejo Pure White.  It sounds like a lot of work but it doesn't take as long as you might think.  Adding some variations between black and chocolate brown for hair and some pale brown for javelin shafts pretty much completed the main paining.  A coat of varnish and the final touch of silver for and bronze to weapons and officers helmets and that was job done.

A gratuitous close up so you can see the final effect on those pesky tunics

Basing is my usual black basing sand and fine flock patches.  I used less flock than normal as Moors live in the Semi-Arid lands of North West Africa.  I will have to order some Moorish cavalry next time I'm buying from Baccus, then the Moors can be off to the races (see what I did there?). I have completed 44 of the infantry to date and have a further 36 on the painting table nearing completion.

A few more Moors (sorry I couldn't resist it), there are more to come (sorry, not sorry) 

The Moors are an interesting army in DBA a general who is either cavalry or light cavalry, five Light Cavalry and six javelin armed foot who can be a mix of  light infantry or fast auxilia. Not a lot of punch but a whole lot of nuisance value.

As an aside, and I may already have posted about this.  I read something on a blog a while ago which has been a game changer in terms of brush care.  The occasional use of alcohol based hand sanitiser gel to clean brushes!  The gel means it sticks to the brush and it removes acrylic paint a treat, being clear also means you can see what is being shifted too.  It doesn't seem to damage the glue holding the hair in place, although I take the precaution of washing them out in warm water with a drop of Mrs E's shampoo in it afterwards.  After a second rinse they get a bit of hair conditioner then a final rinse and dry.

* For the education of younger readers go look for Bernard Cribbins' song "Right Said Fred".  It's a tale of the trials and tribulations of two removal men.  As an aside we had a second hand upright piano when I was very young that had both handles and things what held candles!  Life eh?

The Great War in the Air - Part two

 The charts and tables

If you have looked at the original rules for Flying Circus you will have seen that those rules had a bespoke chart for each aeroplane.  That wasn't going to work with the much larger number of 'planes I had in mind so I took inspiration from another game where a generic data sheet was used and the bits that were not required were blanked out and specific data added into the relevant boxes.

The Control Sheet
You will need one of these for each aeroplane on the table with the relevant min and max data added and irrelevant parts blanked out.  You will also need some markers to track current height, speed, overspeed, ammunition  and damage.

Speed (throttle) shows the current movement points in level flight and is the speed generated by the engine.  If an aeroplane has dived it can gain additional Kinetic Energy (KE) this is acceleration due to gravity less deceleration from drag.  The maximum energy an airframe can 'store' from diving either in a Power dive (PD) or a Steep Dive (SD) is limited by a number of factors.  Lets lump all of those together as 'drag'.  That number is recorded in the Max KE box while the KE which is gained by diving is shown in the Kinetic Energy gain and loss section gains by power diving or steep diving on the left side and conversely the amount lost each turn in level flight (LF) or climbing is on the right .  If the airframe is storing kinetic energy it is tracked on the extra speed from diving track  This energy can be useful or may risk damage if the 'plane exceeds the VNE speed (velocity never exceed) as recorded in the VNE box.  Aeroplanes may also accelerate under power (Throttling up) or decelerate by cutting power and letting drag have it's effect.  The maximum number of movement points that can be gained or lost in a turn by these actions is recorded in the movement maximum gain and loss area.

Height is tracked using a counter on the three height tracks one shows 50 feet increments up to 1,000 feet, one 1,000 feet increments up to 10,000 feet and the last is in increments of 10,000 feet.  To track current height you need three counters one on each track.  Of course all aeroplanes have a maximum ceiling which is recorded to the left of the height tracks along with a box to record the maximum climb rate of the aeroplane.  Note that some manoeuvres can have an effect on the altitude of the 'plane.

Turn codes are the number of hex sides that can be moved through in a single hex and the cost per side in movement points and the number of hexes required in forward flight before making the next turn.  Turn codes A- D are as in Flying Circus.  I added extra more sluggish turns for larger aeroplanes These are turn codes E and F.  Code E costs one movement point for the first hex side and can only turn one hex side in a single hex.  Turn code F costs two movement points for the first hex side and can only turn one hex side in a single hex.  In both codes E and F the aeroplane must move forwards one movement point before making another turn.

The Statistics
You may not agree with some, or all of these and I can't be certain that they are anywhere close to actual performance data.  This is because I tried to find formulas which gave me the same stats as Flying Circus provided for it's original list of aeroplanes.  To do that I had to work with what data was actually available.  I could calculate secondary stats like lift area and power to weight ratios, but its all a bit vague really. Actual aircraft designers should probably look away now! What it does do is generate different data for different 'planes and in general scouts perform better than two seaters perform better than multi-engine types.  In general early war craft are more fragile that later war stuff.  V- strut sesquiplanes with smaller lower wings than upper are also a riskier proposition especially in steep dives but gain lift and turn rate as well as improved downwards visibility.

I used some ludicrously complex formulas to generate some kind of differences between the various aeroplanes and added some wild approximations as well.  Feel free to change anything you like, after all its all pseudoscience really!  What I have is a complicated spreadsheet but more on that next time as it really needs a post of its own, which is code for I need to tidy it up so it makes sense to people other than me!

Mixed emotions!

 A number of years ago I added a plea onto the Baccus forums for the esteemed Mr Berry to create a range of early Byzantines so I could replace my venerable Irregular Miniatures army.  At the time the response was that it may happen but not in the immediate future.  However, I wanted a Byzantine army, specifically one for the 5th - 6th centuries, so I decided to proxy other Baccus figures to that very end.    Sassanid regular infantry had a suitably large shield so I started there and though I say so myself they don't look too bad, yet they were not perfect.  In my mind's eye I had an image of the old Hinchcliffe 25mm figures but in glorious 6mm, but needs must and all that.  At 'The other Partisan' last month I bought some of Mr B's Hunnic Noble to serve as, well, Hunnic Nobles, but also to proxy for Boukellariioi for Belisarius or Narses.  This week in a fit of enthusiasm I started to work on a second unit of Skoutatoi.  No sooner had I started then 'bingly bong' goes my mobile phone to alert me to the fact that Baccus 6mm have launched a new range for a new period.  Yes you guessed it the period is 'Late Antiquity' and the range 'Early Byzantines'.

So this is the cause of my mixed emotions the infantry are exactly what I was dreaming of but I already have proxy troops for that role.  I almost wish that they were not what I wanted, but the entire range is perfect!  Damn you Mr Berry, now I think I may be falling prey to some form of compulsive behaviour disorder.  This is caused by knowing that the exact figures I want are out there so my lovingly proxied Sassanids are no longer ticking the right boxes.  I must have proper Byzantines, I need proper Byzantines!!!

Not 'proper Byzantines' but I was happy with them until.....

So in due course I will, of course, weaken and buy said 'proper Byzantines' the only question remaining is what to do with the demobilised Sassanid proxies, other than use them as Sassanid regular infantry (well that would be too easy wouldn't it).

Proper Byzantines!  (image from the Baccus 6mm catalogue)

Other than the above mixed emotions the new range looks really useful.  It will cover Justinian Byzantines and Maurikian Byzantines, it has the Avar influenced half armoured cavalry (drool)) as well as lance and bow armed heavy cavalry.  At a push it would cover Byzantine armies through to the introduction of the kite shield in the late 10th Century.  The castings look excellent, you can see them here Baccus 6mm and the later Byzantines from the early Medieval range are here Baccus 6mm.  I now have a terrible stabbing pain in my wallet!

Doing some admin!

Ooh that does sound exciting doesn't it.  It probably conjures up images of a weaselly looking bloke with a flat cap, a pencil moustache, a clipboard and a slew of coloured pens!  Sorry, it's not that exciting, but it does include a spreadsheet (if that helps) not that you get to see it though.  Instead its my annual calculation of the replacement value of my toys, you know the one I deflate by around 15% when Mrs E asks how much did that little lot cost then? 

It was a bigger task when I first did the count a few years back, but since then it has only been a case of adding new figures to the totals and updating the replacement costs for the figures, bases, painting service (I paint my own but if I lost the lot I wouldn't feel up to redoing them) etc.  Each year I add a new section, this year for example it was painted 6mm ECW.  I still need to add values for  painted World War One aeroplanes and World War Two tanks etc though.  Anal moi? No! Meglomaniac....well maybe a bit!

So what is the actual damage?

6mm Ancients to ECW

Painted and based - 3,647 figures with an estimated like for like replacement cost of £3,600

Unpainted - 900 figures, I haven't done an estimated replacement cost yet

6mm 1915 - 1945

I haven't done a count of the painted stuff yet, or valued these.  A job for 2025 I think. 

Unpainted - 329 castings foot armour and aircraft - again no replacement value calculated, another 2025 job then.

2- 3mm ECW, ACW and Cold War

These are not fully counted but the numbers are a bit scary if I count individual soldiers, not that I would as it's castings or maybe bases which are the way to value them.  For example the ACW infantry alone would number 13,392 figures or 93 bases of 144 each.  But those are matchstick based, home made troops with a negligible value other than the MDF bases.

I'm trying to reduce the lead pile...honest

Summing it all up

All in all I think the full replacement cost would be over £4,500 and probably approaching £6,000 if I  include terrain items, tables and boards (or rules or associated reference books) and the like.

So toodle loo, or in my case it better be too da painting table!

Painting the Antonine 2mm blocks

I know lots of other painters have covered this topic, but this is a post aimed at a very small and specific audience....me!   I wanted to document how I arrived at my approach to painting these blocks as my usual system wasn't going cut it, so I can repeat the style later.  The Antonine castings don't have the definition of Irregular Miniatures 2mm stuff.  All the detail has to be painted in, some of it is there just not as much as with the IM blocks.  This has to be painting intended to fool the eye at arms length, so as I often say we are painting for mass effect not individual detail, but this time it's real what do we see at first glance stuff.  So the first thing to decide is what needs to 'pop', what are we going to see the most easily at gaming distances?  To me it's the glint of metal from helmets and the splash of colour from shields and to a lesser degree the faces and lastly the clothing on the backs of rear ranks of warriors.  Helpfully heads and shields are visible on the castings if you look carefully.  Sidney Roundwood's blog (Roundwood's World) gave me a great concept to work with; he suggested taking a look at Snayers' paintings of the battles of the Thirty Years War for inspiration.  These show masses of soldiers as seen at a distance and is the level of detail to go for.

 An extract from Snayers' Battle of Fleurus

In the above portion of a much larger painting I have focussed on troops who are in the middle distance of the painting.  If you look at the furthest infantry it is almost impressionistic simple lines and of lighter and darker shades of a base colour to give the look of a mass of men.  That's what I wanted to go for but with a bit more pop.  The other thing to notice is the contrast between the block of soldiers and the background which makes them stand out, again something to focus upon in our tiny troop formations.

So with all of that in mind I broke with my normal painting system and under coated with Vallejo Earth.  It's a mid brown edging towards the red end of the brown scale which gives it some warmth.  Once that was dry I started with the detailing I dotted a metallic (bronze, silver or gold) on most of the heads of the warband castings then added a few primary colours and a few white spots to give something to draw the eye.  More regular troops all got the same metallic dot as they are dressed in a more uniform style.  Next up was a dry brush all around the sides of the foot castings in a pale sand to hint at linen tunics.  Next up are the shields done in a mix of primary colours so they stand out.  All this needs is a spot or a short brush stroke.  Lastly a dot of pale flesh (applied with a needle's point) for faces in the front rank.  

Barbarian Horde approaching.

I kept the unit photo small to give more of the on table feel to what you can see.  Remember this is painting a 'unit' not individuals.

The cavalry were also undercoated in Earth.  As I was doing these as cataphracts they then got a gunmetal coat to the front of the head and all the top surfaces and riders.  I picked out some faces and helmets in gold and silver for variety.  Lastly I painted in some cloaks in my usual primary colours plus white.

Two rank cavalry blocks as cataphracts.  I'm happier with this basing style.

As usual basing caused me trouble.  I never seem to get a scheme that I like first time of trying.  I used my usual fine sand and PVA base but masked off a 5mm strip along the rear of the base, so far so good.  For the horde I dry brushed a lighter shade over the actual sand.  I know; painting actual sand a sandy colour, who else but a wargamer would do such a thing!  The problem is that I didn't like the resulting shade of sand I got.  I tried some olive green dry brushing to break it up but I'm still not happy.  The cavalry base is better and is probably how I will do them going forwards.

The cavalry castings just don't match the infantry castings, they are too big and too blocky

A final thought after applying paint, the cavalry castings are about 30-40% bigger than they probably should be compared to the foot castings.  Plus I can't help but feel that they look like someone's Dad made them horse armour from old cardboard boxes that flat pack furniture came in!  At some point a re-sculpt is going to be required. 

Antonine 2mm blocks

As mentioned in my last post Warbases don't carry stock of the 2mm blocks of troops for Strength and Honour.  So on Tuesday I made use of the free postage voucher they gave me and ordered some on online.  I spent just under £15.00 and bought four different types to see what the castings were like.  Given that this included 2mm thick MDF bases it was a decent price to pay for what I received.  This was:

• A Roman Legion of 10 cohorts,
• A pike phalanx, well its actually three of them on a single base,
• A cavalry unit (as heavy or medium cavalry not lights)
• a Barbarian warband.

My first thought is that these are big units, which is as they should be as they represent several thousand men each.  The castings are a little more 'abstract' than Irregular's 2mm offerings and seem ever so slightly smaller but that isn't noticeable when placed side by side.  The pike phalanx is much bigger than anything IM offer but the pikes are not as high as the IM ones. 

Antonine pike phalanx compared to IM pike block (centre)

The cavalry are rather nice although a bit 'cubist' in design, as they are made up of rectangles and lack the detail of the IM cavalry. They look great from arms length thoughI suspect that I might use Irregular's cavalry in preference to Antonine's

.

Fuzzy photo (sorry) but you see why I find the cavalry a bit 'Cubist'

There are a couple of different warband castings but all have the same style, depicting an unorganised body of men in unorganised mass. each unit consists of several castings which can be combined to give different shaped masses of men.

Barbarian warband base

I spent around half an hour this morning gluing the castings to the bases ready for painting and they do look good.  The castings lend themselves to this approach as there isn't as much need to get to the sides or rear of castings as would be the case with IM equivalents where each block would be several castings. There was little to no flash to worry bout and no visible mould lines which is a bonus. Under coating will proceed once weather and Covid symptoms allow the spray can I prefer to be deployed outdoors.

If you would like to peruse the entire range they can be found at Strength and Honour which takes you to Warbases website.

Given that armies in Strength and Honour run between four and fifteen (roughly) units an army will probably cost a maximum of £50 and that includes bases, which is very reasonable.  I'd be a bit more exact about that except I can't access the link for the PDF version of the rules I bought since the Lardies website went down!  The moral of the story being don't be cheap and buy a hard copy not the PDF.

The other Partizan 2024

So Sunday last saw me hop into my car and drive down to the Newark Showground for The other Partizan Show.   As a bonus I managed to sneak in an illicit McDonald's breakfast muffin on the way.  I'm not supposed to eat stuff like this but it was my first Fast food since this time last year!  It was a fairly clear run down the A15 and A46 and it gave my car a decent run which it hasn't had for a while as we normally do long runs in Mrs E's big VW Tiguan.  I could tell I'd not done much in the way of long drives in my car as when I got back home after an 80 mile round trip my projected tank range reading had actually risen from 205 miles to 240 miles!  If only that meant extra fuel had miraculously formed in the tank eh?

Parking at the Showground was simplicity itself even though the car park was already busy.  There was a long queue to get in but this moved along quickly.  Entering the pavilion the first thing to strike me was 'wow, this is big'.  Really, really big! Plenty of traders around the walls and games in the central area.  In fact it's almost too big as there is so much to see and it takes a moment for it all to sink in.

Swedes at Lutzen. Advancing on the Imperial centre

The display games were my first port of call as some of my re-enactment friends were putting on a refight of Lutzen 1632 in 28mm.  This was an epic undertaking with over 2,000 figures on the table.  I dread to think of the weight of lead involved or the cost of figures, painting and basing!  Ian who was providing the Imperialists joked that he could feel the weight of lead he was transporting pulling his car sideways in bends!  I then had a chat with the guys from North Riding Wargaming who were putting on an Alter of Freedom game using 10mm figures.

 

Chris Kemp's Not Quite Mechanised game

 

I spent a pleasant 20 minutes chatting with old friends from the Monday Night Gamers (you know the ones who meet on Tuesdays) as they were running an Edgcote game, and a Not Quite Mechanised game of Longstop Hill, Tunisia in 1942 and manning the Northampton Battlefields Society stand.  Well done those chaps.

The huge Lutzen battlefield.  The town is burning at the other end!

Looking around the games there were at least three ACW games of various sizes, the same for Viet Nam and a lot of games involving beach landings.  The later included a huge D Day participation game.  I spotted a couple of western shoot out games as well.  All in all the standard of games was stunning.

Bloody Omaha participation game.  Nice to see some younger folk having a go.

The above game in close up the detail is stunning

Second day at Gettysburg in 10mm using Altar of Freedom

Another D-Day game.  I really liked the empty battlefield feel of this.

A samurai game which was simply stunning to look at

I tried my hand at the Wargames Developments participation mini game next.  These are always interesting and usually play out in under 15 minutes.  This year it was the armoured drive to relieve the para's at Arnhem.  The game consists of a line of squares each with a mini playing card allocated to it.  The card shows the level of German resistance and some squares have hidden events under the cards!  Cards are valued as in Bridge (well it is a Bridge too Far) with ace counting high and suits ranked Clubs, Diamonds, Hearts to Spades.  The allies win all ties.  The allies are dealt five cards face up. German cards are face down.  Each turn the allies advance one square, or stay put to either resupply or reorganise.  Resupply brings their hand of cards back up to full strength, reorganisation discards the current hand for a re-deal.  Used cards are discarded and not reused.  The hidden events are that the US airborne troops have not secured their bridges and the armoured thrust is stalled for a turn and that a German counter attack happens back down the road which has to be dealt with (Gerry gets an additional card back down the road which has to beaten before moving forward again).  Very simple, very elegant and very frustrating!  I got to the south bank of the Rhine at Arnhem on the last turn so it was a bridge too far for me.

Seven Years War as the action heats up

I then headed off to do some shopping.   First up was Pendragon for some Litko flight stands.  These are two part items a hexagonal base in one pack and the uprights in another.  This allows you to buy different size hex bases and different length height posts.  At ten stands for £9.50 you can't go wrong.  Next was Warbases where I had to restrain myself, they had a full range of the Cactus Creek western shootout building kits and I was mightily tempted by a couple (well rather more than a couple if I'm honest).    What I really wanted was some of their Antonine Miniatures 2mm stuff for Strength and Honour but it turns out they don't bring those to shows...pooh!  However, I got a special code to allow me to buy from their website postage free for 48 hours after the end of the show.  I then bought some western shoot out figures from Empress Miniatures (along with a chat with Paul and Christine) and some Hunnic Noble cavalry from Baccus.  By my standards this was a very restrained shopping frenzy.  Then it was back to looking at the display games.

Lastly I wandered over to the Strength and Honour participation game being run by Mark Backhouse.  This was a really popular game and deservedly won the best participation game award.

Strength and Honour game, this was hanging in the balance at this point.

After all this excitement I had a leisurely drive home and even managed to drop the roof and and have the full cabriolet experience in my elderly tin-top VW Eos.  I'd say 'feel the wind in my hair', but I don't have any 😊.  So all in all a great day out and I really recommend it.

Post script

Sorry for the delay in posting this.  It seems that I had one additional. unexpected acquisition from the show...Covid!  It's so 2020 my dears.

Oh Bugger!