First past the post - Ironclads completed

I mentioned in my reply to Nundunket's comment on my 2021 targets that some objectives were nearer completion than others so were less challenging.  This was particularly true of the 19th Century Ironclads objective where there were eight ships still to finish. I bought these when I bought the ACW ironclads last summer for refighting the naval actions of the  The War of the Pacific between Chile on one side and Peru and Bolivia on the other.  Also known as the Saltpetre War it was fought over control of the coastal area in what is now northern Chile which at the time was Bolivian and Peruvian territory an the nitrate deposits in the area.

The castings are all 1/2400th from Tumbling Dice.  I can't say that the painting is great but it is good enough and these are tiny castings so detail is hard to pick out.  I have to apologise for the quality of the photos as they were taken on my phone and have colour shifted so that there is more brown and less blue in the image compared to reality.

The first off the desk or should that be slipway is the Huascar an ironclad turret monitor.  Built at Birkenhead in 1865 for Peru, she fought on both sides during the War of the Pacific (1879-1883) first for Peru and then after capture in 1879 at the Battle of Angemos for Chile.  There is a good article about her on Wikipedia.  This is the old version of TD's representation of the ship.  Since I bought this last year TD have re-sculpted the model, the new version is in fighting trim without sails set.  I don't have one (yet?) but from  the photos I have seen it looks very nice and is an improvement on this version.

Huascar.  The circular thing amidships is the turret battery

Next come two sister ships the Blanco Encalada and the Almirante Cochrane a pair of central battery armoured frigates in Chilean service.  They were built in Hull and launched in 1874 and 75.  The Blanco Encalado holds the dubious distinction of being the first warship sunk by a self-propelled torpedo.  Both ships fought at the Battle of Angemos against the Huascar.  These are reasonable castings although again I think newer sculpts may be available now.  Last to be completed were the Independencia for Peru and Esmeralda for Chile.

Blanca Encalada and Almirante Cochrane.  They are the same casting

The Esmeralda, actually a generic steam sloop casting

The Independencia, I think this is actually HMS Shah a steam frigate

I don't know much about naval warfare in this period but since buying these models I realised that sails were struck before going into combat.  The colour schemes are based on period paintings of the battle as found on Wikipedia so may not be fully accurate.  Still this is only a side project for me so close enough is good enough to pass muster.

The entire Ironclad fleet.  Colours are better in this shot

That's the first objective ticked off the list.

New year - new projects

With the New Year come new resolutions and projects, 2020 was the first year I actually tracked them and I'm going to do the same for 2021 as it helped me to keep on track.  I didn't hit all of my objectives but then again I didn't really expect to.  Those I didn't achieve have rolled over into 2021's list.

The big misses from 2020 was the failure to complete my ECW rules (for what is probably the 10th year in a row!) along with not finishing my DBA Dacian army or to fully convert my Maurikian Byzantine army from Irregular Miniatures figures to Baccus ones.  There is nothing wrong with the look of the Irregular Miniature's offerings other than I simply cannot use the close order castings due to them being modelled shoulder to shoulder.  That means I can't space them on the bases in the way I should like.  That said I met more of my objectives than I failed overall so I'm fairly happy with that.

I have made a good start on the Byzantine army conversion process, with five elements finished and another two on the painting table.  I have figures I can proxy for psiloi but I need Baccus to re-open so I can order some extra regular Sassanid infantry and cavalry to proxy for Skoutatoi and half armoured Byzantine cavalry  

In fact the need to order from Baccus is going to be a continuing theme for this year.  I have set a target of creating the three main armies from the DBA lists covering the late eleventh century in Spain, the age of El Cid project let's call it.  That's going to need a fair number of new figures from ranges I haven't previously ventured into.  Berber and Andalusian spearmen and archers can come from the crusades range using the Sudanese figures, Cavalry from the Bedouin light cavalry or Mameluke cavalry.  Spanish knights will be Norman armoured cavalry and spearmen either Norman armoured infantry or Welsh spearmen, plus Frankish crossbowmen.  I might add in some Gothic medium cavalry for the unarmoured cavalry.

This year the objectives are:

1. Finish the Dacian DBA army
2. Convert the early Byzantine's from Irregular to Baccus castings
3. Finish the 1940 British and German armies I bought 3-4 years ago
4. Finish the WW2 rules I started last year
5. Finish the ECW rules
6. DBA WOTR Yorkist army
7. DBA WOTR Lancastrian army
8. DBA Andalusian army
9. DBA Feudal Spanish army
10. DBA Islamic Berber Army
11. Finish the TD ironclads
12. Finish the H&R WW1 aeroplanes
13. Rebase my 6mm ECW collection

plus I have thought about a small 1980's Cold war gone hot project.  Based about 1982 as that is the war I would have fought in if it had all kicked off.  If I do go with that it will be 6mm probably H&R.  I will of course stray off the path described above as the 'ohhhh shiny' complex will no doubt kick in at some point!

I have already set the ball rolling for this year with the first models coming off the painting queue being Tumbling Dice screw and paddle gunboats or sloops, I can't tell them apart and forgot to label the castings.  It would help if TD had images of all of their range.  These are really nice models and from what I have seen the newer versions are even nicer.  

First off the painting desk in 2021- Gunboats and Sloops

Project updates

I seem  to have been a bit scatter brained of late with new projects starting that were not on my radar at the start of the year..  Other things that I intended to do have stalled, so at the half way point of the year, it seems like a good time to take stock.

I was going to try out Seven Years War gaming and created some paper figures to do that.  So a win for creating the figures but after that I didn't actually play a test game!  I may come back to this I have the rules and the armies I just need the motivation to try a game.  Replacing the 7YW project on the front burner has been a later linear warfare period; the American Civil War.  I have the rules (Altar of Freedom) and perhaps more importantly an understanding of the tactics and grand tactics of the conflict.  As I have mentioned before it is also a period I have gamed in the past using a set of rules from the 1970s called 'Circa 1863' these were set at regimental level and required a lot of record keeping, I have hopes that the more abstract system in AoF will be more engaging.

On the figure painting front things are more positive.  I have finished converting my Late Imperial Roman DBA army to an all Baccus force.  The Picts and Scots-Irish DBA armies are completed and I have made a start on extending the Picts back to the earlier period army list by adding more chariots to the queue on the painting table.  Both of these are Irregular Miniature armies.  I do like the chariots and will probably order some more to flesh out the Scots-Irish to cover the early period for them too.  So that's three things off my to do list there.  There has been some scope drift though as I have started to increase the Late Imperials to create an ADLG baseline army at 200pts.  The Sassanids are already completed as a 200 point ADLG point force.

Early Sassanid Persians for ADLG completed 

Video Fly by of the Sassanids

The ACW Ironclads are finished too but I need to complete the Chilean and Peruvian Ironclads for the Great Pacific War.  The ACW ironclads might feature in Altar of Freedom games in due course.  So lets call that fifty percent success to date.

ACW Ironclads plus some tugs and a sloop in the rear

I'm calling the World War One dogfight rules done now, as I have finalised some spotting rules I can live with and have amended the rules for rear gunners to make them a less effective.

Oh and I got bored so I made a Barker Marker and recoil gauge for DBA

The list of unfinished projects isn't getting any shorter though as I keep getting tempted.  So there are still a number of World War One aircraft needing painting and there is a list of extra ones I need when Heroics and Ros reopen that list for new purchases.  I have read that this is likely to be early in July.  There are some building and modelling projects linked to the ACW that I need to get under way so I can try out AoF. Oh and that Dark Ages campaign isn't going to play itself.

First Sight -Tumbling Dice 1/2400th Ironclads

I received my order of early Ironclads from Tumbling Dice Miniatures yesterday.  I only ordered on Monday so that's a really fast turnaround by anyone's standards.  Packaging was in a padded envelope which is more than adequate for 1/2400th ships as they are not exactly huge!

I spent a couple of hours preparing and assembling them.  Not that they needed a lot of prep work, a few lead strings from ait channels to remove and a tiny bit of flash plus smoothing the base of the huls so the fitted nice and snugly into the bases and that was it. Assembly was limited to supergluing some sails in pace and fitting the hull into the sculpted base, which was a doddle as they fit really well.

Not a great photo but this is the fleet so far.

My order covers the first Ironclad action from the ACW so I have confederate rams Virginia (ex USS Merrimac) with the Texas coming in that pack as well.  Three Monitor class ...er....Monitors so that gives me the USS Monitor (there is a pattern here don't you think), plus some steam screw gunboats and steam harbour tugs.  Then for the Great Pacific War of 1879-80 the four main Peruvian and Chilean Ironclad Frigates.  Last but not least a generic steam screw sloop. 

I have found a couple of tutorials on line for painting these so I will give it a go over the next few days.  As a bonus Mrs E thinks these are 'cute', she normally takes no interest in my gaming purchases whatsoever, so that's a major step forwards.

First go at painting them.  L-R a steam screw gunboat, CSS Virginia and USS Monitor.

I will have a go at the Pacific War ships tomorrow.