Secret Santa All Done

If your in Secret Santa you should by now have received your target. If you have not then please contact Cath as soon as you can. 

Hope you all have fun picking and receiving your gifts this year. Remember if you need help selecting and your targets blog has not given you any ideas then you can always ask for a wish list.

Of course you can send your own wish list to Cath to pass on but please don't just supply a couple of pack codes as that's not much of a surprise.

You also can put a wish list on your blog if desired, you never know where that will lead.

Again have fun with this again this year.

SYW Schomberg Dragoons by Blue Moon

I not so long ago bought these Blue Moon French Dragoons for The Boy and they jumped up the painting queue. Schomberg Dragoons fit in that category that see's a unit represented in more armies because it's different in this case it's the only Dragoon regiment that wears the helmet that the Napoleonic French Dragoons owe it's birth right too. It is also the only regiment of dragoons in the French army to wear green. 

Old Glory supply these castings in the UK as per link above. Blue Moon normally supply command separately with nine command figures to a pack meaning you normally buy three packs of cavalry and one of command for every three units of cavalry. But as you only need the one regiment Blue Moon supply you a fifteen figure pack including three command. Lee and me have fourteen figure dragoon regiments (sixteen figures for heavy cavalry) so this was almost perfect for us.

The castings were fairly clear of mould lines but some better than others and flash was certainly present but easy to remove. The horse figures certainly have a bulk about them which looks good. The riders look a bit little in comparison but that could be just me. However the final look of the painted unit looks really nice.

Plenty of detail and the separate rider castings did not cause any issues making them a little more pleasurable to work with. The Blue Moon range is not yet complete and nowhere is that more obvious than in the French range with about half the listed figures yet to be made available. I can see me returning to this range for some more of their cavalry as when compared with the two other suppliers I have painted to date these are the best.

I also painted up the French Mounted Officers but that's for another post in the near future. Meanwhile I continue with a couple of units for my army.

Egyptian Infantry Baccus 6mm and Thoughts of the Analogue Painting Challenge

I still need to add a fair bit to my Persian army before I can even think of using it to fight my Alexandrian army. One area that needs expansion is the Hoplite type units. I already have four standard Greek Hoplites and I am rather fond of my now defunct Egyptians in my 15mm army. The big shields make them rather impressive. Typically the Egyptian Marines are of slightly lower quality than their Greek counterparts so will have to bear that in mind when they get their stats.

These are Baccus and a full pack (APE11) is just enough for me to do two units, so that's £3.30 per unit. I will probably buy another pack of these or the very similar Assyrian Spearmen (APE08) that I can also use as close order infantry.

The shields are two different reds to give a bit of difference but I expect them to fight in the same formation so the difference should be seen but not punch you in the mouth different.

I am close to out for my Persians, just a couple of cavalry units left to paint (I have 4 almost finished) three command bases and three scythed chariots and a couple of units of peltasts that could work for either army. I also have four phalanx units for my Macedonian army but that's the lot.

Which kind of brings me onto the upcoming painting challenge. I have set myself the task of having enough painted SYW to play a game without using any unpainted in a game. Well that will be easy to do as I am well on my way to that goal. I have two regiments of cavalry and a stalled battalion of Grenadiers on my desk at the moment and these should all be finished before October is out. Just a few more command and guns should make that a reasonable force and it will be easy to add a few more infantry battalions before or during the challenge.

So looking at it afresh I think I will set down a few pre challenge goals and what I hope to do during the challenge itself.

Pre

Finish off my started figures and only complete all I start before the challenge

Paint up two more choices of The Boy, this will probably be SYW but could be his 6mm British Naps.

Rebase all my 15mm pike blocks to single bases and as such make them easier to use.

Paint up some Napoleonic Prussians in 6mm

Lots of prep again so I am ready to go.

The Challenge

Six battalions of SYW infantry in 15mm including some of The Boy

Couple of SYW guns 

Two SYW cavalry regiments

At least twelve battalions of 6mm Napoleonic infantry

At least four pike phalanx's 

Two Persian Satrap cavalry units in 6mm

Two 15mm Ancient cavalry units

 Various modern roleplaying figures in 28mm

Couple of my 32mm gladiatorial resin figures.

Bunch of Macedonian command as I don't have enough!

That lot comes to just under 700 points so if previous challengers are to go by I should kill this total. Time will tell though as looking at it it looks a lot!

Tomorrow is Cut Day

So Friday the 21st is the last day to join in with Secret Santa. See the last post for details if you would like to join in or check if you are on the list in that post.

Cath will be starting the work on assigning targets from Saturday, thanks to all who have joined in this year, past and new all are very welcome

Last Call Secret Santa 2016

First of all sorry for the lack of reminders and posts for the Secret Santa this year. It coincided with my relocating at work to a new (for me) store and then two key staff members being off at the same time (one sick one holiday) this meant my working all days and extending hours to get all the paperwork done. Short and the tall has meant the last month to six weeks has been interesting.

Anyway to more important things. I will be closing Secret Santa this coming Friday, the 21st October. If your in your name should be listed below. If it is missing let me or Cath know and we will add you to Santa's good list. If you have yet to join in, it's not to late you can leave a message below, contact Cath if you have her email from previous years or leave a private message via the Contact Me button somewhere to the right.

New to this and what to know more? Well about five or six years ago we started to exchange gifts via Secret Santa where you spend about £15 on another gamer/blogger randomly picked out. The aim that we all would receive something wargames/hobby related at Christmas and it has grown from the first few to a nice number. The rough rules are below

1. Buy a gift to value of £15 or equivalent plus postage for your target, supplied by Cath

2. Check out your targets blog for ideas (targets can supply Cath with a list of types of things they like (not exact details please) that can if wished be used or you can go totally off your own ideas.

3. Make sure it arrives before Christmas

4. You need to have a blog to join in.

We have 22 for this year so far and you are

Thomas N

Chris S

Adam C

Mark B

Martin C

Thomas R

Ron C

Jake B

Markus S

Ray R

Conrad K

J Miles

Dave D

Koen

Mike W

Samuli S

Stefan K

Paul S

Andy N

Michael P

After Friday Cath will assign targets and will give you the details including full name, address and blog name. Once Cath has done this you can send her your wish list if desired. 

Please also keep Cath updated on your progress. Not for any checking up type of malarkey just because she loves the whole thing and enjoys reading about your gifts and it's a nice reward for all the hard work she puts in. I often get thanked for the project but it's Cath that does all the real work so a big thanks to my gal.

SYW Prussian Light Infantry

Black Powder's supplement The Last Argument of Kings gives the Prussians one unit of light infantry as a maximum but a number of campaigns saw more than one fighting in the same battle. This may well be especially true once we start fighting a campaign.

We decided to make the fight units up with half the number of figures. This really is not correct as per BP as they pack as much punch as a normal battalion but I don't feel this should always be so. I am thinking of reducing their attack dice to represent their more open formation that is allowed by being in skirmish formation.

This battalion is Le Noble and has Jagger troops attached hence the green jackets on a couple of the figures. Talking of which these are the Old Glory as supplied by Timecast and come in a mixed pack of these and horse artillery. Unfortunately they come without command figures but do have a mix of three figures. The horse artillery also does not come with limbers so I think it's a poor mix really. I would prefer to have the option to buy limbers and guns in a pack with the light jaggers in another pack.

I used a spare officer from another pack for these boys. They al;so had the advantage of painting up quickly, always a bonus. I also painted up a second unit that at first glance look the same but have a few small differences.

von Mayr is the second battalion and I am thinking I will probably use one unit in a game and the other in the next game. However just wait till we get a big game going (about five years I am guessing LOL).

I have another one battalion of Grenadiers on the table that need finishing but can't decide if I will carry on with these or paint up some more cavalry given I only have the one painted. Indeed I need to buy more soon as I just don't have enough units for a decent force.

Both battalions together. The main differences is the cuffs on the Jagger's and Le Noble have a light blue trim to the jacket fronts as well as waistcoats.

Once I get the cavalry sorted out I should be able to crack on with the infantry and be in a position to actually play a few games with a fully painted force. I am setting myself a target of achieving this by the end of this years painting challenge. If I don't make the target I still will be a lot closer to the goal.

Baccus Prodromoi and Companion Cavalry

I have been rather slack on getting finished units onto the blog of late. Fortunately I have at least been painting a reasonable amount. I picked up these at the Joy of Six so they have not been on the pile for long.

These are Baccus AMA07 Prodromoi Cavalry, light cavalry but armed with Lance so a bit unique on the table. You get 45 figures for £7.70 in the UK. Given that where they are on an army list I have only found one unit of them so I assume you would not expect to see more than one on the table so 45 figures is rather overkill for most folks armies.

I used just the nine figures for my unit spreading them out to highlight their more open order formation. You get a really nice mix of three poses and I really like the look of them.

I did them the traditional pink colour with the helmets a darker shade so the colour did not swamp the figures too much. Unfortunately the pack does not have any command but I could have switched some in from spares or the general pack I bought ages ago.

This left me with enough figures to paint up as standard Companion cavalry. Being 6mm you can get away with painting out some detail. In this case the leopard skin horse blankets become standard ones with the legs just painted horse colour.

I used the majority of the pikes forward in the front rank and the upright ones in the rear. The two different poses make the line a little broken up but I am OK with that. If I do more though I would probably paint them up in such a way that all of the front ranks have the same pose. Just a little swapping out of figures.

This now gives me a good number of cavalry units for the Alexandrian armies, I will still need to get the heavier options at some point so as to be more correct for facing Lee's Romans. However the next 6mm figures on the table will be Persian cavalry. Yet to be shown is a couple of Egyptian marines or hoplites. 

French SYW Infantry With a Twist

The whole Seven Years War project all started out based on The Boys choice of what to do next. I really thought he would have gone Medieval on us but after some good thought he opted for SYW and whilst Lee and myself have really ran with it, The Boy originally was painting his own but as a nine year old often does he lost interest in painting them himself so I have taken on the duties.

He decided the colours of his first battalion himself after deciding as it was Imagination he would go full hog. Since then he has rethought the idea and wants to be more historical so only a few battalions will not be standard SYW French. That is till he again possibly changes his mind.

As you can see they are a brightly dressed group. I expect to do another one or two battalions for this regiment at some point. At the moment I am painting up command and a regiment of Dragoons, all historically correct.

The figures are all Lancashire Games and the quality of the figures were what prompted me to buy some of their Prussian castings, a decision I have not regretted. My son has enough figures for a few more battalions but I will need to buy more figures soon for him. Possibly as a Christmas present but probably just because I can LOL.

The flag is from this ebay seller who has a tremendous range (more in a future post) and for £11.25 you get nine sheets each with thirty infantry flags per sheet, representing great value.

Also available are cavalry flags. He covers all major forces but also the minor allies as well. Prices reflect the number of flags available. The paper is matt and resists fault lines in the creases. I have since bought both the French and Prussian cavalry flags and the Prussian infantry whilst Lee who introduced me to them has not only the Russia and Austrian but plenty of the others as well.

Next up for the SYW will be the two light battalions I recently painted up but I also have a few 6mm units awaiting blogging but before any of these I will be updating the Secret Santa status as we stand. The Santa Clause has already been assigned (earlier notice so to be able to paint up our gifts) and Chris seems to be keeping us all in order :-)