I Have Been Busy

Remember about ten days ago when I said glibly "Should take me about ten days to do the Numidians?" Err well I think that was about ten days ago but whilst they are close to being finished they ain't. At the moment they are sitting knee deep in flock. Possibly later today I will do a little touch up flocking where it failed to take hold (usually the edges), then it's tufting and a few extra bits which I hope to do by end of Monday. Frankly I am surprised I got that far, given the FTF game of ASL on Monday last week and the Skype game of ASL again on Wednesday I have had a lot to distract me. Add to this at the time I had not bothered to count the number I was painting. Turns out I had pulled out sixty three Numidians and one Roman! A little more than expected. At least it means with just a few more units I will be battle ready, well before the dark nights target I had set myself. These are so close you can all wait for pick of them LOL.

But as I have been mistaken for someone with a heart a couple of times here is a couple of picks on what I have been working on between sessions of 20mm figures.

No you dolls head, I have NOT painted that lot in the last 10 days. This is the rest of my English Civil War foote and four of the Cavalry that so far I have prised off their original bases and re-based for FoG:R. Just waiting to be given an ink wash, flocking and tufts. Once that is done I still need to re-base at least four more horse, two units of dragoons and about four guns, a couple of camps and then I am good to go to try out the rules. Most of the units will be e-bay bound whatever we decide to do once we have had a go, better cast figures, better painting and quite possibly a different scale.

Here we have a shot from above for a more telling view. Cath is being rather patient given I at this moment have two painting stations on the go (especially as I am not at either of them!)

At the moment I am discussing the pro's and cons of FoG V Impetus. It's a bit like two blind guys searching for enlightenment given that I have played Impetus 4 times and not read the rules never mind own them and Barry has just recently got FoG rules but yet to play it. He is keen to try the FoG rules but I fear it may well be just to prove his Impetus rules are superior to my FoG. I of course look forward to Barry playing them if only to have the scales removed from his eyes  ;-)

In fairness to both Barry and myself we are discussing the rules and what we like about each set rather than defending to the dice our set. It's been fun seeing the misconceptions Barry has come up with in a few cases, especially the ones I had prior to play. One thing we both agree on fully is the horrendous order the rules have been thrown together. it really helps f at least one of you has a good knowledge of the rules when it comes to a game. Given the number of copies on e-bay at about £5 it's obvious they are getting ditched by plenty, but for what is the question? I struggle to accept it's for Impetus.

DIY Hedges

Nothing new or earth shattering as I am sure many of you will have done this at some point, but here is my 6mm hedges. Again I am working on the cheap so I got the wife to get me a pack of ASDA Chosen By You heavy duty scourers and rushed these off.

6mm Figures and building for scale. 8 sections use up less than half a scourer (they come in a pack of five). I simply glued to a piece of plasicard and slapped green paint on it (German field grey or German green work well). Then I glue some brown flock at irregular intervals under the hedge. Once dried add the green flock to the rest of the base and your done for the basic job.

The only extra work I did was add a tree to one hedge but smart cookies may wish to add flock to the scourer as well to hide the more obvious manufactured look, though a bit of dry brushing could also help.

It is better to run the hedge slightly longer than the base or you get these gaps that make it look rather less attractive.

I also based and flocked a few trees whilst I was at it. Had them years and years just stuck on bits of card looking crap, now at least they look like they are supposed to be on the table.

A nice comparison shot. I have to admit for the effort to result this is well on the right side and I will make up the rest of the pack between other project. I also added some of the 2mm tufts to the base for that bit extra.

I just included this pic as I like the shot! I should be painting up some more of the Baccus French before the Baccus day but that's just a few weeks time now so I better hurry up if I am to manage it.

The Peloponnesian War Turn 1

I have started to play this Victory Games Classic the way it's meant to be played. Solo. For those that do not know, The Peloponnesian War is a turn based Solo game of Greek vr's Greek between 431BC and 402BC pitting Sparta against Athens. You as the real player start play controlling the Athenians (the green). Sparta (red) turn a minor rebellion into a reason for war and attack Athens. From here the war spirals to an all out affair where your task is to end on the winning side. The problem is the better you do the higher chance you have of changing sides and end up controlling the other faction. White cities are neutral but often come into play for one side or the other. Random events bring this about. I have fond memories of this game and have planned playing again for some time. Given that a VASL module exists I would be foolish not to take advantage of it. So another short mini series will be my progress (or lack their of) will be reported here. Thanks has to go to Sgt Steiner for the get off my backside boost after he started his excellent VASL game of another board game.

The game starts with the rebellion of Potidaea with my having a army of Hoplites and Cavalry (with Trimarines)in position to crush it. The first actual action of the game is an attack from Sparta on Athens. It is possible the attack will fall somewhere else. In this case Athens was the actual target. Each Athenian allied city passed through on the march to Athens will be ravaged unless I intercept the force. Out of the two possible cites I only get one ravaged. Well the best tactic the Athenian player can take is the systematic ravaging of as many Spartan Cities as I can manage. So of course that is the rout I went for. A cool 10 cities were damaged in this way. This will hit Sparta had come tax assessment phase towards the end of the turn. Sparta has to pass on taking a second action as he lacks the troops to do another major assault. I on the other hand have leaders, troops and money aplenty so a quick check with the Gods and I'm good to go. Unfortunately the leader (Thrasyblus) is intercepted and prevented from leaving Athens to collect the fleet. Another check with the Gods and off I go again, this time Piraeus makes it out, collects some of the fleet he wants to use on a second raiding mission but gets intercepted losing a fleet on the way. I get to the final staging city, arm up with extra troops and ships and off ravaging I go. A total of twelve cities ravaged by me at this stage, another would be ravaged before my troops went home whilst I captured another and put down my rebellion. The siege of Athens was short lived and turn one ended with a commanding lead.

The positions at the end of turn one. I am strong in Athens, Sparta is untouchable at home whilst his allied cities burn.

Oh it burns, it burns! Retribution on Spartan aggression!, losing 1200 talents from their income, that puts a dent in their war effort. Whilst I know what my first action will be in turn two the random selection will choose what Sparta will do. I feel some more raids are in order and maybe an attack on their ships!

Terribly Obscure A-Z ..... Guatemalan War

In 1871 a long period of conservative rule was brought to an end with Miguel Garcia Granados and Justo Rufino led liberals in the capture of the capital (Guatemala City) after a short six month campaign. Granados ruled for two years before retiring being succeeded by Barrios who was the commander of the Army. Barrios not surprisingly ruled as a dictator and reduced the influence and power of the church. He also strengthened the economy by pushing the cultivation of coffee which was a lucrative commercial crop.

In 1876 his attempted move to bring about a union of Central American states via a peaceful route failed. This followed his call of 25th February 1885 for the establishment of a united Central American states which was supported by Honduras but was rejected by El Salvador, Nicaragua and Costa Rica. In an attempt to force Guatemalan acceptance of this Mexican President Porfirio Diaz ordered troops to be deployed on their common boarder. This failed to have the desired effect and Barrios led his army into El Salvador where he was defeated being killed in the battle of Chalchuapa on April 2nd 1885.

Modern Boundaries of Guatemala.

This brought to an end the war but not the Government. Guatemala was to remain a Liberal Controlled Dictatorship till 1945.

Wargaming the overthrow and war. With the war lasting such a short period and only one major battle it offers little for the wargamer. What ifs and possible extension of the campaign make it a much more reasonable conflict to wargame. Given the unstable nature of the region and that heady period before trench warfare and industrialisation turned warfare into mass slaughter. The revolution period is a much easier (and better value for money) to wargame. This can be done it small scale with units of troops fighting for many and varied reasons only limited by your imagination. What's more the forces can transplant to many other revolts and minor wars that were fought during this period. More recent and brutal uprisings make wargameing the modern period far more a morel dilemma.

Uncles and Pups the irony

The latest ASL goodness to come my way from MMP was Festung Budapest several months ago. A rather late Christmas present. The irony? I played the first scenario from it with James my American Football playing freak of a nephew. Scenario title obviously was Uncles and Pups. Cath my wife commented after the game had finished more like Nephew's and Pups, yep I had lost. But as Cath had said, she knew we were having fun from all the laughter and crys of disbelief. I think only ASL can deliver so much entertainment as it has so many different possible situations that can be thrown up. In this scenario we had Ammo Shortage, No Quarter and Booby Traps all in play via Special Scenario Rules. It was (as many city fights are) extremely bloody, take a look at the dead piles displayed per half turn.

That's more than half the units in play, and to make matters worse, all I had left in the game were broken! I was so handed my ass on a plate. James has played ASL now for about three years and has just finished a long break whilst he was doing a heavy load of coursework. I will get my revenge!! Maybe next week?

The map of FB is a real work of art, we used less than half of one mapsheet and it comes with four connecting sheets that are required for the campaign. Maybe next time  ;-)

Goodbye June, Hello July

Well June came and went quick. Is it just me or is 2012 rattling along? Must be all the painting and sleeping I am doing. Well no suprise the number of visits was down on last moth given all the pimping I received in May. But I still got 2089 views, far more than any other month. I hope to keep to 2000+ per month from now on. My memebers rose again in June, always a good sign and of course I achived 10,000 hits altogther. June saw a slight drop off in posts with 23, again more than any other month other than May since I started blogging last September. Not that September is that far away and so I must turn my mind to possible prizes come that aniversary. Well it seems rather in vogue at the moment to paint up figures for the great unwashed so that is what I plan to do. Ray has done this recently and so as Tamsin both of which I think have copied me as I had already planned to do this after seeing the Lead Legion give it a whirl. As I will still be a job dogger it will have to be your own figures. The higher the view count and the higher the member count I will increase the number of winners. Not sure how many figures I will do but I am hopeing no one will want any pike painting!!!! LOL. Lets wait till towards the end of August before I put in concrete what numbers I will offer. The idea is that it will be a complete unit of your choice, you just send the figures and any special requests (uniform colours etc.) If this trend continues we could all end up with painted units by each other, which gives me another idea LOL.

Anyway here is a link to Tamsin's giveaway (just don't go for the Panzer HQ ;-)

Cropredy Bridge 1644 Book Review

After reading a few heavy books I fancied a change and went back in time both historically and when written. This is an old book from my rather large ECW collection. Written by Brigadier Peter Young and Doctor Margaret Toynbee and printed in 1970 just three years after my birth! The book is just a joy to read though it's neither page heavy running to 156 pages nor word heavy being larger type set and well spaced. Never the less they manage to pack in quite a bit of information and the style of writing is really easy to take in. The subject matter is that of the Cropredy Campaign in early 1644 that saw Waller pit his army against Charles I and was in fact the first time Charles himself was a direct target of Parliamentarian fire (lending a lie to the idea that they were trying to rescue the King from evil councellors.

Young and Toynbee had worked on a number of books together and all of the ones I have read were well worth the effort though you have to bear in mind that all the works are done with a definate Royalist slant. Not that they are in bad company regards the English Civil War as so many authors have an obvious bias towards one party or another. The book also has a reasonable number of colour and B&W plates and photographs of mixed quality or use and for a really nice touch it also has quite a few line drawings scattered amoungst the pages that really add a nice feeling to the book.

One of the many line drawings in the book.

But all this aside how does it stand up with facts and figures. Rather well is the answer, so much so from the point of a wargamer that I will be running a short campaign based on the information held within the pages. I have had to do only a little extra research to knit together a few external details so it scores high for the wargamer, supplying details such as a few coat colours, strength of many of the units and a good time line of events that impacted on the campaign. At the end of the book it prints in full a number of accounts of the actual battle which for me was great. Nothing like brushing up on your old English, a skill of it's own I can tell you, keeping a straight face whilst reading "the rest were forced to retreat, and came over a Bridge called Crapridden". I failed but thank you Richard Coe for the laugh!

For anyone interested in this period it's a must read, especially if you also like to wargame the period as not just the battle itself but plenty of other scenario ideas. General readers may well also like the story but I have seen it going for about £25 a copy it's not great value for the page and word count. Me, I would not part with it, one of the few books I have read in ages that was a joy to read. It's my favorite period so I am biased and it won't be the last book I re-visit from my collection.