Friday Quiz 2

Well last Fridays quiz went down well so as promised here is another, this time we step forward to 1600 to 1914.

1. Who was von Seydlitz?

2. Who had overall command of the relief force during the attempt to reach Gordon at Khartoum?

3. Which action of the ACW was known as the Battle Above The Clouds?

4. Who was mastermind behind the Union's naval blockade of Southern ports known as the Anaconda Plan?

5. What society did the Chinese Boxers belong to?

6. Who said In siege warfare, as in the open field, it is the gun which plays the chief part...It is with Artillery that war is made?

7. What type of troops were Sudanese jihadiyya?

OK around this time tomorrow I will post the answers, no real pressure on you guys as I got just the one right, oh well.

Now it's back to my Hussars, won't get them finished today but high hopes for tomorrow.

Building A Dream Part 3 Finished

Actually this has been finished a few weeks but I wanted it to arrive at my friends before writing about it on my blogs. I left off with all the parts brought together and having you guess what the 6mm painted wizard was going to become.

Most of the model was dictated by the Ken Smith painting that was ASL Journal Eight cover. I could not get the correct pose and the closest to the pose was in fact carrying a BAR rather than a carbine. Nothing too drastic, all I needed to do was bring it all together. 

This is the finished model, I actually have him starting round the corner, whilst Ken Smith has him against the wall, consider it moments before a missed shot. The sleeve worked well as it lends a bit of depth to the brick print of the wall. 

The dry brushing on the wall gave me the desired colour and added texture to the surface which added to the plastered look I was trying to achieve. I added the dirt around the base of the stone plinth to fully cover the join as it did have a slight gap.

Anyone spot the wizard? I gave him a shave, removed the staff lamp and base and suddenly I had a girls doll. I really wanted something that would class with the whole war vibe and also add just a touch of colour. The balsa floor was cut into floor boards and stained with a few coats of Agrax Earthshade wash. I looked at a lot of wallpapers before settling on a birthday cards envelope!

Normally you don't get away with having the figure off centre on the base but I think I manage it here. Very happy with the Linka stone walls doubling as a pavement. 

The figure is pinned to the base, this meant taking the figure off it's actual base, not as easy as I thought it would be! You can see the Sniper wheel at the bottom. It does not jump out at you which is all down to Warbases who made these custom bases for me. I was rather pleased with the result and much better was the fact that my mate is happy with it. 

Here is what I was trying to achieve, not the exact thing but plenty close enough for me. Of course it needed a play mate which I will cover in a couple of days.

One Square Mile Of Hell Book Review

It was not that many years ago when I could say that I had not read a single book on the Pacific and even go as far as saying that I doubted I ever would. If you guess that the HBO series The Pacific you would miss your target. Indeed by the time I got these on DVD I had already read Helmet for My Pillow and With The Old Breed, both worth reading by the way. No, my interest in the Pacific war came with my taking the plunge into the jungle in ASL. As I got to enjoy the PTO scenarios I got more interested in the history of the battles. Having watched Thin Red Line a couple of times and not many other WWII films on the PTO really left me without a vision of the battles. John Wukovits book was actually one of the first I read on this theatre, as such I was revisiting old ground. 

That may be so but the it did not feel old to me, not at all. I once read a book on the Battle of the Somme, this book reminds me of that but where in that case I was left worn out and rather bruised from such a waste of life this book both manages to get under your skin and yet uplift you in almost equal parts. This book is typical of today's mass history books in that it is not a dry or small detail book that most professional historians had put out for so long but uses quotes from interviews and original letters etc. so that the human face of the battle comes across, indeed it is the mainstay of the books appeal. Whilst I do like the dry by the numbers books and more from a distance style of writing I also like the in close and personal style when it's done well. Too often though it's not. Too often the writer seems to ignore the cold facts so that he or she can conform to a favourite witness. It's a sad fact that many witness statements are full of inaccurate statements, mistakes and down right lies. Not surprising when so many interviews are conducted decades after the event. Even when events are written about soon after the event the account is coloured by lack of the bigger picture, reasons to expand one's involvement  or the wish to protect a lost buddies memory. In short this style of writing is both much easier to do and more difficult to do accurately and many a book that tries has glaring errors that even fairly basic research would have brought to light.

I do not know enough about the battle to say if this has happened at all with this book, though I caution that it is not the way of men to bring to the fore their buddies failings when talking about their deaths. From this book you get a sense that the Marines were made up of virtue and light, I counter that many may well have had those virtues but on that small atoll it was something far more base that kept them going forward than faith, love and charity.

Wukovits has used skill to bind the period of pre-war America, the lives of some of the troops to be involved and how they went from for the most part high school kids to the men about to storm the most completely defended island in the Pacific. he does this delving into the childhood of some of the soldiers he picks out to follow. In short he manages to get you to connect with these men and as you go through their training and deployment you get a sense of knowing them. Just like in fiction the author needs you to care about the characters and he did a good job with me.  The first 100 odd pages are filled with this, spending a few paragraphs on their first campaign and whole chapters on the period between this campaign, the rest and training period in New Zealand and voyage out to Tarawa. The next 100 or so pages deal with the battle and  the last 50 deal with the aftermath of the men and family's of those who were killed and the effect on the home front. Wukovits certainly has the skill of a writer as I am not a fan of to much filler. A book covering a battle should not have over 60% of it's pages filled with either what happened before and after unless it's as relevant to the battle as the battle itself. That is where the facts and figure books tend to have the advantage, they put the battle in perspective to the campaign or war and get on with the matter in hand. Sometimes it's important to know the logistics involved, often you need to know how the outcome of the battle went on to shape the future campaigns and it's value to the war itself. However the people history style of book often fails to put the battle into full context and often fills the pages with unimportant facts about the bit characters of the battle, who happen to be major actors of the book. This is the case with this book but at least it is done well, you do care about the people who populate the book and when some of them die it is real, it's the truth and it happened. Of the personal perspective style of writing this is in the better vein.

The true skill of Wukovits is in the middle section, the period of three days that the battle was fought. The nature of the battle meant that most of the action was very similar if not the same as each other. There is only so many ways of describing combat that especially was the same time after time. Somehow he manages not only to not make this just repetitive page by page but he manages to embrace that repetition and turn it into a positive feature of the fighting. Again it shared some of that book on the Somme's mind numbing brutal repetitive death into a more personal and feeling death. This is down to your living through some of the normal parts of the lives of these people but of course it's the detail of the individuals that means that the book as a study of the battle itself is flawed. If you want to know what it was like to wade ashore through bullet swept waters, to know that to get up to move forward an almost certain death or injury then this is for you. How ever if you want to know how this plan was to be devised and what was done to improve the situation and how it shaped future operations this is just not the book for you.

Personally it fulfilled the small unit action interest that I have, it's made me want to play something from the MMP's Bloody Reef Tarawa, maybe even the beech landings themselves. The two books I mentioned before are better if you want to know what it was like fighting through campaigns and getting the day to day of battle. This is a snap shot of the battle, focusing in on single men spread out across the battle who were picked out either because they were still alive to talk about it or because their loved ones or comrades told their story. It's both sad and uplifting, the Japanese side is told as best as possible and considering only 17 men survived the battle this side is told fairly well. Recommended reading even if your a dogface or none PTO fan, just for the sheer guts and human story.

The Prussian Project

As I mentioned yesterday I will be painting up the Prussians in 6mm for a re-fight of Waterloo. Not a public display but for personal pleasure. The idea is that we will use the massive table that Lee has and it obviously has the advantage that we can leave it up for the months it will take to play. I just hope we get the odd extra person to help fight it. Being as I am also painting up the French for the battle I am bound to be fighting against some of my own troops. Lee is also probably going to be doing the same as I expect we will be using a mix of both of our French as I assume we may need to. It's going to be stunning and obviously it will be played out on the blog. Can't think of anything better than fighting out battles on their anniversary and it is one of those epic battles. I am also aware that Matt IS putting on a display game of the self same battle and is also busy painting up the British for the battle. having seen his Borodino game at the Worlds this year I know it's going to be good. As for ours I do not know to what extent we will be going for terrain eye candy. I suspect it will be done via the usual hills and such to give a good rendition of the terrain without trying to model the exact setting. Also the number of figures on the table at the Words was jaw dropping, as to how we marry up against ours will be interesting to see.

I have already got the Prussian OOB that we will be working too, which has allowed me to work out two painting time lines. The first for just the battle itself and a second if we decide to do the whole campaign and I need a few more (cough) units. In fact given the length of time between now and May 2015 (self set completion date) I have the dangerous prospect of plenty of time to do it. Even the full OOB can be done without to much worry.Well till I look at the cost.

Infantry wise I could paint up a mere 3 bases (one regiment) a month and be ready for the battle. Full OOB it just doubles, so a little over one a week. I have not included February in the plan though I expect to get started this month.

Cavalry is rather small in number for the battle. I already have decided to paint up more units than required to allow for other battles and campaigns. We may yet make more changes to the rules that will separate cavalry down from Regiments, if so that would probably double the cavalry bases. Much more thought has to be put into that.

Guns and limbers will be a walk in the park as I only use limbers for horse artillery which cuts down on limbers a lot.

Commanders, well these will be needed in a fairly large number but with between two and four figures to the base it won't be an issue.

Obviously I will be painting up lots of other figures at the same time so this should stop complacency creeping in, but just in case I have been rather organised and have already set up a spreadsheet that will at a glance let me know if I am ahead or behind on the project. Alarmingly it also allows me to work out how much the project will cost. the good news is the figures I intend to sell are in excess of the Waterloo OOB. If we go for the full deal I will have to generate the extra but that is a bridge for the future.

Right now though, I have a few regiments of French Hussars and a lot of French command demanding my attention.

York Wargames Show Report

Well that's more than a grand title, I think it's related to a recent leading picture ;-) The truth is that I really did not see that much of the show as I spent a couple of hours on the table sale moving a lot of old and not so old wargames clobber. I had a quick look round on arriving and a chat with Peter on the Baccus stand but beyond that it was quick hits on three stands and then off home, so really I can't say too much about it. What I can say is that it was a lot more busy than the year before when we had all that snow. It seemed to have more stands and tables in use making it a bit more packed. Warbases I think was there for the first time and actually had one of several stands in the entrance. He seemed to be busy so hopefully it turned out to be a fairly good position.

The table sale seemed to be great for the first two hours with all tables taken but started to drop off for the third hour and by the end of the fourth hour they had a lot of empty tables and whilst people were still coming through it was a lot slacker. The system worked well and despite the website stating the tables could be only booked in 30 minute slots by eleven if not before you could book an hour slot. At the end of my hour I was allowed to stay on for another hour, good job for them really as they were dropping off. Total cost was £4 which I easily covered. Much better that a bring and buy as you could change prices or haggle come barter and even swap with the punters. The twin draw backs from my point of view was the size of area, really was a reduced space, better if you arranged with a mate to take a second space next to you which would also help with the second issue. If you want to look round and still have the table for a chunk of time you may well get a reduced look round the show. Given that I was more in selling mode than buying it was not a big deal for me but I would have liked to see more. How ever I did shift a fair amount of stuff including the Numidian Army that was gobbled up by the first person who saw it (it was under the table). When I told him how much I wanted for it, his reply was "for all of it?" Methinks  I set a low bar, but I was happy. I also got rid of almost all of the Citadel castings, first for a small amount each then as a job lot. I also sold a few of the Maelstrom FoG:R army lists that I had bought (duplicates) and the War and Conquest rule book I got for £1 I sold a few other bits and after buying my swag went hope with a fair amount more than I turned up with.

So onto the swag, actually I also had a few Vallejo paints which are already worked into the paint rack. As you can see I just went after two providers, Warbases who I picked up a show order and Baccus who I don't seem to be able to walk past.

Lets start with Warbases being as I spent the most there (sorry Peter LOL). These are not part of my show order and proof that it's always a good move to visit their stand even when you have enough bases as you never know what else they may have thought up. I loved the telephone booth and post box, perfect for any British set game of that period. I bought two more sets of windows to use on the custom bases (often as smashed windows. Linked to these were a bag of bricks, why linked? It's the bits that get cut out of the windows. Each item was £1 each, great value and VERY useful. 

Not on the original photo is an A4 sheet of roof tiles made of paper thin wood, perfect for shaping and cutting etc. The ridge tiles are at the bottom of the sheet (left side of the pic). 28mm figure shown for scale. At £3 a sheet it's just not worth using card for the job.

Martin made these custom bases for me, Originally I ordered 30 and the price was so good I expanded it to 120. These are for 15mm WWII figures that will be used as 3D snipers for ASL. The bad news for those taking part in Curt's Painting Challenge is that I should have the first 80 finished tomorrow. The good news is that I forgot to pick up some Russian figures for this so still need to get another 40 bought never mind painted.

Last up was a lot of the 60x60 bases for my Napoleonic infantry. Lee was sharing £15 worth of packs, that's 120 bases for our infantry. Lee took £7 worth as he has recently had  24 bases off me for his British. 

The great thing about Warbases is that if you order to pick up at a show with enough notice, you get a 10% discount which is a great feature. I still have loads of bases for my 15mm figs but I know before Triples I will be checking stocks of all the bases I use.

The sharp sighted may well have noticed the Baccus figures are not French Naps, they are indeed Prussians. One of the armies I took to sell was my Irregular Prussians and if I had managed to sell it I would have bought rather a lot more. Instead I have to sell the army via e-bay a few bases at a time. The bonus is that I will actually make more money even taking into account the various costs involved that sold at the show. The negative is that it's a pain to do. So I just bought a Prussian Line Infantry Booster Pack at £16.50 and Line Infantry Skirmish Infantry at £3. Enough for 12 bases which should cover our Waterloo project. I still need a lot more Prussian infantry but this is the cream of the crop. Cavalry wise it's a rather small force if we just do Waterloo. However if we do the campaign I will need a tad more of all of them......

Talking of Baccus, or rather talking to Peter from Baccus the Austrian's will be completed in just a few weeks which I am very excited about. No I'm not buying them, it's just that then the French will be along soon after. The new Infantry should be available for Salute or possibly before. I'm not just talking Line either. So I have the twin aims of getting the Prussians on the way and forging my way forward with the French. The Spanish army should be completed in a few months whilst the twin aim of Waterloo and Borodino should be done well before 2015. I even have funding approved  ;-)

Guess the Connection?

Yes that's horse Muck!

Not sure anyone can get this on it's own so here is pic 2.

Just concentrate on the Yorkshire Pud.

So maybe, just maybe you have already made the connection. Well for those still struggling with my twisted mind, it's all to do with Sunday 3rd of February or at this point, tomorrow. Last year the connection may well have had heaps of snow everywhere or a picture of a Landrover flying over a bloody roundabout but I digress. No it's to do with York Racecourse and more importantly the wargames show that will be held there tomorrow. Last year saw a bit of a low attendance (including some of the traders) so it will be interesting to see how many go this year. 

Last year I bought a few bits of plastic card and other bits and bobs but over all I don't think I bought much. This year the buying will include a few paints and possibly some new Prussians for my Naps but that very much depends on what I can sell at the show. 

York does not have a bring and hope no one steals it, rather you rent a table at £1 for 30 mins. You can't pre-buck and if your lucky you can have a table for two slots if no one else wants it. Seems a great idea but flawed down to the time restraints. OK if you have a few much wanted items it's great. If like me you have a few rather less sought after gems then maybe you need longer than half an hour. Hell I think I may need a few hours to do it justice. But anyways I will be taking a rather mixed bag in the hope to keep neutral through the whole year in one hit. 

First up is the much talked about Numidian Army, 20mm plastic's told you I was into niche marketing. I have fairly low hopes to move these but they will be priced to reflect this. Next up my Prussian 6mm army of 96 bases of infantry, cavalry, guns and limbers. That does not take into account of the command bases. Painted by Red Triangle painting service years ago for the most part these are lovely but they are also Irregular so again not as mainstream as I would like but I am hopeful. If they sell I buy the Prussians. I also have just over half as much French by irregular and they are up as well. Then I have lots of Citadel castings, really lots of them. Then I have a few rule books and army lists that I fully expect to sell.

Lee also want's table space so I think we will both try and get table space one after the other and share the space. Last year the tables became free of use fairly early but that was with all the snow. I wonder what this year will have to show for itself.

The main reason though is to meet up with other friends and jaw as well as possibly new ones from the world  of blogging. It's a rather full day for me as I have James coming round for some ASL whilst we wait for the Superbowl to come on TV which we plan to eat our way through. Bags the 49er's, I only want to see the Ravens crushed.

Quiz Time

Ok for a bit of fun, I thought I would run a few questions every now and then, you the avid reader try and answer them. No scoring or keeping note who has got the most right, just the usual bragging rights. 

The only rule is that you declare if you used the internet for your answer to a question, it's not disallowed or frowned upon, this is just for fun after all.

So lets start with Ancient to 1600 and the first seven questions.

1. What role did Odone Dora and Carlo Grimaldi fulfil at Crecy?

2. Who was Emperor when Rome successfully invaded Britain?

3. Arsuf (1191) was the main triumph of which commander in the Third Crusade?

4. What was a cakthrop?

5. What was a petronel?

6. What was lacking in the general who reconquered Italy for the Emperor Justinian during the 6th Century?

7. What were aiguillettes?

OK have some fun