4 Days to Baccus Open Day - 5 Days to Joy of Six

Yes in only four days I will be at Baccus HQ looking (again) at how they make the figures. I have to admit it's as much for the event that follows as the tour. Yes the curry night. This will be the first time for me and I am really looking forward to it with all the banter and fun that comes with it. This of course is the starter for the main event. Sunday has the 6mm only show that is the Joy of Six. 

As any regular reader will be aware, we are staging the battle of Quatre Bras on a six foot deep, five foot wide custom board. Whilst this is really just a warm up test game for our Waterloo game we still have put a lot of effort into getting it to look right. 

Just about everything is packed and ready to go, I still have a few bits to do to get it all squared away but all in all it's ready and we can sit back and enjoy the wait.

2nd Elbe Landwehr Baccus

Finished at the same time as the 1st Elbe Landwehr I delayed blogging them to give you a bit of space between them as they are very similar.

The first Battalion in column this time, overall I have the Landwehr mostly in column rather than line as it's an easier formation to keep in good order. This is not so much for Waterloo as earlier battles using these troops, especially when they were first raised. Not that it matters with our rules as the only formation that effects combat is square.

Note the officer hiding behind the line, seems a sensible chap to me. I averaged about a regiment a week though I was rather tardy putting in less than two hours an evening. These were painted from a black base coat.

Back to column for the third Battalion and a little bit of a play as I add another hedge to one on the bases. I have some stone walls I plan to add to the odd base as well. In reality I always plan more than I actually get round to doing but I think once I am no longer working to a schedule I will put more thought into this type of thing.

I was going to put a wrecked limber on the other side of the hedge as an after thought but the space was a little lacking so I have left it plain.

This picture shows off the Adler officer better. I should have all the Prussians finished for the end of this year. This could roll over into 2015 but not by far. If I get a wriggle on I could get them all done earlier but I have a lot of other things I want to do so expect it wrapped up over New Years.

All three Battalions ready to attack the old enemy, I guess I had better get more of these painted up then! At this point I have just under seventy Prussian Battalions painted though all will not for the Waterloo game as they are the wrong Regiments. I have enough figures in stock to bring the total to over one hundred battalions, that is worrying.

I expect to pick up another 24 Battalions worth of French at Joy of Six at the weekend. I must have about 50-60+ Battalions of French all done as well. Possibly a fair few more. I should count them though I know what I still need to paint for Project Waterloo, another seventeen. So for the rest of this month I plan on doing one battalion each of the new Baccus (if they are ready) finish two regiments of 6mm Zulu's and work further on the cowboys and Vikings in 28mm.

Leven Miniatures Buildings Fachwerkhaus Finished for Joy of Six

So in seven days time I should be home, totally cream crackered but I hope basking in the warm glow of a demo game gone well. This is the last building to be painted for the game, not that it is sure to get used but I expect it will somehow make the table.

After the show at some point it along with others will be based so it can take it's place in my town. I am also picking up over thirty more buildings at the show some of which will find their way onto the blog fairly quickly as they are small and easy to work on and will add to my farm tiles I have planned.

I wanted this building to look worn but not wrecked. The idea is that it is fairly well looked after but simply was fairly old. It will be one of the buildings in the buffer zone between the more run down section of town and the merchants quarter.

This is a fairly large building that Leven sell for just £2.50 and because of this I have around eight of the two versions painted up and another seven awaiting paint! I also have two of the next building in the series on order so expect to see these fairly soon as well.

Building of the week will be back in a few weeks once I have myself all sorted and ready for more building work. I really need to clear my desk of some of the projects taking up space and sapping my time. Of course having seven of these complex buildings on my paint desk may be another reason I have delayed getting more done.

Escape From Arnhem Book Review

I borrowed this book from the local Library a couple of weeks ago, even started to read it in the Library whilst waiting for the kids to pick their books. It's not a thick book running to 160 pages in total with a fairly low word count per page. As such I romped through it in a few days making me glad I did not buy it.

Godfrey Freeman had no intention of making his story into a book as he says their are many books on the subject and many of these are written by those who were better placed to write an authoritative book on the subject. This may be the reason he offers only a few pages to the subject of the surrender and a few more much later to his journey into Arnhem and what seems to be his only bit of actual combat.

One point that needs to be made early on, Freeman did not escape from Arnhem! and having read the book I can't help but think the decision to call the book by this title was not his but the Publisher. In deed Freeman comes across as a very decent chap and whilst he felt he did not need to add to the books on Arnhem I was left wishing he had written more on his experiences whilst caught in the cauldron. 

Freeman has an excellent style and left me wishing the book was much larger or that Freeman had written more books, I would be happy too read books on other subjects by him as his style was so good.

Humour runs through the whole book as does self depreciation, Freeman kept moving from the story to dash back in his past or the occasional step forward. Some of those dashes though were irrelevant and added nothing to the understanding of the situation or his frame of mind at the time and seemed to just be filler. However these diversions did not derail the narrative nor diminish the enjoyment of the book.

Still I felt the book could have been more and some of the events were rushed through with to little detail. Probably the result of too many years between the events and the writing them down. The story of the escape (from a military hospital) and the Dutch he met along the way who helped him is the real story and you can not but be amazed at the bravery of the Dutch civilians who risked not just their own lives but that of their family and even neighbours. 

It's well worth a read for sure but alas not the full purchase price as it's over just too quick and has little re-read value. Amazon has this on Kindle for £7.20 and Hardback for £15.63 and is published by Pen & Sword. I would recommend getting it from the Library if possible given the speed you will get through it.

I will give it 7 out of 10, really glad I read it but won't pick it up again.

Project Waterloo 1st Elbe Landwehr Regiment - Baccus

With The Joy of Six in just over a week I am trying to get more of the Project Waterloo finished off. After all, nothing feels better that a project that's ahead of time. Of course the fact I am about to load back up on French infantry and add another bulge in the lead mountain also is reason to get some in hand to counter the charge.

Here we have all three Battalions of the 1st Elbe Landwehr that were part of II Corp and got to fight at Waterloo. The 2nd Elbe Regiment also thought at Waterloo whilst the 3rd only took part in Ligny, well at least did not fight at Waterloo so will not be painted till later.

1st Battalion

The flags chosen are conjecture but this time I have given all three battalions flags after advice from Lee. Talking of which, Lee was over here on Friday and looking at the painting table told me which regiment I was painting. That guy has the knowledge!

2nd Battalion

These are all Baccus figures except the mounted officers who are Adler. This time I went for a mounted officer on all bases. The Landwehr by this point were of much sterner stuff than earlier conflicts as they were not only veterans of several campaigns at this point but had known victory. Of course by this point they had also lost a battle not 48 hours before and conducted almost constant marches in rain and heat since.

3rd Battalion

We have yet to sit down and give the Prussians values for their troops but I think the Prussians are going to be the most difficult to get right. In part as they need different values for different periods, especially the Landwehr. Added to that I think the Prussians need some form of reduced strength to take account of the trials of the last two days.

These are part of the twelve Battalions of Landwehr that are produced by Baccus, the only Baccus of my Prussian army outside of guns, I will have a number of these as well by time Waterloo comes round. The rest is Adler, though long term I may end up adding more Baccus but having a rather large stash of Adler to be going at I don't expect that to happen for some time to come.

By the time I have finished the Prussians for Project Waterloo I will actually have about three Corp painted up and about four Corp including all the unpainted figures. At some point we will not only do Ligny but other battles seeing the might of Prussia tested against France and maybe other nations as well. You never know I may, just may get to play with them sometime.

Blasts From The Past Part Two

I left off last time hinting at the first time that trait of the wargamer that today is called "Oh Shinny" or shinny'itus. That diversion from one project into something else entirely. With the 25mm Feudal going nowhere and the 1/72 WWII ticking over with the purchase of the odd model (this scale was to die out a few years into my gaming time as we found other scales and mediums better suited to the period). I was casting my eye for something else and my main opponent at that time was into The English Civil War and lent me a book. Whilst it was not THIS book it was a copy of this book.

It just captured my imagination and I was hooked. It was not long after this I think that Matt joined Andy and me in our gaming and agreed to raise his own army. Andy had the Royalists and I had a soft spot for the New Model Army thus Matt took an early Parliamentarian Army based on Essex and Waller. Scale was heavily discussed and as we were mostly fighting battles on the floor or on a dinning table so this limited our options and thus our commitment to 15mm was started and remained the main stay of our spending for years and years to come. Indeed today I still paint and wargame in 15mm having never gone for 25/8mm in more than skirmish level.

I still remember clear as day that first army, I bought it from Derby Wargames show at the Assembly Rooms and it was a starter boxed army by Essex no less. I still had that box a few years ago and just seeing it would bring a smile to my face. 

The first Regiment I painted up was Sir Thomas Fairfax's foote regiment,most of which is pictured below. Since then we have used a number of rules and these are now based for Field of Glory : Renaissance though we have yet to actually try the rules. The ECW was to remain a main staple for years but became a victim of our heavy play and was replaced by other shiny but for a time it was king of the table and we had so many great games through time.

During this time we learnt campaign's, multi-player gaming and that all rules are not good rules. On the darker side I got my first experience of club gaming and it goes a long way to explaining why I don't tend to gravitate to traditional clubs, indeed I have little interest in them. It was at the very old and I believe defunct Mansfield Wargames Club that both Andy and myself were enjoying yet another ECW game when a club regular offered to play the both of us the following week/month or what ever. Just 1200 points or such and we eagerly agreed, after all it's good to play other guys and we would belong etc etc.

We turned up and started to lay out our troops he did the same, except gone was the pike and shot formations we expected. Instead Elephants and other exotics were placed on the table. What followed was a fairly comprehensive defeat, we stood zero chance but whilst it was bad form that this guy had deceived us into a battle we could not win he took quite a poor attitude to our taking of defeat lightly with comments like what's the factor for sword and two mice? Seems we should have been driven to despair and gutted by our loss. To the clubs credit another bloke witnessing the other members churlish actions offered us a game another week but we soon stopped going as at the time it had a bit of a negative atmosphere running through it mostly surrounding anyone playing in the other room. This happened to be where the fantasy wargamers (Loud) and the roleplayers (LOUDER) hung out. It's where new guys like me and Andy tended to play as the best tables were for the old timers. Not that most of the best room guys know what we played, we just had to be part of the problem as we were from the other room. I wonder how many players have been lost to mainstream this way? All I can say was that whilst the Loud crowd were, well load they were fun and whilst the odd jibe was thrown our way it was always in jest and always returned in jest. In the end it was easier to stay at home, play each other and not pay a club fee because apart from the very odd occasion we played each other anyway.

Going back to the figures for the final segment. Whilst I did buy other makes of figures from time to time the majority of the army was made up of Essex and only later was I to learn that the equipment was so very far off in most parts but that is another story. I had just started to move over to Acylic's at this time and for the most part actually used tube acrylic and due to having an artist for a mother, good stuff as well. I actually used oils for the horses for some time but the dry time forced me away from them. Probably a good job I never thought of popping them in the oven in those days! 

I kept with a mix of tubes, Humbrol tubs and eventually Colour Party which replaced all but all my original paints over the years. It's kind of ironic that I bought my first three Vallejo bottles just before leaving the hobby and the idea of using inks was not even on the horizon, boy things have changed.

Next time I think it's time to look at a few outside influences.

Service Interruption

OK it's been far too long between posts and yes I had a number of these all planned and even fell on another that will be especially of interest to my Midland UK based followers but fell is a good word to bring all this together.

Not that I actually have fallen, well in so much words. Been a bit of a full on week or so, both through work and hobby related as I have tried to finish off a rather large chunk in the form of nine Battalions of Landwehr, lots of prep for Joy of Six and fitting in some live ASL after my original opponent could not make Sunday and I was unavailable Friday. 

Add in a busy Saturday with a trip to town followed by a lot of hobby time all wrapped up with a 3 hour ASL game that taxed my thinking as I always have to bring my A Game if I am to give Mr Mayers a good game.

Sunday was family day with a trip to a museum and that's where the wheels came off. A little too much sun and no real rest over the weekend and suddenly it's crash time. Fortunately whilst it's rather violent it's fortunately rather short in duration, never more than 18 hours. This one really ended after about six hours though I was aware I was rather delicate and could do no more than fix labels on bases and watch a DVD. Then off to bed where I was lucky enough to sleep a fair bit of the night and got up fresh and ready for another week.

Only issue is I feel I am behind by 24 hours on where I wanted to be and today was the leaving do of one of our team. Not a sad event as Ashley is striking out full time for herself and good luck to her, already an amazing talent she is going to do very well for herself. However this means another night without much done though I got home in time to do the basing work I should have done yesterday and dash off this quick post. Tomorrow should see the bases finished and the second part in my look back at the past. Now? I'm off to bed chucks.