Houstons Ships Part 2

So I assembled these while watching Jaws...   very maritime, stuck them to tongue depressors and undercoated black. Woke up this morning feeling terrible with a head-cold, so I decided to stay home and warm, and in the meantime, add the deck colour.

So the plan is..  White superstructure, undercoat 'antique white' - blackwash, and highlight with 'arctic white'. The decks are a GW colour 'evander darksun' or some such nonsense, and I will brown ink wash these, then highlight with a very pale cream colour to bring up the decking. The black hulls will get a wet-brush with paynes grey, then a blackwash and finally neutral grey/paynes grey mix 'highlights'.

After that - some rigging. Looking at the diagrams and photographs, these ships still carried a lot of rope! Plus that then gives me somewhere to hang signal flags.

Having started the paint job, the scale differences are becoming quite noticeable. So in order of size in feet.. (from Conways again) - Orion: 245, Thunderer: 285, Dreadnought: 320, Alexandra: 325, Collingwood: 325.


The models however are this size (mm) Orion: 80, Thunderer: 103, Dreadnought: 102, Alexandra: 108, Collingwood: 96.

Using a very rough 300mm per foot, that gives a scale of:
Orion 80:245 -  1/919
Thunderer 103:285  - 1/830
Dreadnought 102:320 - 1/941
Alexandra 108:325 - 1/902
Collingwood 96:325 - 1/1015

I am just going to ignore it..   close enough for Government work...

Houstons Ships Part 1

So - in between moving stuff, I decided to have a bit of fun. I had a bag of Houstons ships - roughly 1/1000 pre-dreadnoughts, available from 'Great Endeavours' and I put these together.

Now people say that the moulds are old, and yes, there was a bit of scraping, filing and filling to do, but these ships have serious character. So here's my Brits - assembled and waiting for undercoat..   HMS Dreadnought, Collingwood, Orion, Thunderer, and Alexandra.

And of course they are sitting on top of my Conway's "All the World's Fighting Ships 1860-1905". I got mine for about Aussie $45.. but I have seen them sell for as much as $120. If you see one at a price you can afford, and you have any interest in pre-dreadnoughts, buy it! You wont regret it. Line drawings and photographs plus essential statistics and summary for every warship in this period.

The Great Move!

Well, the Civil Power has decided that she needs a study. So that means a massive move of all my wargames stuff from our middle room. (We have a spare room for visitors, plus a middle room that up till now has been full of books and lead.)

Luckily we also have what is laughingly called the 'Gimp' room..  (Pulp Fiction reference of course), which is a decent sized room that was created by cutting about 2 metres out of the back of our double carport, and lining, carpetting and putting in windows, blinds, etc.

It has got a bit damp, but we have had the wettest summer in memory, so it would be unsurprising if it wasn't.

Anyway, so today was the big move of lead and a large oak desk from inside, to the Gimp room...  oh dear, it just drummed in how much unpainted lead I have - thirty trips later. But if I have a dedicated place to paint, I will try and make a couple of hours a night. Maybe it will accelerate progress..  and with the lead pledge, maybe I will have a productive year.

(Photographs to follow..)

Favourites..

So in between applying Ink washes to 90+ horses, 6 camels etc..  (those never ending Ayyubids..), I read a nice post over on the Too Much Lead (a sentiment I can never agree with..).

So in keeping with the meme, here's my list:

Favourite Wargames period:
Ancients? But principally because there are a couple of sets of rules that I really enjoy playing. And as you can see from my listings.. there is a bit of everything there. Once the Ayyubids are done, I will want to finish up my moderns, and maybe even some 15mm Sci-Fi for FWC or Tomorrow's War.

Favourite Scale:
It's a toss-up between 6mm and 15mm. I think it is about the scale of the game. 15mm for Ancients battles works because ranges on a 6 x 4 table (1800mm x 1200mm for the Imperially challenged) look believable. By the time you get to 1900, weapons ranges mean a scale 15mm tank could fire 8 tables wide. I still use 15mm for small scale games like FoF or AK47, but the bulk of my post 1900 figures are 6mm - and almost all Baccus for foot and GHQ for vehicles.

Favourite Rules:
Love the DBx series. They let me play large scale games without a thousand modifiers and tables. I think people tend to forget the impact on the hobby when DBA was released. I am also a big fan of the BKCII/CWC/FWC series. As you can tell, I am not a rivet counter, quite happy with a good game that doesn't to get into (for me) unnecessary detail.

Favourite Boardgame:
Diplomacy - endless hours of devious backstabbing fun. I also play 'Go'. but not seriously anymore.

Favourite Figure Manufacturer:
15mm - Loving the Mirliton figures, although sometimes it can be challenging when they come in 4 or 5 parts for a cavalryman. Essex - for the completeness of their range, (and some of their later releases are little beauties with much more animation). In 6mm, vehicles is hard to go beyond GHQ, and for pre-WWII - then Baccus is outstanding. 


Favourite Club: 
Don't have one at the moment. If you had asked me six months ago, I would have said 'Canberra Games Society' - but in the last little while, it has become very crowded and very noisy. Nowadays I prefer a quiet game at home, as I have plenty of room.


Favourite Opponent:
Hard one. There are a lot of really genuinely nice guys at our club. When I first arrived in Canberra, I was a very hard-nosed and competitive player. I am hoping I have chilled out a bit under the influence of the locals. Two people I always enjoy playing, win lose or unfinished, are Dave T. (Chook), and a John G.

 
Favourite Inspiration:
Film -
Waterloo, El Cid, Zulu, Blackhawk Down, The Longest Day, Battle of Britain too many to name really, and they are all there in my DVD Collection. Absolute favourite? - 'Aliens'.

Book -
Too many to name..   everything from SCW 'Days of Hope' to Lord of the Rings.

Art - 
That's easy -  the late Angus McBride, everything from his illustrations for Middle Earth Role Playing to the Osprey Books. A unique talent.


And that's about it for me..  happy gaming

Cancon 2012

So Cancon (the biggest Australian wargames convention) is on again in two weeks time. And I foolishly registered and sent off my army list for an army currently about 57 elements short of being painted...   I always do it.  mainly because I procrastinate so much about my painting, that registering to play with an unpainted army is the best way to force myself to deal with the unpainted lead mountain.

Ayyubid Egyptian - for those who wanted to know. I would post a picture but an image of 57 elements of figures glued to DBMM bases and spray painted black wouldn't be very entertaining.  (Thats about 120 15mm figures ... ooh errrr....)

I also tried something different this time. The Mirliton figures have separate shields so I have tacked these to a separate piece of cardboard and I am going to try painitng these before glueing them on.

My list has been approved so I am going to be a busy boy for the next fortnight.... 

And I still haven't decided a) whether to play DBA on the third day and defend my National Championship and ACT/NSW Magister MIlitum shield..   and b) if I do, what army to take!

Mr Postman

Well, despite some little dramas with Mr Postman (let's just say they forgot the very important 'delivery' part of being a postal service), yours truly spoilt himself this month. Packages kept trickling in. They will be the last for some time - despite Thomo trying to tempt me with Polemos SPQR from Wargames Vault at $11.10 for the download. I may have to crack and get Tomorrow's War Ok, I did..  - but no more figures for 6 months. I mean it! Stop laughing.

My priority now is to reorganise the 'gimp' room at the back of the garage into a functioning wargames workshop. This means getting rid of most of the cr*p in there currently, and transferring pretty much all the contents of the study into there. It's a huge job. I have been so busy this weekend, I didn't get it together to borrow/hire a trailer, so that's next Saturday blown..

The Collector Edition Board Game, I am hoping this will be one that gets played a lot.

AK47 Redux - Just too much fun not to have. And I have been steadily collecting bits and pieces to use.

A Warrior, BMP1, T55, T72, BRDM A/C all from Skytrex. Very nice models and suitable for AK47 or FoF.

Italeri Diecast Tornado, Skyhawk and Johnny Lightning M1A1 (no 5).

 

Rebel Minis - very nice figures though some have large chunks of flash. African Militia, African Military, and possibily the start of a Tomorrow's War force, Earth Force and Sahadeen.

Finally, a Bristol F2B - to add to my HitT Mesopotamian Forces.

That's all for a while!

DBA3 Test Games No 3

Actually it is about test game no 40.. but it is No 3 versus another player with this draft of DBA3 (19 December).

As far as I can tell, the only substantive change other than clarifications is that Ax, Ps, El and Kn now move 3 Base Widths (BW) instead of 2.5.  I think this is a good change, restoring the differential between Lights and Heavies.

The Game itself was one-sided and rather too quick. I grabbed random armies, Italian Communal and New Kingdom Egyptian, but the Communal Italians had 2 bases of Pavisiers (based as double-based bow). Under the DBA3 rules, each base lost counts as two losses to the total of 4.

Early shooting (and poor dice rolling it must be said..)  cost Thomo the game technically when my singe based bow without the protection of big shields outshot and destroyed his two pavisiers, therefore reaching the 4 elements/bases lost, but we agreed to count the 8Bw as one loss, and continued the game. I lost a Psiloi (light infantry) to his, and then an element of Blade (Egyptian sickle swordsmen) hit front by his Blade and flank by the victorious Psiloi - But the rest of the table looked bad for my opponent.

Threatened to flank by my chariots, the Italian tried that last desparate charge into Bow and Blade with his Knights, and rolled low across the board to lose his Knight General plus another Knight. All over, and Thomo very unlucky, his artillery did no damage even at 4-2 vs my Bow, and the last charge could have gone either way.

I don't like the 2 losses effect for the 8Bw (double-based bow) - it makes them a target of choice for opponents, and they get no advantage shooting. Due to my Blades they couldn't go into close combat where they would have had a plus vs other foot, and just had to stand a shooting exchange that would cost him the game. This doesn't seem right.