A Happy New Year - here's to the future

As usual, the New Year is an opportunity to look back and see what I have achieved, and what the plans are for next year...

So here's the resolution...  "No more models or figures bought in 2015"  Ha!

Looking back on 2014, I made some good progress - not necessarily what I had planned, but still good progress. Completed:

450 AP DBMM Late Medieval army
Gauls & Spaniards for Wintercon DBMM, 240AP
Three 6mm Future War Commander armies - Pax Arcadia, Colonial and NAAS
Scots Irish DBA army
Alexandrian Macedonian DBA army
Approximately 50 WW2 1/72 vehicles
bits and pieces to finish the Sui army

All up - around 350 15mm figures, maybe a hundred 6mm vehicles/figures and the WW2 stuff.

Plans for 2015.

1. American War of Independence in 20mm plastics. Cheap as chips, ordered, and I am awaiting delivery. Rules might be 'Rank & File' or HFG.
2. Actually finish some Chain of Command forces. I have built way too many tanks, now I need to finish off the infantry forces, including EW German, LW German, British, German and US Paratroops, LW British, EW French, LW US, Italians, Japanese, Russians, etc.
3. Another DBMM army..   one of either Late Medieval Scots, Rajputs, Goths, Byzantines, New Kingdom Egyptians, Minoans or one of the other piles of lead..
4. Complete the 1/1200 French Napoleonic Fleet (Rear-Admiral Martin - 1795)
5. Finally complete the 6mm WSS British. Been promising this one for years...

I might leave it at that, I daresay some of the 20+ 1/72 plastic kits might get tackled as well..

All the best for 2015!

Hard Pounding Sir! Napoleonic Naval

Had a lot of fun tonight with a game of 'Signal Close Action' - Fast Play rules. These are from Langtons, and give a pretty good game with simple mechanics. Essentially, anything other than sailing straight ahead (turning, shooting, increasing sail, fire-fighting, assembling boarders) requires you to make a dice roll with three d6, this is modified by crew quality and current damage.

Each ship has a Broadside Value (between 1-15) and a number for defence capability (DC). Check you are in arc and range, make the ability roll, and you knock off a number, either from Hull or Rigging which is a multiple of your Broadside Number, and potentially multiplied again if a 'rake'. 

As an example, a 120 Gun ship might have a Broadside of 13, at close range x 12, and a typical '74' might have a DC of 120. Each single close range broadside would be 156 points of damage, and each DC lost reduces the ability and the broadside value of the 74.

We decided to take a 74 and a frigate each. In my case (French) - I ran the Incroyable, a 36 gun frigate with an average crew, and the Indomptable, a medium sized 74 with a Poor crew.

John ran the Pallas, a 32 gun frigate with a Good crew, and the Swiftsure, a smallish 74 with an average crew.

Early in the game, the French (on the right) try to cross the T of the British ships.. this works but incredibly poor shooting and a misfire results in a hull fire aboard the Incroyable, which was also taking serious damage from the Swiftsure.

 

On fire following another misfire, the Indomptable tries to blow the Pallas out of the water and misses.

The Incroyable tries for a stern rake on the Swiftsure, and fails - leading to another fire - The Swiftsure tacks and unleashes a broadside that heavily damages the much smaller French frigate. 

With that much damage - and with its crew fire fighting, the Incroyable strikes it's colours and is taken prize by the Pallas.

The Swiftsure and the Indomptable trade broadsides. While the French ship has a slightly heavier broadside, the crew quality should even things out. Surely the untrained Sans-Culottes canot be a match for Jolly Jack Tars of the RN?

But they are... after losing three 'DC' the Swiftsure's broadside is no longer doing the same damage, and somehow the French have managed to keep firing..   eventually, it becomes too much and the Swiftsure strikes its colours.

A really fun game, the British capture a relatively lightly damaged 36 gun frigate - a vessel they desperately need, while the French captain must be reluctant to try and tow the heavily battered Swiftsure..  it will more than likely go down with the prize crew while under tow.

Landwaster DBA

Three games down. Learned some lessons. Don't roll a 1 for pips- after a 1 for the general in combat. And don't bring auxiliaries to a knight fight. 

Last of the Medievals

The last two days I spent whacking some paint on the Late Medieval archers to add to the previous mounted and foot. This should give me enough for about 450AP in DBMM terms. Tonight was washes and flesh highlights.

The next few days I will get the basing kicked off, this is quite long-winded as a process, with white glue + sand, then a dark wash, followed by three drybrushes, then flock, tufts etc...  so for the whole army, it's at least four days.

Early Christmas Present

An early present to myself from the Ukraine. Not the usual run of the mill Airfix or Italeri. This time a UM Hetzer and a Roden Flak platform. 

Painting Late Medievals & PSC Spray

Pretty pleased with myself as I have been painting away for the last couple of days tackling the infantry component of my Eastern European Late Medievals (1460'ish).

The mounted are done and awaiting basing, and the infantry are catching up:

Handgunners

Crossbow skirmishers

Voynuks, armoured axe & polearms

Hordes

Bombard

Other than the Horde, which are a mix of Essex, Mirliton and QR, these are all QR miniatures. They look a little bit strange unpainted, as the heads seem quite small, but paint up very nicely.

I deliberately kept these drab, and used both a black wash over metal & 'greys', and a brown-wash over the browns, yellows and reds. I normally go back over them after the wash, and redo the highlights but in this case I decided not to, as I wanted a nice dark finish.

For basing - I will use the Baccus system, then some Leadbear Tufts. Not sure if this lot deserve spring flowers - might give it a try.

And while I am at it, the PSC sprays arrived, and I gave them a try, by coincidence having British, Late War German and Russian armour needing a basecoat. So here's how they look.

Dragon German 8 rad a/c, Hasegawa 'Stummel', and S-Model SU85, T26 and Vickers VIB Light Tank

It's night, so the colours might be a bit off in this shot, but I reckon they look ok. Next, some camo for the Germans - a darker green over the Vickers Light Tank, and then the fun of decals and weathering..

New Medieval Army in 15mm

I am starting to build up a new army in 15mm for the Later Medieval period in DBMM2.  Last week was very productive, with 23 mounted elements completed, and this week, the remaining 41 foot elements are on the painting table.

I am hoping this one will be my Cancon 2015 army, but this year, I am aiming to have it finished in good time, so I can play a couple of games before the convention, unlike just about every other year, where my army still smells of spray varnish on the morning of the tournament.

Here's this week's painting challenge:

Lots of Bow, Artillery, and sundry others...

This one is a general, and the portrait below is a hint...