November 1 Club Night

We had 12 guys out at the club last night. Bruce hosted Chen and I in a game of Aurelian. I played the Romans. I fiddled around a lot with the bases and neglected to recognize the importance of the hill on my left...

Bruce put his barbarian heavies in the woods, leaving me to face skirmishers and a bunch of horse. I went forward and he dropped some annoying terrain that really disrupted my movement.

The horse battle on the left was inconclusive for a long time. In the meantime Chen joined Brice and pushed forward the barbarian foot while my troops were disordered. Things were looking bad as my card deck was getting low.

I finally managed to attrit the barbarian cards in the horse battle, then stalled their movement with an event card and the slammed into the side of main force for two turns.

The resulting unit loss pushed them to the break point of their card deck just before my own deck expired. The lesson here is that good luck and the toughness of the Roman can overcome really bad generalship.

Bruce and Chen played a second game with the Romans winning again.

We also had a game of Silver Tower out plus whatever the heck Richard Borg's WW1 game is called.

And Dave hosted a WW2 Crete game (Bolt Action maybe?) with Jon.

Up next: Some more 54mm AWI.

1/32-scale frontier militia

I couldn't make the club this week but I did manage to finish some painting. These are the second half of an Armies in Plastic 1/32-scale box of FIW troops. 

I painted these guys up as frontier militia for the rebels. My thought was that this took advantage of the figures' otherwise antiquated FIW gear. They can also fill in the ranks of larger militia units or act as scouts.

Overall, these are nice enough figures. They have an interesting variety of gear and poses and there was only one annoying bent rifle barrel.

The sculpting on plastics can sometimes be a bit muddy in order to deal with the undercut issue of metal moulds. These guys turned out okay, I think. Washing really helps add some depth to the figures and the paint tones.

Up next: I'm turning my mind to the British with eight foot figures underway and then six mounted.

1/32-scale Rebel Dragoons

A couple of weeks back, I posted some 1/32-scale FIW troops that I painted up as AWI rebel dragoons.  These were plastics from Armies in Plastic.  My plan was to add in a few mounted (since most dragoons would fight dismounted) to flesh out some units for the upcoming Tricorne set of rules.

I finally have the mounted figures done. Man, 1/32-scale horse are big figures! These fellows are also from Armies in Plastic. I nipped the sides of the tricornes off to get a soft cap that seems more in keeping with the illustrations of American dragoons.

The horses were a mixed bag, in terms of painting. They look better in person than in the pictures. Overall, I'm happy there are so few cavalry in the AWI!

I have spray primed another six horse for the British dragoon units and these are next on my painting list. I also have a few generic foot left over that I may paint up to stretch out the British dragoons if needed. I keep hoping for a unit list for Tricorne so I can focus my painting.

Up next: I can't make the club this week but I will finish another eight-man unit of frontier militia for the Rebel side. This is another paint job conversion of the FIW set I bought.

1/32-scale AWI Americans and Cthulhu Pandemic

We had seven guys out to our first club night of October. Terry brought out Pandemic: Reign of Cthulhu which was a fun adaptation of Pandemic. We managed to beat the Old Ones one time out of two.

Dave also hosted Dennis, Chris, Jonathan and Chen in a game of Kings of War. This was still going on when I left. We heard the sad news that Larry Jeselon had passed away.

I've been painting again. I picked up a box of 1/32-scale Armies in Plastic "Any Regiment of the AWI troops. There were 20 figures in the box. I used 13 to make rebel unit, with the uniform loosely based on the 5th Pennsylvania.

The only changes I made were to nip off a bayonets. The rest of the figures I reserved for a possible British unit. Like most plastic boxes, there were a variety of poses (meh) so I broke them into a back line (above) and a shooting line (below).

The figures were nice enough. Not as much detail as metals (hence the simpler uniform I chose). I primed white, painted, sealed, washed, sealed again and based. There is more contrast in the whites (showing off what detailed there was) than shows up in these pictures.

Below you can see a comparison with an All The King's Men metal figure (left) and an AiP FIW figure (right). 

Up next: I have three horsemen on the go to flesh out the rebel dragoons I painted last time.  I have cut down their tricornes to softcaps. I also have more of the AiP FIW wars fellows that I'm painting up as western frontier rebel militia.

1/32-scale plastic AWI troops

Work and aging in-laws have curtailed my gaming these days' apologies for the lack of posts. I have been doing a bit of gaming with Jessica when we find a few minutes.

Last week we managed to narrowly lose a game of Pandemic. We then played a game of Small World where some lucky draws meant a lopsided game.

My painting table has been collecting dust. To try an get back into the swing of things, I ordered from plastic 54mm troops to supplement my existing AWI metals.

These are some FIW troops sold by Armies in Plastic. After looking at them, the headgear suggested light troops. The Indian leggings were problematic but, with a bit of paint, they looked enough like cavalry boots that I decided to paint them up as dismounted dragons for the US side.

Overall, the figures are fine. They have some injection marks (see below) that are invisible on the table but really jump out in a photograph. I quite like the kit they carry.

They are a touch beefier than the All The King's Men metals (left below) and a bit slightly than the John Jenkins' Indians I have. The height is about right though. Some of the figures have the weird  compromises necessary to fit into metal molds (lack of undercuts, chunky bits).

I bought some mounted troops (still unpainted) and thought I would represent dragoon units with one mounted and two or three dismounted (as per below).

Up next: I have another eight of these guys that I will paint up as militia. Right now I'm working on a unit of a dozen line troops (another set of Armies in Plastic figures). These next figures are more in scale with the ATKM figures. I'm painting them up for the rebels. Then onto the mounted troops (all with tricornes?). Kind of weird but maybe designed to represent officers, moreso that cavalry.

Club Night September 6

We had a great turn out for our first club night of the autumn with (I think) 16 guys playing at one point. Dave hosted a WW2 Crete game that began with a flaming British plane. Reports were sketchy but the German paratroops spent some time looking for their weapons pods... .

I managed to snap a reasonable panorama shot as everyone was setting up.

I played a game of Muskets & Tomahawks using Stephen's beautifully painted 28mm Imaginations troops. The rules played nicely, with card drive activation to add in some C&C issues.

It was a straight forward encounter to break point with pretty similar forces.

Here I am with everyone in order and looking good.

Things are more complex here with my cavalry charging towards the top of the frame, trying to get around his main body of infantry on the right while avoiding his cavalry and skirmishers. In the meantime, I'm working my skirmishers around on the right (you can just see the smoke from their volley).

And then this happened. It was close for awhile after that but eventually my cavalry disintegrated (really being more dragoons than cavalry). A very fun and pretty game.

There was also some CC (Zama, I think).

Dennis and Chen were getting some DBA practice in in anticipation of the Fallcon tourney.

And Kevin ran another well attended and very beautiful game of Silver Tower.

Up next: Hard to see; my time is pretty tight these days.

1/76-scale M-36 Jackson

Apologies for the long break in posts. It was entirely unintentional--August just got very busy with the garden and vacationing.

I picked up this M-36 Jackson from Terry this spring. It is an old 1/76-scale Niton model that came with a small diorama, a jeep, watch tower and 37mm ATG. Nice enough kit for its time although olde timey flocking is hilariously bad.

I didn't build the engine or interior of the driver's compartment. I ended up stapling the tracks but the decals were in great shape. Pictured below with a 1/72-scale Sherman and a downed Mosquito fighter-bomber (funny what you notice when processing pictures).

Up next: Another game of Aurelian with Bruce, some 15mm vampire hunters and maybe a game of Airfix Battles (if I can get my act together and finish sorting the rules in my head).