War of the Roses

Well, I sorta bought a box of the "perry miniatures Wars of the Roses Infantry" and a box of the "Mercenaries" as well. Mainly to be generic fantasy Humans to fight my Mantic Undead, but also for a bit of Wars of the Roses as well. I have since bought another box of infantry.

This is what I have painted so far.

You can see a group of billmen in Blue and Murry, and a group of men at arms, and some odd bowmen at the back. My Plan is to do two sides with what I have both with a unit of Bill, a unit of bow and a unit of men at arms. One side will have blue and murry livery (Edward IV/Richard III) , the other green and white (Welsh/Tudors).
That should use up about 60 of the troops leaving another 60, of which some will be crossbow men, but that's as far as I have planned.

Some Yorkist archers

The first of the Tudors

With some creative part swapping I managed to get 20 men at arms out of three boxes. These are just the first 8 painted.

All of this means My ratio of archers to men at arms is none of the bold claims of 4:1 or even 2:1 but in fact 1:2, or more truthfully Archers to Bill to MAA 1:1:1, based on an article of Miniature Wargames and the Basic impetus lists.

Yorkist Bills

Tomorrow's War

Well after reading the buzz on The miniatures page. I went on amazon and got tomorrow's war. I'm not gonna review it or anything or even talk about it much, that's been covered out there on the web, on a hundred other blogs, basically it's Force on Force in space.

Anyway this gives a use for my Shock Troops. I had painted 11, so I've painted up a few more. Here are some or the more interesting types; a Team Leader wearing a field service cap, 3 gunners with various types of laser guns and a specialist with a scanner.

Here is my platoon. I haven't painted a third squad, it won't be needed in most games.

In Tomorrow's war they are as follows:

Shock Troops
Quality: D8
Moral: D10
Confident
Normal Supply
Tech Level 2
Amour: Light (1D)

Platoon
1 HQ squad
3 Shock troop squads (I only have 2 squads painted)
1 Fire support team

HQ
Platoon Leader
Radio Operator
Shock troop squad
2 x fire teams

Fire Team
Team Leader
Grenadier or Laser gunner (AP:1 AT:1)
2 x Troopers

Fire support Team
2 x Gunners with GPMG's (AP:2)
2 x assistant gunners

But who will they fight for control on the universe?

My old Imperial Guard the 29th Witchinuka!!! (They may or may not remain the Witchinuka depends if I think of a better name. It's supposed to sound like one of those towns in the US midwest. They will remain the 29th 'cus they have XXIX painted on that flag).

Laters...

Black powder battle

Some time back I had a little battle in the loft, using the Blackpowder rules. Anyway here are some pictures I took.
The basic set up was, a US regular Brigade and Militia Brigade, supported by two guns had to hold off the attacking British. The British had 2 veteran Brigades with plenty of light infantry (the majority of who cleared the woods at the top of the picture).

The Americans started out holding the wall with two militia battalions and both guns. The British stormed the wall and drove off the Americans. The Regular US infantry then counter attacked with some success.

However, as the counter attack started to push the British back, the British Light Infantry took the wood, and so gave enfilading fire on to nearby US counter attack.

On the other flank, the British committed the single battalion which had been held in reserve. They arrived just as the British battalion in front broke. The already weakened US infantry couldn't hold against fresh troops, and the British made sort work of them. And with that, all the US troops where either dead or falling back. The Britsh carried the field.

It was a fun few hours, but I really need some generals. I only have two mounted officers one US and one British. The lack of commanders is so dire that one British was led by a rifle Sergeant! So general officers are next thing on the buy list.

Laters..

10mm medieval basic Impetus

Well a new project. oh dear. But it does have "smart" targets.

Specific:
Buy and paint 4 10mm armies for basic impetus. Medieval English, French, Scots and Welsh

Measurable:
Well when the four armies are painted and based, its finished. First I will do English and French Hundred years war. With a few changes in and out, they will be able to represent Feudal English and French as well. Next I will do the Scots and Welsh.

Attainable:
In terms of expense, this being a 10mm project for impetus, it shouldn't be too much. I have already bought HYW English and French, costing £25. So I reckon the whole project shouldn't be much more than £60 or so. Easily affordable when spread over a few months.
The other thing in painting time. I am a very quick painter, however I only paint when on holiday, but I am having a long weekend in a couple of weeks, and I'll try and do the English and French in that time, before buying the Welsh and Scots.

Relevant :
This will satisfy a long time ambition to have medieval armies, as I have a big interest in English medieval military history, also it'll be a change from the 'skirmish' wargames I do most of the time. I haven't ever done 'grand' scale armies before.

Timely:
Like I just said when I have a weekend off in a couple of weeks I'll do the French and English.
After that I'll buy the rest of the miniatures needed, paint them over my summer holidays.
The whole project should be wrapped up by September.

Basic impetus Rules and army list from thier website
I'm using Vol 19 and Vol 25.

Laters...

Manitic Zombies

Well these are the infamous mantic zombies. Good ain't they. These actually have a few bits from the ghouls set mixed in; some legs and heads. There is the small issue of only being three torsos with fixed left arms (one has both arms fixed), although this can be overcome, to a degree, by vairing the position you glue the torso to the legs.

But, even with this and cutting and repositioning a few of the fixed arms, you can still still see the amount of similar poses. I think this unit of 20 just about gets away with it. But a 'horde' of 30-40 or more it would look a bit silly.

I really enjoyed painting these, the detail is astounding, they are top notch sculpts for the low price. Bellow are the obligatory 'zombies-busting-from-the-ground' which will look even better when the have been based. All in all, I love these miniatures and they deserve the hype they get on the internet. They just look so bloody good (even after my average quality painting).

Laters...

ebay!

Well, over the bank holiday weekend I became slightly obsessed with ebay. I was sure there was a warhammer bargin on there somewhere. I lost several autions, which at the time almost made me cry, but on refection they weren't even good deals at the end. Most stuff seems to sell around the RRP anyway, which makes sence I guess; people stop bidding when the box that would cost you £15 in the shop get to £15 on ebay, I know I do.

In the end I found this lot on the 'buy it now' section, £15 for 19 spearmen. Not bad, considering that it would cost £30 if you where to buy 20 empire state troops from GW nowdays. Also there the classic 6th edition, and so go with my existing empire troops. I plan to partioally repaint them; the black parts of the uniform will get a blue coat so they match the Nordland blue and yellow of my army.

Laters....

Mantic Skeletons

So here is the first unit of 20 mantic skeletons. I went for a red 'uniform' as it contrasts with the colour schemes of my other fantasy armies.
40 Skeletons come in the army set, I have built them so that one regiment is spear armed and the one here is equipped with hand weapons.The shields are hand painted in a variety of generic heraldry patterns, just 'cus I fancied it really andI didn't want them to look too uniform. Also talthough they are predomantly red most of the figures actully dressed in a fair bit of brown cloth.

US artillery (I think).

This is a unit of US artillery, at least I think it. I painted the crew a while ago and can't remember if I painted them as US or British. I think they are US because although similar I think the British had darker blue coats, and more in the way of epaulets.
Anyhoo....

US Militia 1812

So continuing building my War of 1812 armies, I have painted up unit of US militia. They are old glory miniatures. As you can see they are a townish looking lot still in there civilian clothes.

Here you can see their officer in a united states army uniform. The militia where supposed to wear blue coats, but like this lot many didn't have uniforms. This officer has got himself one tailored, no doubt to impress the ladies.

I have another unit of militia still to paint for the americans. And thats is that army basically finised apart from a cannon or two and some dragoons.

Marching to battle...

89th Regiment of Foot

These where actually painted a little while ago, but here are the pictures anyway. As you can see they still need basing, but that won't take long. The 89th were present in the Niagara campaign 1814. My war of 1812 armies are roughly based on the real armies in that campaign.

I have done these as grenadiers, in case I ever want to field some, but generally they'll just be another line battalion in games. There is a slight conversion, (although I don't think its worthy being called so), the officer has a head swap from the Victrix British artillery box. Speaking of which...

This crew just need their bases painting, but the cannon is still bare plastic. The other two cannons and crews are still on the sprue. At least one of them is going to become Americans.

Easter is soon, and so the holiday should provide some painting time. However, I think this will be devoted to the Mantic undead army, which I am going to try and paint in only two weeks. It should be a good challenge, 114 minatures in 14 days. So probably no time for the war of 1812.
Over the summer holiday I plan to finish everything I have for 1812, so till then Canada is safe.
Anyway, laters....

Mantic Undead army

I have done a bad thing, and not stuck to my 2011 plan. I don't know how I could have been this weak. I have ordered the undead army set and a death king's cabal. costing a total of £54. I have been looking at mantics stuff for a while, but this is the first time I have bought any of their stuff.

They had a 'one day only' offer or scam as I would call it, if it were on sofas or something. Anyway I bought the stuff and got free shipping and 15% off.

So I can spend Easter, building the undead horde. The army set come with an amazing 110 models, compared to the 50 the GW undead box of the same price comes with. I got the 4 characters as well to lead them on. These can take on my warhammer empire army, using either the warhammer rules or the kings of war rules.

I went for undead, as I've never been a fan of elves, and I already have some GW Dwarfs (from scull pass). The mantic Dwarfs don't look like they would fit in next to the GW ones, so it's either start from scratch with the dwarfs or stick with GW.

This all means I now have Human, Orc/Goblin and now undead fantasy armies.

Looking at what I have to build and paint, its a flipping long list. But, funny things happen during holidays and I paint at a rate of knots. I think I'll probably set myself a challenging time limit to get the undead army ready for the battle field. After that there is still the empire knights, battalions and battalions of War of 1812 stuff, and god know what else.

Speaking of 1812, I got a load of Militia models for christmas from old glory and another company who I can't remeber the name of. I now have about 3 battalions worth.

Anyway, till next time...

15mm Travel Wargame Set.

WTF 15mm scale?!? Now normally I only buy 28mm tall toy soldiers, because I enjoy painting them in that size, (I have a sneaking suspicion I would really enjoy painting even bigger figures). I have dabbled in the dreaded 1:72 plastic figures, which I don't enjoy painting 'cus it just comes off when the rifle or ankles bend during the course of normal use, there are also several reasons I have gone off them, another reason I only normally do 28mm is because they have a visual appeal when painted. But all this what scale is best argument is not something I'll bore you with now, (maybe another time, eh?). My general opinion is just collect what you like the most, it's your hobby, but more importantly your money.

Anyway, so how did a 28mm fan, end up with a 15mm collection. Well it all started out when I had an idea, to have a 'travel' wargames set. This is because I live in two places, part of the time in England and part of my time in Wales, every few months I need to travel between these two places. And I like to take some miniatures to game with between them.

So what I needed was a travel game set, like you see for monopoly or Scrabble, the travel version of the game. Not to play on the train or back seat of the car, but to play on a bed side table, or a coffee table any small corner of flat space.

The first thing was to write down the criteria for a travel wargame.

• only needs small area to play
• quickish game, (no more than a couple of hours to finish)
• entirely self contained in one small box (all the pieces, dice, terrain, etc.)

So I googled 'travel wargame' and it came up with nothing usful. So I searched 'small wargame' and found this LINK ...

Scott's Brigade

Here is another unit I painted over the Christmas holidays, It represents one of the Regiments in Winfield Scott's Brigade on the Niagara in 1814. Scott couldn't find enough blue cloth for his Brigade, so they got grey colour coats.

The officer has however got a blue coat this is because the officers bought their own uniform. The drummer has reverse facing colours as was the norm, however as the proper uniform of the unit should be blue coat, red facings, so the drummer has the reverse of that, not the reverse of grey on grey. Which wouldn't work anyway.

Here is a private, I filled off the Shoulder 'puffs' and lace on the cuff off the jacket, for correctness. The US army gave up on fancy uniform details later in the war, when it became obvious they could not uniform the whole army properly.

These go along side another US unit already painted in grey to form my representation of Scott's Brigade. I just need to make Towson's artillery battery to finish the brigade off.

Till next time.....

Colonels War of 1812

So ages ago (some time last summer), I bought the Victrix British colonels pack, and painted them. They are currently acting as generals for my British and American armies for the War of 1812.

That above is the British colonel, and below is the American one. They are both on 40mm round Games workshop bases. I haven't decided wether to base proper cavalry (these are command stands) on 40mm rounds (AKA lord of the rings style) or on the 25mm x 50mm rectangle bases (warhammer style). This is somthing which I will ponder on.

Also in the pack comes this sapper, I decided to paint him up as British, but have not yet decided what regiment he will join, hence painting on him has stalled.

Till next time...

And so past 2010, and 2011 began....

2010

Another year come and gone, where does it all the time go?
Looking back at 2010, I bought a lot of little soldiers, and even painted a few of them too. I pushed forward on the Warhammer and 40K fronts, with the battle of skull pass bringing goblin reinforcements, meaning I could have reasonable fights against my Empire army. The dwarfs sit painted but unused gathering dust, I might sell them on ebay if I ever get round to it, focusing on just The Empire and Orcs and Goblins for fantasy battles. For 40k I painted up some scouts of my space marine army.

But there has been a major advancement in the War of 1812 project, with several units painted (pics to follow) and some more awaiting on the painting table. The finish line is now in sight.
On a new battle ground I painted up some15mm figures for ambush alley games, more on this in a later post.

2011
So, on to my plans for 2011 presented here in a list in order of priority.

1. Finish all War of 1812 miniatures that need painting
2. Glue together the empire knights and general, and paint them
3. Glue and paint Wargames factory Shock troops
4. Do not buy more soldiers until above is done. This is The Prime Directive
5. Post more blog posts than I did last year (i.e. post more than 14 posts)
   

Other more general goals include a big tidy up and sorting out of what I've got and maybe even selling some of it on ebay.

Next time; a shed load of picture of all the troops that got painted in the Christmas Holidays...