End of March musings

We are a quarter of the way through this year already, so time to take stock.

1) I have played precisely two games - a 15mm Napoleonic affair with my Austrians vs Nephew Nick's French and the "Mayhem in the Med. c.1565" outing for the Wyrley Retinue at the WMMS Show earlier this month.

2) I have spent well over my budget already this year...

3) I have painted around 90 28mm figures, all infantry, and finished off another 11 or so I started before Christmas got in the way.

I always see myself as a slow painter, but I am seriously pleased to have got through effectively 100 figures (-ish) so far this year, as well as acting as family taxi, working full time and having a life. I even have time to speak to my wife occasionally! A fair chunk of these figures were additions to the "Mayhem" ranks for the show game, but I have also managed to paint up two 4-point Viking warbands for SAGA, the last figures for which I varnished this morning before tidying the man-cave. I will photograph these once I get the bases textured and the first ever games of SAGA are set for Easter Sunday, so I may even squeeze in a game report or two...

So what does Quarter 2 hold?

Well, changes of mind aside (and I expect there to be one or two...), I plan on some Dark Age civilians, an Irish warband and possibly a Norse-Gael one as well. So, Ireland in the Dark Ages is very much in my wargaming thoughts. I blame an old issue of the short-lived "Wargames World" magazine of a couple of decades ago, specifically the issue that featured a scratchbuilt model of an Irish Rath - a ring fort to you or I. I have that issue in my loft somewhere, so I think a sort out up there is in order too, before it gets too hot now we are officially into warmer times after passing the equinox in the early hours of this morning.

After that, I feel a need to get something less skirmish-orientated underway and those 19th Century conflicts are most appealing...

 

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To close, I have a couple of shots of the sort of modelling project I like. I am not a fan of plastic or other kits, which may be why I tend to avoid WW2 in the main, though I do build figures of course, but I do like to tinker with the sort of detail bits that I think help to raise the level of a game.

Boxes, barrels, crates and the like are easy to place into all sorts of game situations, but our "Mayhem..." game features a harbour. After watching the "Pyke" episode of "Game of Thrones" recently, I had to have some stuff from there. So here goes...

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Dockside cranes! These are made from strip wood I bought at a model railway show, their bases being metal washers. The discs two-thirds the way up the upright are from the push out bits from "X-Wing" game fighter display cards, the spars from cut down spears. Finally, the rope is either cotton or Gale Force 9 model rope, rope eyes from small lengths of biro inner, staples used as rope securing points on the uprights and bent wire for hooks. Simple but effective I think.

As well as ubiquitous barrels (from Ten Commandments, who make stuff for railway modellers and who are well worth a look), I made some net-drying racks. The netting is security fencing material from "Greenscene" (model railways again...) and the weights on the nets are old anglers' lead shot. I have a stash of this stuff lying around from aeons ago - I think I have been fishing twice in my entire life.

Final reinforcements

Somewhat out of sequence, I present for your viewing a few shots of what will probably be the last figures I will paint for the Wyrley Retinue "Mayhem in the Med, c1565" game. These were finished in the week running up to the show.

I want to move on to pastures new now, though, so. like I said, these will be the last for "Malta".

I do have vague plans to boost the forces though. The Turks are quite easy, as after adding cavalry and artillery, along with some more infantry and bespoke command, they will do for a couple of hundred years and numerous opponents. The problem is which opponent I want to build to go with them...

Hungarians for Mohacs? Imperialists for "The Long War"? Poles? Imperialists for Vienna (1529 or 1683)? Imperialists for Peterwardein and Eugene Of Savoy?

The Christians are a little trickier. Spanish and Dutch? English in Ireland? French Wars of Religion? I certainly like the look of the last two...A few more cavalry and I already have Border Reivers!

So, what crop will those new pastures deliver first? Hmmmm.

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More Old Glory Sword and buckler/ target men. A mix of Spanish, French and "unmarked" probably hints that I should build them into a French Wars of Religion set up...

A close up of the rear rank from the above photo.

Some Vendel arquebusiers.

The religious contingent. Brother Inebriatus, Brother Leelove, the priest I painted up as a sample Arthurian character a few years back and have finally based, Brother Spock and Brother Gluttonus with unfeasibly large left hand. The priest is from West Wind, the monks from Foundry.

Some Gripping Beast Arabs, from the plastic set. Half the bows in my box were broken, so I built them like this. When I had finished, I kicked myself for not doing a simple hand-swap conversion for some variety!!! D'oh! They did prove to be demon shots at WMMS though, killing four tower guards with their first volley regardless of the hard cover provided by the tower walls!

And Gripping Beast Arabs built as spearmen, from the same plastic set as the archers above.

West Midlands Military Show, 8th March, 2015

Just a few pics from yesterday's show, the second one to which we have taken our "Mayhem in the Med., c1565" game. I did not get out much, so most of the pics are of our offering, but there was some good stuff there to be seen and I am only sorry I could not capture much of it.

I think the overall standards were higher than previous years so a lot to aim for!

Marines and galley awaiting the lowering of the harbour boom at the start of the game.

North Africans ready to assault the tower, with its forlorn hope of locals ready to sell their lives dearly. They actually went down in the first couple of turns due to some well placed firepots and demon archery!

The sailors of the good ship "Maria" lasted rather longer.

An overall view of the game at the start.

Spanish arquebusiers, who went on to account for a unit of Janissaries and other Turkish troops as they fought a valiant retreat down the main street. 

These guys were rather less successful in holding up the North African contingent.

A VBCW game that looked rather characterful. I do not know who was showing it however, nor why there were German cavalry present.

Same game, same lack of knowledge about who these redshirts are. Too late for Garibaldi is all I know.

An overall view of the VBCW game. I like it.

The Telford STAGS put on a WW2 game in 28mm, but I think it was more static display than game. Looked decent though. Geoff's belly top centre!

Back to Malta and the Turkish advance down the main street to the town walls.

Another interlude and one of the Birmingham group's (October? Circle? SODS?) Sikh Wars game. Massed Sikh cavalry charge the British lines.

The British left

Nephew Paul's cavalry were supposed to sweep away the Corsairs and save the Christian left flank. However, someone forgot to give them the script, the Corsairs fought like tigers and the cavalry routed!

The Blue Janissaries were more cautious than their red counterparts and advanced on a narrow front along the harbour. They did take a few casualties from the sailors aboard "Maria", however, but got revenge by wiping them out in melee.

The Spanish survived the onslaught of the Turkish fanatics, but had to retreat shaken nevertheless.

"Son of Frances" slowly rolls down the main street towards the all important town walls.

"Ramming speed!"

We won "Best Wargame Terrain". I was trying to avoid reflections and managed to get a part of all three of us!

And little Seb, who came to help late on, got a piece of the action too!

A Normandy game that won 3rd. Again, I am unsure who these guys were, but very nice game.

Leamington won "Best in Show" with a ECW game that, in my opinion, looked very pretty but was also just a straight fight, so a bit disappointed they did not do more with it. Shrewsbury had a few boats on their 18th Century skirmish which, I think, was French Revolution era due to the guillotine on the table. There was a massive GNW (I think) at the far end of the hall with plenty of Warfare Miniatures flags in evidence that looked very colourful. Border Warlords had a Greek and Persian game going on which, again, warrants some respect for its quality. There was a Battle of Ashdown affair too - another good looker. There were others too many too mention that looked good, but I have no idea who they were!

I spent way too much but got what I wanted in the main. I have a passion for all things Austrian in a military sense (no, I do not know why...) so bought a load of Austrians and Sardinians for Solferino etc, along with the relevant Osprey campaign book, the Wargaming in History book on the 7 Weeks' War and a copy of Regimental Fire & Fury which is the ruleset of choice for the WiH book writers. I have had 1866 Austrians and Prussians for ages (unpainted) and recently read "Viva Radetzky" by Nigel J Smith about the 1849 Novara campaign for further inspiration. I have read Geoffrey Wawro's excellent history of the 1866 campaign too on several occasions so it is about time I got on with that...And I love beating the French, so cue some zouaves etc in the not too distant future. All that lot, when painted, will allow me to game 1849, part of the Crimea, 1859, part of 1864 vs Denmark, 1866 and 1870!

I also bought a load of Dark Ages stuff to go with my fledgling SAGA set up.

And a guy offered to buy all my Christian figures on the Malta game there and then! All great fun.

Lots to do then!!!

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The Two Towers (part 3 of 3)

At last, after the various work in progress shots of the revamp of the two towers that control the harbour entrance on our "Mayhem in the Med. c.1565" demo game boards, I can finally show you the finished articles.

(Though you will have to wait until I take some photos at Sunday's WMMS in Wolverhampton to see them in situ for "the full effect").

Now fully painted, fully detailed (as much as I am detailing them, at any rate) and ready to go, I hope you like them.

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All done. Walls painted first with Wilko "Nutmeg Spice", followed by a heavy drybrush of Wilko "Chocolate Dream" and a final, lighter drybrush of Homebase "Sandstone" masonry paint to give a nice, warm, Mediterranean stone colour. The original doors have been repainted to show more weathered wood and the metalwork toned down with some mild rust effect courtesy of GW "Seraphim Sepia" wash. The windows are progressively lighter shades of GW blues to try and give a jewel effect on a supposedly flat pane of glass.

The devil is in the detail, so cue some hinges for the trapdoors. I could not be bothered to build hinges from plastic rod and thin plastic, so just painted them on, but I doubt most people will even notice the hinges in the first place!

And the gulls have been busy! Not to mention various generations of toilet-trained soldiery throwing their waste out via the garderobe...A bit more weathering would not have gone amiss, but I am happy with the overall look of the two of them, so that seems like a good place to end this particular mini-project.

The Two Towers (part 2)

So, the basic construction work was done, but the new stuff needed some texture. Cue a pot of brown wood filler (mine was bought from Wilkinson's in the UK, but any type should do), an old dining knife with which to apply said filler and an old pencil to scribe some masonry.

Both towers now done and almost dry after a couple of days' drying time. I also took the opportunity to hide those unsightly gaps around the doors and blend the window surrounds in as well.

And I was very careful not to miss the inside of the battlements and the tops of the walls too.

And a close up of a garderobe - I did not forget those either! I did take the liberty of running a finger over the new texturing to smooth out the roughest bits of scribing.

So there we are, up to date as February closes and with just seven more working days to finish all the extras that we set out to do to enhance the "Mayhem in the Med., c.1565" game we will be showing at the WMMS show next Sunday, 8th March, at the Aldersley Leisure Centre in Wolverhampton (final plug! Maybe...)

Now for some painting.

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The Two Towers

With apologies to Tolkien, I have been busy this week upgrading a couple of features from our "Malta" show game, namely the two towers that guard the boom that blocks the harbour entrance to keep out sundry undesirables...

...and attacking Turks and North Africans in boats.

A couple of members of the Retinue (as in "Wyrley Retinue") thought we could enhance them easily enough, though the originals served us well for our first outing. I got the gig...

So here goes a blow by blow account of the work done so far. They are not yet finished, but just some texturing and a paint upgrade is all that is basically left, so they are not too far off.

The original towers were 18cm high, so truly dominated the harbour entrance, but had aesthetics more akin to chimneys than habitable defenceworks. They needed chopping down a bit.

So I measured 4cm and 8 cm from the top and drew a line around the whole tower at these two heights.

Then cut out the two sections had marked out.

The original top section was inverted, glued down on the top of the main piece of the tower and crenellations cut into the card. Be careful here - knives are sharp. I did not cut myself, but I do not want a lawsuit from anyone who tries this for themselves!

 I used a bit of my schoolboy maths for the crenellations, as in the circumference of a circle being calculated using the formula 2PiR (I cannot find Pi on my PC, but you know what I mean...) This gave me spaces of 6mm and walls of 18mm, or ten alternating walls and spaces in a 24cm circumference.

The second cut out piece was cut vertically and used as a wrap around to bulk out the walls. Then I used bits of old corrugated card to bulk up the crenellations. I also added window surrounds from matchsticks and a garderobe, carefully placed to be able to drop its "contents" into the sea below.

The story so far...

The last bit done so far isd to add a floor, complete with trapdoor to access the roof, add more bulk to the crenellations and tile the roof of the garderobe.

I am confident the enhancements will work, but feel free to come and have a look at the WMMS show on Sunday, 8th March, 2015, and let us know what you think. See you there!

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Ever onwards

One of the things we members of the Wyrley Retinue engage in when we put on a game is try and enhance that game in preparation for further outings.

Our "season" starts with the Wargamer Show in November/ December, at which we like to debut our latest offering. Thus, by the time show number 2 comes around, we want people to see something slightly different to what they may have seen before. With that same show number 2, the West Midlands Military Show (WMMS), just 18 days away, we have been busy doing just that.

One of the problems we encountered with the original layout for "Malta" was warping to the water board sections. Thus, I cut these out and cut some new pieces, which are now painted and have been varnished four times so far, with more layers of varnish to follow to try and build up a watery sheen.

Next, the original layout perhaps lacked a little texture, so some added paint effects and a few patches of scrub grass have been added to the original landscape.

The original quayside was made to represent wood, which we never really felt was appropriate for "Malta" (so I do not know why we went there...), so Nephew Paul has cut and attached some stonework pieces to the original underframe to make it a stone quay, which I have now enhanced with some weathering, waterline greenery, etc. This same waterline effect has been taken around the various cliffs and we have added a couple of small beaches on which to land a few rowing boats.

We still have things to do and things to finish - quayside cranes (having seen them on the "Pyke" episode of "Game of Thrones"), racks for net drying, more harbour side goods by way of barrels and the like, more figures, the aforementioned rowing boats, etc - but what people will see at WMMS on 8th March is not what was on show at Wargamer back at the end of November.

So, in line with our collective aim, we have achieved.

How well we have done so remains the preserve of the viewer however, so if you can make the WMMS show in three weekends' time, come along, say "Hi" and give us your verdict.

We look forward to seeing as many of you there as possible.

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This is about half the game right here. The land boards fit along the near side and left hand edge to create the full layout. This is about 6 feet by four of the overall 8 by 6. Random foot at top of picture is supplied by Nephew Paul. I think the water is too streaky...

Cliff weathering. Any relation to anyone of that name is entirely coincidental...

Nephew Paul's relationship with a sharp knife and ruler is still in its infancy, so break out the cork bark rocks, filler and a dollop of seaweed to hide the gaps...

I heartily recommend a trip to a model railway show near you when you are building terrain of any sort. The dock is faced with plastic stone sheets from Wills (readily available) and the surface is made from card sheets by Faller (I think but, again, readily available in a model railway shop or at a show). More filler etc to hide the gaps and we are done. I have added more weathering since this photo was taken.

The view from the harbour entrance. Frances is there for effect, but I might just repaint her in a more "Malta" style and bring her along on the day. She is in the position occupied by one of our boom house towers that hold the mechanism for raising and lowering the chain that guards the harbour. The round hole opposite is where the other one sits, removable to access the chain itself and unhook it when the Turks/ North Africans take the tower to allow the galley into the harbour.

More Maltese Marinelife

Several years ago at the Derby Show, having spent what I wanted and just checking around to see that I had not missed anything, I happened across a small stall with a few ship models set out on a largely bare tabletop. I have no recollection whatsoever who this trader was and do not recall seeing them since...A few minutes later, I had left the show to drive home, the proud owner of a resin "ship", with masts and cannon, the intention being to add this model to my then newly-painted pirates. This could not have been that long after the release of "Legends of the High Seas", my buccaneering rules set of choice at that time.

Fast forward those several years to me concerning myself with extras for the Wyrley Retinue's forthcoming "Mayhem in the Med., c.1565" game and I unearthed the ship model once more. Nephew Nick had promised to paint his Ainsty Man-'o'-War for the game, but I knew this to be a HUGE model and it was unclear whether Nick would indeed manage this, so I decided I finally had to get my little offering ready and able. A couple of days before the show, I set to with brush in hand and hereby present the sum total of a day or so's graft, the lovely "Maria".

"Why Maria?" I hear you all cry.

Well, as I said at the top of this piece, the ship was bought to provide transport for my pirates and I wanted a name that could be universal in terms of its origin and, therefore, that of its crew. "Santissima Trinidad"? Too Spanish. "Temeraire"? Too French (and famous). "Bismarck"? Too...

You get the picture.

So, "Maria" it became, able to be Spanish, French, Italian, English (if a tad exotic, but plain, old "Mary" would be too much of a giveaway).

I give you "Maria".

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She is quite a plain creature at the moment, but I may well add some rigging from netting material and perhaps an Ainsty ship's wheel. I could not find her cannons when I took these shots, but rest assured there are six of them. Sails are again from calico tied up with "rope" from Gale Force 9.

I have no idea what colour such ships would have been in reality, but yellow seems to have featured quite a lot in sailing ships at different times, so I went with that.

One thing I have noted on ships of this era especially is decoration around the poop deck. This is my attempt to tart her up a little...

Ample room in her ten or so inches of hull length for some derring-do and buckling of swashes!

And I finally found her cannons!