Sunday 30 January 2011

Army Painter Quick Shade

Well, that was an interesting experience.

First time with Army Painter Quick Shade - definitely not what I expected. First reaction, after shaking the dip off the recommended half dozen or so times, is definitely "Oh my God, I've ruined it." It is, though, quite surprising how fast it changes (from thick, brown, figure-ruining gloop) to something looking surprisingly good.

For future reference (note to self and anyone else reading it):

  • find a place for the figures to dry that 'Er Indoors won't mind little puddles of dip on
  • do it outside
  • take some kitchen roll, and a paintbrush you don't care about, out with you - you will need it
  • don't fix figures to bases before you dip! 
  • 24 hours is NOT long enough drying time. 36 is better, 48-72 is better still.

Saturday 29 January 2011

Napoleonics....

I have enough EIR to paint... (another 24 WF Roman Auxilliary cavalry arriving tomorrow - seem to be the last in the UK!)

I really shouldn't.

But the Victrix and Perry ranges just look so nice, and the Black Powder rules are getting good reviews...

Where did my copy of Pericoli's "The Armies At Waterloo" get to?

Wednesday 26 January 2011

Battle Report - 24 Jan 2011

Been looking forward to this for a bit - a tryout of the "Principles of War" Napoleonic rules at the club, courtesy of G.

As it was a tryout, and neither of the two of us running the French knew the rules, we went for a fairly classic and simple set up - the opposition were a mix of British and Portuguese set up on the side of a hill (one assumes, traditionally, in the pouring rain where two maps join). The conventional approach was adopted - wind up the infantry in column of attack, point at brow of hill, support with artillery and light cavalry, and leave the heavy cavalry off to one side to lend tone to the otherwise vulgar brawl.

Things went much as expected: the cavalry on the French left disappeared in a huge cloud of hooves and dust to meet with their Allied counterparts, and the French infantry weathered a storm of withering fire from the line of British (who were unlucky to be shaken twice at speculative long range by a gun battery I really should have moved closer) and Portuguese.

As expected? It boiled down to 'will the French break before they make contact?' Luckily for R and I, they didn't, and the upshot was that one line of Portuguese fell back, shaken, as did one slightly over-keen unit of artillery, and the column followed through onto the British line. 

We called it a night there, as the end result looked pretty predictable from there one.

On the whole? Great set of rules that didn't get in the way - some of the mechanics were interestingly different, with a bit of the feel to Blitzkrieg Commander about the orders/actions allocation.

But ultimately? They felt right. Units did what I expected they would do in a given situation, and the only flaws in the game were really due to R and I not fully absorbing the rules beforehand. And we didn't really need that loitering unit of light dragoons, as it turned out. :D

Tuesday 25 January 2011

Current projects

Two things on the go at present:

28mmm Early Imperial Roman army for WAB 
I seem to have been collecting figures of late, starting with a Warlord Games Imperial Roman Starter Army and adding a bunch of Wargames Factory stuff off eBay. Painting has started! The end line up (which is an insane amount of points I'll never field all at once, I guess), will be....
  • 18 Praetorians (Warlord)
  • 18 Veteran Legionaries (Warlord)
  • 3 x 18 Regular Legionaries (Warlord) - lorica segmentata
  • 3 x 18 Regular Legionaries (mostly Wargames Factory 'Caesar's Legions' with Warlord rectangular shields and no helmet crests) - lorica hamata
  • 12 36 Auxilliary cavalry (Wargames Factory, and boy were THEY hard to find)
  • 12 Allied Germanic cavalry (Wargames Factory)
  • 12 Allied Celt cavalry (Wargames Factory)
  • 2 x 12 Auxilliary infantry (Warlord)
  • 9 Balearic slingers (Wargames Factory - painted from the Numidian set)
  • 9 Numidian archers (Wargames Factory - painted from the Numidian set)
  • 10 Allied skirmishers (Wargames Factory - painted from the Numidian set)
  • General, Aqulifer.
28mm Lord of the Rings troops

These are my 'break from the Romans' painting job. Foolishly, I bought the whole of the "Battlegames in MiddleEarth" partwork, so I have loads of sprues of various things to paint. First off, enough Rohirrim to pass as a Dark Ages warband for a club session, then we'll see what I fancy, I guess.

By way of introduction

I'm Mike Whitaker, and I'm a member of Peterborough Wargames Club. My primary leaning is towards historical gaming, with a preference for WWII, Ancients, and Napoleonics, although I confess to a fondness for the Lord Of The Rings game.

Like, I suspect, a good few people, I gave up the hobby for a good while (with a foray into RPGs instead, in my case) after school. My school had a thriving wargames club that played predominantly WWII (to a set of house rules that I still have a copy of somewhere, with air rules added by me), a couple of different Napoleonics sets (mostly the Airfix ones by Bruce Quarrie), and the infamous 'cardboard ancients' - WRG 6th or 7th ed with cardboard counters 'cause none of us could afford figures.

Came back to the hobby thanks to our local assistant vicar, who introduced me to the club via their Wings of War campaign, and have rediscovered how much fun it is.
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