Battle Report - 30-Sep-2019 - "The Rescue" Dux Britanniarum

Another playtest tonight, with Rod taking the Britons, Carl the Saxons and Andy H and I advising.

One false start - most accurately summed up as 'say, these deployment rules really don't work, do they?' :D But the second attempt, after we'd tweaked it, came right down to the wire, with the Saxons just managing to get their rescued notable off table before getting thumped by a goodly number of British.

The Saxons prepare to make a run for it with their newly-rescued village elder.

The Saxons (centre right) flee towards their reinforcements  while the British attempt to head them off (bottom left).

It was a bit damp at club tonight. 

Another Appendix crossed off.

That's the how to work through a campaign month section done for the Compendium, bar a couple of things to do with civil war and regicide I need to sanity check.

Everything neatly gathered in two pages with page references. Quite fun tracking down what happens when in the month :D

A small note: as I'm tracking references through three books, I've adopted the following convention. Page references within the main text (and the Index) will be tagged as follows:

•  D## - Dux Britanniarum
•  R##  - Dux Raiders
•  C##  - the Compendium

One MIIIIIIILLLLION page views!!!!!

Wow.

Never thought I'd get that far when I started. A huge thank you to everyone who's ever read, commented, followed or shared....

So, here's a few stats:

Most popular posts:

1. 42588 views - Almost missed today's post - no idea why this one is top
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3. 11695 views - Heraldry 101, summary post - I really enjoyed writing this series

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Most frequent commenter:

• Blogger doesn't provide stats for this, and I'm not about to load 3600 comments into a spreadsheet to find out, but a quick visual skim suggests it's A J by a country mile!

Most views by country:

• United States 311489
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• Russia 98483 - I appreciate there *are* wargamers in Russia, but I wonder how many of these views actually are?

Total income from blog:

Not telling, but it's really not a lot :D

I may add more stats later :D

Oh, and here's Kate, because, well, Kate.

Compendium progress

I'm now sufficiently close to done that I'm pretty confident of a page count, confident enough to go get a printing quote from our local print-on-demand folks. 

Scary, huh?

Also, playtesting again next Monday, which means we're getting close to first pass playtests of all the raid scenarios.

Finishing off the Dark Ops sloop

All done:

Burnt Umber acrylic on all the external wood, plus a 4Ground Glazed Tile Red trim line on the hull plus the stern decoration and porthole trim. Added some 4Ground Gold detail on the stern roundel. Light wash of Vallejo Sepia Shade wash on the deck planking just to cut the 'new' look. Burnt Umber + wash on the mast and yard.

Removed the slightly clunky MDF assembly that holds the yard across the mast, filed a flat on both where they join, wood-glue'd them together then wound thread around the join. If I'm feeling really adventurous I may try some thread rigging :D

And there she is in port.

If anyone's interested in the kit, it's available here.

(Also did a bit of touchup on the pink stucco from yesterday :D)

Kickstarter Watch - May '40 Miniatures Early War Fallschirmjäger

Ending on Sunday morning, this is a KS I am definitely backing.

The guys from May '40 Miniatures are also responsible for some lovely 1940 Dutch (which you can see on their website), and it's probably no surprise, really, because, hey, they're Dutch. :D

But equally, don't dismiss these because you don't want to do early war Holland... They're also good for early war in Norway, Belgium and Crete, and what-if scenarios in the likes of Gibraltar (that could be fun!), Malta and England (Operation: Sealion - guess why I'm backing them! I need more opponents for my Home Guard). There's also awesome stuff in the add-ons like a 1/56 resin DFS230 glider for €30!

The KS ends on Sunday, and it's currently touch and go whether it'll make it - I think it really deserves to, because the sculpts are really really pretty[tm], so -- pledge away! Please!

If this is Wednesday it must be Venice...

Rob and Andrew dropped round to beat up on the TTCombat Venice paintwork some more.

We were doing a lot of 'fix this on all buildings that need this' so there's not a lot of finished stuff to show, but....

Dark Ops small sloop - nice MDF kit, except that a couple of the trickier bits had a tendency to delaminate, and I am going to change how the mast and yard are fitted to each other, 

Some classic Venetian pink stucco. Needs a touch up and probably a second coat.

Research listening

Been stuck on public transport for about four hours today, so I managed to start off on one of the books I’ve been saving for Secret Project S ( come on, let’s face it, given the letter and the title of the book it should be pretty obvious). Leo McKinstry’s “Operation Sealion”.

I’m a few chapters in and there is a lot of interesting background concerning such things as the formation of the LDV, and the fate of German sympathisers in 1940 Britain....

Battle Report - 23 Sep 2019 - “Escape from Bridlington“ Pikemans Lament

A huge and somewhat epic scenario run by Grahame, which saw the Royalists attempt to defend Bridlington from a Parliament landing force, while simultaneously attempting to spirit Queen Henrietta and a whole bunch of wagons of ammunition off to York.

I had the dubious pleasure along with Tom of attempting to defend Bridlington: suffice it to say we were somewhat overwhelmed by boatloads (in the literal and figurative senses) of Roundheads, but we did hold them up but enough that Shawn and the ammunition train managed to get away.

Pictures without captions unfortunately, as I’m stuck on the iPad and it doesn’t seem to handle lots of pictures in the blogspot editor very well.   Also, apologies this is a day late, but I had to get up at stupid o’clock this morning to get into London.  Drop back in a couple of days and I may caption them  :)

...and there's more where that came from...

A good afternoon of Compendium work, largely looking through the main rulebook and Raiders, along with a couple of pieces already in the Compendium, and attempting to consolidate all the career advancement and province improvement stuff into one set of well-referenced and non-contradictory tables in the Appendices.

It's going to take another session, I suspect :D

More Dux writing

Fairly quiet day, James is back to uni and we also had a band meeting (two A4 pages of venues to talk to).

Did however get to spend half an hour on the Dux Brittaniarum Compendium, which didn’t really produce much that merits a photo or a screen grab, but was pretty productive from a point of view of sorting stuff out.  Will have a better go tomorrow once we’ve put James on the train back to Guildford.

 Oh, did also have a parcel arrive. More on that on Wednesday. 

More Venice

It's been the kind of day where I don't really want to see a computer again for the evening, so wielding a brush was very therapeutic.

Intentionally a bit garish, cause, well, some bits of Venice are.

Walls are AP Necrotic Flesh, stone highlights and frames AP Skeleton Bone, woodwork 4Ground Glazed Tile Red.

Another building finished

Rapunzel! Rapunzel!....

That's TTCombat's rather impressive tower done - mostly done last night, but the last bits of detail work polished off after work this evening. Largely AP Fur Brown, with AP Skeleton Bone stonework and PSC Field Grey roof. Wooden doors are AP Werewolf Brown, except for the downstairs one which is AP Weapon Bronze. Spot brick details are Fur Brown 50/50 mixed with either Skeleton Bone or Werewolf Brown to produce a range of shades.

Undecided as to whether a light wash is needed.

The astute will also notice I have more bookcases, thanks to a seller on the local Facebook Marketplace (and AndyM for helping me collect them). Not in their final places, as they need some holes cut in the backs before they can go on the long wall, to allow access to what were originally sensibly placed sockets!

Grapes, anyone?

Anne brought home a large box of grapes last week.

A laser cut MDF box of grapes from Tesco.

While pondering the Venice scenery laid out on the studio table I had an idea, and since Wednesdays are scenery-building days, AndyM dropped round with a few tools and we had a bit of a play.., (By then we had two boxes!)

A box. The grapes were excellent, BTW. 

Some work with a jigsaw later we have the beginnings of a big bridge.
 Foolishly, I forgot to take the photo after we’d added foam board decking and sides, but it’s starting to look pretty good.  

More compendium, more painting Venice

Transferred my notes from last night into the Compendium document. Need to step back and decide if the Terrain section needs to move.

Also,. painted another TTCombat building in a combination of lunch break and waiting-for-Anne-to-get-home break. This one, classic Venetian pink/terracotta (actually AP Barbarian Flesh!) stucco. The chequered tiled balcony is (obviously) a laser printed image glued down. It's done bar needing a few roof tiles picking out in different reds.

I also undercoated three more buildings, another in that, and two in AP Desert Yellow, for detailing tomorrow.

Battle Report - 16 Sep 2019 - Dux Britanniarum "The Saxons are Coming!"

Managed to find a spare club table and people for a playtest - even managed to get Mr Hawes to turn up! AndyH took (as is his wont) the British and AndyM (he of terrain building fame) the Saxons.

Testing a coastal raid scenario, which is based on Rich's from the 2012 Summer Special, with quite a few bug fixes as well as changes for replay value etc. to better integrate it with both the campaign and the per-province terrain rules (so you will be able to raid from the sea as part of the campaign).

As usual, I left with a page of notes, mostly about terrain setup, but everyone thought it worked. We also tested some other rules, which also seemed to work :D

After terrain setup. Need to adjust the sand on the beach boards so it lines up!

The first groups of Saxons pile out of the boat and along the shore.... 

The Saxon hearthguard head inland from their ships (courtesy of Grahame from our club).

The British slingers find a nice spot to be extremely annoying from....

The Saxons head up the cliff...

The British hearthguard turn up to the rescue and advance on the farm (Sarissa's Dark Ages villa)...

The Saxon ships waiting for the raiding party to return...

A knotty problem in 'which units get to fight' I need to think about a bit... The British levy (top) take a charge from a formation of two groups of Saxon warriors and surprisingly both survive and dish it out quite a bit when it comes to their turn.

Not looking good for the Saxons. They've made the looting rolls in the farm, but it doesn't look like they're going to hold off the British hearthguard (nearest the camea) long enough to make it back to the boats.

Sunday Dux...

Ducking in and out of the Ashes coverage and the Solheim Cup (what a finish!), I got four things crossed off the todo list (one by going 'no that's not necessary, but the thoughts I had need merging elsewhere' :D).

Various things finished, including a reformat of one of Rich's articles from a Summer Special, and quite a bit of thinking and hacking together spreadsheets as well, to see if I'd got my maths right (surprisingly, yes!).

Also built, in a few screen breaks, the TTCombat Streets of Venice jetties kit. Basically lots of three-piece MDF sections (first chance to use the 1-2-3 blocks to support stuff while gluing!), and a rough overbrush with Hobbycraft Burnt Umber acrylic.

So, anyway, that's only another half dozen things left to cross off the to-do list, plus I'm hopefully running a playtest of a scenario and a couple of extra rules down the club tomorrow.

Sarissa Streets of Rome^H^H^H^HVenice Workshops

Ok, I lied. Change of plan as Anne has volunteered to do a Sunday shift 9-7 (her vet surgery pays good overtime) so I have all day to work on the Dux Compendium tomorrow. Besides, a parcel from Sarissa arrived in the post this morning, while we were painting a couple of bits of the outside wall of the studio (that's 1:1 scale painting) that needed it, and... well... I just had to.

A (very) small gripe about the TT Combat Venice range is that most of the buildings are residential, and I wanted some dockside buildings. So I went for a couple of Sarissa Streets of Rome buildings - specifically this one and the warehouses. And given my grumbles yesterday, I got out the spray cans and masking tape...

Sarissa's usual packaging...

Ahh. The smell of fresh hewn MDF...

Ok - doors sprayed with AP Chaotic Red and masked off.

Base sprayed with Halfords grey primer 

That's actually GW Chaos Bone - I really must find a cheaper off-white primer that's paler than AP Skeleton Bone...

101 uses for a 1-2-3 block, number 98 - holding the awning struts while they dry on the sprue. 

Frames pre-sprayed with AP Chaotic Red and then attached. As you can see, the masking tape leaked a bit when I did the Chaos Bone... but never mind. 

I'll touch those up later (and stick that odd corner down properly right now!).

Roof sprayed with PSC Field Grey, which is quite a decent slate-ish colour, and usefully I have matches for it, for touch-up. Base has been washed with Vallejo Sepia Shade.The whole thing needs a little touch up in a few places, and maybe some weathering on the roof, but that's pretty much all done without the aid of a brush (except for the PVA :D).

Also, usefully, it's almost exactly 3 blocks of the TTCombat street sections long, and a bit less than two wide (giving an alley down the back). I may add some bollards as scatter scenery.