So, to catch up... (Wofun 18mm Wars of the Roses and Vacation)

Yeeash. It's been almost two full seasons since I last posted. I find that spring and summer demand being outdoors to soak up the sun. That being said, I did manage to putter along with a few things during the warm weather. The most significant of these was a return to the Wars of the Roses. I love this period and have eked out a small collection of singly-based 28mm figures for skirmish gaming, but I've always wanted forces large enough to play the larger battles. That's all well and good, but I am also quite aware of my time and patience for taking on a project that would require hundreds of figures. After several Napoleonic armies, Italian Wars, WWII, WWI,  etc, etc, I just don't think I have it in me anymore. 

As a bit of a rewind, about 10 years ago I picked up a few of Peter Dennis' books featuring his cutout paper soldiers. I was immediately charmed, especially his WotR book. I duly made colour copies on thick cardstock and began to scissor them out. And I scissored. And scissored. It didn't take long for me to discover that the time I was saving in painting was being quickly absorbed by having to carefully cut out the intricate serried ranks of archers and men-at-arms. I managed to get a few units done, but the blush quickly came off the rose and I abandoned the project.

Now, fast forward to this past year where I discovered that Peter Dennis had partnered with WoFun Miniatures to print his WotR flats on plexiglass. The units come vibrantly printed on neat little plexi sheets and are an absolute breeze to punch out. 

I ordered a bunch of the 18mm frames and came up with some basing designs on Inkscape that would fit with my 'To the Strongest' and 'Strength & Honour' collections. My good friend Byron over at Northern Lights Terrain was good enough to cut them for me. Here are some of my efforts with the first batch.

incorporated unit identifiers etched on the bases

Archers waiting to do archery things

The Heavy Hitters, but also great arrowstorm targets

Light cavalry to sow confusion on the flanks

Archers with stakes arrayed in front.

Assorted commanders

'A horse! A horse!'  Here's Richard III chasing for a remount. 

Men-at-arms

A few units of billmen

For fun I put in red flowers for the Lancastrians, red for the Yorkists and a combination for those cads who flipped sides (Boo! Hiss!).

Finally, a shot of where the collection is at now. 

Not bad, but I still have quite a few units to base. Hopefully by the end of it I should have enough to do some of the larger battles of the period.  

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Moving on, we recently returned from a great vacation meeting up with hobby friends in Toronto, Holland and Belgium. 

While we were in our stopover in Toronto, my good friend Greg treated me to a wonderful game of Warmaster featuring his beautiful Empire and Orc collections. 

I think the battle came down to the last stand between us, which always is a sign of a great time.

We arrived in Holland and met up with Nick from 'Moiterei's Bunte Welt'. To escape the congestion of Amsterdam we stayed in nearby Hilversum which we highly recommend. The three of us spent a few great days hanging out and taking in the Rijksmuseum. Nick brought out his copy of 'Undaunted: Battle of Britain' which was excellent. I think we played around 8 games of that in total! Terrific time.

Nick paying homage to that curious Corsican artillery officer...

Nick, Sarah and I enjoying 'The Best Apple Pie in Amsterdam' at the Rijksmuseum restaurant.

Next we were off to Belgium where we met up with Martijn and his lovely family.

Martijn and I had a great game of SAGA featuring his excellent collection of Vikings and Bretons(?).  Even thought I tried to snatch a win by going after his warlord, the dice were not with me and he saw me off to my longships. A great game with wonderful company.

We also had the delightful pleasure to meet up with Sander and Arthur in Antwerp's city center. We had a wonderful visit with lots of stories and laughs. 

Otherwise, the majority of the trip involved eating and drinking lots of decadent things, while walking and cycling in the vain hope of burning it all off. A great way to spend a few weeks!

Next Up: I dunno, who's up for a group paint thing this winter? :)

15mm Imperial Roman Racing Chariots & 40K Recognition Priest (53 points)

Here is a small morsel to hopefully distract the Challengers a bit longer while I scramble to get the 'Heroes' theme round completed today:

I often have the pleasure to host our local gaming group's weekly get-togethers which is always a lot of fun. This past year we've been creating various campaign environments for the periods that we like to play. For example, we keep track of the fates our various teams of occult investigators in Strange Aeons, we're also in the midst of running a Formula One racing season for Formula De and we log our flight missions for Wings of War. All of these are pretty simple games which makes it pretty easy for us to dig out our rosters and pick up where we had last left off. This is great as it gives our games a bit of wider context and it's always fun to get reacquainted with old characters and see how they fair on their next adventure.

This week we started a new one, a chariot racing campaign using Charioteer by Two Hour Wargames. The game is a complete blast, allowing players to keep track of their teams as they progress from the fringe of the Empire to the 'Big Show': the Circus Maximus itself. On top of enhancing the skills for the charioteers and horse teams there is also bidding, gambling, auctions and assorted dirty tricks you can undertake to help give your team the edge. The games are very fast playing and typically quite nasty. In short it's a boat load of fun.

Ed Teixeira, the owner of Two Hour Wargames and the creator of Charioteer, also sells these great little chariot models in retina-searing bright plastic to use as markers in the game. I'd say their scale is between 15-20mm. They're one piece castings which makes them almost indestructible - a good thing for our booze-fuelled gaming nights. While the detail is a bit dodgy in a few spots they nonetheless provide a great sense of movement which I think is pretty darn cool.

While the models are perfectly fine to use on their own, I thought it would be fun to base them up and paint them to pimp out our game a bit more. So here are the first four chariots done up in the primary team colours. I have another four that I will do up as duplicates in case the guys want to bring in more than one team or we have more folks in for a game.

Scoring these is a bit challenging. While they are a vehicle with a team of horses and a driver they are still a single blob of plastic. So I'm going to be a bit conservative and place them at 12 points each. With this being the case these four teams will give me 48 points. 

On a final note, I noticed yesterday that the blog had achieved 40,000 hits during the month of January. I know that's not much in relation to the leviathans of the blogging world (Fran? Ray?), but it's an all-time high for my little corner of the nerdiverse.  It also tells me how much the Challenge is beginning to reach out to other hobbyists - which is fabulous. So to mark both the number and the quasi-achievement I thought I'd quickly do up this 40K figure: a hard-as-nails warrior priest, a prophet of the God-Emperor of the Imperium of Man (aka: A self-righteous psychotic loon with a chainsaw).  

Back when I used to play 40K, I had a Redemptionist squad that rolled out as part of my Inquisitorial retinue. I sold almost all of those models years ago but I kept back a few unpainted castings of my favourite sculpts (and have added some more since then from various extortionist eBay auctions). 

Anyway, I had a couple of these in the Lead Reserve, so while I was working on this guy I was thinking that I'd do the other one without the book, skulls and chainsword, perhaps replacing them with a simple walking staff and pistol. I think he would make a great post-apocalyptic survivor for my 'Metro' collection. Hmm, something for another day perhaps...

From AndrewS: 18mm Napoleonic British Artillery (72 points)

The last 18mm Napoleonics that I will submit for the challenge, as my focus will be on other areas till the end of the competition.

I found the lead last week hiding in a box while looking for some dwarves to supplement another project, I forgot I even had them as I thought I only had polish infantry left.

 

The temptation to hold off painting these was too great as I always consider artillery batterys as a quick paint, and I have been sneakily painting these up and avoiding mention in my blog of these so as to surprise Kev, who has been rattling on at me for a lack of painting, although I won't have caught up with him with his recent huge submission I will have put my self on target better to hit my 1000 points.

They are all AB 18mm miniatures, the British battery has 9 crew and 3 guns, the French battery has 12 crew and 4 guns.

Lovely work Andrew. For some reason I always find artillery stands to be a real challenge (usually accompanied with colourful language and gnashing of teeth) so I applaud your ease in getting through them - they look brilliant.

This fine battery will give Andrew 72 points to add to his total, placing him well within striking range of his 1000 target. Well done Andrew!

From MarkB: 18mm Napoleonic Austrians (160 points)

Mark here has more Napoleonic Austrians for us to enjoy, this time it's a beefy battalion of German infantry.

From Mark:

Here is my next group of miniatures.  40 Austrian Infantry and one mounted officer.  This makes up one Battalion of the Bealieu Infantry Regiment no. 58.  

This regiment was part of the V Corps, FML Reuss-Plauen division in April 1809. There were two battalions of this regiment with this division.  I will need to get more figures to paint up the other battalion.  The figures are 18mm AB figures from Eureka Miniatures USA, I tried these out to see how they compared to Old Glory and they are nice, they paint up very well.

Now I will switch gears again and start on the 28mm Saumari and some F&I 28's I have.

Very nice Mark! Good painting and I really like the mass of this unit, which suits the Austrians to a tee.

This battalion will give Mark 160 points to add to his total. He now has 235 points which handily exceeds his estimate of 200 (and we're not even a week into the Challenge...). Mark, I think you may have to send me in a new (and more 'challenging') target number. :)

Addendum: Mark has decided to up the ante and has set a new target of 600 points. Based on his work so far I don't think he'll have too much trouble meeting that.

From AndrewS: 15mm WWII German Prime Mover & 18mm Napoleonic Polish Artillery Battery (88 points)

Andrew sends in two different periods: one Napoleonic in 18mm and the other from the Second World War in 15mm.

From Andrew:

I have been burning some midnight oil and completed a couple of items for my 1st entries into the challenge.

The first item is a 15mm Battlefront sdk250/9 recovery truck and driver. The size of this took me by surprise requiring a base half as long again as my Tiger, the main reason for adding this to my DAK force. The painting of this has completed my DAK tank company.

The next items were found recently when I was clearing out my drawers and hidey holes. I have painted 4 pieces of 18mm Napoleonic Polish artillery with crews. They are all from AB miniatures. These were due to be additions to my Saxon corp in 18mm but as I am venturing back into 28's they are no longer required but needed to fund new 28's.

Very nice work, Andrew. I especially like that battery of Polish guns. Those AB sculpts are so nice and you've really done them justice.

I'm going to count the 18mm AB's as 20mm for scoring. So, 88 points in total.