10mm Black Powder

I have been busy with a few things lately.  One of which is the decision to purge my 28mm ACW collection.  The reasons for this are many, but it basically boils down to doing what makes me happy.  I originally thought I would just replace my 28's with 10's as that is the scale I want to use for Black Powder.  I purchased a few packs of Old Glory 10mm and painted up a few units.  One is a standard sized unit for Black Powder and the other would be a small sized unit.  These were a breeze to paint and look better from a distance which is the way it should be...10mm is for a massed look, and too much detail actually gets lost too close up.

My gaming friends are sticking with 28mm for Black Powder and are doing ACW and Napoleonics.  I don't want to duplicate their efforts initially, so I need to figure out a different period that I can do both sides for so they don't have to worry about it and I can be able to host games on my own.  I'm looking at the Crimean War, the American War of Independence, the Franco-Prussian War (and others during that timeframe), and the Sudan.  I'm not sure what I will end up doing...

Flames of War: Great War "The Big Push"

When "The Great War" came out for Flames of War, I really had my doubts about it being a viable game system. From my experience with Flames of War for WWII, I just didn't think it would work for WWI; boy, was I wrong.  Battlefront did a great job in balancing the scenarios and special rules to make the games challenging; I haven't seen a "bad" game (one-sided without it being fun for one of the players) for this era yet using this system.  After being pushed to play by Robert, I have gone full in with a large 15mm German force and a decent sized 15mm French force now in my inventory.  I have even invested in the great trench line and a few of the other terrain pieces; I still have to get a set of the regular craters.

Yesterday, Robert, Tim, Randy and I got together for a 3000 point per side game; Randy and I ran 1500 points of Germans each while Robert and Tim ran 1500 points of British each.  We played the Big Push scenario where one side defends a trench line and the other has to seize the communication trench junctions. We have played this scenario several times and it always seems like the attacker makes it to the trench, but never has enough to hold on against the counter-attack.  To switch things up, I took a Stosskompanie with 2 platoons of Stoss, 2 Stoss MG platoons and 2 regular (trained) Infantrie platoons. The Stosskompanie is an always attack force, but the Brits had tanks making them always attack as well, so luckily after a dice off the Brits decided to defend.  This allowed the Germans to night attack.  This certainly helped us survive the initial rounds of defensive fire, and though I had to recycle one Stoss platoon (using the "Overwhelming Force" rule for this scenario; Randy on the left flank also had to recycle one platoon), I was able to break the platoon defending the trench in front of me, take out several pits and nests, decimate the reinforcing infantry platoon and capture a bogged MKIV tank!  Great victory for the Germans!  So, here are some pictures:

View down the table length (with a WWII game just past our game)

 Stosskompanie hits the wire 

 View from the left flank of the attack.  Randy also got to the trenches stopping Tim from reinforcing Robert.

 2nd Stoss platoon (left) making it through the wire while the regular Infantrie stall.

 Whittling down the defenders with some good shooting and assaults.

 Randy is pushing things on the left flank.

 Wire finally cleared as is the trench line, but reinforcements are trying to outrace the new wave of Stoss on the right flank.

 Better hurry because here comes the British Armour!

 Devastating fire (and poor saving by Robert) has his reinforcing platoon at half-strength and pinned while the only British team left in the trench on my front is the Company commander who can't last for long.

 And the 2nd Stoss platoon is disputing the other trench junction, which will end shortly....

 As Randy kills off the 18-pounder in the gun pit and Robert's last hurrah bogs down...

This was a great, fun game.  I hope we play again soon.  I also hope to get my French on the table soon.

In the meantime, I've got some 10mm ancients ready to paint and just spent some time prepping 40 early war Soviet tanks...T26's, T28's and KV's...still lots of work to do on them, but it's a start.

Gaming Focus

Recently I have been having various discussions about gaming with several of my gaming friends about gaming in general.  Now all of this is just my personal feelings.  I realized a long time ago that no two gamers see the hobby exactly the same.  I know gamers that are even more easily distracted than I am (which says a lot), gamers that seemingly never get rid of anything, others that have a lot of unstarted projects but only play one game, and others that play only one or two things and are happy with it.  Much of this goes back to something I have struggled with for quite some time:

• The "look shiney" or "squirrel" effect of jumping into new projects before old projects even see the table, or before I have a feeling on how a game actually plays or whether my friends will truly be interested in playing.

The conversations with my gaming friends have just really reinforced my new found mantra of doing what makes me happy.  I believe I am going to cut back some on the number of games/systems I play.  I feel that it may be difficult for me to not get distracted and remain focused in doing so, but in the long run if I can overcome that struggle, I will likely be able to accomplish more of what I really want to do focused on rules/periods that I really enjoy and am familiar with. 

Another issue that drives some of my gamer friends crazy is how I divest/get rid of stuff.  Meanwhile it drives me crazy to have: 

• Armies sitting unused for extended periods of time (years in some cases);
• Projects sitting (again sometimes for years) not being started or started and never worked on to completion because someone else has more than enough stuff for me to game; and,
• Not playing a set of rules or similar rules on a frequent enough basis that I don't have to keep thumbing through the rules to look stuff up.

I have always seen my hobby materials, figures, rules, etc. as "currency" in effect that I can sell or trade off to fund the next greatest thing.  The wheeling and dealing I do is part of the hobby to me, and in the past I have sold unused projects to fund new projects frequently; in some cases I have even gone back and reinvested in scales/periods/genres that I had previously gotten rid of.  I regret the time lost painting and basing when I do this and it is something I did myself, but if it is something I paid to get painted then I certainly don't have the same attachment.  I think this will continue, but since I will be narrowing my focus it is more likely to mean getting rid of some stuff for projects my heart isn't into or possibly changing scales to better fit what I want to do.

The difficult answer I have to come up with now is where to start?

10mm For Gaming Ancients & Medievals - A New Start

When I first started gaming ancients & medievals, I used 15mm because that's what the group of guys that introduced me to DBx were using.  I later migrated fully to 28mm as I became fully involved in Warhammer Ancient Battles (WAB); this included getting rid of my 15mm armies to fund 28mm.  When Warhammer Historical was shut down I really felt it as a punch to the gut; not only would it become next to impossible to get new players into WAB, but all of the time I had spent working on (play testing, proof reading, etc.) the 100YW supplement, the Successors supplement, and others was lost...time I would never have back for wonderfully written books that will never see the light of day because of how the company that "owns" the material operates. My 28mm armies just sat unused.  I tried to get interested in other rules, but interest seemed to die off locally as well.  Eventually I sold and traded my 28's off for 15mm again.

Last year though I started to shift my perspective on gaming and heed the words of a friend..."do what makes you happy...", so here I am starting over again when it comes to mass battles for ancients & medievals.  I am keeping 28mm for skirmish games like SAGA, but for big battles I am moving to 10mm.  My first test is in the pictures below.  I bought a painted army based for Warmaster Ancients off of ebay and realized that this will give me an opportunity to have units be a single base instead of multiple bases like in many games.  I fiddled with frontages and depths before arriving at 100mm by 50mm for infantry and 100mm by 60mm for cavalry, warbands and pike phalanxes.  I think this gives a nice massed look, allows the units to be handled by the bases instead of the figures (something that always drove me crazy with the Warmaster basing and most 15mm basing conventions), allows for for more diorama style basing (like adding some casualties or skirmishers in front of a unit of heavy infantry), and will still allow me to play a wide variety of games since most rules really just depend on similar basing for units.  Now, I did think of basing skirmishers and horse archers, etc. on narrower frontages in order to fit as "small" units for Hail Caesar, but decided against it in the long run.  Since this is a solo project where I intend to build matching armies and host games for my friends which they won't have to contribute anything except for their time, I will simply have unit rosters noting the unit size when/if needed...no big deal to me.

So, here I am...doing something that I have thought about for a long time...finally...and enjoying it.  The pictures don't due these units justice as I didn't feel like setting up the photo box today.  More to come as I get painting on this project...

Time Is Flying By in 2016

Man, where have the first 3 months of 2016 gone?  It seems like it was just New Years.  I certainly haven't been as active posting here as I would like; it seems like I find excuses not to post when it doesn't really take all that much time...something I need to work on for sure.

The good news is that I have been pretty active on the gaming front.  I've played a lot of different games, including playing in the Shifting Sands Flames of War event in January, and the Gathering in the Desert Bolt Action Operation Torch campaign event in February.  I enjoyed both thoroughly...played some excellent opponents and had a fun time.  I actually managed to be the top Axis commander with my Italian Paras in the Bolt Action event with a 1 win, 1 loss, and 3 tie record...just goes to show how poorly the Axis did!  Next year Shifting Sands is supposed to be Team Yankee, so I'll be passing on it...not that I have anything against Team Yankee, it's just that I have plenty else to do and I need to draw some lines.  Gathering in the Desert next year is supposed to be Normandy, so I am more likely to build a force for that than I am getting into a new period.

I haven't completed much painting this year, though I have been working a a few different things.  I prepped a couple of 15mm WWI armies for Great War to be painted by Saguaro Painting Service, painted some 28mm WWII, based some figures for SAGA, and have been rebasing a 10mm army as I shift to that scale for my big battle ancients and medieval gaming.

Here are 3 Perry Brother WWII German Fallschirmjager MG teams.  I am going to use these as additions to my Italian Para force when I want to play Chain of Command as the unit structure is different than that in Bolt Action.  They are nice figures, but a little smaller than the Warlord Games Italian Paras as you can see in the comparison shot:

 Comparison - Perry on the left and Warlord on the right

I also contracted some 28mm Varangian Guard for my SAGA Byzantines.  The painter, Andrew K., had posted some stuff for sale on a forum and I liked his work.  He was great to deal with and said he liked painting these up.  The figures are from Crusader Miniatures with the exception of Harald Hardrada which is a Gripping Beast figures.  All have LMBS shield transfers.

Harald Hardrada

 Command

 Spearmen - Front

 Spearmen - Rear

Well, that's it for now.  The next post will definitely be sometime in April as I show off the 10mm figures I've been working on.  I am not sure what I'm going to work on after that...it will be something as I think I'm starting to get back into a groove.

Looking Back/Looking Ahead - 2015/2016 Edition

Every year at this time I look back on my hobby goals for the year and look ahead to what the new year will bring.  I find doing so gives me a chance to focus on a few things, something which usually fades as I bounce around from project to project...such is life :-)

For 2015 I wanted to play at least one game a week; with 77 total and a record of 43-28-6 I managed that.  A great number of games were Pathfinder - Skulls & Shackles, a fun game.  We are almost done with that adventure path and will be taking a break from that system for a while, so I will find other things to fill the gap in 2016 and hope to meet the 1 game a week goal again.

I had a good year painting with 374 pieces completed, mostly due to the recently finished Flames of War army I completed.  I have plenty of projects to work on including: 2 28mm SAGA armies, 2 28mm Crescent & Cross armies, 28mm WW2 Poles and Japanese SNLF, 15mm Flames of War early war Soviet armor, 15mm American Revolution, 15mm WWI, 15mm Eastern Renaissance, and 10mm ancients.  I recently followed my own advice to "do what you want to do" in regards to gaming.  For a long time I have wanted to do 10mm ancients/medievals and I finally took the plunge.  I divested myself of all of my 15mm ancients & medievals (except for SAGA) and will start on my 10mm project.  I really look forward to having a large number of models on a single base representing an entire unit.  I will also be contracting out some painting like I always do so that will hopefully speed a few things up for me.

I set a goal of working on my hobby stuff for 182.5 hours in 2015.  I fell short of that, but I don't consider it a failure as I had never tracked my time before.  My goal for 2016 is simply to just commit more time (no gaming time which wasn't included) than in 2015; a goal that I should be able to accomplish.

As I start 2016 I am prepping some 15mm WWI figures and also have some 10mm troops prepped to serve as a test case to help me figure out my basing.  I have lots to do and hope to knock a few things off of my "to do" list in the year ahead.  Stay tuned for my irregular updates!

Polish 10th Brygada Kawalerii Pancernej in France - Completed!

Well, it has taken me longer than expected, but I finally completed the 15mm Polish 10th Brygada Kawalerii Pancernej force I started months ago.  The entire force is Battlefront miniatures with the exception of the 4 French 75mm artillery pieces and the 6 R40 tanks which are from Old Glory.  The painting on this has actually been done for quite some time, but anyone who knows me knows that I really dislike basing figures; so the painted figures sat there looking at me...taunting me...until I finally gave in and based them.

I like how this force looks, and enjoyed painting it; I can't wait to get it on the table. I was going to use it in Shifting Sands 2016, but over the summer I started running again.  My weight had gotten up there in the spring and I really wasn't feeling or looking healthy.  It has been 10 years since I ran a half-marathon, and with 50 just a few years off I figured no time like the present.  The good news is that I have lost over 30 pounds...the bad news is that the half-marathon I plan on running is the same weekend as Shifting Sands.  Oh, well...at least the army is done, and here it is:

Company Command with 25mm AT Gun Section

Company Command Mortars (2x81mm & 1x60mm)

1st Platoon (6 Rifle MG teams, 1 VB Grenade Launcher team, Platoon Command team)

2nd Platoon (6 Rifle MG teams, 1 VB Grenade Launcher team, Platoon Command team)

3rd Platoon (6 Rifle MG teams, 1 VB Grenade Launcher team, Platoon Command team)

25mm Anti-tank Gun Platoon 

Machine Gun Platoon

Artillery Battery 1

Artillery Battery 2

20mm Anti-Aircraft Platoon

1st Tank Platoon 

2nd Tank Platoon

Up next I am going to prep some 15mm WWI for Saguaro Painting Service to paint, then work on some other projects...more on that in my obligatory year end/new year post...