2015 Metrics for the Craft.

Happy New Year!  Here are my totals for 2015.  Painting was down a bit (-8) from last years total as was the number of battles fought (-9). I attribute most of this to buying and moving into our new home in the mid-Fall. On a personal note I had set 15 goals for myself during the year and I met or exceeded 10 of them. I have now set 16 for 2016.  Best wishes to all for a joyous and safe new year.

PAINTING

1/600: 23

6mm:

10mm: 39

15mm: 1
1/72: 7

25mm: 4
54mm:

Terrain/Acc: 4

Total Painted: 78

BATTLES FOUGHT

Star Wars: 3

World War II: 10

WWII Naval: 5

Colonial: 1

Sci-Fi: 1

SYW: 1

Fantasy: 3

Ancients: 4

Angola Bush War: 1

Year Total: 29

1/600 Desert Battlefield Part 4 Finished

Now that the dust is starting to settle from the home purchase/move. I found some time today to complete my 1/600 Desert Battlefield. The pictures don't show it very well but the oasis has a water effect in it. I used tacky glue for the water. This project ticks off a check on the Painting Pledge for the year.

Terrain: Isandlwana Battlefield

I am attempting to craft a battlefield and match it to Isandlwana as closely as my skills will allow. I am debating on whether to use a dark brown or black as the undercoat. The foam board came from a box at work and measures just under 2'x3'.

One Hour Wargames: My Review

I should be picking up my war room at present vice writing this reivew. However as I look at my models that are still based up for other systems and think of how I am going to rebase them  I can't help but reflect on how much more I like One Hour Wargames by Neil Thomas. I can almost see the casualties as they fall or flee and virtually feel the morale of the unit dripping away as they resolve to be steadfast and strong. OHW has upped the imagination factor for me by 10x or more and that I believe is what we as wargamers strive for in our miniatures recreation.

I can't really put my finger on why I was so keen to buy this book. I remember reading the reviews up on TMP but my first thoughts were it was overly simple. What I didn't realize until I bought and read it was that it was simple genius. Neil's rules are subtle and sophisticated. I've spent way too much time looking for that perfect set of rules to capture the feel I wanted from wargaming and at long last found it.

I was guffawed at how his army sizes capped at 6 units but then started thinking about the average size Warhammer army like this one below (*note image had to be removed Aug2017) and discovered that they almost always have around 6 core units.

So I was hooked and decided to look at basing schemes that keep with the principles I've learned on army design from the masters like Donald Featherstone and Bob Cordery on starting and keeping your armies small. I've come up with 50mm square bases for 10mm World War II as you may have seen in two of my recent battle reports here. The other base size is 1.5" x 3" for 6/10/15mm ancmed/fantasy models which you can see on my fantasy blog here: The Chronicles of Aeyr. I am also flirting with using 50x40mm bases for 1/600 VSF & moderns along with 2" x 5" for 28mm fantasy. 

Applying the principles above with Neil's suggested guidelines I now have several really well rounded forces for OHW and am close to completing several others. And most importantly to me are projects I've had sitting for years are seeing the light of day and are drawing closer to completion. 

One side effect however is that I have developed a voracious appetite for wargame scenarios. Gone are my days of the tournament style pitched battle. Done. Well it's 1600 hours here in Northwest Arkansas so I should return to cleaning up and organizing my messy war room. In closing OHW, for me, has been my best wargame purchase of 2015. Possibly in the last several years. Cheers.

1/600 Desert Battlefield - Part 3

Well the board wound up warping on me a bit as you can see in the bottom picture but not enough to render it unplayable IMO. Still must add some mud and green to the oasis and touch up the road. Have yet to decide if I will use all of the North African buildings or some. In either case they still need to be primed and painted. Same with my palm trees.

1/600 Desert Battlefield - The Crescent Oasis Part 2

The first sections of groundwork are complete. After letting these dry overnight I will add the final sections. After that dries then any patches fixed. Then comes vegetation, roadwork and the lake, rocky hills and outgrowths ending with the village.

New Terrain Board Underway: The Crescent Oasis 1/600 Scale.

Have begun work on a new 3mm battlefield. A desert oasis somewhere in North Africa. The battlefield will feature an oasis, a dusty trade road, a small village as well as several rocky outgrowths. This will be my second board with permanent terrain features. The first was the lunar board.

Basic project foamboard from Hobby Lobby $3.59 with a HL 40% Coupon. The board has a cardstock surface on front and back with foam between.

Trade road marked and the oasis cut out..

My first attempt at flocking the battlefield failed as I used a HL spray adhesive glue which did not do anything but make my hands and arms sticky. Will use the tried and true but timely Elmers glue tomorrow.

VSF: New Osprey Steampunk Book Soldiers Uniforms & Weapons

Picked this up at B&N on Friday with a 20% coupon. So glad I did. This fits right in with my planned Clockwork Civil War 1/600 Battles that is on my planning board

Barsoom Red Martian Flyer

I bought a variety of Martian Empires packs used online. Here is a picture of the Martian Flyer. The resin carriage will require drilling to be mounted to its flying base. The aft will require a little drilling as well to fit the rear propeller. I'll post some more pictures of these models on Thursday or Friday.

Colonial Warfare: Rebasing My Colonial Soldiers for My New Wargame

Having made great progress on my next wargame rulebook "The Imperial War Manual." I've set about rebasing all my colonial models from DBx bases to bases better suited to IWM and the scales. The models below are 15mm (Brits & Zulus) and 10mm (FFL & Arabs.)