Contemplating My Naval(s)....

Work continues to dominate my life and so my gaming time has been greatly reduced. All I have been able to do is to catch up on a lot of reading although I have now completed the great Command and Colours label-fest. The next step will be organise the rules - all of these will be placed in binders in due course - and tackle the terrain question but this is not something I need to hurry.

Fast play and with lots of D6 - and not a hex in sight....

I was delighted when Osprey announced that they were going to release a set of ancient naval warfare rules and so acquiring a copy was an obvious step for me. The rules, called Poseidon's Warriors - Classical Naval Warfare 480 - 31 BC by John Lambshead, look really good. They are designed for large actions and the rules are fast play for sure. They are not even hex based....Players use squadrons - 5 vessels for the trireme era - and alternate moving these depending on the initiative.
This makes for a very interactive game and places a premium on good tactics.

The book contains not only the rules but also a naval timeline and suggested historical match ups. There is a nice selection of eye candy although if I was being picky I would have liked to have seen some models other than Rod Langtons in action. Don't get me wrong, Langton's models are lovely but my entire collection consists of Navwar models which are less detailed but are easier on the wallet. I will certainly be getting some of his terrain pieces though! My plan is now to use these rules for Salamis - so hexes will not be featuring.

Rounds out my Jutland library very nicely indeed....

The next acquisition is a couple of books concerned with Jutland. I must thank Dave Manley for recommending the Nick Jellicoe title - it really is a first class read - and I have to say I enjoyed the BBC documentary featuring the author. It also leads nicely into The Jutland Scandal. This book is really two books in one as it contains The Truth About Jutland by Rear-Admiral J.E.T Harper and also The Jutland Scandal by Admiral Sir Reginald Bacon. Needless to say certain historical figures did not come out particularly well in either title - and that is a story all of its own.

Jutland: 100 years ago today

One hundred years ago today the Royal Navy and the German High Seas Fleet met in battle in the grey wastes of the North Sea. By the time the fighting had ended 25 ships had been sunk (14 British and 11 German) and some 10,003 seamen had been killed, wounded or captured (6,945 for the British and 3,058 for the Germans).

The German navy had, according to theAmerican press of the time, "Assaulted its jailer but was still in jail". The Royal Navy had not destroyed the Germans in a second Trafalgar but it ensured that the High Seas Fleet would never again try to force a conclusion in the North Sea and so instead they would look to the submarine to challenge Great Britain's command of the oceans.

It was the first and last great clash of the battle fleets before the aircraft carrier came to dominate naval warfare.

For my own part the battle has fascinated me for some thirty years and using the Avalon Hill game of Jutland enabled me to refight the operation on numerous occasions. Regular readers of the blog will no doubt remember my grandiose plans for the centenery - none of which will be realised - but unfortunately life has gotten in the way and so my ideas have been drastically scaled back.

I will extend my best wishes though to all that are taking part in anything Jutland related to commemorate the battle - for my own part I will make my rather more modest plans accordingly - and I feel sure that, whatever has been undertaken to mark the event that the participants will not forget the bravery and sacrifice of all that took part, from both sides, on that fateful day.

Jutland: Less Than Two Weeks To Go

In less than two weeks time it will be the centenery of the Battle of Jutland. A quick trawl of the net reveals that various events etc are scheduled to commemorate the battle and I am sure that all of these have been carefully planned so as to be a success when they happen.

I wish I could say that my own modest contribution was as well organised - it most certainly is not although the work needed should take little more than a few hours at the keyboard. Work has really impacted on my hobby time of late so things have slid a little - actually they have slid a lot if I am honest - meaning that plans have had to be scaled back and altered from the original intention.

As mentioned previously I am looking to strip out the tactical rules from the Avalon Hill board game of the same name and use them without the strategic move option. I am looking at some four linked scenarios for the refight but of course the difficulty with this is that the first contact between the opposing sides may generate a very different outcome to what happened historically. 

Initially this concerned me but after having given it some thought I am now of the opinion that it should make for an interesting refight. I will mirror the strategic moves as they happened but with (potentially) altered forces - with the key being how the Battle Cruisers make out in the initial clash.

However it plays out though, you can rest assured that I am looking forward to it!

Jutland: The Refight

Next month sees the centenery of the Battle of Jutland. As readers of this blog will no doubt recall I have been wrestling with how best to commemorate this epic engagement via the medium of a war game (naturally!). My plans began in a grandiose fashion with a refight using 1/2400th models taking place on board HMS Belfast but practicality and logistical considerations have scaled this down somewhat. I plan to refight the battle using the Avalon Hill 'board' game of the same name and this means counters (scaled at around 1/4800th) rather than models.

I seriously considered using 1/6000th scale models for this but if I am honest the price was way over my budget so a cheaper option was needed.

I have often mentioned my fondness for the old Avalon Hill game of Jutland (designed by James Dunnigan and first released in 1967) so this was going to be the basis of the refight. The tactical rules are not perfect but they should be viewed within the context of what is essentially a strategic game. There are a number of rules additions that appeared in the old Avalon Hill General magazine and I plan to incorporate these.

I have flirted with changing the system and making it more 'naval war gamey' but you know what? I am going to leave it as it is and fight the battle(s) using what is essentially an old school system. Besides, it is now too late to consider anything more complex.

I am really looking forward to this and so next month will be very naval centric in terms of blog posts. At this stage the only decision I need to make is how to break the action up into historical scenarios for which I shall be using my modest library in the subject and also the Avalanche Press Great War at Sea board game that covers the North Sea during the period.

More to follow methinks....

86 Days to go....

Despite suffering from a bout of Bronchitis I have had last managed to make a start on cutting out the replacement counters for my planned Jutland refight. Thus far I have completed both the Royal Navy and the High Seas Fleet and the optional 'scaled' Light Ship counters. The latter are very important as I have mentioned previously because the counters in the original game represent formations that are too large. Having a single counter representing some 16 destroyers whilst the capital ships are individual does make for some strange tactical decisions. Under the new system the same formation would be represented by four counters - this is much better from a gaming perspective as the player would be able to make decisions about formations, station keeping etc. It will change how the rules work and this will be something I will need to test.

In the interest of easing myself back into using the core Jutland rule system - it was some 30 years ago I last used after all - I am planning to run a small test game over the next few days with the results posted to the blog.

There will be one change though and that concerns the move distance and ranges. The game as designed uses a measuring device - called the rangefinder - scaled at 20mm equalling 1,000 yards for gunfire. This means that 48cm represents 24,000 yards. For me that is a little too short so I am using 1" to a 1,000 yards. Ships move according to a special gauge with a movement factor of one point for every 2 1/2 knots. Each movement point on the gauge equals 15mm so between the movement and firing ranges there is a difference in how they work. I would prefer a uniform scale of measure so that will be my first priority.

The scenario I envisage running will pit two small forces of battle cruisers in that old standby the encounter battle.

At least fighting a game will not be interrupted by my irritating coughing - which makes painting a challenge for sure!

The End of Days

After a lot of thought and careful consideration of what is likely to be happening in my world over the course of the coming year I have taken the regretable decision to abandon my projected refight of Jutland to coincide with the centenary of the battle. I have not abandoned the idea entirely but for a variety of reasons 1/2400th will not be the scale of choice.

I have really enjoyed the process so far - painting the models has been very therapeutic and I am really pleased with how the technique has worked out - but have hit an impasse in terms of availability of models and compatability wih the other naval ideas I have. The models, whilst very nice are simply too large for gaing space I have and so are unlikely to be used en masse. There is also the question of time that I can devote to the project and to do it properly - this simply is not there. It seems like an awful lot of work for a one off game and so for me is now no longer viable. It is a shame but I have to be practical.

I will tackle something Jutland related next year in the same way as I will tackle something Waterloo related this year but I need to think about how in both cases. My feeling at this stage is that something  board game or block related may be the answer - not quite the visual extravanganza one would hope for but being blessed with a vivid imagination certainly has its advantages when not using models!

A Tale of Two Bluchers

The first of my current Bluchers

I readily confess to having had my curiosity aroused when the above was first advertised across the wargames world - especially as the first expansion was devoted to the 100 Days campaign of 1815 of which my ongoing and longstanding interest is well known. So having absorbed a certain amount of positive vibes over the previous weeks I decided to take the plunge and acquired both items.

I have to say that have done so I am completely sold on the concept and ideas therein. The game is all
about fighting large scale battles set in the Napoleonic wars - either as a one off games or as part of a campaign using the Scharnhorst system included. Both the tactical and the strategic games are simple to execute yet contain the all important flavour so important in games at this scale.

I am really taken with the way that special abilities - unit traits in the rules - enhance the flavour of units to give that all important degree of national and type personality. Although the scale is very much army level having this degree of 'personalisation' adds to the fun and makes relating to your chosen army that much easier - one would expect for example, Russian line infantry to be stolid under fire and so they are in the rules.

Am I going to use this solely for Napoleonics? Nah, of course not! I reckon that without too much work the core system could easily be extended both back and forwards to include some of the 18th century as well the 19th up to the dawn of the machine gun and magazine rifle. My thoughts are even wandering in the 'imagi-nation' direction - which is probably no surprise either! Plenty to think about then - and I am sure to be doing so!

Plan view of S.M.S. Blucher

S.M.S Blucher at sea

The second of my Bluchers refers to the ill-fated armoured cruiser the German Navy had in the Great War. She was armed in response to the Royal Navy allegedly building their equivalent ships with a 9.2" main gun. The Germans decided to use their own 8.2" which was better only for the first British ships - the Invincible class - to to discover that the Royal Navy ships were to be armed with 12" guns. As it was too late to redesign the ship (and the funds were not available to do so) it was built anyway. I read somewhere that she was even planned to go to the Mediterranean as the German representative in place of a battle cruiser. One wonders how things would have turned out had she been on station when war broke out instead of the Goeben. I was always rather fond of the Blucher as she was not a bad ship as such - it was just that she was a good armoured cruiser but less of a battle cruiser. She was sunk at Dogger Bank in 1915 and as this is the centenary year I rather fancied trying out a re fight of the action - if only to give my 1/2400th ships a run out with the rules I am planning to use for the Jutland re fight next year.

I have a Panzerschiffe casting of the Blucher undercoated and on the paint tray along with a couple of other ships for the Germans so will aim to get these finished over the next week or so.

The High Seas Fleet at Jutland....A Review

At long last the final models for the German High Seas Fleet at Jutland are finished - at least as far as the capital ships are concerned anyway. Some 21 dreadnoughts and 6 pre dreadnoughts were deployed for the battle with the battle cruiser Lutzow and the pre dreadnought Pommern being lost. The models are for the most part in metal from Stonewall Miniatures although the pre dreadnoughts and the three 11" armed battle cruisers - Seydlitz, Moltke and Von der Tann - are all resin from Panzerschiffe in the US of A. So without further ado (and following on from the earlier Royal Navy version of the same) I would like to present the German High Seas Fleet capital ships as organised in their Jutland formations.

High Seas Fleet - Vice Admiral Reinhard Scheer, Chief of the Fleet

Battle Squadron 3 - Rear Admiral Behncke, Chief of Squadron

Fleet Flagship - S.M.S. Friedrich der Grosse
Flag - S.M.S. Konig
S.M.S. Grosser Kurfurst
S.M.S. Markgraf
S.M.S. Kronprinz
Flag - S.M.S. Kaiser
S.M.S. Prinz Regent Luitpold
S.M.S. Kaiserin

Battle Squadron 1 - Vice Admiral Ehrhard Schmidt, Chief of Squadron

Flag - S.M.S. Ostfiesland
S.M.S. Thuringen
S.M.S. Helgoland
S.M.S. Oldenburg
Flag - S.M.S. Posen
S.M.S. Rheinland
S.M.S. Nassau
S.M.S. Westfalen

Battle Squadron 2 - Rear Admiral Mauve, Chief of Squadron

Flag - S.M.S. Deutschland
S.M.S. Pommern
S.M.S. Schlesien
Flag - S.M.S. Hannover
S.M.S. Schleswig-Holstein
S.M.S. Hessen

Scouting Group 1 - Vice Admiral Hipper - Chief of Scouting Forces

Flag - S.M.S. Lutzow

S.M.S. Derfflinger

S.M.S. Seydlitz

S.M.S. Moltke

S.M.S. Von der Tann

So there you have it. The capital ships as organised for the Battle of Jutland, May 1916. It has been a labour of love I can tell you and I am rather pleased to have gotten this stage of the project completed. The cruisers and destroyers are to follow but I will have the rest of the year to get them dealt with. I have a few of the cruisers already painted and have a sizeable amount of the RN destroyers already so I am confident that all will be ready for next year. The plan now is to focus on the rules and also turn mu attention to something land based - at least until the 18th of June anyway....;-)

Closing in on the big finish....Part 3

I had hoped to have had the remaining German ships completed for this weekend but the fates have conspired against me. If you recall I was a little concerned about how dark the German ships were looking and I was right to be so as when placed alongside the other ideas the difference was noticeable. Then I remembered that originally I had added a further lighter dry brush to the first batch and with the current models I had forgotten to do so. Luckily it was easily resolved by the application of a very careful and lighter grey dry brush. Of course this also meant a further coat of varnish so I decided to tackle the dreadnought bases first before finishing the pre dreadnoughts. A minor delay but nothing major.

I will completely finish the dreadnoughts - including the waves, wakes, names and ensigns before spending any more time on the pre dreadnoughts. I shall be able to make some progress with these but it now looks like the great photo shoot will take place a week later than planned.

Closing in on the big finish....Part 2

The remaining dreadnoughts for the German High Seas Fleet for the Jutland 2016 project have been painted and varnished with just the bases to complete. The six pre dreadnoughts of the 2nd battle Squadron roughly halfway there so should be ready for the weekend all being well. If I am honest they seem to have come up a little darker than I would have liked but this is nothing that some careful additional dry brushing should put it right should I decide to do so. I worked on a basic rule of thumb that German ships should be a lighter grey than their RN counterparts and by and large this is noticeable but this final batch do seem a little darker. Still, no two ships, even if painted the same, would weather at the same rate so a little variation in colour can be allowed for!

In any event I have no plans to repaint them....;-)

Closing in on the big finish

I have managed to make a start on the remaining German ships for the High Seas Fleet for the Jutland project. The plan is to tackle them in earnest over the weekend for the grand finale - aka the photo shoot - taking place next weekend. I am rather excited by this and am looking forward to this final stage. I have really enjoyed the whole process and am now busily planning the cruisers although this will be rather a large undertaking due to the need to include some 'non-Jutland' types - mainly earlier vessels that would be second class by 1914.

More to follow once I have finalised the plans.

Slightly out of Sequence

If I am honest this is the post that should have gone up prior to the Grand Fleet Review but I was so excited about getting the whole shebang onto the blog I opted to write this after. During the course of painting the models for the collection I have made a point of posting those models that are completed as and when they are done and so for good order sake I wanted to finish off the RN collection with the following pictures. The photographs also benefit from being rather closer than the squadron versions so that the detail of the model is more apparent.

The following batch of models are, quite coincidentally, all made by Panzerschiffe and are cast in a resin type material. they are only available from the USA and are pretty basic in respect of detail - I remember reading someone once describing them as having "carved from a bar of soap"; a little unkind in my opinion although GHQ they are most certainly not. As gaming pieces they are absolutely ideal and as a scale - 1/2400th - I am completely sold on them over 1/3000th.

H.M.S. Canada. Ordered by Chile as the Almirante Latorre she was purchased by the RN and served during WW1. She was returned to Chile and was not scrapped until 1959. After Pearl Harbour the US gave serious thought to trying to buy her to bolster their fleet - I am quite sure the Kates and Vals of the Japanese Navy would have been delighted to make her acquaintance....

H.M.S. Agincourt. Ordered by Brazil, paid for by Turkey and, ahem, requistioned by the RN. The only dreadnought to feature seven main gun turrets.

H.M.S. Erin. Ordered and paid for by Turkey and again requisitioned by the RN. She was highly regarded and differed from the RN centreline ten gun dreadnoughts in having Q turret mounted a deck higher. 

H.M.S. Colossus and Hercules. Built to allow limited ten gun broadsides using the offset turrets - these were the opposite way around to the German ships using the same technique.

H.M.S. Neptune. The first of the group of three ships including the two above.

That concludes the 'close up' pictures of the RN ships thus far. the next batch will feature the armoured cruisers but they will not be appearing for a while yet as the German High Seas Fleet needs to be finished first.

The Grand Fleet at Jutland - A Review

I have finally managed to finish the Royal Navy battleships and battlecruisers for my Jutland 2016 project so I thought perhaps a fleet review would be in order. The German opposition should be finished by the end of the month which will mean that phase one of the project will be complete. Phase two will see the cruisers (armoured and light) tackled and phase three will feature the destroyers. I am not working to a set timetable for these - as long as they finished by the end of the year it will make little difference to the overall plan.

Grand Fleet - Admiral Sir J. R. Jellicoe, C in C

                              4th Battle Squadron - Vice Admiral Sir Doveton Sturdee

Fleet Flagship - H.M.S. Iron Duke
Flag - H.M.S. Benbow
H.M.S. Bellerophon
H.M.S. Temeraire
H.M.S. Vanguard
Flag - H.M.S. Superb
H.M.S. Royal Oak
H.M.S. Canada

1st Battle Squadron - Vice Admiral Sir Cecil Burney

Flag - H.M.S. Marlborough
H.M.S. Revenge
H.M.S. Hercules
H.M.S. Agincourt
Flag - H.M.S. Colossus
H.M.S. Collingwood
H.M.S. Neptune
H.M.S. St. Vincent

2nd Battle Squadron - Vice Admiral Sir T. H. M. Jerram

Flag - H.M.S. King George V
H.M.S. Ajax
H.M.S. Centurion
H.M.S. Erin
Flag - H.M.S. Orion
H.M.S. Monarch
H.M.S. Conqueror
H.M.S. Thunderer

Attached 3rd Battlecruiser Squadron - Rear Admiral The Hon. H. L. A. Hood

Flag - H.M.S. Invincible
H.M.S. Indomitable
H.M.S. Inflexible

Battlecruiser Fleet - Vice Admiral Sir David Beatty, C in C

Fleet Flagship - H.M.S. Lion
Flag - H.M.S. Princess Royal
H.M.S. Queen Mary
H.M.S. Tiger
Flag - H.M.S. New Zealand
H.M.S. Indefatigable

Attached 5th Battle Squadron - Rear Admiral H. Evan-Thomas

Flag - H.M.S. Barham
H.M.S. Warspite
H.M.S. Valiant
H.M.S. Malaya

All of the models have been painted using a matt black undercoat and a combination of enamel and acrylic paints. I use two shades of grey for the RN and a single for the Germans with some final highlights in white - as are the lifeboats. The decks for both sides are painted in either Vallejo buff or Humbrol Mast Oak/Unbleached Linen. the bases are painted, rather un-North Sea-like, in a Windsor and Newton colour called Cobalt Turquoise. I chose this as it is a close match to my Hexon sea tiles and also is very Eastern Mediterranean - which is where this little lot may be seeing action in the future. The name labels I designed myself and the naval ensigns are 1/600th scale self-adhesive types prepared for me by Brigade Models.

 

The collection prior to going into its designated storage facility

The models themselves are from two sources - Stonewall Miniatures and Panzerschiffe. I should also at this point doff my cap to the redoubtable Mr. Fox as had it not been for him and his passing over of his collection of Stonewall models into my tender care I may never have even considered undertaking this project. Many thanks old chap!

I am rather pleased at how these turned out....;-)

The Painter's Progress

Despite a busy day out with the family I was still abe to make further progress with the remaining RN  battleships - 12 of the last 18 are now complete. I should qualify this by saying that the models are painted and varnished and have the base coat on the bases. I have yet to tackle the waves, wakes, ensigns and names bu am planning to do this once all 18 are ready.

I should also point out that all of the models recently suffering from the great varnish disaster have now been repainted!

I shall be posting a grand fleet review in a couple of weeks and then it is on to the remaining German ships - the last 13.

It is a good feeling to have gotten back in he saddle and I a keen to press on to finish this stage of the project.

1815:2015 and 1916:2016

These are the dates that will be featuring prominently on the blog over the coming year - especially in the case of the former as the anniversary is in June!

I have had a relatively productive day today as the six RN battleships have been successfully varnished (phew!) and the bases merely need the 'waves and wakes', the ensign and all-important ship name to be finished. I have also managed to give the second dry brush coat to the remaining twelve battleships before tackling the last of the Germans. I have also been taking a long look at the Panzerschiffe catalogue in readiness for the order of cruisers. I will tackle these first and will finish up with the destroyers.

As far as the Waterloo project is concerned I managed to find all my old notes concerning the orders of battle and how to represent them. I think I am pretty much decided on how this will play out  and so the work involved will be fairly minimal - famous last words!

It will be a block based project so look away now if this is not your bag! A quick review of what I have ready has shown up a few minor gaps but nothing too onerous. the one departure from the norm though is that I shall be using some form of naming convention for the relevant commanders. It will serve to add to the flavour and is something I have been considering for all my bock based adventures.

The best thing about the 1815 project though is that much of the work has already been tackled so fine-tuning the various notes I have made should be pretty straightforward.

It may even reignite my long dormant Napoleonic gene and set me off on a figure painting frenzy.....

Or maybe not....

Seasonal Interlude

I am at a loss to explain where the last twelve days have gone - I seem to have been doing a fair impression of a headless chicken - but things are now approaching was passes for normality in my neck of the woods. Work has been busy and SWMBO has been deep in festive planning - which usually means a lot of driving around for yours truly - but we have at last arrived at the "one more visit and we are done" stage. This means that I can at last pick up on a couple of outstanding items on the project pile - mainly completing the last of the capital ships for the Jutland re fight.

I have 31 ships to complete by the end of the year and mercifully I am off work from Christmas Eve until the fifth of January which will give me a good run with the brush. The plan is to have them all finished by the end of the year so the final blog post for 2014 will be the fleet reviews.

There has also been a major change in my computing set up as I have finally dragged myself into the current century and have acquired an IPad. According to my daughter that now qualifies me to be one of the cool people. I must confess that I am enjoying using it and it suits my needs admirably although I will need to keep an eye on the memory aspect as it is the 16gb version.

I have also been looking long and hard at the Sanussi revolt and what came before (and after as well) and am thinking that froma portable war game perspective there is a lot of potential. It is not something I am looking at in the short term but at some point I reckon it will feature.

In the meantime though it is back to the grey paint and from a gaming perspective something along the swampy bayous of the Southern states of the USA....

Lion of the Desert

Lion of the Desert - the story of the latter years of Omar Mukhtar

This weekend has been one that turned out completely different from was originally planned - Christmas domesticity rearing its seasonal head once again - and the panting plan has gone right out of the window!

I will not bore you with all the tawdry details - suffice it say that much driving around, raking of leaves, redesigning the Christmas decorations and shopping - but the battleship painting has barely moved from last week. What I have managed to do though is to catch up on a film that I have never seen before - the Lion of the Desert starring Anthony Quinn and Oliver Reed. I recently picked up a cheap copy on Blu-Ray and I have to say I was really impressed! The whole campaign - about which I know absolutely nothing although I have some material on the earlier Sanussi Revolt and the Italo-Turkish War - would make for a really interesting wargames campaign.

Omar Mukhtar (played by Anthony Quinn) was fighting against the Italians since 1911 until he was captured and hung by the Fascist colonial forces under the command of General Rodolfo Graziani (Played by Oliver Reed).

During this time Mukhtar gave the better equipped and far more numerous Italian forces a real run around using his superior knowledge of the terrain to full effect.

I certainly need to find out more about the Italian occupation - starting with the original invasion during the war with Turkey.

Jutland: The Rules of the Game

Aside from being the title of a very good book on the subject the rules of the game is something I have had on my mind to various degrees since the beginning of this project. I have considered and discarded numerous sets - some homegrown, some commercially available - but have finally settled on what I want to use with a few 'tweaks'.

The plan is to use the original rules from the Avalon Hill game incorporating some of the subsequent amendments from the sadly defunct AH General and Boardgamer magazines. There will also be a further tweak in that the current 'light ships' rules will be modified to better reflect the scouting and screening use of such vessels.

The rules have the advantage of being designed to generate games from an operational map movement perspective - which I intend to replicate on 'Der Tag' in due course. I will need to type up the final version and to prepare play sheets etc as the published rules are a little in the 'dog's breakfast' school of rules layout with examples and a less than logical format making for a somewhat irritating experience in my opinion - especially when you start including advanced and optional extras etc.

The work starts now but naturally painting the models comes first.

Two Shades of Grey - WIP

Following on from last post I spent some quality time yesterday working on the remaining 18 battleships for the Royal Navy. All of the models have had the two shades of grey dry brush applied and so the next phase will be the decks. As mentioned previously I have a couple of spare evenings this week so the plan is to use that to tackle this - it is the fiddliest part of the process - with the intention of finishing them all by the close of play on Sunday next.

In the meantime (and to get myself motivated after the events of last weekend) I have been reviewing the various rules options for the project and am now a lot closer to deciding what I want to do and how I want to do it.

More of which later....;-)

Back in the Painting Saddle

The deed has been done. The 12 models that needed a repaint have at last been started. I took a long and critical look at the varnish damage and decided that the repair work would be too involved and too fiddly so the only option was to start them again. So, this afternoon I managed to get them undercoated and then was able to apply the first dry brush coat to the entire remaining 18 models. The lighter grey shade will be applied tomorrow and then it will be on with the decks etc with the plan being to have all 18 ready for the close of play next Sunday. As luck would have it I have a couple of spare evenings coming up and so more painting time has been allocated than would be the norm.

This will mean that I will have all of December to complete the Germans - 7 dreadnoughts and 6 pre- dreadnoughts.

In the meantime though - and being somewhat enigmatic in the process - I shall be getting a game in using some newly acquired models.

Once I have collected them that is....;-)