Looking Forward to a New Show

This Sunday sees the first wargames show organised by the Milton Hundreds Wargames Club in Sittingbourne, Kent. For details please follow the link:

http://www.mhwc.co.uk/

I personally tend to prefer the smaller show events as they seem to be more intimate and so longer can be spent perusing the games on offer - I have not been to either Salute or SELWG for some years - and so as a result this one is right up my street. There is a personal reason for attending as well as Sittingbourne is where I had my first job after leaving school and is very near to the Isle of Sheppey where I come from. It was in the cinema in Sittingbourne that I first saw both Jaws and Star Wars and so it will be interesting to see the old place again after some 30 odd years.

I am also meeting an old wargaming school friend (whom I have not seen for around 20 odd years) at the show so no doubt I will be reminded of the frequent trouncing my 1815 Airfix Anglo-Brunswick army used to routinely receive at the hands of his French!

I will also be collecting a great pile of Zvezda Art of Tactic kit as this will be my new year project after the ACW ships and Balkans Kit has been finished. Of course, I will have to open the boxes to examine the goodies therein and I may even have to have a quick flick through the rules as well - all strictly in the name of research you understand....:-)

SEEMS - my club - are putting on a Napoleonic Naval action run by Mr Fox who is supplying his most excellent models, rules, the scenario, god-like umpirical observations and technical know-how and adding a little tone to what would otherwise be a vulgar brawl.

To anybody going to this event please drop by the SEEMS stand - the models looks so realistic you need to be inoculated against scurvy to use them - to take a look and if you happen to see me lurking about staggering under a pile of WW2 Russian Front kit feel free to stop me and say hello!

Abstract ACW and Napoleonics - Grid Based

Whilst catching up on my emails and general Internet based stuff after my holiday I came across the following game company:

http://www.dvgc.com/index.html

I have not seen or heard of this company before but was very intrigued by the concept of the abstract ACW game they produce called Squares. The rules are available as a free download and the website also has examples of gameboards constructed by players as well as hints on how to produce your own armies - including a 'no figure' option.

The company also produce 'Gamekits' for various old SPI, Columbia Games and Avalon Hill board games that are available for free - these are usually clarifications or optional rules.

I am always interested in grid based wargames and so may be tempted to try this out by merely griding a sheet of paper to begin with, just to see how it works. There are no dice or chance elements involved so the games appear almost chess like which may or may not be a bad thing. In my experience luck in a wargame is always both good and bad - if it is good for you then it will probably be bad for your opponent!

A Paratrooping Interlude....ACW Painting Part 12

After a very busy day catching up after the holiday - including a further reorganisation of my 'den' (SWMBO prefers the term 'tidying up...!) - I took a little time out to review the ACW collection thus far and the painting that is currently underway. You may recall that I currently have a further nine models roughly two thirds of the way to completion - seven City class ironclads, the Essex and the Benton. These are at th tidying up stage and I had hoped to finish them over the next few days. They will only need a couple of nights work to be ready but I doubt if I am going to get anywhere near them until next Friday. The reason is very simple.

Tuesday of next week sees the arrival of SWMBO's older brother - an ex-paratrooper - from Canada. He is with us for three nights and so I am taking a couple of days off work to join in the family festivities. He is Airborne through and through - the reason he is over is for a reunion - and we have in the past spent many hours talking about anything paratroop related. He served in the Radfan campaign in a recon platoon and his command of numerous Arabic expressions is, to say the least, very colourful! He also wants to go to the Imperial War Museum whilst he is over and so I happily volunteered to discharge this onerous duty....;-)

The Airborne connection is quite strong in SWMBO's family as not only her brother but also her uncle served with the Parachute regiment and another uncle served at Arnhem as a staff sergeant in the Glider Regiment where he was captured. After the war he was interviewed by Cornelius Ryan and is mentioned by name in his book A Bridge Too Far on page 163 - Staff Sergeant Gordon Jenks.

This means then that although my painting will be impacted I will have the opportunity to visit the War Museum (or possibly Duxford) in the company of a 'Vet' who I am quite sure will correct me on points of paratrooping detail - even those that made it into Queen's Regulations!

My Big Fat Greek Village

Above is a picture of the complete village I now own of ceramic Greek/Balkan style buildings. I was very pleased with the six models I acquired whilst away to complement the existing buildings - I suspect they are manufactured by a single company - and I probably will not need to add any more. Geographically and architecturally they are probably best described as Balkans non-specific which means they are ideal for my project. I was also pleased with the fact that the buildings fall nicely into urban and rural types - the smaller buildings and the very nice church complete with the poplar tree are ideal for the latter and the larger for the former.

Now for the trees - poplars and conifers with some others thrown in for good measure.

The Return of the Wanderer.....

It hasn't been 10 years since I set off on my own personal Odyssey to the Ionian island of Corfu although the first three days of our trip certainly felt like it!

I would love to be able to regale you with tales of historic and cultural interest and of days spent rediscovering the remnants of civilisations that have risen and fell - sadly though, and for reasons too tedious and depressing to recount, the first three days on the island were an unmitigated disaster. Mercifully we were spared at least half of our holiday being ruined by virtue of a rapid relocation courtesy of Messrs. Thomas Cook and Company to a vastly superior hotel - complete with an en suite swimming pool (I kid you not - you merely stepped through the balcony gate into a rather nice pool!) and with food and drink in quantities (and quality) that would have any self-respecting bacchanalian acolyte reaching for the Gaviscon in very short order!

This change in our fortune came at the price of precious time and so we were sadly unable to visit Corfu town as planned as a day wandering about historical sites would have taken too much time away from the 'chilling out' we all needed - especially after the aforementioned three days of the apocalypse. We have decided though that next year we will return for a 'two-weeker' and so all of the various historical goodies will be given their proper attention.

My planned holiday projects were impacted to a degree but  was able to give my tweaking of Dave Manley's Man 'O War Ironclads variant a fair crack of the whip. My basic approach has been to take the detail from Dave Manley's 'serious' ironclads set - Iron and Fire - and to translate it (or dumb it down if you prefer) into Man 'O war speak. Initially I considered using a D10 based system (Dave himself suggested this) for hit locations but I have managed to wring out a D6 version that is not only true to the original but also manages to add a level of complexity within the spirit of the rules. I hope to have this drafted over the next few days and so will of course report on progress in due course. The existing ship charts will need a little modification but nothing hugely drastic.

I managed to locate a source of the small ceramic Greek buildings I had earlier acquired at a local boot sale and so I now have a selection of 11 such buildings including a couple of Churches so will not need very much else in terms of real estate for the Balkan Wars project. My order to Irregular Miniatures for the Greeks will be underway over the next few days - together with the WW1 Russians for use as the Bulgarians.

Aside from the first three days we had a great time - the weather was great, the food and drink fantastic in a Mediterranean, simple fashion (I have developed a fondness for olives in any shape or form!) and my consumption of Mythos - the beer of the Gods - was suitably excessive. I will also never forget the rhythmic strumming of massed bouzoukis as we threw ourselves into Zorba's Dance on our last night - it was the stuff that dreams are made of.....

Going in at halftime a goal down....ACW Painting Part 11

I managed to tackle some of the tidying up on the city class gunboats, Essex and Benton, but was not able to make as much progress as I would have liked. The painting schedule for this week has been slightly unhinged, in part due to external events but also because I have felt absolutely exhausted over the last few days. I think my constitution is going into holiday mode early and coupled with a lack of sleep has meant that by the time I am home in the evening from work I am just about fit to potter about and little else.

Still, on the plus side, the models are fairly well advanced and a couple of nights effort should see them finished off so all is not lost. The tidying up does not usually take long to do but it is easier if you are in the right frame of mind as rushing it only prolongs the process - in effect you can end up having to tidy up the tidying up! They are shaping up very nicely and I am especially pleased with the Benton and Essex - the former because she is a great slab of a model (she looks like a City class on steroids!) and the latter because of the curved rear casemate which was easier to make than I thought it would be!

I have the funnel band colours for the City class sorted out and this will the last part of the painting process - they would have been washed, dry brushed, varnished and based before I tackle them - once I have returned from my holiday.

So although I am behind at halftime there is still everything to play for and the plan to finish all 50 models by the end of June is still in place - as this is the final I also have the luxury of extra time and even penalties should the need arise!

Balkan thoughts to take away....

The Bulgarian attack at Catalca

By way of stoking the inspirational fires I have been (re)reading Defeat in Detail - The Ottoman Army in the Balkan Wars 1912 to 1913 by Edward Erickson and it is certainly hitting the spot in terms of being thought provoking. My initial plan was to build, in effect, reinforced DBA sized armies and to an extent this still holds good. The biggest difference now though is that I am looking at 16 figure battalions rather than 12. The rationale behind this is very simple - they look better! Seriously though, using the figures individually based on the 2 x 2 bases from Warbases the battalions have a little more 'substance'. I will also be looking at having four such units per side (64 figures) which breaks down quite nicely into eight units of eight figures for which I have a cunning, Morschauser/Battle Cry related plan. Warbases are happy to cut bespoke bases and so I shall avail myself of some of these for the collection, for example, for use by command groups etc. Originally I was merely going to paint the figures bases green but as I shall be using flocked Hexon tiles I will need to add this to the models. This will be my sole concession to artistic endeavour!

This lot will be still be painted in an 'old toy soldier' style as the uniforms in 1912 still retained some pretty colourful and unusual types - the Turks certainly still had reservists in the old dark blue uniform and the Bulgarians had a real mish mash of kit behind the more modern looking 'patroned' regiments. I plan to add a cavalry regiment - of twelve figures - to each force with artillery and MGs to taste. The resultant forces will be sufficient for the small scale representational games I shall be playing and the rules I will be using.

Upon my return from the Mediterranean I plan to order in the requisite additional figures from Irregular Miniatures - this will be the Greeks, Serbs and Montenegrins, together with the additional Russians I shall be using for the Bulgarians. The entire collection will probably weigh in at around some 400 figures or so which is not too onerous considering that will mean in effect 5 armies. The Montenegrins will be smaller than the others and will not have any cavalry either. The Naval side though will not be touched until at least a matched pair of Balkan armies have been readied - originally, in the 1900 guise this was to be the Greeks and Turks but now, for 1912, the Bulgarians will feature instead of the Hellenic army.

I think I should qualify my apparent about face from a 1900 hypothetical set up to an actual 1912 version. The latter was always my first choice but I got really hung up about the Bulgarian infantry uniform and the apparent difficulty in tackling the naval side from a scratch building perspective. Initially I really did not fancy attempting this as I thought it would be way too difficult but am now far better prepared to take on such a project by virtue the model making experience accrued during the ACW ship building project. I have the fleets in 1/3000th in any event but want the models in a larger size - they are much nicer to game with. A destroyer that is 180 ft long does not look particularly imposing in 1/3000th but for my plans these will be around 1 3/4" - much more usable!
Now that these two potential problems have been addressed/alleviated to a certain extent (at least psychologically) my mind can now rest easy and focus on that which it should have been doing so from the outset - The Balkans, 1912/13.