Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Victory without Qauter






The guys at the Goulburn Valiant Stormer’s are throwing around some ideas for the big project next year, a few of us think be 30 years war could be a possible front runner, as the warlord plastics lend themselves nicely to the period (still some discussion and dissention in the ranks as to basing conventions though), so with that thought a number of us have started to play test some rule sets. On Sunday Dave and I (we both normally play Warhammer English Civil War) had a game using the Free “Victory without Quarter” rules.

Using my ECW figs we each had a C in C, one cavalry general , two pike and shot blocks, one trotter and one galloper horse unit, one gun and a clubman for the parliament and highlanders for the Irish Royalists.

The game was played over 4 hours, I really liked the rules as I found they could be a little unpredictable and I liked the different factors for troop types and the card idea, although I think that VWQ will be a little slow for those players wanting to get two games in on a club day. VWQ still gave a satisfactory result and possibly would speed up after a few games; however I don’t think they would handle much more troop wise, two more pike blocks possibly and another regiment of horse each would slow it down even more. My ECW army is a mix of different figures, the Irish Montrose army are mostly Eureka, the pike and shot, horse, a mix of Old Glory, Perry and Eureka Highlanders and a Foundry gun and crew, On the parliment side, all Foundry and Perry except for the clubmen who are Warlord metals.

As the boys want to play a more grand tactical game I think VWQ will not be suitable for what we have in mind, although I would happily use VWQ for ECW. The next rule set we will play test is the Baroque set from the guys who wrote impetus.


Cheers
Matt

Sunday, August 8, 2010

Germans in the trees

A beautiful winter’s day today in the sunny city of Goulburn, about 13 degrees with no wind, I ventured out of the house and decided to do a re-org of the terrain boxes, after sorting out the buildings and the tree boxes out, I decided to refurbish some of the damaged trees with flock, creating six new poplars and a re-flocking about 15 others, I still need to refurbish about fifty trees, but I need some more rubberised horse hair, so a visit to the local upholstery shops this week is on the cards. I also marked out and cut the base for my manor house and some roman roads which I have been meaning to do, it should be all painted and completed by tomorrow night.








On the painting front I have finished my 28mm First Corps German tribal cavalry, and my last unit of 28mm Fenlon ACW figs Coppen’s Zouaves need flocking. I have also almost finished off my Warlord ECW clubmen, another unit of Foundry pike and shot, some Perry dismounted dragoons and warlord guns and crew, and they should all be on the table this weekend for our ECW club game.








My manor house has been cut out and will be glued down tomorrow, once I have painted the base coat on the base tonight. I have decided to do a fictional house but I have based it on an old Ian Weekly model, but not as big!
Looking forward to the clubs ECW bash this weekend, hopefully I will get some good pictures so I can do an AAR for you all.

Cheers
Matt

Friday, July 30, 2010

English Civil War revisited

Funny how I tend to have little things like TV shows spark my interest in periods again, I was watching "Supersizers" elizabethan food on SBS last night and they had a feast in a magnificent manor house. After the show I thought I would do some cruising on the net and I started looking at ECW sieges of stately homes, well that started it, I vsited TMP and asked if anybody had some ground and floor plans of maor houses and today instead of painting I was planning a ECW manor house with a church, a wall or ditch and perhaps a ravelin for a gun emplacement. I decided to have a look through all of my magazines and books today and managed to find several articles and a whole book I forgot I had on ECW archaeology, with articles on ECW seiges and buildings and lots of suitable structures feeding the fire, many were making there way into my sketch book for planning a suitable building(s). So this weekend I should have a start on some buildings for our club game later this month on the 15th. I also dug out my ECW figs and decided to move some into the production line this week, undercoating occured this afternoon of 20 odd Warlord Games clubmen and 10 more Foundry dragoons both mounted and dismounted. I also discovered that I had not put all of my flags on my built units last year along with one unit of pikes are incomplete, so some pikes to be made and some printing to be done this weekend as my daughter makes my flags for me with her wizz bang graphics program. I will post my sketches tommorrow when my vision is complete! cheers (excited) Matt

Monday, July 26, 2010

ACW ironclads

Well such a beutiful day on Sunday I decided to take some photos after I finished preparing the garden beds for spring planting. I managed to get my ACW 1/1200th Langton ACW ships out and take a few photos so I thought I would share them. A bought a few of these for a river fight game for the ACW weekend, but they never managed to make it onto the table. I enjoyed painting these and after undercoating I think I painted all four in about two hours, a basic colour then a wash in devlan mud, and I am very pleased how they came out, I am thinking about returning and adding stays to the funnels with brush bristles and perhaps flags.

here they are
CSS Albermarle



Uss Cairo


USS Benton


USS Virginia



cheers
Matt

Thursday, July 22, 2010

Goulburn Valiant Stormers Swap Meet

Goulburn Valiant Stormers

"White Lead Elephant, car boot swap meet"

24th of July , Saturday 10 am -3pm
8 Railway Parade Marulan
.




Weather permitting..it will be quite cold but should be dry...


Bring a blanket card table whatever and all the stuff you are going to NEVER read, paint or play with and sell trade or swap with others of a like mind discuss what you intend to bring or what you intend to pick up on this thread here http://passageoflines.50.forumer.com/viewtopic.php?f=40&t=1220.


We can get about 25 cars into the backyard so there should be enough room? A goodly distance between Canberra (1 hr 20mins) and Sydney (1 hour 40 mins) ..sausage sizzle coffee and tea available at the location and local eateries and coffee are part of the general ambiance.


Bring lots of bags or boxes to carry home your loot and lots of small notes, it is very hard to get change around here . Bring a raincoat and an umbrella and don't park on the railway side of the road, you will get a golfball through your windscreen!


cheers
Matt

Sunday, July 18, 2010

"Kingmaker 2010"

Well only a few members made it up this month so only five players for the sheildwall games, and I managed to take some bad pics and get a drubbing with my Flemish, but the good company and lunch made up for my misery. Louis and Guy won both games so a draw after all for first place. After we finnished we played 1/72 scale Wings of War with Marks fast play WOW with dice, Marks Rohden Gothas were huge and his Se5s, Fe2s were excellent along with a great range of early german kit. Five of us played and it was great fun, Sam was excited to shot down Boyd in his fancy Albatross, and I got mark on a single dice roll of 100! All of us have promised to paint our hordes of unpainted plastic ww1 aircraft we have around the place and get them on the table in the next few months. I have added the few pictures that did work out below. I have on the painting desk at the moment more 20mm germans, more 28mm Sassanids and some successor Greeks and ancient German cavalry as roman allies.

cheers
matt









Friday, June 18, 2010

Australian Light Horse & Kreigsmarine

Been painting a lot of other peoples stuff so I thought I would post some of my work.Wartime Australian Light Horse, some 20mm German kreigsmarine chaindogs for the Guild painting comp too.




currently working on for myself some more ACW Mark Fenlon 28mm and some Langton ACW Ironclads which I should have done for this weekend. Next back to 18th century for a while and maybe some more ww2.