Bad hair day for the Vikings

Hairy

After playing a game of The Crescent & The Cross I was thinking about resuscitating my 25mm Vikings for Saga or even Dux Bellorum. This was an army that was literally packed away some 20 years ago and never opened since.

Anyway, on opening the boxes and picking out the polystyrene chippings used to pack them, I discovered that some of the figures had become considerably 'hairier' owing to a nasty instance of lead rot. Some looked like iron filings attracted to a magnet while others had crumbled to dust. Happily, the vast majority are in perfect condition.

Crumbly

As the figures were recruited from a large variety of different manufacturers I don't know which ones rotted, and as the ranges are so old it's water under Stamford Bridge in any event.

AFAICR all these figures would have been undercoated with a polyurethane varnish stained with Humbrol enamel matt black, painted in Humbrol matt enamels and then given a sealing coat of varnish.

That was my standard approach for 25mm figures in those days and I've never seen this problem with any other armies.

Head torch

After the age of 40 painting miniatures becomes increasingly difficult because of growing long-sightedness. The need to get reading glasses, adjust glasses or use magnification will depend on the individual, but one thing we can all benefit from is good lighting.

Until now I've relied on daylight and desk lamps but I was given an LED head torch as a Christmas present and it's brilliant for literally 'spotlighting the work in hand'. This has transformed my painting life. Thank you!

Impetus: Feudal English vs Feudal Scots

Scots on left from the foreground: knights, peasants,
schiltron, ribaulds (advanced to marsh), Highlanders,
Islanders and the mass of schiltrons and archers. English
on right from foreground: knights, sergeants, knights,
Welsh archers.

Following the Pavia refight, my next Impetus game featured 15 mm Feudal English versus Feudal Scots on a regulation 4' x 3' area. My 15 mm Ancients/Medievals are another group of armies that haven't seen the light of day for at least twenty years.

As all the figures were mine I drew up the army lists for the sake of convenience. Each army was divided into three commands. My opponent, Ian, who ended up commanding the Scots, had warned me to balance the commands. I ignored this advice but it caught up with me during the game. Each army was organised in three commands with all generals attached.

Bloody Big Battles! - choosing a scale

Baccus 6mm FPW Imperial French

Bloody Big Battles! can be played with any scale of figure and 1" square bases are recommended, though they can be a little bigger. Although I'll be using my ceramic blocks to play BBB for the time being,  I've been giving a lot of thought to the relative merits of different scales.

I've long thought about using 2 mm figures for grand tactical games. Well painted bases and good scenery can begin to make things look like a real battle, but I wouldn't get much satisfaction from the figures or their uniforms which is the point of using 'toy soldiers' in the first place.

Bloody Big Battless! - Langensalza scenario: first attempt

Prussians at the Battle of Langensalza 1866

Langensalza is a small 'training' scenario available from the BBB Yahoo Group, and I decided to try it out using my ceramic blocks and Hexon terrain. Langensalza is interesting as the scenario is based on a paradox: the Prussians are outnumbered but obliged to attack in order to stop the Hanoverians from attacking and breaking through. This report will mean most to BBB players who are familiar with the scenario.

Clash of columns (Prussians: blue, Hanoverians: red).

Games and painting 2015/2016

In 2015 I played 23 games which is sadly somewhat less than the year before. These were three games of Galleys & Galleons, two each of Maurice, Hammerin' Iron 2, Sword & Spear and Impetus, and one each of Command & Colours Napoleonics, Crossfire, Popular Front (SCW boardgame), Red Actions, Lasalle, The Crescent and the Cross, Warhammer Age of Sigmar, Bloody Big Battles! and Micro-Armour. I also played three games using rules homespun by fellow club members.

I additionally 'facilitated' quite a few games, but I've given that up because it's taxing and I miss the chance to play myself. Quite a bit of the facilitation centred on the preparation of the 'Crossfiregrad' public participation game.

Bloody Big Battles! - scenery options

Terrain for the Bloody Big Battles! Langensalza scenario

using Hexon. This was my first attempt. There is room
for improvement.

Terrain is a big issue in Bloody Big Battles! Each battle/scenario requires the recreation on a 6'x 4' (or occasionally 8' x 4') table of a contour map with one or sometimes two levels of elevation above the table surface.

Various options are discussed on the author's blog, but my immediate thought was to consider a modular approach that would both look good and be reusable for different battles.

My ideas eventually coalesced into three options:

(1) Tiles
(2) Shapes
(3) Hexon

Hexon hills

WARNING: I'm leaving this post up for now, but experience has shown this is actually a very bad idea. Although the hooked pads do improve adhesion on Hexon, they also exert a vice-like grip on felt roads and templates. Simply adding another paper label to the underside of the blocks provides quite enough friction to keep the them in place on 2-tile high Hexon slopes. 29 January 2016

I've used my ceramic blocks with flat Hexon tiles before, but not with Hexon hills. I was just setting up a game when I discovered that the blocks slide down Hexon slopes like an ice-cube on a hot tin roof.

I subsequently bought some self-adhesive hooked pads designed for gripping textile surfaces. Partly for reasons of economy and otherwise to minimise damage to the Hexon, I cut these into quarters and applied them to the backs of the blocks. A small amount is quite enough to get a grip on any Hexon incline.

My steel-based figures have more traction, but any future Hexon slope purchases will be of the 1-tile-high variety rather than 2-tile-high type in order to minimise the ski-slope effect.

Bloody Big Battles! - some thoughts reconsidered

When I first tried these rules I misunderstood the movement table which marred the game and skewed my review. I'm yet to retry them, but having realised the error of my ways it was only fair to withdraw the original review and rewrite it.

I've had a long-term, if largely unrealised, interest in the Continental wars of the 19thC and wargaming them at grand tactical level. The interest was originally stimulated  by Phil Barker's forever draft of Horse, Foot & Guns. I joined the Continental Wars Society, collected a load of books on 19thC warfare, collaborated in a couple of other rule-writing projects, and bought some Pendraken 10mm figures for the Franco-Austrian War of 1859. But no wargamer fulfils all their dreams and the project was relegated to the back-burner.