A small skirmish

With my son Steven at home for a bit longer than expected, we decided to scrape together some troops for a scratch battle on the dining room table - most of my armies are packed away so we were using the ones in easy reach.

Firstly, assorted troops thrown on to a 4x3' dining room table and Steven decided to go with the Assyrians.

Initially I set up, then Steven, then I moved 2 pieces, leaving one poor chariot stuck out on a limb. Actually, that proved a blessing later as the chariot helped split up his attacks.

I photographed the table after each set of 2 moves.

We both went for a left hook whilst holding the centre. In both cases, that left hook would have to go a long way...

The first casualty was Steven's extreme right wing Ax element, taken out by massed archery. At the time, neither of us could really think of ways we could improve on our tactics in the battle but in retrospect  this move demonstrate two things Steven could have done. Firstly, he did advance his centre a bit - perhaps it would have been better to keep it further back. Secondly, his Ax would have been better going through the wood on his left flank, leaving the right flank to his archers.

This shows both outflanking movements working. My left flank chariots didn't get anywhere - throughout the battle, Steven got as many pips as he needed whereas I tended to come up short. My Bw became the outflanking units.

In the centre, lots of people bouncing off each other as my right flank tries to move back and keep out of combat.

My left flank continues to roll up Steven's right. If Steven had been a bit further back and had a unit of Ax flanking me from the wood...

These ones shows the start of the crunch period. Steven catches up with my refused flank but we initially bounce off each other.

Meanwhile, in the centre, Steven manages to surround my right flank blades... a win would be an instant kill... we draw... and I take out the rest of his centre...

So I win, but it really finished up on dice rolls - in combat, I tended to roll better while Steven got the rolls for pips.

Republic of Nando's

For those of you who remember The Republic of Cataplana there appears to be a rival.

My son Steven is currently visiting and he has pointed out that Nando's use the same images and story.

Merry Christmas

Christmas check list...

Tree all set up with lights on...

Presents for the family all laid out for opening...

Christmas mugs ready to be filled with assorted beverages...

Turkey in the oven...

Everything set up to go...

Merry Christmas everybody.

Card castles

A while back I mentioned on Wargaming Miscellany that I had produced card castles that I used as a teaching aid - basically to teach nets/3D shapes.

This photo shows one of the castles made - in this case, cut out and assembled by an 8 year old with limited help from me.

 The first picture shows the general layout. The walkways and drawbridge were on the card template and were drawn in the same way as the decking for my Tealight Ironclads article a couple of years back in Miniature Wargames with Battlegames issue 366. The pyramid shapes on the towers were taken from nets on the SEN Teacher website

This closeup shows the simplified drawbridge. The gate was a piece of clipart from the Internet.

Curry's PC World rubbish!

When you are getting something delivered and installed and have it written into the delivery details that it has to be after a certain time you  don't expect it to be delivered an hour early. THERE IS NO-ONE IN THEN!!! Any one with half a brain should know that!

Actually, there was someone in - I was having some work done so there was a workman in. He phoned me and I spoke to them but they couldn't wait until I got there - no, had to be a new delivery/installation date.

So 3 phone calls, one hour wasted (mainly on hold) and it's cancelled. I've wasted enough time with them. And they'll have to take their chances on collection. I may be in, I may not. As they said to me, paying £20 for time to suite delivery service is not a guarantee that they will deliver then. As I pointed out, yes it is if I make it a condition of the sale - contracts go both ways.

And get this - they can't arrange the actual refund unless I go back to the store... another wasted hour.

Guess which store has just had it's last order from me?

A Liche Lord and 2 ladies

These ones look a lot better 'in the flesh' than they do in photos.

The RAFM Liche Lord in his tomb entrance seems to have been made from the same dolly as the Egyptian Queen figure. It seemed reasonable to group them together, and they really do look nice on the table.

 The Liche Lord with a couple of winged friends. 

These are two of the 'Egyptian' ladies - one painted 25 years ago, one a couple of weeks ago.  

These figures are some of my favourite RAFM figures - but a picture over twice the size of the  original figure does show up painting defects!

Egyptian Monstrosities

Plus another couple of views of a Manticore.

The sphinx is the one that arrived with the two right wings and has had them swapped with another figure that used the same wings.  I like the face, not sure about the body.

More ready painted toys pressed into service. The 'Nile Crocodile' is a bit iffy, but does the job, giant lizards and cobras just seem to be very useful.

One thing I don't worry about as much is base depths. Beasts are supposed to be 80mm deep, frankly, if 60mm looks more 'realistic' then I use 60mm.

More on Chinese dragons

As I said on an earlier post, I intended to get another Chinese dragon and probably paint it blue.

Done.

I've also put together a vaguely Oriental wizard element, shown here with both dragons. Note to self: do a better photo of these sometime!

March of the Ten Thousand

Every now and then you go looking through things and come across something that had a major impact on your future interests. In my case, the young me had an interest in history, but the military side was very WW2 because that's what was in all the comics - helped by family stories as I was born just a few years after the end of the war.

Then one day I picked up a comic that wasn't about WW2 and suddenly I was hooked on Greeks and Persians - and this is the actual comic, still in my possession after, what over 50 years.

There is no date, publisher or any other info about it Even the author is simply credited as Xenophon, whoever created this version or the artwork is long forgotten.

But, there it; one of the major influences of my wargames career.

The Republic of Cataplana

I may have been neglecting this blog recently, but I've still busy. Which is why I've been neglecting the blog, but mainly it hasn't been a wargames related busy.

Anyway.

Went to Portugal this year and it has inspired an army, the Republic of Cataplana. It doesn't exist, never has, but if it did it wasn't a Republic. Republic just sounded better than Kingdom. Which is as good a reason as any.

Right, the background.  A cataplana is a sort of covered cooking dish. It sounds good and is close enough to Cantabria to sound authentic. Secondly, the inspiration for the army was a story they have in those parts. This is the Rooster of Barcelos,

The Rooster of Barcelos tells the story of  how an innocent man was (sort of) saved from hanging by a miracle in which a cooked cockerel crowed...

So I went for a medieval army. Tourist models of cockerels provide the centre point of the army and it seems quite quirky.

The King and his knightly guard. The shield blazon seemed obvious but I've limited it's use to this unit because it takes too long to paint. Plus my eyes didn't appreciate it.

Strangely, I thought it was a priest who had been accused but that doesn't seem to be the case. Still, I had the figures already painted so used them. I'm not sure who made them.

I wanted a vaguely Tercio feel to this army so used Aquiland pikes as the basic infantry unit.

The cockerels were bought ready painted. The front figure is a bird that was obviously very well fed and is used as a flier, the others are a beast element and represents, well, a flock of irritated chickens.

The only section of the basic army still unfinished are the missile troops - I'm basing them as basically equivalent to Sparabara rather than just bows or Ps so will put them 2 ranks deep on 60m bases. The army colour scheme is based on the ready-painted cockerels except without the black.

The Celts

Sometimes, timings don't quite work.

So when Harry sold his Celtic chariots on eBay I didn't bid - Celts weren't on my agenda. Of course, when I acquired the rest of his collection it consisted of masses of infantry, a few cavalry, and no chariots. Well, a few unpainted ones, but if I ever get round to it...

I can split the army into 2 -  Garrison 20mm and 'S' Range/PB 25mm. The Garrison figures included lots of  Sarmation infantry so some have been sent to join my Dacian army. The rest include masses of infantry, some archers and a few cavalry.  Others are ones cast by me and sold to Harry several years ago.

The PB/'S' Range figures - mainly (by far) PB include another mass of infantry plus some light javelin skirmishers. My 70s Successor armies included a 30 strong warband of assorted Celts; these were passed on to Harry years ago and have now returned, mixed in with lots of friends. A few of mine are in the picture below.

One thing the army is short of (apart from cavalry and chariots) is standard bearers. I didn't start with my conversions until after Harry had finished the army. Just another item that needs addressing. The one below is a Minifigs PB Range figure. I should also probably try and acquire a few slingers. No hurry.

Chatham continued - the lifeboats

As mentioned by Bob, Chatham Dockyard houses the Royal National Lifeboat Institution's Lifeboat Collection. As the RNLI is one charity that gets my money every month you'd think I would know something about lifeboats but I don't. So I'm going to have to just put a load of photos of lifeboats here without comments or descriptions!

HMS Gannet - Chatham Dockyard.

On his Wargaming Miscellany  blog Bob Cordery talks about his visit to the Dockyard at Chatham. It seems reasonable to post a few photos of my own visit a couple of years ago as a complement (I went during in April 2013 - and it snowed!) So I'll start with HMS Gannet, a Doterel class sloop that is supposed to be set up as it was in 1886.

HMS Gannet was armed with 2 7" Muzzle loading guns; at the moment it seems to have one, centrally mounted between the funnel and one of the masts.

 These do not look like 64 pounder muzzle loaders...

But the Nordenfelts are there.

Wheelhouse at the back always seems strange to me.

Others are general shots of the sloop.

And the stern.