Having a play - building a fort

Quite a while ago I bought a couple of bags of assorted wooden blocks, some of which were painted grey, partially flocked, and have appeared  on this blog before.

Other wargaming efforts having stalled, I came across the blocks and thought 'why not have a play'?

Very rough and ready, crude and lacking all finesse...

I simply started by by glued assorted pieces together to get a rough wall and turrets.

I started with 4 separate walls and put an outward facing of card. The parapets were originally set at 10mm, but I decided this didn't look right.

I increased the height of the parapets to 15mm - much better - and completed the final basic model. This was then covered in the standard dyed sand plaster I use for basing - originally this was a bit too thick, so I thinned it down. Then it was too thin!

The finished model is easy to store - the basic fort fits quite nicely into my standard Weston boxes for storage. I have loads of these - every now and then they sell them off at half price...

So, a crude, very easy fort to make. Don't know if I'll bother with gates on this model - the main idea was to have a play, but the end result was actually quite effective and could easily be dolled up.

Must do some casting...

Steven's Waffen SS figures

 As mentioned, visited Steven a few days ago and looked at his figures. He's now sent me pictures of a few 15mm figures he was working on at the time. Email read:

'Finished the figures you saw partly done when you visited. Plenty more to do  before I base them. Had a go at the the collar marking just as two white stripes rather than as actually saying SS. How does the camo look?' Pretty good I'd say!

Had a few days away

 4 nights in London followed by 4 in Brighton. Included a visit to see Steven and Sarah - yes, his figures do look better than the photos! He has finished some more of his figures and I hope to get them sorted tomorrow.

Meanwhile...

Normally try and pick up something on my travels. This time just got a couple of Airfix poly tanks, a Centurion and Patton. They were part of a batch of toy soldiers for sale at £4.50, I said I didn't want the lot but offered a pound each for the 2 tanks... offer accepted! No idea what I'm going to do with them of course.

Battles with Model Soldiers Game 1

 OK, Finally started doing these (in a way).

Battlefield laid out as best I could - Featherstone set up on an 8x5' table, I laid out a 6x4'. Meanwhile, the actual diagram on page 44 of the book scales out as 6x4...

So anyway, using the book as a 'guide' regarding moves and an actual 1970s rule set...

Infantry move 12' in these rules. So after the first move both sides have covered a lot of ground. Also, move 3 in the book has both regiments going into a single line. You can't set up that way and so I initially lined them up two deep. Being element based my units are also 24 strong rather than 22.

Because of the smaller depth of the battlefield and 12" move rate , it didn't last the 6 moves of the original - it  meant it was over in 3.The Confederates reached the wall first, the Union forces found themselves being shot to pieces... 20 dead with only 1 saving throw working, sadly the unit at that time was already down to 12 figures anyway...

That's where I ended the first attempt. I think I'll reduce movement and firing distances next time and see how that works.

Fun little game, over very quickly and didn't work out like the original. Pity the book didn't have photos of the battle in rather than the photos of random Airfix figures and diaramas.

Apocalypse lizard

 Latest from Steven:

'I have been painting the free figure from Salute 2019 (not 2018 as I mistakenly told Sarah earlier). It is some kind of post-apocalyptic female warrior with her fearsome lizard pet. Decided to do a bit of a pattern on the figures - the lizard is pretty obvious, but the woman also has a camo pattern on her cloak. I tried following the advice I received on your blog last time by reducing the contrast on her face to make her more feminine. 

I am also trying to improve the photos themselves, with an improved setup including the white background, some fiddling with the camera settings and lighting (although I don't have a second suitable light to eliminate the shadow). I also adjusted the colour and light balance slightly on the laptop - although the aim there was to make the photo more closely reflect the real-life appearance of the model rather than to 'cheat'. 

The official paint scheme is here:http://www.salute.co.uk/salute/past-salutes/salute-2019/ The official figure looks crisper and I'm not sure if that is due to differences in photography or in the painting - or a mixture of both.

Next... finally on to the Germans. I have a bunch of SS panzergrenadiers undercoated and ready to start on.'

 

 

Latest purchase

 I mentioned a while back I was expecting my latest 'snipe' to arrive via ebay - actually came a few days ago but I've just gotten round to taking pictures!

17 cavalry, including 14 S Range Persians, and 3 camels.

The S Range cavalry were the ones I wanted, so at £13.55 for 14 cavalry it was less than £1 a figure!

Which means the camels and other 3 cavalry were free!

Couple of other things. A while back Adam Banner, the designer of the Admins Range, sent me some pictures of some Admins figures he had painted - these are on pages.

Secondly, got round to getting my eyes tested - big cataract in my right eye which explains some of the problems I've had painting over the last few months! Referral in to get it fixed, so in a few weeks perhaps my painting might get back to something like normal. Seems that cataracts are a known side effect of all the meds I've been on for the last few years.

Old rules, Airfix stuff, etc

OK. last post Rick asked me if I'd made any interesting rules finds...

Before that, might be an idea to give a bit of history. Although I'd been making Airfix kits and messing about with a version of wargaming since before my teens I didn't actually know what I was doing. Got to Uni in Bradford in 1970 and discovered metal figures... Train Shop Supermarket in Bradford, Northern Garrison in Knarsborough (bus ride from Bradford, change at Harrogate).Did this for a couple of years then...

Decided it might be an idea to find out more about real wargaming. So I did the obvious. Put an ad in the Student's Union newsletter saying I was starting a wargaming club. 

First person through the door was a Mansfield lad called Pete Harris. Later on Pete wrote the Tercio ruleset used in quite a few Nationals. The first pre-Tercio set was a run of 20 copies we had printed off by the club. Pete also started his own club - though his call to arms was a bit more visual than mine - he put out posters. Pete was one of these people who liked doing re-enactments. Thus he founded a university chapter of Sir John Lambert's Regiment of the Roundhead Association.

The following year Ian Beck arrived. Which is how I found myself helping to organise the North East Regional Finals... mainly by booking the room and being described as the Regional Treasurer. Didn't mean a lot - Bill Robertson (Nottingham) and Pete Morrison (Halifax) did most of the real work.  This was when I first met quite a few Manufacturers like Bill Lamming, as well umpiring a game involving Peter Gilder.

The convention was also the first outing of Ian's Chariot Racing Arena, including about 2,000 converted Airfix civilians acting as the audience. I must confess I had nothing to do with this other than playing the game. No idea what happened to the arena - last time I saw it was in the attic of his parent's house in Halifax. The rules were printed using a Banda - a spirit duplicator. Bet not many people these days have heard of them! The other typed (plus some handwritten comments) photocopy is of the Halifax club's amendments to the WRG 4th Edition rules - actually played a game using them once. Against Ian. He won. I've got a funny feeling I could possibly be the only person to own a set of these that wasn't a Halifax club member. Though over the mid to late 70s I went there often enough!

Lots of other rule sets. These three are just part of them. Alan Cook was another Mansfield lad who joined the club and was also later responsible for rules used in the Nationals. The middle rule set was by Dave Millward. Although Dave was a really good player he's probably best known at the time for his feud with Phil Barker. Only knew Dave from conventions. The Pike and Pistol set were by Ian Shaw. Ian was in Liverpool Wargames Association, of which I was secretary. It's still going today, and at least one of the founding members, Ronnie Bate, is still there.

Also found my original 70s set of Featherstone rules... not a lot I can say about that. Met him a couple of times at conventions - really nice person. Think I'd spoken to him at at least two conventions before I found out who he was!

Also found the missing Airfix magazine articles I'd cut out! This is just a selection...

So, that's about it from that box. Lots of other rule sets and things in it, but gives you an idea.