Wargamer's Wandering Minds (to the dark ages)

Kinda like Wandering Eyes, but for Miniature Games...

Let's wander off to the dark ages.  I have a decent collection of Vikings, Saxons, and Normans that have sat around dormant for awhile.  I've been very faithful to the ACW and AoS for the last year but lately I've been tempted to dabble back into the dark ages, kinda like when you run into  an ex-girl friend that's been to the gym a lot. 

Because of this sexiness from Warlord Games

Hail Caesar she says?  I like Hail Caesar rules
Dark Age Sagas she says?  I like the games set in the dark ages...
Volume 1?  So more in the future...
Updated rules for the Dark ages, including a new rule for being in a shield wall she says?  HELLO baby!  I've missed you so much...

but then again...

Dark Age rule Sets Quibbling 

While I love dark age skirmish games and dark age battles;  I couldn't really find a ruleset that I really liked for mass battles.  I tried a couple of different rule sets (War and Conquest, Age of Empires, Sword and Spear, and Hail Caesar), and all were decent games* but none of them really rang my bell completely as in 'now this is what I want.'  But let's talk for about Hail Caesar for the moment.

Hail Caesar came the closest to what I wanted; but I don't love the command roll and I really didn't think it did a good job of modeling units in a formal shield wall.  The command roll in HC (and for that matter Black Powder) can be lame because if you are controlling 1 division and fail your first roll, (basically need to roll 8 or less on 2d6, and there's no way to modify that roll), then you don't do anything for most of the turn which is BORING.  The obvious fix is to have each player control at least 2 divisions, so that the odds of failing both command rolls on the first attempt are very low; ensuring that a player will most likely be able to move something.  Sometimes I'm surprised that 'roll to activate' mechanics are still around, as nobody likes them.  No one wants to roll dice and then do nothing.  A better game mechanic I've seen is a 'roll for type of activation;'  the better the roll the more options, the worse the less options or even moving in retreat, but at least retreating is doing something.  Even if you have to move your units backwards it's better than rolling dice, cursing, then stating "well, my movement is over.  you guys go ahead and do your moves while I wander away and get something to eat and maybe I'll be back in time for shooting."

The shield wall problem was more complex: there really wasn't a good mechanism to illustrate a bunch of men forming a compact shield wall to make them harder to kill.  yeah you could use the  'close ranks'  ability (-1 to hit, +1 to save) but after a few games of this I realized that ability actually SUCKED and you should never do it.  EVER.  It actually makes it more likely you will lose the combat, which in HC means you take the Break test, which means there's a chance to lose the unit.  AND the way to win at HC is make the other guy take more break tests. 

What HC is good at is putting on a good looking game with long battle lines smashing together and grinding it out with some excitement.  It's also easy to pick up, doesn't take too long, and is easy to construct scenarios with.  Overall I think it's a pretty decent generic rule set though.

The new book has a new shield wall rule, which sounds better than anything I could come up with. Which is the main point about buying expansions: I'm paying for someone to think for me.

*OK, fine, let's talk about the other rule sets:
War and Conquest was just a little too complicated and the I found the shooting to be WAY overpowered.  In all the games I played my formed units in Shield wall formation would get shot to pieces by large groups of skirmishers, which in my mind should NOT happen; formed infantry should not be done in by skirmishers.   Also I discovered that I didn't like building units from individual models and individual casualty removal.  just too picky.

Sword and Spear has a lot of stuff I like except one big thing that bugs me: while you can move units as a group together, when it comes to charging into contact units have to move one at time, alternating with the other player.  So instead of smashing your battle-line against his battle line, you dribble units in piecemeal which doesn't match my perception of dark age battles.

So Like an Itch

It is funny to me how the dark ages genre kinda resurfaced in my brain, completely unbidden.  I'm still focused on ACW (and have some serious hobby plans for the troops) but now all of a sudden I am seduced into thinking about dark age games and scenarios.  The obvious way to scratch this itch is to play a game with my dark age miniatures.  After all, I have all these painted miniatures and terrain for a reason.  Of course my life is not cooperating and recent events are having me with little time to escape to play games.  For the time being I'm one of those guys who builds and paints but won't get a game in anytime soon.  I wonder how that will effect the blog; what do you do with a wargaming blog when you're not wargaming?

The next best thing is of course to buy something and/or build something.  I shouldn't buy any miniatures because I have PLENTY lying around.  So I'll likely buy the book (especially bc Warlord has free shipping right now due to the royal wedding).  And for a small project I found 18 Norman Crossbow men that I had purchased from someone else oh-so-long-ago that needed rebasing.  So that was that.

These guys basically came on a 4 x 4 base that I destroyed awhile ago
.  It was a simple matter of just preparing and gluing them to the new 25mm rounds and then doing the ground textures

Like so.. tadaa!  

And while putting the guys away I took a moment to organize and inventory the collection of Normans so far.  I grouped them by type and counted and got:

59 Infantry
24 Archers
31 Crossbows
16 Unarmored Knights
35 Armored Knights
2 leaders.   

or roughly 60 infantry, 60 missile, and 60 cavalry.  Just like I planned it. 
Also my smallest Dark Age army. 

I give you The Norman Army:

Ariel shot of all the groups

Norman Infantry

Armored Knights

Unarmored Knights

Crossbows

Archers!

Fun fact about these Normans: I only painted maybe 4-8 of them.  All others are bought from other gamers or paint service.  That's right, this force is completely mercenary; just like the real Normans.

Successful Wargamer?

So what happened:
I fell victim to marketing strategy that sometimes gets to me: Making a generic rule set and an endless amount of supplements for that rule set; also succumbed to "new shiny syndrome"  albeit in book form, of a genre I'm not doing anytime soon.  But at least it's a continuation of a current wargaming period and not something just totally random.  Therefore:  partial success!

I did something different to break up the constant ACW and AoS, and increased my collection of completed figures; Therefore success!

Found something to blog about, maybe worth reading?
Maybe.
Partial success!

Frosted Sparkle Varnish fix

I love/hate Army Painter Products.  

I really like the Army Painter Quickshades.  It adds shading and protects the model, and fits my painting style of doing a larger bunch of miniatures at once; making an effort to make each miniature decent but not painstaking.  There are some tricks to it, but overall it's pretty forgiving.  It's only big draw back is of course, it leaves the model looking very shiny.  Requiring you to apply a matt varnish to model.  Enter the Army Painter Anti-shine Matt Varnish Spray.


I really dislike the Army Painter Anti-shine spray.  I love it when it works, but it does seem SO super finicky and sometimes ends in disaster with the dreaded frosted effect where it looks like the model has a layer of ice on it like it just finished giving Princess Elsa a hug.  Or the frosted sparkle look from the Twilight movies with the sexy vampires (or so I've heard; it's not like I watched the movies or know what I'm talking about but I was team Edward all the way.)

Edward and I had the same haircut

There's almost too many things that can go wrong with the anti shine spray, leaving your miniature with this terrible glassy effect: it can be too humid, too cold, too hot, sprayed too close, sprayed too soon, sprayed too heavy, or the can not shaken enough...  in other words lots of room for human error.  I am very prone to human error.

My recent project with the ACW limbers suffered this (see previous post):  I had a new can, it was 81 degrees outside, Humidity was 33%,  but maybe I didn't shake the can enough in a counter clockwise motion while singing the national anthem long enough before I sprayed the miniatures because they all came out frosted like they were all made of stars (remember that song?)

Quiet Moby, Nobody remembers your music.

GGGAAAHHHHH

I sprayed the miniatures after letting the quickshade dry, and saw the whole bunch start to frost up.  After some cursing the world and drying my tears, I took some pictures for examples but not a single limber escaped the terror;   can you see the frosting?  

Limber looks like it's covered in snow

glazed horses, check out the the dark brown one

really bad on the tail

Gahh!

"We are all made of Stars"
I just put that song in your head.
From 15 years ago.

This has happened before, but in smaller numbers and not to this degree; this was the worse because it was significant and on all the miniatures.  I might need to re-evaluate how I mat varnish my miniatures.

But the Solution was Actually Simple.

I did some internet searches and read some stuff on TMP.  Now that I know what to do, if this happens again then I doubt I'll have as much angst as I did.  The solutions I read were all basically this:  let the stuff thoroughly dry and then basically try it again. Except one person stated that you rubbed the miniature with Olive oil, which seems like a strange thing to do; and I have a hard time imagining a thought process that would lead to such a conclusion.

So a few hours later I tried to mat varnish again, but not trusting the spray, I found my little bottle of brush on Vallejo Matt Varnish.

As you might surmise:  I use this small bottle of Matt Varnish when I'm doing a small number of figures and I like the spray when I'm in a more productive phase...

I painted the Vallejo Matt Varnish over the sparkly-frosted miniatures and was pleased to see that it did the trick ad significantly damped the damage.  I took some pictures of the same miniatures after the Vallejo so one can compare and contrast....These are in the same order as posted above.

Notice the dark brown one again.  

Now that the frosting effect is gone, one can really see the mediocre paint job.

All better now; brushing on matt varnish over the frosty spray varnish seemed to do the trick.
So I went ahead and repaired all the frosty sparkly miniatures and no one would of ever been the wiser except for this post and my own big mouth.

Those that did not see the previous post can see how the completed miniatures turned out by looking  HERE  <--link to previous post.

This frosty / sparkly effect from spray varnish is an issue I often see on TMP.  Sometimes I question the utility of using it at all.

Overall this turned out to be a fun little adventure in miniature hobbying.
Hope you might of found this post useful and a little humorous.  

Now Where Was I,... oh yes, wargaming blog

Gamer, Interupted

SOOOOooo how are you?  It's been awhile.  

There was a short interruption in blogging due to growing family responsibilities, in that the size of the family grew with the birth of son #2 in early April.  This has been coming for awhile now ( I wasn't really surprised), and accounts for the shockingly low number of games played in this year.  I'm gonna have trouble hitting the goal of 24 games for the year; I should be at 6 by now and only have 3.  

Word of advice; having a baby around when you're in your early 40s is MUCH harder than it is when you're in your mid 30s.  Who woulda thunk?  

Though one benefit of being a slightly older father is that one is somewhat more established, and I've been enjoying a long Paternity leave from work; and will do so until mid May.  Going into my paternity leave I had some excitement that I would get SO MUCH hobbying done.  I mean, I just gained 40 hours a week (not to mention the time spent commuting), and even if only 2 of those 40 hours could be devoted to hobby stuff and the rest to new baby and family or whatever, then I really should have lots more time to engage in painting and such, right?  

I Miscalculated

That was a totally wrong assumption, and there I was, many weeks into my leave and I'd done ABSOLUTELY NOTHING for wargaming except doing some online searches for cool wargame stuff while the wife was in labor.   No, that's not true.  Well it's not completely true, but definitely true during the boring parts, and the whole process takes like ALL DAY...

Staying at home being devoted to family is great and all (or NOT great, depending on moods), but it seemed that whenever I try to sit down for some panting and hobbying, this happened:

I can't get any painting done!
I have no time for playing games!

There I am in ALL MY GLORY.  I'm sure I'm even more handsome than you imagined.  Just another average gamer. It's amazing what calories and time will do to a man.

Persistently picking up where I left off...

So with a combination of buckling down,  the family finally settling into a rhythm of a new normal, and greatly spurred along with a growing sense of desperation that I was going to go crazy without some downtime; I returned to the hobby desk to see what was about.  I found that large ACW project right where I left it:  making a bunch of artillery limbers and markers.

ACW Artillery limbers

Markers of artillery being damaged (dead horses) and low on Ammo (ammo boxes)

Now this is a project I've been putting off for a long time now.  I'm not sure one actually needs Limbers to play ACW.  So far I've used a complicated system that if the guns were facing the enemy they were unlimbered and if facing away they were limbered; without any distress and confusion.  And while they do pretty up the table they seem like a lot of work for little gain.  However every ACW rules I like do require markers for when guns become damaged or run out / run low on ammo.
But since I was fool enough to order limbers in the first place I might as well make them.  I'll probably be glad I did; is what I am telling myself.

And as an added bonus, this is the only project cluttering up the hobbydesk and I feel a rush of excitement when I clear off the hobby desk with completed projects!  A sense of freedom to start new ones!  A sense of accomplishment that something was done.  I probably need to get out more.

I also received extra motivation in that a couple of the blogs that I follow where doing great posts with ACW content (I'm looking at you Tony, Dan, Norm, and Matt, so thank you!).  Nothing motivates you to paint miniatures that you only half wanna paint more than reading cool content on the same genre.

Limber UP!  or Artillery Accessories

Just under the wire, with a week or so left in my leave, I finished these.  It took forever, but at least now I can say I was productive during my paternity and completed something!  : ) 

And I'll cut myself some slack as I did paint 46 horses for this project, and horses always take longer to paint.

the original plan was to have each limber be like these, with 4 horses each.
But that was crazy because it meant painting even MORE horses, so I only made 3

16 limbers completed, and with my sleep deprived mind instead of making 8 for the CSA and 8 for the USA as intended, I gave the USA one extra (so 7 CSA and 9 USA).  It was an easy mix up to make because 1) I'm biased toward the Union and 2) the only thing that differentiates a confederate limber from a  union limber is the uniform of the guy sitting on it.

Union Limbers with men in blue..

Hey, this isn't Naps, where the Franco-Prussian-Australian artillery batalion was a different color than the British-Spanish-Brazilian one.  : ) 

CSA limbers with men in gray...

While at some point I know that I'll have to add more limbers, I'm thinking 8 markers each of Low on Ammo (the ammo boxes) and damaged battery (dead horses) will be enough..

I actually think these markers came out looking pretty good. 

So I'm planing on getting back to posting more regularly as I was, about 2-3 times a month.  But now with a clean hobby desk, where will the next project be?

Thanks for reading.  Comments appreciated.

Special thanks to BW

Since I started blogging, I feel I have made some On-line friends, which is good and fun and something I enjoy very much.  Leaving comments on people's blogs, reading the replies, and receiving comments in return is especially gratifying.  And more to the point, one of the main reasons for doing this in the first place was to build something of a community around this fun hobby we share, and to interact with other fun people.  A quick Thank You to everyone who makes this possible.

"My Captain My Captain" 

 But on a special note: As I've said in previous posts, BrianW is my Age of Sail mentor and runs a blog about sailing ships.  I have received a very nice package from him the other day that brought a smile and a laugh to me and my family.


See HERE


I was going to wait until I had somewhere nice to put it so I can post a picture, but I'm very distracted with other family stuff right now (nothing bad) and don't know when I'll be able to do so;  But I didn't want to go too long without acknowledging this fun (and touching) gift.

Thank you My Captain!

I'm enjoying our On-line friendship.

Set Sails V: a French 74

Cheater...

What?  another post and another ship so quick!  I know what you're thinking; that I had this ship already done when I posted the British ship and now I'm posting this one in a blatant attempt to increase my post count....  as if those things mattered...

NOOOooo.  Actually when it comes to ships;  I've found that I can assemble and paint two ships at once, but when it comes to rigging it's easier to focus on one ship at a time so you don't get lost / confused on what you were doing and miss a piece.  Rigging actually goes pretty fast once you have all the materials prepared, but it goes in stages; Standing rigging-ratlines-shrouds and backstays-running rigging (basically you work from the center of the ship to the edge).  And if you do miss a part of one step it's very hard to work backward as now rigging is in the way....

How was that for an extra fascinating peek into the process of model ships huh?  I mean, you pay for the whole seat but you only need the edge.

So I finished the British 74 and started working on the rigging of  this French 3rd rate 74 gun Ship of the Line, and maybe it's because I'm in a groove or something but somehow I managed to get it done very quickly.    Also, I foresee being a little busy in the near future, so was motivated to get this posted up.

A French 74, properly rigged?

Now ALL THIS TIME I'v been rigging my French Ships of the Line wrong.  I've been rigging them the same as the British ones, thinking they were all basically the same.  WRONG!

Turns out, as I've read on HERE, that the French actually rigged the Mizzen mast forward to the main mast,  and not backwards to the Spanker sail like I was doing.  I'm sure you all noticed but were too polite to say anything.  

-The link is to one of BrianW's excellent posts on rigging.  BrianW's blog is a must for anyone interested in Age of Sail.  Big bonus, he actually knows what he's doing while I fake it.  here's a link to his HOME PAGE and check it out for more pics of ships and history.

So here we are: a French 74 properly rigged with the braces going forward.  This one is also decorated with  a single race-say red stripe across the center. 

My big fingers included in the pic for scale purposes...

Vive la France! 

And true to my pattern, the French ships just come out looking sexier than the British ships.
I think it' the rounded bow..

Enough pictures already!

Going Forward

Now that the replacement ratlines are here and I'm on a rigging roll, I think that I'll start re-rigging the ships that were damaged in the shipping disaster  (which will be a chance to do the French rigging right) so that the whole fleet will be complete and I can properly call myself Commodore.  Don't worry, I won't post a pic of each ship as it gets done.  That WOULD be cheating.

Then, being out of ships, I can focus on something else.

Thanks for reading!  Comments appreciated.  

Set sails IV: A British 74

There hasn't been much time for gaming and hobbying lately due to family life.  Something we all content with time to time; not that it's bad.  But it does produce moments where I briefly walk into the hobby room while doing some chore, or pause in the garage while taking out the trash (my miniatures are stored in the garage), and glance longingly about the miniatures and sigh.

Even More British 

Anyways...despite me complaining there has been a few hours spend here and there at the hobby desk, in the wee hours of the night while everyone else sleeps (I mean 9 PM) so I've managed to complete a ship of the line.

Fresh from the ship yard is a British 3rd rate 74 gun Ship of the Line.  Painted in dazzling 'Nelson Checker.' 

I think this ship came out really well, if I do say so myself.  This is my 5th ship, so practice effects are apparent as I get better at getting the details of the deck down right (which are hard to see in pictures but more visible to the naked eye, but trust me; they're splendid!).

I have found that the double jib sails are a pain, they never seem to fit right with the foremast and I always have to bend them up and around.  I much prefer the bowsprits with a single jib, but when you order the sails it seems to be random on which one you get.

This ship is at 'fighting sails' with the t'gallant sails (upper sails) and courses (lower sails) furled, with only the topsails (middle sails) deployed along with the spanker (sail hanging over the stern).  This is just to be different from the other British ships that are at 'easy sail.'   I was initially toying with the idea that all the British ships could be at one sail set and all the French ships at another for the purpose of easy recognition, but now I want variety.

TLDR version: "Lookit, I make ship, she purrty."

Thanks for looking.

Shipping disaster...

Alternative title:  I'm father of the year.

Set the Scene

4 year old Daughter #1 comes into hobbyroom wanting to know what I was doing.  I guess the Peppa Pig cartoon ended.

She puts her foot on the plastic tub that has the Napoleonic ships inside, which I stupidly left on the floor, like she's about to stand up on it to see onto the desk better.

I say, "Oh, don't stand on that, the stuff inside is fragile, just wait a sec.."  and then I look away for just a moment...

CRASH and BANG

I look back:  She obviously didn't listen, stood on it but just on one side, and the thing went flying end over end and her down to her butt.  

SIGH...

In a calm voice,  "What did I just say..."

My wife says I'm father of the year for not loosing it.   

Daughter #1 did get a time out for not listening.  I picked up the tub and heard the tell tale sound of small pieces moving about loose from inside.

The Damage:

What a mess!

Wrecked rigging, bent bowsprits, mangled masts, ruined ratlines, and broken sails...(I couldn't think of a good alliteration for sails, maybe slandered? shamed?).    

I think the flags are salvageable, but the ratlines I feel are beyond repair

Repairs in process

Meh, maybe not as bad as it looked.  I think it helped that the ships hulls are glued on wide ocean bases, which are on magnets, and placed on some metal while in the storage tub, so maybe they didn't knock around as much as they could have.  I tore off all the rigging as much of it was ruined.  Bent the masts back in place, glued back on some broken masts and sails... All in all not too bad.

 Instead of trying to figure out which ratlines went where from that huge pile, I've decided that I'm going to bite the bullet and get new ratlines and then redo ALL the rigging for all these ships, plus the two I'm painting now...So the future will be ships for the time being.

The hardest part will be, when I make the order to WaterlooMini's for the ratlines, to resist the temptation to order even MORE stuff.  Like even more ships...

Such is the life of the Wargamer.  Trails and temptations abound.  : )
Morale of the story: pick up your things from off the floor.  : )