April Painting

April's always a busy month. Working in finance it usually means year end processes so I wasn't able to take advantage of the long Easter weekend. Having a garden and an allotment I have been a bit busy outside too.

I have tried to set aside half an hour a day to sit in the shed and do some painting. Personally I think I get more done in seven half hour stints a week than in one long sitting at the weekend.

So attached are piccies of the new Weinpfalz regiment.




Being of a lazy disposition I tried to speed up the processes even more than usual and tried a grey undercoat/primer courtesy of Halfords ie for car repairs, which I had seen recommended for 1/72 plastics elsewhere.

It looked excellent but started to flake off from the bayonets as soon as began to add a second coat. I continued with care with a heavy drybrush of light grey and then white. I'm hoping that the Klear overcoat will hold it all together.

The figures are Zvezda GNW Russians - I'm always surprised at how good Zvezda figures are






No more painting this weekend we're off to Clun for the Greenman Festival. Maypole, morris dancing and much beer no doubt.

Hohenlinden(ish)

French troops tuck themselves up in little village.

This week's game seemed to creep up on us from behind. So we went with easily organised 6mm Napoleonics because we have lots of the stuff tucked away in boxes we can just pick and run with.

A quick browse on the jolly old interweb thing provided "Hohenlinden", Austrians attacking French makes a nice change. However it did seem a bit too difficult for the poor old whitecoats so I made it little bit easier for them, principally by ignoring the nasty weather but also giving them a little bit more oomph.


The French set up between villages and woods.

This was our first game at our new venue after being run out of our previous abode. The Social club we now call home is cheaper, larger, has a bar and the best cheese and onion sandwiches! Silver linings etc etc.


The Austrians advanced at various speeds along the woodland paths. Our Black Powder based command rules can make for a frustrating afternoon. But all is going well. In fact the only blunder leads to a Charge at full speed result speeding up an assault on an outlying village. It did, however, expose a heavy battery that was subsequently lost.

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Speedy Grenze appear out of woods to outflank the French and walk into an undefended churchyard.

Despite large amounts of Austrian horse being held up on forest paths the infantry march on regardless and on both left and right wings wear down the French; enough to break two divisions - which must withdraw.



Austrian infantry throw excellent dice and push the French back along the line.

After four hours play we called it a day with Hohenlinden still in French hands but with both flanks broken. The position would be untenable.

Good dice and a lenient scenario gave the Austrian too much of an easy time, particularly re assaults on villages but..

an enjoyable game that gave a good run out to our simplified BP rules. A couple more tweaks and they should be okay.

Tiny Zulu

When Jim told us that he had painted a complete Zulu army of 1,200 figures in a weekend I should have expected him to bring them in a shoebox.

However a good time was had by all as a beleaguered British camp await a relief force that probably wouldn't make it across the veldt.



The splendid 6mm camp proved more than capable of holding off repeated attacks.




Natal horse valiantly charge the iNdlondlo in a vain attempt to protect the main column.

A game that swung to and fro with dastardly hidden units of zulu eventually over powering the relief column despite it's awesome fire power.

Another airing for Black Powder which gave an unpredictable and fun game. Despite my lancers failing to charge for three successive moves.

Sadly this was Birmingham Wargames Society penultimate meeting at the Community Centre that has been it's home for forty years. Council cuts mean that we can no longer be accommodated at an affordable cost. No doubt we'll find somewhere else to pursue our odd past time.

Not all things are bad in Brum. I spent an extremely pleasant hour at Birmingham University's Centre for Early Music Performance last week. Bach, Scarlatti, Telemann and Purcell - the Duke's favourites - performed by very talented students from all over the world. Nice to hear this stuff played on contemporary instruments.

That was February that was

Only just realised that there were nil posts in February. The armies of Fromagere and Weinpfalz once again took a back seat to another diversion. Having had a look at the Songs of Drums and Shakoes rules Richard reminded me that he had a couple of dozen Front Rank Peninsula Brits all ready and raring to fight.

So a quick note to Front Rank and within a couple of days a couple of dozen froggie voltigeurs were on the painting table. Not much flash to remove and I gave them a black gesso undercoat, then a drybrush white. The idea is that when the colour goes on the shadows fall in naturally.

And it does work to some degree. Another dry brush over the top should do nicely.

A few piccies attached of the boys two thirds completed.



I have to admit that whilst putting together the armies of wine and cheese I had some qualms about opting to go with 1/72 plastic when there are such splendid metal figures out there.

Having spent so much time painting up a score of Front Rank I think I was right. I've enjoyed painting the bigger boys but I can't ignore the detail. And there's a lot more lace on a SYW grenadier. I would think it would take me half a year to paint up a regiment of 72 28mm figures.

Of course such a regiment would cost me £75 not a fiver.

WMMS Alumwell 2011

A quick trip to Wolverhampton today for the Alumwell show where I managed to restrain my spending to a few paints and a box of Zvezda Black Hussars. And some grassy tufts, And a box of Perry ACW infantry. And some matt varnish. Mmmmm not as restrained as I ought to have been.
Shows ain't what they used to be but still nice to go and see a few games and perhaps get some new ideas and spend some dough without p&p. A few piccies below of the very nice AWI game that fellow Birmingham wargamers Jim and Tony put on.

January 2011

After New Year January seems to loom ahead like a dark cloud of cold and, well, dark cloud. Now however it seems to have flown by. It's been a busy month on the work and family front but some wargaming projects have progressed a little; some well and some disappointing.

The year began with a decent multi corps 6mm Napoleonic battle. We played this using a simple set of rules based heavily on BlackPowder mechanisms. They seemed to work quite nicely.

On the workbench four sqadrons of dragoons have (finally) been completed as have another three companies of foot for the forces of Fromagere.

I had hoped to be well into a regiment of hussars for the wicked old Duke. However the priming went sadly wrong. I have been using Plastikote primer for the plastic figures and have had no problem with it. However I did find that a couple or three bayonets of the new infantry had flaked which I assumed was simple rushing the spray job and missing these spots - easily fixed.

The hussars however were a disaster. The plastikote simply didn't dry - they are still tacky after three weeks. I suspect that's a couple of dozen figures wasted. Fortunately they only cost about £7.00 for two boxes. Had they have been Foundry or Front Rank at £2.50 a horseman I might have been upset.

I did wonder if it was the soft plastic of the Hat figures that didn't like the primer but my best guess is that the atmospheric conditions were too poor. Perhaps too cold or too damp or both. Anyway most disappointing.

After extensive research ie browsing the websites of fellow wargames bloggers I went down to the local art shop and purchased a jar of gesso. I have primed the next company with this interesting stuff and while the process is a fair bit slower than spraying I'm hopeful it will be a foolproof method of priming my plastic - and possibly metal too.

As no wargamer can resist a bargain and a digression, I found myself buying Songs of Drums and Shakos, I think for $5 for a Pdf that I received within the hour. These simple but subtle Napoleonic skirmish rules have had great reviews on TMP and other sites. Needing only a dozen figures a side, at most, it shouldn't prove too difficult to paint up a couple of squads to play on the dining table.

Of course as they can, with a little tweak or two, be used for SYW freikorps actions, C18 American wars, Revolutionary wars, Carlist, Italian Independence, Colonial etc etc etc. I suspect a few more wars can be visited for minimum cost. I think I can smell the Vendee not far away!

Happy New Year

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Snow has now gone from Fromagere and Weinpfalz but after watching German Art on BBC4 wanted to have a Caspar Friedrich painting.








Holidays almost over but managed a bit of painting last week.

One of the sure things about his time of year is that the camera is out of battery power. So no piccies of the four squadron dragoon unit newly recruited for Fromagere.

Being of a cheesy disposition I chose yellow coats - never again. I hate painting yellow. Figures were the delightful Zvezda Swedish GNW dragoons.

Also a new company for each of the three infantry units are well under way. This will bring the regiments up to 72 men and officers. The aim is to be able to be divide a regiment into two companies each giving a "battalion" of 32 hatmen and 4 officers. (Again Swedish Zvezda).

Santa proved generous this year. Some jolly nice CDs - Bach and Art Pepper (not jamming together but would have been interesting), a few boxes of Zvezda (GNW and SYW grenadiers) and the Duchess bought me a Kindle e-book. Downloaded "Brigadier Gerard" in seconds - for free - and "Barry Lyndon", though that was 74p!

New Year resolution - play more games.