11.26.07
Posted in Uncategorized
at 5:27 pm
I asked him what he wanted and he said anything but a Dictator (as I guess he must have around a bazillion of them!) So I thought I’d do something unique. After all, if WHFB can have Blood Bowl, why can’t CAV have NASCAR?
This is a true-scale fighter called the Tsuiseki which is available in the online store. It’s a terrific model and my son asked me if it was a Warthog (the A-10 the Air Force flies). The hex base it is on is the standard one used for CAV and is about 1 inch across, so this is a sizeable model. I wanted to give it some personality and so mounted it at an angle as if it was coming in for an attack run. Then I got to thinking, what do pilots do in their off time? Barn storming, that’s it! So here is the aircraft coming around a pylon in a race!
The colors on the first photo are a bit washed out as I was in a hurry to get it out the door. You can see it has a NASCAR style number of the tail and a sponsor logo on the engine cowling! I went with simple on the humor part so if he wanted to paint over the STP logo he could do that and just make this a night fighter or something.
One of the things that came out well (on one side, at least)was the pilot’s name under the cockpit – "CRUNCH". Hard to do something that small freehand! I’m not sure it’s visible in the pictures but it’s black text on a white background with a red border around the box.
And here’s a little known historical tidbit. After the first Gulf War the Air Force wanted to get rid of the A-10s and turn them over to the Army, thus ridding themselves of that pesky ground support mission. The Army Chief of Staff at the time, GEN Vouno, wisely declined the offer as he already had more helicopters than the Air Force had planes!
Good hunting, Sgt Crunch!
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11.22.07
Posted in Uncategorized
at 6:33 am
I had the great opportunity of being able to teach at in the Department of History, USMA on two separate occasions – the first from 84-7, the second from 93-6. The map collections the department had were superb resources and have been updated over a period of years. An example map (the battle of Rossbach) is shown to the left. Valuable as resources for teachers, they also are good sources for gamers interested in setting up miniatures recreations of battles.
I had a chance to know Mr. Krasnoborsky, the department cartographer who was the "father" of many of these maps. He was a very polite and charming individual and the maps are a tribute to his skills. He told me once that he had been the cartographer for the US Third Army in WW2 and that George C. Scott’s portrayal of Patton was "very accurate"!
You can view the map collection on the USMA web site. This was correct as of November 2007, but given the nature of the web and changing military assignments, this may not always be the correct link.
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11.21.07
Posted in Uncategorized
at 6:14 pm
One company stands out for me – Decision Games. Back in the 80s I purchased a *Lifetime* subscription to Fire and Movement Magazine (F&M). A couple of years later I also purchased a lifetime sub to Strategy and Tactics right before the company was bought out by a bigger company that shall remain nameless. This company claimed to have bought the assets and not the obligations of the company and so stiffed a lot of gamers (myself included). Later, Decision Games picked up the F&M property and ran with it.
Over the years I have been pleased with Decision Games. They have honored my subscription and made numerous improvements to the magazine. Not once have they asked for more money. Not once have they whined about having the lifetime subscribers on their backs. Instead, they have given us a pledge system, more quality games, and revisions to old favorites (I have four games I have or will be picking up through the pledge process, and the two I have received to date have been superb). This "Bulls Eye Award" goes to Decision Games. These guys hit the bullseye as far as customer care is concerned and I cannot say enough good about them.
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11.05.07
Posted in Uncategorized
at 10:26 pm
I finished up painting the miniature early this morning. I then based her in the late afternoon and took her picture. The miniature is mounted on a slight rise due to her figure base. I used Woodland Scenics ballast to create the pebbles and grit at her feet and kitty litter for the rocks. She is covered with GW’s Hardcoat and then sprayed with GW Matt Varnish (I was out of the Testor’s temporarily). The water effect on the base was created using EnviroTex resin with green and blue inks added. The grass is Woodland Scenics as well, I believe, but I don’t remember and the bag was not labeled any longer! So tomnorrow she’s off to England!
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11.03.07
Posted in Uncategorized
at 3:27 pm
If you look at Grant’s book, The War Game (and if you haven’t why not!?!?!) you’ll find this picture:
The footprint of the buildings he has here are pretty small. The cabin I built looks like this:
The doors and windows on the cabin are low and small for the 25-8mm range. Initially I thought they were too small until I looked again at the Grant buildings. Those windows are lower and the doors even smaller! A few other Old Schoolers have used different methods. Here’s a few (pictures used with permission.)
These are super examples of OSW style buildings. I think that one factor all have in common is that the footprint on the table is small, limited to a company size element at most, but they are taller than the figures (note where the bottom of the roof is). I think that this is the secret to having a good looking OSW building, despite what scale it is.
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10.29.07
Posted in Uncategorized
at 10:05 pm
Andrew asked for a female figure which I readily agreed to since I need the practice. This was one I had on hand and I wanted the challenge of the quilted pattern down the front and some of the curly details on the miniature. I went with raven colored hair as I wanted to test my black to white highlighting, and used one of the fairer skin triads in the Reaper Master Series I could find. I am pleased with the face and how it turned out. The quilt is a brown based triad (don’t remember which one) and was easier to paint than I had thought (of course, it;s Andrew’s call as to whether it’s any good or not!) I am still struggling with getting the paint to go on as smooth as I would like. A large part of the problem is that I live in West Texas where the humidity is negligible. I like how her eyes turned out as well.
I chose to do the gown/dress in shades of blue as she does have a day job with the water magic department.In the picture to the right you can see the long, flowing raven colored tresses the miniature has. You can also see some of the teeny tiny details the sculptor managed to add. I had to wash the fine details with brown liner so I could see exactly what to paint! I’m hoping the figure will be finished tomorrow and then I can base her on Wednesday or Thursday as I am late with this already!
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Posted in Uncategorized
at 1:52 pm
This might be of some interest to everyone:
Below are the number of figures we typically get from a pound of our metal:
(foot figures)
10mm= 447
15mm= 250
25mm= 29
Keep in mind that Minifigs 25mm are smaller than most others so more metal is
required for most others (resulting in fewer figures per pound). This is why,
with the ever increasing cost of metal, I forsee an ever increasing value in
the smaller scales.
Hope this is found to be useful.
Best,
Tom Dye
GFI
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10.19.07
Posted in Uncategorized
at 7:12 pm
The BaterÃa consists of two guns with the number of personnel found in organization tables of the era. The drawing to the left is by the well known court artist Nosoy Picasso and shows the BaterÃa in action during field maneuvers.
The uniform of La BaterÃa reflects its origins as a Royal Battery. The dress coat is a dark purple with lighter purple cuffs, collar and tails. The dark color hides all of that grease and grime artillerists run into on campaign. The trousers are a tan color and boots are black. Since there are no other batteries in the army the pom pom is a color matching the unit facings.
The miniatures I am using are from RSM, sold by the Dayton Painting Consortium. I like RSM figures and the guys running the company are very service oriented. The picture to the left shows a gun in action with crew and commander in the background looking on. Crew miniature styles and uniforms are shown below.
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10.17.07
Posted in Uncategorized
at 7:46 pm
The company consists of 16 rank and file, an officer (not present), a drummer (not present), and a senior NCO (the figure on the front right of the company) denoted by stripes on the right sleeve.
I’m working on a name and history for the regiment. My initial impulse was to establish this regiment as being drawn from the ranks of the Académie Gastronomique of Freedonia. Known as the Regiment de l’Académie Gastronomique the rank and file consists of dropouts from the ranks of Freedonia’s finest chefs. During the siege of Mayonne, the Regiment distinguished itself by pouring vats of boiling chocolate on attacking forces, a maneuver known in books on tactics as "The Fondue." This part of the siege has become known as the Mayonnaise Miracle.
The other option was to refer to them as the Regiment der Kriegakademieköche. Roughly translated from German this means the regiment of war academy cooks. Somehow it doesn’t have the same ring in German as it does in French.
Later this week, I’ll get the entire regiment out for a parade and photo before starting on my RSM regiment. But for now, you can take a peek at my version of a page from Funcken’s works! (Thanks again to David from Not By Appointment for the template and Steve Mirvin at the Bishopric of Uber Gruntshuffen for the tecnique of painting the template!)
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10.13.07
Posted in Uncategorized
at 7:42 pm
In January 2007 I finished up my Keuhankan Indian tribe and got them
based and mounted. One of the reasons I put priority on them was to
finish them in time for the Army Painting List’s
January competition,but also for the satisfaction of taking a project
to completion. The Indians are made by Old Glory (OG) and I picked them
up used off of Bartertown.
Here’s a picture of the horde massed for an attack on the inhabitants
of the island of Neutralia. Notice the presence of the dastardly
Freedonian advisors! Most of the paints I used were Master Series
paints from Reaper
(which I prefer over all others right now). I did use some GW paints on
larger areas, however. GW’s tanned flesh followed by a wash of chestnut
ink gave me a nice reddish hue to the skin and works quite nicely in my
opinion, but after 60 of these, I’m not very likely to say they *don’t*
look good!
In the past I have heard some less than appreciative comments about the mix of figures OG has included in the packages they sell. I took several pictures to offer my opinions on this part of their line.
Indians with hand weapons
Here are the first five of the hand to hand weapons pack. There are three poses that I really dislike here. The first is the guy on the left that looks like his hair is on fire, the other two are on the right. The far right guy is a real girlie-Indian and looks like he was sculpted for someone’s daughter. The figure next to him is, I suppose, intended to be dramatic but looks plain silly to me.
This second set of figures only has one pose that doesn’t fit in well. The guy on the right looks like he’s just popped out from behind a bush and said "BOO! Now you can shoot me…." Otherwise, these are pretty nice poses.
Now we come to the Olympians .. the javelin toss, the relay, and the new world version of Jai Lai. Actually, these are OK poses and I like them. The spear the left hand Indian is holding is quite fragile, however, and I don’t expect it to stay on through much gaming. After it breaks, I guess he’ll just be skipping rocks!
Indians with rifles
This first set of poses contains some of my favorites in the packs. The three on the left paint up nicely and are unique.
The three on the right in this picture are also nicely done. The cape on the figure second from the right flows nicely and helps to convey movement. Another of my favorites. The Indian on the left *would* be OK, but he’s got his tongue sticking out like he’s been possessed by an alien!
These last three fall into the average category. The guy in the center, however, has a poorly designed rifle and both of the figures in this pose had severe barrel droop and warping. The one pictured here actually broke off while I was painting it and had to be reglued with super glue. I imagine after the first couple of games he’ll be carrying a sawed off musket.
Overall, these are two good packs to have on hand for gaming the French and Indian War period. OG’s army purchase program makes them very hard to pass up.
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This is a true-scale fighter called the Tsuiseki which is available in the online store. It’s a terrific model and my son asked me if it was a Warthog (the A-10 the Air Force flies). The hex base it is on is the standard one used for CAV and is about 1 inch across, so this is a sizeable model. I wanted to give it some personality and so mounted it at an angle as if it was coming in for an attack run. Then I got to thinking, what do pilots do in their off time? Barn storming, that’s it! So here is the aircraft coming around a pylon in a race!
One of the things that came out well (on one side, at least)was the pilot’s name under the cockpit – "CRUNCH". Hard to do something that small freehand! I’m not sure it’s visible in the pictures but it’s black text on a white background with a red border around the box. 
