03.08.07

The 1st Neutralian War – Flashpoint

Posted in Fictional Countries at 12:57 pm

The night became quiet again as the fires began to burn low. The screaming of the tortured captives had subsided and the last of the combats between captives for the entertainment of the assembled tribal leaders had ended. As the chiefs began to talk quietly amongst themselves, Hakkaluggee, war chief of the Keuhankans strode into the light provided by the biggest fires. A hush fell over the leaders as they gave their full attention to Hakkaluggee.

Scanning their faces, Hakkaluggee stood straighter and began -

In thoughts from the visions of the night, when deep sleep had fallen upon me, fear came upon me and trembling, which made all my bones shiver! Then a spirit passed before my face causing the hair of my head to stand up! The spirit stood still, but I could not discern the form thereof and it was silent as the grave.

Then I heard a voice saying “Are the teeth of the young lions broken? Why have you not cast out the invaders from your lands and sacred places? How long must the spirit of your ancestors be in pain!”

Angry murmurs arose from the onlookers, and hands reached for tomahawks and knives at this insult to the dignity of the gathering.

“Hold thy peace,” Hakkaluggee shouted, “and I shall share with thee what the spirit said to teach me!”

“Free this land,” the spirit said, “and thou shalt know that thy people shall be great as the grass of the earth. We know that the heathen have driven thy brethren far from you – we have pity upon you for the hard hand of the Enemy toucheth you – but you must rise up against this foe!”

“Brothers! Did not our fathers deal with the heathen? Did not our gods bring evil upon us and upon our peoples for treating with them? We should contend with them, curse them, and smite them… pluck off their hair and make them swear by their false god to abandon our lands! I swear to you here, now, that I will cleanse these lands of all strangers, every one!”

The chiefs began to sound their war crys, but Hakkaluggee stilled them once more. “Now hear from our ally, Double-Scalp!”

Chevalier Hubert de la Pâté Feuilletée then stepped from the shadows where he had been watching. Flinging off his cloak, he stood before them in the full dress uniform of a Freedonian officer. “Hear diligently my declaration, for this is written in the King’s name, and sealed with His ring that no man may reverse it!” He then pulled a scroll from his coat and began to read from the list of promises of guns, powder, and munitions his King would supply. Finishing quickly, he thrust the scroll into the air with a flourish that once again brought Hakkaluggee forward.

“Tonight we send runners to all the peoples of this land, carrying the bloody tomahawk to declare our intent! They shall fly over trails and back roads, through woods and across rivers, bringing the challenge to destroy, to kill, and to punish all of the invaders! Let none stand idly while we go to war!”

The chiefs could remain silent no more and they broke out with their war cries, brandishing their weapons and calling for the blood of their enemies. Pâté Feuilletée walked slowly back over to stand beside his superior on the liaison mission, Comte de Legerdemain. Legedemain turned to smile at his subordinate and mutter sotto voce, “Most excellent work tonight, Hubert. We have these savages right where we want them, eating from the palms of our hands!” Double-Scalp returned the smile as he once again enfolded himself in his cloak.

And in the dark of the night, the war drums began to beat….

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03.06.07

Savage Wilderness by Harold Coyle

Posted in 7YW, Books and Audiobooks at 1:36 pm

I have to admit that this came out as a book I will probably not read again. The premise is interesting, the setting is wonderful, the execution is tepid. I think that part of the problem lies in the fact that the book pretty accurately describes the warfare of the period – Indian raids, guerilla style warfare, not a lot of larger scale battles. I originally picked this up to give me a few ideas for my Old School Wargaming campaign and I have picked up a few items I can use. Small artillery pieces, coehorn mortars, earthworks, possibly even some of the French irregulars or Roger’s Rangers will now play a part in the campaign I have been working on elsewhere.I notice that on Amazon, the book is listed used for $0.07 – yeah, that’s no typo. I would pay more than that if I had to read the book… in paperback… but wouldn’t keep it on my shelf afterwards. Get it from the library like I did.

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03.05.07

Simply AudioBooks

Posted in Books and Audiobooks at 9:55 am

I have placed a link to Simply AudioBooks on the site. I listen to or read a lot of books over the course of a week. I listen to audiobooks while I paint and it seems to make me more productive (more than likely because I am sitting at my painting desk as opposed to playing computer games!) I got clued into Simply AudioBooks in late 2005 and have been a subscriber since then.

There are several programs they offer, but I am on the rental plan and will offer my comments on that. I use the 2 sets out at a time plan. I could use the 3 out at a time plan but that’s more money than I want to pay. The plan I use is about $24.95 a month if you pay on a monthly basis but is $20.95 a month if you subscribe yearly (which is what I do). Turnaround time on the audiobooks is about 4-5 business days from Texas. If I get ahead of the shipments, I will go to the local library and get an audiobook to listen to in the interim.

There are two reasons I use Simply AudioBooks rather than the library:

1) I have listened to all of the books I care to from our library so need more variety,
2) CDs from the library are generally treated badly by patrons and I have been forced to return several as they will not play in my CD player (I have a small one on the desktop I use when painting – that way I don’t have to get up to change them.)

I am very satisfied with the Simply AudioBooks service. I can get unabridged books from them as oppose to the abridged ones at the library. I listened to about 50 shipments last year which works out to about one a week. This works out to about $4.80 a CD. Beats the price of a movie and increases my painting productivity. You can sign up for a 15 day free trial (worth 2-3 sets of CDs) using the link below.

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03.03.07

Eureka Arquebussiers de Grassin (AdG)

Posted in 7YW, Fictional Countries at 11:12 pm

Brent Nosworthy has a nice article about the AdG in the Seven Years War Association Journal (Winter 2003 issue – available from MagWeb)and says the following:

A January 1st 1744 ordinance authorized Simon Claude, Chevalier de Grassin, a captain in the Picardie regiment, to raise a corps of light troops. These would become to known as the Arquebusiers de Grassin. This grant was in return for the distinguished action and zeal Monsieur Grassin had shown as a “partisan” in the Bohemian and Bavarian campaigns.

Formed at Metz, the corps was 1200 men strong, containing 900 fantassins (a contemporary term for “infantryman”) and 300 cavaliers (cavalrymen). The cadre of this corps was provided on January 30th through the amalgamation of the compagnie franches de fusiliers de Dulimont, de Vandal, de Bayel, & de Bidache as well as the compagnies franches de dragons de Rhomberg and Bidache.

The same issue has a nice section on the flags of the AdG, although I was a bit surprised to find that light infantry carried a flag.

The fine folks at Eureka Miniatures produced a nice selection of the AdG for their 100 Club recently and I was able to take advantage of the deal to build up a light battalion of around 24 figures for OSW gaming. I think the figures are *very* nice – highly detailed, proportioned well, and available in a number of poses. My only complaint was that the mold lines on some of the figures were visible which is surprising for new molds. These lines came off quite easily, however, and so it is not a bad problem.

The photos below are something of an experiment. I used Liquitex Black Gesso for priming and then took the pictures, hoping the detail would show up better. My first pictures were fairly disastrous as I did not have the camera settings adjusted properly and came up with what looked like silhouettes of the miniatures. I then adjusted the settings for a spot metering on the figure itself and this captured the detail. (Clicking on the image will bring up an 800 by 600 image.)

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03.01.07

La Petite Guerre

Posted in Fictional Countries at 7:09 pm

I have been thinking a lot about the concept of small wars as a result of my wanting to start my campaign off with a territorial dispute in the island of Neutralia. Using what little I know of the French and Indian War I came up with these as possible scenarios (one of which I stole from the Duchy of Alzheim).

• Outpost Raid
• Supply Train Ambush
• Reinforcing Action
• Relief Expedition
• Punitive Expedition
• Evacuate the Civilians (From the Duchy)

I put together how a possible narrative campaign could look:

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02.25.07

March to the Stars

Posted in Books and Audiobooks at 11:31 am

I started this series in the wrong direction by listening to the final volume first (one of the problems in belonging to an audio club and having to list alternates). The story centers around the third heir to the throne of Earth. He is a young, spoiled, miscreant who was sent to an out-of-the-way part of the Empire by his mother the current ruler. While on the trip, forces on Earth stage a coup and take over control of the government. Roger’s starship is destroyed and he and the marine detachment that is guarding him are forced down on a backwater planet. The story revolves around the struggle of this group to get to a spaceport on the planet and back to Earth to save the Empire.

The series would be good background for a series of science fantasy games. By that I mean that there is technology in the book that may or may not be possible scientifically. The marines have access to high-tech weapons but limited ammunition supplies. The natives have numbers and some very talented warriors but not much in the way of technology. The marines, therefore, have to downscale back to the gunpowder age and bring the natives up to this level. A number of the technological items are pretty clever – translation devices, nannites that can transform local flora and fauna into substances that the human body can use, and so on. There are also a number of large battle sequences on Marduk (the planet), Earth, and in the space around Earth.

It’s a good book and a good series. Four books was too long, however, and it could have been successfully done in two. It’s a good set to listen to while painting, but probably not fast moving enough to listen to in the car.
Audio book version

Paperback version

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02.19.07

Confrontation miniature

Posted in Miscellaneous at 12:21 pm

I recently was provided with a Confrontation miniature to paint for an auction supporting a tournament. It’s a limited edition figure made by Rackham as a giveaway for a convention. Don’t ask me what it’s supposed to be in game terms because I have no clue! Like all Rackham figures, this one has a lot of filigree, undercuts, and places that are just darned hard to paint! I used Reaper Masters Series paints on the model and I picked colors I have not used before as a challenge.

Originally I had in mind a scheme for the entire miniature that would look like the staff – dark colors fading up to light ones. Barf, was that a mistake! I tried again with a more limited pallette and used the ocean color triad. I think the results were much better.

The nice thing about fantasy miniatures is that there is no one correct way to paint them!

I left the staff the way it was, however, as the color shift was smooth and added character to the miniature. I painted the colors in first, then went back in and lined the filigree with brown and green liner so as to outline the gold filigree. The staff and hands came as a separate piece so I added them after I had painted the rest of the figure. I placed one end of the staff in a piece of blue-tac and painted and sealed the first part of it then just held on to the staff to finish painting it. The face was quite hard to paint as the details were tiny.

I washed the face with a black wash first, then used the Reaper light skin triad to highlight up to the lightest color. The right-most picture is not as good as I’d like it as there is a reflection that makes the horn look like the paint is not put on properly. Another new technique I tried here was shading metals in the same way as other colors. I outlined the ridges with brown liner mixed with a tad bit of black and then shaded from bronze to new gold (as the highlight). The figure was sealed with Reaper’s brush-on sealer.

Overall I am pleased with how it came out. We’ll see what the auction brings in!

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02.14.07

Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen

Posted in Books and Audiobooks at 12:46 pm

There are some books I tend to read over and over. Although this is a republished version of H. Beam Piper’s works, Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen is the lynchpin of this collection. How can you not like a story that has a definite good guy who helps a family in distress, and gets the girl at the end of the story!

For those not familiar with the Paratime concept, Piper has developed a race of humans that have discovered the secret of parallel dimensions and, more importantly, the ability to travel between them. The society had exhausted the resources of its world and is now an extra dimensional parasite feeding off of others. To maintain the Paratime secret and prevent unscrupulous exploitation of other dimensions, the Paratime Police were organized to keep tabs on activities outside of the home dimension. During one of the transitions between dimensions, Calvan Morrison was picked up accidentally by a Paratime Police shuttle and deposited in a parallel dimension that has technology which was current around our mid-1600s. (Kalvan was from 1950s earth.)The period Kalvan is dumped into is dominated by a gunpowder theocracy, Styphon’s house, which holds the secret of manufacturing. Gunpowder is doled out to the Great Houses (ruling families/nations) as Styphon’s house desires. The area in which Kalvan lands is under Styphon’s ban and is facing invasion. Our hero, who paid attention in high school and college chemistry, knows the secret and the remainder of the book shows what a challenge this is to Styphon’s house. There are a couple of solidly written battle scenes and the limitations of the military science of the age are on display.The second book in the series, Great King’s War, has not been available for some time except in used bookstores. (Mine has had the binding come apart and I hold it together on the bookshelf with a couple of rubber bands!) Now it is available in hardback along with the two successor volumes from Hostigos.Com. I have yet to purchase these, however, as they come in around $55 USD since they are self-published by the author. Even used they remain in the same price range as computer books.

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02.08.07

Character initiative

Posted in 7YW, Fictional Countries at 11:17 am

I am relatively new to this whole blogging thing, so I have been catching up on what’s out there and enjoying getting caught up. I came across this post as I was exploring how to use Google Reader -

Saxe-Bearstein: Initiative in “Tricorne Wars” (opens in a new window)

I like the way he has handled it here for a couple of reasons. First, it gives you a way to decide on who goes first in an alternate move system but can be readily adopted for a simultaneous system as well. Second, I think the concept of inertia is a good one. Sometimes good tactical commanders are unwilling to change plans. When I was teaching at USMA (history dept, 1984-7 and 93-6) I had a boss who had been part of a study on military leaders. The conclusion they came to was that successful battlefield leaders did not have to be bright and quick on their feet. The most important characteristic they shared was being able to visualize where they wanted to go and not being distracted by (or immobilized by) what could go wrong. Third, all of the above then ties into a command radius for each character. Combined with the characteristics in Tony Bath’s Setting Up a Wargames Campaign, this can give a lot of flavor to a series of battles! Good thoughts, Jeff!

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02.05.07

A Nomad of the Time Streams

Posted in Aeronef at 1:27 pm

This is a rerelease of the book by Michael Moorcock. I originally picked this up on the recommendation of Steve Blease from Wessex Games. This book falls into the realm of science fantasy – you have to be able to believe in both time travel and parallel dimensions for the book to be fun for you. As a source book for generating fictional countries and environments, this would be quite handy. You would be able to game in Victorian colonial times, a steampunk 60s/70s era with colonies, and in a world where Africa has conquered the globe. The heroes of the book (pointed out elsewhere, but now I can’t find the source) are all good socialists who believe that individualism and capitalism are dangerous concepts. I am diametrically opposed to both propositions, being a staunch capitalist and supporter of the role of the individual, but nonetheless, enjoyed the book and its stories. Moorcock’s grandfather starts the story as the narrator and over time, Moorcock himself picks up the story. The main character is Oswald Bastable, a man who had been an officer in the service of the British Empire in 1903. During a mission Bastable comes into contact with a native tribe that inhabits a set of ruins older than anyone can guess. In his attempt to escape from the tribe, he runs into a section of the temple that transports him to 1973. Over the course of his time in this era, he is transported to another era, and then another. His adjustments to the time shifts and, more importantly, the shifts in technology that have occurred form the gist of the story. I don’t want to go into too much detail as it would spoil the novel, but imagine, if you will, nukes delivered from dirigibles, enormous, city-crushing land leviathans, battles between fighter aircraft and dirigibles, a world where Russia never fell to the Bolsheviks, and you’ll get a good feel for the promise of the book.

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