MiniatureWars.Com
A wargamer’s journal….
Freedonian Characters
Jan 24th
Leading the Keuhankian depradations (or advising them on the ins and outs) are two nefarious Freedonian officers:
The Comte de Legerdemain and his second, Chevalier Hubert de la Pâté Feuilletée (known as Double-Scalp due to his very bad wig).
Legerdemain also functions as Regimental commander in the service of his monarch. (The regiment is yet to be named but will be known appropriately as “The Greys.” This is one of the first Front Rank miniatures I have painted. (Available in the US from the Miniature Service Center.)The proportions on this one are very nice and it was, quite frankly a joy to paint. The base is a sample from Litko Aero. It was the proper size and although I had considered pill shaped bases for my cavalry, I will probably use these for my commanders and personality figures. Since the bases are Warmaster size magnetic bottoms are readily available.
Pâté Feuilletée (Flaky Pastry) is also a Front Rank figure and is actually the one I painted first! He is mounted on a Litko thin plywood base with one of their magnetic bases attached. I’ll comment on these in a separate post. I decided to go with the circular bases as the Old Glory Indians I had were not standing up well and the 3/4 inch round base fit the Old School Wargame motif better than the square ones. I used Liquitex Gel layered over the base and then painted it black, drybrushing the base with Vermin Fur and Vomit Brown by GW. The Static Grass is from Zeiterdies. I would have had a picture of the Chevalier but my camera battery thought that taking three pictures was enough and dumped the remainder of the charge. When it has finished charging up, I will take more pictures, particularly of the Keuhankans I have painted (over 30!)
Thanks to Bill Protz and Michael Lonie for the suggested names or permission to shamelessly appropriate them from their existing armies!
The Horus Heresy Trilogy
Jan 19th
The Horus Heresy Trilogy
I read a lot of the books that GW puts out. I probably have 6 linear feet of paperbacks I have kept in addition to those I have sold over the years. I had some credit at the local Hastings bookstore and picked these up in one fell swoop. Since they were done by three of my favorite authors in the GW stables I figured I’d probably enjoy them. The series takes on the questions of how the Heresy occurred, who were the main players, and how Emperor worship came about.
The authors are good about keeping the story firmly planted in the 40K environment that the game GW produces develops. As a reader, you’ll see how the space marines interact with one another, what weapons and armor they use, and get a good feel for the combat of the 41st Millennium. Those who have played GW games know how the story turns out (of course, the final title Galaxy in Flames ought to give you a heads up!)
The authors use several characters to develop the story, both military and civilian, but I wish there had been more development of how lower level marines had reacted to Horus’ rebellion. The battle scenes are well written and convey the mammoth scale of war conducted by each legion on behalf of mankind yet you rarely get to see how individual marines were affected by the operations.
Overall I’d rate this series a B+ and one that I’d buy again. I don’t play 40K any longer as I enjoy Warhammer Fantasy more, but these add to the 40K timeline. Moreover, they provide a good starting point for anyone who wants to go “back” to the era and create their own legions with the Primarchs as leaders. Just use the current 40K rules and write up your own codexes. I’d like to see GW devote some time to developing this era as a gaming system other than the one they have in the Card Game. Because it does have violence and imagery devoted to some pretty evil baddies, this is probably not suitable for those 14 and under.
A digression to another period…
Jan 15th
When I have big projects in front of me on the painting table, I like to do two things as I work. The first is to listen to books on tape (I am currently going through Volume 7 of The Wheel of Time series – you can get lots done in 25 CDs worth of material.) The second is to have some smaller projects to intersperse with the stages of the larger one to give me a break. This digression is *literally* smaller than the Keuhankans as it is a force of 2mm figures based for the upcoming game “Land Ironclads” by Wessex Games.
The miniatures came in an army pack from Irregular Miniatures out of England. I purchased one of the Battlepacks from the Franco-Prussian war era, roughly coinciding with the time frame of Aeronef. There is not much info available on the rules right now other than the basing info that Wessex put out on their Yahoo Group list. I had picked up a Warmaster Ancients Indian army from Magister Militum from Little Wars when I was at MilleniumCon last fall and got some steel bases to go along with the army. Luckily for me, the bases fit the scale for Land Ironclads. I started small (no pun intended) with just a few bases to see how these little goomers painted up. (The pictures below will open up a new window with a larger picture when you click on the thumbnail.)
In this first picture, the group I painted is laid out in a tactical formation. Artillery is to the fore with a couple of infantry companies in support and flanked by squadrons of cavalry. The units to the rear of the infantry are two headquarters units that might have been Mitrailleuse as far as I know. They looked good as HQs, however, so I used them that way.
The left HQ (shown in a better picture here) is on a hill cut from a popsicle stick and then flocked with Woodland Scenics materials. The right HQ is next to a monopoly house that has the thatch roof made from Squadron Green Putty and has the chimney cut off.
The cavalry is shown to the left. What I think is impressive is that one of the set of stands contains lancers with pennants! Pretty good modeling jobs! Don’t ask me why the thumbnail for this one looks better than the first one above… I can’t break the code just yet. I think the picture is a big one and just doesn’t reduce down well.
All in all, I like these tiny warriors. I don’t think I’d ever play a Napoleonics or 7YW game with them, as the bigger figures appeal more to me, but when these are placed on the same table with Aeronefs, I bet the overall visual appeal will be terrific!
Keuhankan Indian Tribe
Jan 15th
I managed to pick up some older bags of Old Glory Indians, specifically, packs FIW-01 (Natives Advancing with muskets) and FIW-02 (Natives Advancing with clubs and hatchets) off of Bartertown. I had been looking at Conquest Miniatures Woodland Indians but the Old Glory bags came along at the right price! The miniatures were painted with the goal of being used individually on the battlefield with rules based on those from CHARGE by Young and Lawford.Here are some rough pictures of samples of the miniatures. I have not finished the basing yet as I will be putting them on 3/4 inch magnetized bases from Litko (and they haven’t arrived yet… won’t arrive when I expected them to, either, as they sent them First Class Mail instead of Priority Mail as I had paid for.) 
(I am still trying to get comfortable with integrating pictures into WordPress. I increased the vertical and horizontal space around the photos and they show up nicely in the rough draft of the message but not in the published version!)
The miniatures are the usual Old Glory fare. There are multiple poses in each bag providing for a lot of personality in each unit. On the other hand, there are a number of contortionists in each unit as some of the poses are… unique. The pewter seems to be of a softer sort than RSM or Foundry or GW uses. Several of the muskets came bent in a 180 degree bend back towards the figure as a result of the “toss ‘em in the bag” form of packaging. None were broken, surprisingly, but some of them show the results of poor maintenance. I would buy these figures again, especially now that Old Glory is offering their Old Glory Army memberships. They are a good match to Spencer Smith and RSM figures but are noticeably more slender than Front Rank.
First up is the infamous leader of the Keuhankan tribe – Chief Hakkaloogee. Here we see him celebrating another victory with the traditional Oak Ridge battlecry of “Oompapamaumau” … Note the trophy coat he wears in celebration of his victories over the mainlanders.
I hate doing close up photos of my miniatures because they show up every little fault. Here I can see where I got some of the Chestnut wash I used on the flesh into areas it wasn’t supposed to go. My approach here was to use Tanned Flesh by GW and then wash it with Chestnut ink to make it a bit redder and darker. The rest of the figure was washed with Kel’s Magic Sauce – a product that has black ink, something to break up the surface tension, and some other fancy chemicals (like H2O)!
Two of his faithful warriors are up next.
I was not as happy with these guys when I finished with them as I had hoped. In the final stages of a miniature that will be handled quite a bit, I usually coat with GW’s Hardcoat and spray with Dullcote. This time, however, I tried a tip I picked up off of the MiniPainting group and used Glass and Tile Medium (a craft paint item one can get from Walmart). Although it definitely dulled the paint down, it also took some of it off in places, making the figure look rushed and rough. So, back to the old tried and true methods of painting them up.
I’m pleased with my progress on these as I have completed 32 since the start of the month. That’s a bit over half way through. When I finish them up, I will enter them in the Painting contest run informally by the Army Painting Group on Yahoo. This is an informal contest where every month you put up some of what you have done in the month and list members vote on which project is “numero uno.” There is no prize but you do get bragging rights!
Book Review – Die friderizianischen Uniformen 1753-1786
Dec 31st
I heard about this book being placed up on eBay from someone who was a member of the OSW group on Yahoo (thanks, Guenter!).
This is really a set of books. There are four of them that come in a cardboard box with front and back covers as shown above. Each book is roughly 7 by 5 by 1/2 inches and packs around 200 pages *in each one*! This is a lot of material and some serious eye candy for 7YW Prussian army enthusiasts.
Books one and two focus on the Infantry. Text and plates are included for regulars, garrison regiments, and some of the militia and light units. The renderings are quite nice and quite frankly might be worth it for the flags alone. Slap the page you want on a scanner, do some easy editing and resizing in your favorite photo editor, and boom, instant beautiful standards! The third book contains plates and text on technical troops, service formations and Kriegsformationen (the translation programs make this to be “war formations” but it appears to be the odd-ball and units not covered elsewhere section – Frei Corps, units from Magdeburg and elsewhere). The final volume covers mounted troops. I can’t find the page now, but there’s even a section on cadet uniforms, so if you want your own little VMI style unit for charging into the teeth of artillery, you can paint it up!
Should you buy this or not? Well, if you are a die-hard fan of the Prussian army and intend to paint nothing else, this will suffice for many years of painting. If so, this set is for you. Do you do fictional countries and want to see what uniform styles were like? If so, I’d give this a definite… maybe. If you already have some uniform references on hand, this will augment them, but it’s a high price tag otherwise. Do you paint professionally or strive for historical accuracy down to the gaiter buttons? If so, this is for you (but be aware that the plates do *not* show trousers and shoe styles and so on – I just realized this as I was writing this review. There is probably text in the book that covers these parts of the uniform but I know just enough German to get into trouble!) I am pleased I picked it up and would do so again.
Hambone’s soliloquy – with apologies to Shakespeare
Dec 29th
To base, or not to base — that is the question,
Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outraged Old Schoolers
Or to break tradition to solve a sea of troubles and base for looks,
And by choosing, end the discussion. To decide, perhaps to magnetize,
And by magnetizing store them, on their sides
No more — and to magnetize, we end
The heartache, and the thousand natural shocks
That miniature warriors are heir to. ‘Tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wished. To paint, to continue,
To finish, to complete — perchance to rebase:
Ay, there’s the rub, for in the viewing of battles what thoughts may come,
What projects are left before we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause. For there’s always a new one
That makes calamity of so short life
For who would bear the whips and scorns of significant others,
Th’ in-law’s laughter, the proud man’s scorn
The pangs of despised paint schemes, the opponent’s delays,
The insolence of rules writers, and the spurns
That historical gamers merit of th’ unworthy fictions,
When he himself might his own rules write while
Wearing an Old School Thong? Who would family bear,
That grunts and sweats as he modularizes terrain,
With the dread of something not to scale,
The undiscovered eras, from whose bourn
No gamer returns, puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear those systems we have
Than fly to others that we know not the rules of?
Thus conscience does make hoarders of us all,
And the hue of uniform colors
Is matted o’er with the pale cast of Dullcote,
And enterprise of great pitch and moment
With these miniatures allows plans to turn real
And share the realities of action. — Command you now,
Magnificient Soubise! — Graf von Grunt, in thy battles
Be all thy successes remembered.
Fictional Country Development
Dec 24th
After spending a lot of time on the Old School Wargaming and Society of Daisy Yahoo Groups, I decided to work on my own fictional countries for a while. This is probably not as difficult as it might sound as I have been immersed in Warhammer Fantasy Battles for the last several years and creating themed armies has been a major part of that.
The map to the left was created with Game Mapper from Imagine Image. Clicking on the image will bring up a larger version of the map in a separate window. I have used this as it allowed me to rough out what I want the countries to look like and see if I could come up with a viable area. Boundaries between the countries are shown by a brown dashed line. I want to be able to continue the wars between these nations over an extended period so I can draw in armies that one would see in the Ancient world, English Civil War, Seven Years War, American Civil War, and roughly the end of the 19th century where Aeronef will come into play. I envision the wars to begin with open warfare breaking out between the Keuhakans and the residents of Neutralia. The Keuhakans are native tribesmen based on the civilized tribes of the American Northeast. All the countries have used Keuhakan forces as light infantry auxiliaries from time to time, but their raids against Neutralian citizens and “trading outposts” have brought Freedonia and Nuevo Rico into conflict.
