Playing with paint

The great joy of imagi-nations is that you don't have to do much in the way of uniform research. That can go two ways, either you are free to go with anything that takes your fancy, painting purple and orange legions as far as the table stretches, or you can pick and choose elements from existing armies of the chosen period and combine them in interesting ways. Both approaches can fall apart if there isn't a cohesive overall scheme however, the important thing to remember is that these imaginary companies and battalions are supposed to look like an army.

In order to try out some colour schemes I knocked up a quick template in MS Paint, just an outline looking a little like a jacket and hat with the relevant turn-backs, cuffs and bits and bobs to colour in using the flood-fill tool. The template ended up looking like this...

...nothing fancy, just a solid outline (make sure there are no gaps in order to allow the areas to be filled with colour properly) of a jacket and small-clothes, a tricorne and a mitre cap. For Infantry Regiment 1 which is currently in progress the coloured template looks like this:

and for the forthcoming Infantry Regiment 2 I will be working to the following schema:

I know that it seems fairly redundant and too much faffing about just for a change of facings but personally I find it stops me going off on flights of fancy, helping me to resist using that lime green I bought in a moment of madness and means that when I sit down to paint, I can just paint.

And this is what I have painted so far...

More next time.

Rules are rules...

Still on the C18th ImagiNation thing at the moment and enjoying painting up the beautifully simple Spencer Smiths. However, they are not just for parading up and down the dining table, enjoyable as that is, they are for games and games need rules. This is where I usually come unstuck, unless I find a rare set that presses all the buttons (like Lion Rampant) I am rarely attached to any particular set of rules. This means that I have had to adopt a standard basing for my 28mm miniatures, based on the old Warhammer 20mm square for infantry, and then adapt the rules to fit my miniatures rather than the other way round.

I do love old-school rules though; uncomplicated, transparent and logical. Tony Bath's ancients, Charge! and Terry Wise's ACW rules are all sets that I have played and enjoyed over the years. Alas, these days I don't have the room or the money to invest in huge 28mm armies so I need something that plays like an Old School set but with units that are manageable, manoeuvrable and paintable within my limitations. Something between Neil Thomas's horse and musket rules from One Hour Wargames and Charge! should do the trick but since I can't find anything of that ilk commercially I will have to write something myself. Fortunately this is pretty much a solo wargaming project so I only have myself to please but even so, writing a set of rules is a daunting prospect. More on that when I have something on paper.

The test paints are coming along and I now have the first few done for my fledgeling ImagiNation, based loosely on the French immediately preceding the SYW. They will be pitched against a Germanic principality somewhere along the Franco-German border so I can use my old Warhammer buildings (or re-made versions like the cottage in the background below).

Musketeers and command from Infantry Regiment 1, all from Spencer Smiths C18th range

and the other side.

I am planning on having 18 musketeers and 6 grenadiers to a unit so that I can combine the grenadiers in the field. Obviously the rules will have to allow for this somehow. Apologies that there is no flag, I don't add the flag until the unit is finished, once they have their colour they are ready to go.

More next time...

Spencer Smith Miniatures - test paint

The last blog entry was entirely sans pictures so here is just a peek at what I am thinking of doing. The miniatures I found are by Spencer Smith Miniatures and are a bit of an acquired taste. When I first got hold of these a couple of years ago I was horrified by their crude casting and no amount of three layer shading would make them look like Front Rank or Minden. They mouldered in their box for a while as I gathered intelligence on them from SSM fans (of which there are quite a few by all accounts), I was painting them all wrong! Once I realised that a "toy-soldier" approach was needed I fell in love with these strange lumps again with their block colours, minimal lining and rosy cheeks. To be really old school I should have stuck to Humbrol enamels but I have enough problems coughing without thinner fumes at the moment.

So here is my test paint for my as yet unnamed C18th ImagiNation, a Spencer Smith AS4 Grenadier in mitre cap marching (from C18th, War of the Austrian Succession range).

AS4 Grenadier raw and painted - front

Rear view of same

I got those coughing up a lung loss of mojo blues...

Pneumonia set in a few days after Christmas, I blame enforced jollity and having to be sociable. That was bad enough, stopping me from painting, reading a book or watching the history channels on the telly but the final straw was the dreaded loss of mojo which struck again. It is the affliction that every wargamer dreads, that utter despair at taking up a paintbrush. Just like the common cold there is no cure but there are a few things that can help to alleviate the symptoms slightly. Lion Rampant has gone on the back burner for a while as I have been playing it quite a lot, a short break from it will help and allow me to get some enthusiasm for my Vikings again. I have also returned to an old interest to ease me back into the swing of things, inspired by the splendid games put on by the guys from the Loose Association of Wargamers - I have yet to attend one but they taunt me with fantastic photos on an annual basis.

So I am trying to recover my enthusiasm for wargaming with  a foray into Eighteenth Century Imaginary Nations wargaming, more often known as C18th ImagiNations. Usually set around the period from the end of the Great Northern War (1700-1721) to the Seven Years War (1754-1763, historians can't count), this is the era of tricornes and firing lines between minor states and obscure principalities. In the general political confusion of the time it is easy to fit in a few fictional nations, usually of a Germanic, Balkan or eastern European nature, taking the inspiration from a time pre-dating the unification of Germany and Austria-Hungary, or at a pinch, Italy.

Why bother you might ask. Well, the idea has a certain "old school" appeal, many of the great and good of the early years of wargaming had semi-fictional Seven Years War (SYW) style armies to illustrate their books. There is also the personalization that you can apply to your own nation, uniforms, army composition, commanders and tactics can all be experimental without anyone shouting "historical shenanigans!", its all intended to be historical shenanigans!

So that is the plan to get me back to the table, armed with a copy of Neil Thomas' One Hour Wargames - an excellent book stuffed with quick play rules, ripe for filling out into more complex games - and a few Spencer Smith miniatures I had knocking about. All I need to do now is to pick up the damn paintbrush...