Never mind the medievals, here's a Pz.Kpfw.38(T)!

As usual, instead of getting on with my Lion Rampant retinue I am thinking about starting yet another gaming period. I have been surrounded by boxes of Zvezda kits for the past couple of weeks and I eventually cracked and picked up a couple just for "scale reference purposes" (cheers David!). They look so much like the Revell kits of my youth and I am not made of stone. The first one built and painted is the Pz.Kpfw.38(T) (1:100 scale or usable with 15mm figures) which I have left fairly generic so it can be deployed in France 1940 or in the Soviet Union in the following year or two.

Zvezda 6130 Pz.Kpfw.38(T)

Scale wise, they seem pretty good, I don't have any other 38s around to check against but the other kit I picked up was a Sdkfz.251/1 Ausf.B which is so close to the Plastic Soldier Company Ausf.C model that I would be happy to mix and match in the same unit. The PSC is maybe 1-1.5mm longer (difficult to say due to the difference in the shape of the nose) but the width, height and heft are identical.

Back to the Pz.38T. There are a few problems with the kit - the prominent trench in the front glacis that needs filling and the joint across the rear that is difficult to get rid of (I didn't bother, its a wargame tank, not a display model) but the kit goes together in a few minutes and looks a whole lot better than any resin or whitemetal kit I have.

For painting I removed the tracks and painted them separately, same for the turret. I gave everything a spray of Halfords Grey Primer, followed by a basecoat of Vallejo 70836 London Grey. This was washed with a very thinned Vallejo 70950 Black and then drybrushed up with London Grey again and a final light brush of Vallejo Game Color Extraopaque 72144 Heavy Bluegrey. The wheels got the same treatment while the tracks were basecoated in Vallejo 70872 Chocolate Brown, washed with Citadel Shade Nuln Oil and then lightly drybrushed wth Citadel Colour Chainmail. Balkenkreuz and turret numbers were painted in Vallejo Black, 70951 White and the numbers filled in with Citadel Base Mephiston Red (what would I do without it). I then put it all together again and used a drybrush of Vallejo 70875 Beige Brown to muddy up the tracks and the rear deck (the bit that gets stood on a lot).

I am very happy with the finished article and should be putting together at least a couple more for my 15mm Bolt Action force, alongside some Pz.Is and Pz.IIs from the same range.

Right that's enough of that, back to medievals...

Ottomans!

I have been needing something to kickstart my painting mojo and David Ryan at Caliver Books needed some of his wonderful Matchlock Miniatures Ottomans painted so here they are. These are NOTT53, 54 and 55 - officer, standard bearer and soup carriers which I have painted as Omar Sharif, ginger hipster and The Chuckle Brothers (to me! to you!).

These are beautiful sculpts (Mark Sims I believe) and they paint up well. I love the soup carriers, makes a change from pack mules and camels for the non-combatants.

The Bishop (directed by Prebendary "Chopper" Harris)

Some more guys for my Dragon/Lion Rampant retinue, these guys are Essex Miniatures from their Early Medieval 28mm range. Size-wise they fit nicely with early Perry sculpts for the Foundry Barons War range but they are a little less chunky, no problem using them in the same unit though. Nicely sculpted and easy to paint, if only they had a bit more variety in the poses they would be my ideal medieval range.

The fellow in the centre is Bishop Lennard de Brennan, brother of Robert and the financial muscle behind the household. Proudly displaying the cross of St Chad upon his surcoat he terrorizes the local population despite a tremendous fear of rabbits.

Lennard de Brennan daring the lads to kick him up the arse...

More next time...

Back to Rampant Lions...or maybe Dragons?

Well it has been a while since I last put fingers to keyboard, mainly because I haven't painted much and my interest has been swayed by a return to the Karate Dojo, leaving little time for wargames. However, I now have a goal; I need a 24pt retinue for later in the year when we shall be having a day of LR games with the estimable gentlemen of the Loose Association of Wargamers. With one eye on Dragon Rampant being published I decided to go for a pseudo-medieval feel, not fantasy enough to be out of place in Lion Rampant games and not rigidly historical either, allowing me to throw together any nice miniatures from the twelfth or thirteenth centuries. I didn't want to have to research lots of heraldry or paint intricate designs on shields either so I will be going for a very simple blue & white theme overall with a few different designs for the knights.

The retinue of Robert de Brennan

So far I have a few Foundry Baron's War miniatures, one packet of archers and one of spearmen in gambeson. These were originally Games Workshop releases intended for Warhammer armies, something that became the more fantastic Brettonians in later editions. They are beautiful, characterful sculpts by the Perry brothers and they are a nice old school size standing about 27mm from sole of foot to top of head. This makes them a good mix for Essex Miniatures, allowing me to field my armoured Bishop once again. I will paint up a few Essex archers and spearmen for comparison in the next few days.

Until next time...

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...