Regiment Tattenbach

Flagged up and base completed.

I quite enjoyed painting these. They needed a little more work than metal figs but I'm happy with them. One down and six more to go!




My box arrived from Warlord so I have all the pieces I need for my foot, horse and guns. I may break the monotony by sprinkling in the odd foundry/casting room character figure just to add some variety. We'll see how they match up.

The regiment if based for Beneath The Lily Banners which we play tested a couple of weeks ago. I quite enjoyed it, although I am now really tempted by all the late 17thC figures and have been buying up some book for the period - John Tincey's introductory Osprey on the British Army of 1660-1704 and Stephen Ede-Borrets Army of James II which I saw in Foyles recently and picked up on Amazon. Somewhere I have a few of John Child's books on the period which I have to say is much more visually appealing (and sensible in scale) than Marlborough's campaigns. I used to have a small 15mm army for Donnington Miniatures, inspired by Mark Allen's excellent articles in Wargames Ilustrated years ago, (hi Mark, hope you're fine!). My interest wasn't followed up by anyone else at my local club then so after a couple of DBR Games I stopped collecting them.

The trouble is now I've got no excuse....

The expedition to Virginia in 1677 would make an great what if campaign.....Uhoh !!

Holiday time

Time for a wee break, a deserved one I think! Off to NYC for a few days and back just in time for the festive non denominational solstice period not back to work until 3rd Jan.

Last week I managed to finish the first of my Bavarian units for the Marlburian period and do a couple more swedes....I think I'm gonna need more blue!




The Warlord sprues have been reorganised from the original WF version with lots more formal tricorns. The plastic seems to have changed to a harder version too, things will bend, but you'll get that white stress mark if it does. Other than that they are the same, with the slightly soft detail levels and bulging eyes. With some a few changes to my normal technique however they painted up fine.

Just waiting on some flags and to do the basing. The drummer will take casualty dice frames at the back of his base and sit behind the unit.

Oh and the rest of the figures?..... a delay by Triplehelix resulted in a refund which coincided with a drop in price and a 15% voucher deal with Warlord....result one happy Aberdonian ;-)

By way of an update

So, it’s been very quiet around here recently hasn’t it?

There are a few reasons for that, both personal and work. Lots of to-ing and fro-ing from Edinburgh and Elgin, Dunfermline and Lossiemouth at weekend for my better half and I has made sitting down of an evening to paint or write a bit more difficult. Work has picked up after the downturn in O&G and has been somewhat hectic with a few changes and challenges to deal with. However such is life!

Looking briefly ahead the last weeks of the year are approaching and so is a holiday to New York to celebrate our anniversary. Then there is Christmas itself. But we’ll end the year and see in the new one at Lossie where I have installed a painting lamp!!!

At the local club we have been playing through an AWI campaign based on that of Howe and Washington around New York in 1776 using Jim Purkey of Minden/Fife and Drum Miniatures AWI rules for the tabletop encounters and Worthington Games “New York 1776” for the movement and maps. 

Jim’s rules are excellent. Easy to follow and easy to adopt and adapt. You’ll find a copy on the F&D website. Check them out - linky

Worthington’s boxed game is one of those which uses blocks rather than card counters and has a simple set of mechanisms which work well. Transferring the battles to the table does give a different set of results than the “battleboard” from the box, but we have been able to play the campaign out and it is due to be completed next week with a large battle at Westchester.

Here’s a few pics of one of the earlier battles and if you look closely you’ll see the blocks from the game being used on the tabletop as markers for their “parent” unit. Here the Hessians and a British unit take on some rebels.

We plan on continuing these games using the Trenton game and possibly the Saratoga set from the same company next year. And have purchased a bit some more American looking terrain, rail and log fences. I've got my eye on some O-scale vegetables - pumpkin and corn to make a nice patch for a cabin.

For the Sugar Islands project I have been doing some more research. I had hoped to get this out before xmas, but the last thing I want to do at the moment is spend time at a computer having done so all day. I am trying to reconcile information I have regarding the Swiss unit and its detachments and the late arriving reinforcements which the French received, including Swiss, just after the surrender had been agreed.  Madame D’s troops are slowly being painted, along with herself and a few supporting military men to use as officers. After these I have some landing boats to paint and my notes to type up, so a release early next year is now on the cards.

I have made a start on Swedes for the GNW and now have 1 figure painted! (Told you I’d not done much!!). I plumped for the excellent Ebor range and bought a 24 fig unit for £25 – (eight pike, 16 shot) and a command pack. This gives me the bulk of my infantry for the skirmish sized games planned. Some horse and extra stuff are planned and I have some Pegasus Russian houses for scenery. I have twisted the arm of a friend and club member to join me in this project and he is working on some Danes.

Finally I have been pottering away on some Marlburian Bavarians. A long time ago I had this lovely blue army in 15mm and enjoyed Volley and Bayonet games of increasing size with them and Prussian, Russian and French armies. This time I have gone for the 28mm Wargames Factory plastics, a number of which I fell heir to following the passing of a friend a few years ago. Warlord own them now and appear to have tidied up the sprue a little it appears. The army boxed set is available at a discounted rate of £68 from a reseller, TripleHelix, so I had no excuse to not get them. They are not the easiest of figures to paint and require some detail to be “worked up” with the paint brush, but they’re not horrible and when painted and based up en masse the marching poses look pretty decent. I am doing these as my side of the bargain for my mate getting involved in the GNW stuff. He’s continuing with his Danish theme for his stuff.

More will be revealed in the new year.

Progress?

Rather a lot going on elsewhere at the moment so only time for club games for a few weeks.

However behind the scenes I did managed to get the layout checked for the Sugar Islands campaign book.

I sent off my PDF to Book Printing UK who gave me a decent quote for an A5 paperback with colour glossy page printing, and a decent thickness colour cover. They also review the layout etc of your file to see if there would be any issues before accepting it. So I sent in what is effectively a half finished mock up - titles, pages, pictures etc in place, but some text missing from the areas I have to work on.

The good news as that apart from the margins and lower dpi count for some illustrations everything is fine.

I'm pleased with that, it's like getting your worked checked halfway through and getting the nod to continue. I shouldn't have any issues getting it printed - I just need to finish it!

Work on that starts over the next few weeks as my wife starts her course and I will have quite a few evenings free, so I might as well use them constructively!

So below is a rough mock up of the front cover.....it will change,  let's call it a teaser!😄

I've also been painting up some of Madame Ducharmey's men. This spirited woman defender her plantation from the British by arming her slaves and estate workers and was seen amongst them in the thick of the fight. She was not amongst the captured or casualties when the plantation was finally taken, so must have made good her escape. 

At the moment I plan on using one of the female gunners from Warlord's AWI artillery, I may give her a head swap - that will test my sculpting skills! - as she needs a more genteel straw bonnet rather than a utilitarian linen cap.

It's good to be back in the swing of things!

Happy Birthday Bilbo!

Not quite the usual sort of post from me but this has to be acknowledged.

On the 21st of September 1937 "The Hobbit" was published.

This book is an undying favourite of mine and is probably the most important non fiction book I have ever read. Had I not, I don't think my love of fantasy and history would have combined or developed to what it is now and my wargaming hobby would be considerably poorer for it.

I first stumbled upon a copy in one of the bedrooms of the house of the grandparents of some friends. The house was itself a magical place in its own right - a large Victorian home at the end of our street, stuffed full of books, basement rooms and a garden to roam in. A place which itself have been the setting for all sort of kids fantasy novels by CS Lewis or such like. I asked if I could borrow it and never looked back. I fell in love with it and a few years later The Lord of the Rings and then the Silmarillion and Unfinished Tales, getting the Silmarillion as a prize when I left primary school.

So thanks to JRRT for such a wonderful book and a whole lot more besides.