A busy week of Wargames goodies

It's been a very busy week of goodies for the Wargames table and bookshelf.

A couple of eBay purchases turned up. Some lovely Crann Tara British in campaign dress which will be prefect for Cuba or elsewhere.

Some of the British, (and dog).

Then another eBay purchase, this time 19thC. Highlanders for the Crimea. I'd always wanted to have Crimean War figures and this project is turning into a labour of love. I can't wait for Great War to restock so I can get my mitts on some Rifle Brigade. Then I need to flesh out the Russians with some skirmishers and add the Cossack artillery I'm painting.

A trip to Ballater on Saturday meant a visit to Deeside books. And I seldom if ever leave without something under my arm. This time it was Hellion's book on the battle of Sheriffmuir - "Crucible of the Jacobite '15" by Jonathan Oates, half price no less. Check them out online do...they have an excellent history section and also some rarities.

I did some painting too, making a start on the rowers for my landing boats for Havana and Manila as I now have oars supplied by Graham H's printer. I plan on mounting the oarsmen on small plastic "seats" made of square plasticard tube. This will allow a stand of troops to fit alongside them in the boat. For a mock up I have used some 6mm dice, which are roughly the size needed, and it seems to work out well. The book is moving along and I'm am ready to start drafting the first scenarios.



Lastly I must mention another book I received this weekend. I'm not really a modern history fan nor do I know much about the modern "troubles" in Northern Ireland other than what I remember from tv as a kid. However I had the good fortune to work with the author a few years ago and a very fine chap he is indeed. The book in question is "A Winter in Belfast" by David Ellis. It is his diary of a tour spent there during 76-77 whilst he was in the Parachute Regiment. It is very clearly written and both forthright and frank and I'm finding it  an excellent read.

19th Century - Guns & Greens

My Crimean War game of a few weeks ago was good fun, but the British lacked some guns and could have done with deploying a screen of skirmishers. With North Star and others being out of stock of Great War Crimean stuff I decided to repurpose some spare artillery crew from the Foundry Sikh wars figures which I bought from Graham C. The only difference between them and their later Crimean War colleagues is the addition of a peak to their forage cap it would seem, so they were swiftly painted out of their white summer campaign trousers and back into blue. For guns I borrowed two British Napoleonic models which were not stuck to the base of my 1815 army.  The result below I am quite happy with and I'm sure they will see service soon.

Crimean Gunner

The British Guns

On a different note I received a photo of some new 1859 Austrian Jäger which Pirans Warriors are soon to be releasing.

At present there is only a single jäger figure on offer so I have been holding off as I'd prefer a mix of poses on a base of skirmishers. I think these new figures are perfect and Terry tells me that more cavalry will be available soon too so I'm looking forward to be able to put a small all arms Austrian force on the table soon as another foe for my 2nd Empire French and a friends 1864 Danes. If one isn't too fussy...and I won't be... they would do for earlier or later fights in Italy, Hungary or against Prussia. Uniforms were different and more Napoleonic looking for the former two, and hidden beneath a greatcoat for the latter. Come time I may well look to expand the Emperors armies into these periods, but for now, these chaps will do.

Test using the New Blogger

I thought I would take a test drive of the new Blogger to see how it would affect me posting. This post is just a trial run and only has some news.

The current version of Blogger is going to be replaced at the end of June, apparently, although this been highlighted for a long time and as you'll see, or possibly already know - it doesn't work properly.

Using the new interface, I found that I can type more text than I could in the past without being unable to scroll down far enough on the page. I had to use BlogTouch to do this in the past.

The big problem is that the upload image button, the really important one, doesn't work. 

My blog is very much  a diary of what I do and holds pics of my games. It hosts a couple of downloads and an order form for my book. Like a lot of bloggers I can upload images from my iPad or iphone, taken during a game or at a show for instance. So continuing to be able to do so is a critical feature for huge numbers of users I imagine. I'm not impressed!

I had to go back to the legacy version to finish this post, but I think I will be able to keep going using Blogger for text and BlogTouch to add in the pix and general editing if things are not fixed.

So, what have I been up to in recently. After dealing with the outbreak and its impact at work I began working from home. That didn't last long and I was made redundant due to a restructure. Brilliant timing! I decided to use the time to work on something different since we were in different times. Thus started my 16th Century diversion, which started as a plan to do a local battle during the Marian Civil war and feuds between the Gordon's and other local families. It's ended up with me researching the 80 yrs war and painting enough Irish for a small army for the Tudor campaigns in Ireland!!!

Recent amazon purchase - excellent!

On the personal front my job situation turned around again a lot quicker than I expected and I start a new job last week. My wife has submitted her thesis and completed her viva and after a hectic few weeks her NHS training placement is settling down too. Suddenly I found my self with a lot more headspace and over the last week have picked up the sequel to the Sugar Islands Campaign and added bios of the British and Spanish commanders, organisation charts for both sides for Cuba & Manila and sketched out roughly some scenarios for the latter. I've also done some background on give away scenarios, like that I did for the Maroons for skirmishes with the Spanish in Georgia. 

On the actual gaming front I've been taking part in online games using Tabletop Simulator with my local club. Some of these have worked better than others. I particularly like the WW2 bombing campaign and the Chariot racing game but felt that others were too fiddly and were restricted by the game engine, internet connection and individual computers. Zoom has been used to stay in touch with my club mates and gamer chums from the area, and that's helped keep my gaming itch in check. We even managed Monday night D&D games via Zoom too. 

So what's coming up in the next few months? Well I shall be settling into my new job and won't have any international concerns or trips (which I might miss strangely enough). That means weekends and evenings will be free for the important stuff. Family and hobbies. The Spider needs woken up, taxed and serviced and I will be pushing on with the invasion of Cuba and then the Philippines. Two boxes of Wars of Religion figures need painting and there's been some discussion on 40mm shiny toy soldiers with some of my mates. Oh and I need to paint some rowers too.

Manila anyone?

With lockdown easing however I managed to get a game in the garden, observing the 2m social distancing rules of course. 

That went well, even though the Russians under "Grigory" McGee managed to take Lament Ridge. I have made the Russians 16 figure Large units but treat them as poor shots with a 12in range. Thus they can soak up the damage and in terms of men outnumber the smaller British units who get the Minie. They needed it. The Russian infantry took heavy losses as they moved across the exposed slopes. However they kept coming and brought up their guns on the flank of the British and saw off two squadrons of Hussars before firing on the infantry, but the time we ended the game it was clear the British didn't have the manpower left to force the ridge. It was a good game and great to throw some dice again after a long long time. 

I've ordered British artillery and rifle brigade! 🤣

And to bring everything right up to date I received a package of some 3d printed bell tents from my mate Graham. These really look the business and the layers are very tight and only noticeable up close. I can't wait to get them painted, they'll do great service for several armies and periods in my collection. 

Keep staying safe folks. 

Across the Pond Podcast

Oldmeldrum Wargames Group, of which I am part, were invited to take part in a podcast by Gary and Collin from Across the Pond Wargamers and we recorded our part last weekend.

I have to say Gary and Collin made us feel very relaxed and at ease and we were soon chatting away about the hobby, new and shiny things, how to keep things going in lockdown and what got each of us started in wargaming. 

This has now been released and is well worth a listen. Check out the other podcasts they've done too - I'm a convert and I'll be tuning in on a regular basis. 

Across the Pond Podcast 3 - Keeping Relevant

Across the Pond Podcasts

16thC Distraction - Huntly and Family

I received my Border Reiver figures from Timeline/Hoka Hey. These are the ex Graven images Jim Bowen range and are a chunky but wonderfully sculpted and were a pleasure to paint. They're not the cheapest, but neither are Foundry for example and sometimes you pay for what you get. I'd certainly buy more of these.

I have painted them up to represent the Gordon Family. 

The Earl of Huntly is described as being overweight and older. He died of a stroke or heart attack immediately after the battle. I tried to give him a flushed skin tone, but am not sure if that came out. He is dressed in expensive black clothing and wears a gilded breastplate. He is bareheaded, so his men and his foes know him, and perhaps so he can breath a bit better!

His son John, flanks him in his morion and black clothing, he is armed with a pistol and sword.  He is in a world of trouble and probably knows that whatever happens to his father he is most definitely in for the full wrath of the Queen and Regent and has nothing to lose.

Huntly's youngest son, Adam, is also a hothead, like his brother John. Songs will be written about the terrible Edom O' Gordon and his deeds, but he will survive and become a faithful servant of James VI. 

Around around them are other members of the Gordon household and they will be fighting under Huntly's banner.

I now have enough figures painted to refight the battle. Some basing needs done. I purchased some movement trays but due to a tolerance problem of base size to slot size these needed to be modified and sanded out. Not a problem I've had before. I will be going back to my normal supplier Warbases and ordering some custom bases when they reopen, I've never had problems with those. What I'd really like is some irregular shaped bases that are textured with a slot. I've yet to see such things, but if anyone knows of them, let me know.