HOUSE PAINTING and THE RETURN OF SOME OLD FRIENDS

 This is a wargame blog, so if you are expecting living rooms and a group of revelers, you're in the wrong place. With my friend Bob moving to the wilds of Canada to become a "Damn Fureigner", he has been purging game stuff, so I have now acquired our entire collection of Glorious Revolution figures. These have not seen a gaming fields since 2015. The years have not been kind and I need to do some figure repair, along with getting Bob's bases to match mine. A few things of interest are with Bob moving to Ottawa, I will be inclined to start running my games of The War of 1812, Plan Red - Naval Operations Against Britian in Canada and the Carribean, and I maybe even have to add Perry Miniatures British Intervention Forces (1860's) for Rebels and Patriots. Damn Canadians!!!  When are they just going to accept that they are the 51st through 62nd States of the USA. Yes, I know there are 13 bits of Canada, but I am not sure we want Quebec as a State. Of course, this could just be part of my insidious plan to move all the people from my county up to Canada so we can double their population and take over. Bwaa Ha Ha!!!

Joking aside, I will miss having Bob around to tryout all my crazy ideas on. Best wishes in your new home in the Great White North. 

The other part is I am now in the process of adding new buildings to a number of my games. I have a lot of 4Ground buildings that I need to assemble for AWI, WWII 15mm and Toy Soldiers WWII. There is also a lot of 3D printed buildings for Toy Soldiers Classic, and an entire 6mm cities for Micro Armor. As with most projects I have plenty to keep me painting until the end of time. 

AWI Settlers Cabin

 

New Toy Soldiers, and Dog Wars Building 1.

Building #2

The Combined Armies for Glorius Revolution. Williamites on the Left, Jacobite's on the Right. As with Most Projects Bob Finished Well Before Me.  

Jacobite Army

The First Battle with Williamites on the Left and Jacobite's on the Right.   

A Closer View from Behind the Jacobite's. 

On a nostalgic level it is interesting to see how my terrain has changed over the years. The GW fuzzy mat is long gone, replaced by Cigar Box printed mats. The hills are still around but now get hidden when used. The river has been replaced, only to be bought again. The buildings are still around but are getting added to. I don't know what became of the bridge, which is to bad as it looks rather nice here. Like with many gaming parts, rules, figures and terrain, it will be interesting to see where it develops in the coming years. 

Bits, Bobs and Future Projects

 I have been working on a lot of projects simultaneously, so thought I would share what is coming in the future. First off, if the map is not a giveaway, there are the campaigns. WWII Toy Soldiers, see previous post, 19th Century Unification Wars, Dog Wars, and another project are all being given maps. The first two will be sharing the same map, or at least s similar one. The rest will have their own as their setting are quite different. 

Painting, painting and more painting. My never-ending chore that is self-inflicted. Like most gamers I have enough figures already to keep me at this for two lifetimes. OK, more like three or four lifetimes. I will never be done, as there is always a next project. I don't really finish any project, I just need to add a few more figures. Honest! Everything just needs that extra unit, or two, or three, or dozen, or ... To that end I added the new Army Painter SpeedPaint 2.0 to my collection. It's just a few colors. OK, OK, it's 89 colors, including 10 metals, and as SpeedPaint that means no deep shades, highlights, just each one doing a single full shade coat. Will I use all of these? Oh sure. 

Organized and Ready to Go. 

WWII Toy Soldiers painting continues. I have completed all the basic forces and am now on to the filling out stage, things like more First Line Infantry, Mortars, Anti-tank Rifles, trucks, tanks and so on. I have multiple sets of rules to tryout, Arriba Espana, Xenos Rampant, and Chain of Command. Each of these has their own feel and complexity and I need to decide which works the best for the games I want to run. 

Republican MGs

Royalist MGs

Royalist SMG Unit

Royalist Mortar and Anti-tank Rifle

High Command of Both Sides and Kaboom Markers

Bob and I got in a few play test games of Arriba Espana and Xenoes Rampant. I need to create a crib sheet for Arriba to help track all the things you do in the game. Xenoes turns out to be a bust. We played two games in under twenty minutes, and both were disasters. Xenoes looks like it would be fine to play alternative rules for 40K, but not very good at WWII. 

First Turn of Game One. 

Start of Game Two. We Both Have Learned a Few Things from Our Earlier Playthrough. 

End of Game Two. Bob Nearly Won This as His Forces are About to Breakthrough When His Army Becomes Exhausted. My Own Army was on the Brink of Exhaustion Too. 

WWII Toy Soldiers Progress - Part 2

 

I have started working on a map for amongst other things the WWII Toy Soldiers. This is the outline I am working from and there is a lot of changes I will be making, but this is the starting point. 

I got some more figures completed and am close to having enough ready for the first play test. My target is to have that ready early next week. No new troop types like Machineguns and Mortars added yet, but those are next on deck. I thought while I was posting I should add some better pictures of the Republicans. 

Royalist First Line Infantry

Royalist Second Line Infantry and High Command.

Royalist Artillery 

Royalist Army

Republicans and Royalist Side-by-Side View. 

Republican First Line Infantry. 

Republican Second Line Infantry.

Republican Artillery. 

The Republican Army. 

Royalist Defending a Border Town Against a Republican Attack. 

Republicans Storm the Town. 

Republican and Royalist Second Line Infantry Clash Outside of Town. 

WWII Toy Soldiers Progress

 

I have gotten a bit farther on both the world design and the painting sides of my game. The two sides are now the Royalists and the Republicans, not very original, but it covers the immediate needs of describing them. If you know anything about my style it is that I like Civil Wars with both sides being similar, with only slight variables. 

Background: After the Great Wars the victorious Nations dictated the abdication of all their adversaries' ruling families and their replacement by elected governments. The losing Nations would also have their territories broken up to prevent future wars. This all seemed grand to the victors by promoting democracy around the world, and self-autonomy to the various "repressed" peoples. It was not viewed as well by the people who had lived together for hundreds of years and whose cultures were split apart and given a form of government they know little about. Needless to say, things did not go over as expected. All the reforms did was replace a well governed kingdom with a group of small, self-serving countries. 

Coming: The Return of the King.

Here are additional pictures of the progress. These are not the best, and my wife the photographer would chastise me for taking the group shots facing the sun. I got it right on the rest. 

Republic Army First Line

Republic Second Line Troops

Republic Field Artillery

Republic SMG Troops

Republic Line Officers 

Royalist Test Figures. Still Undecide on the Helmet Color. 
Left side is Brown Violet, Right side is Olive Grey. Opinions Welcome. 

Same as Above, just a more Distant Look. 

A Comparative Look at Royalist Tests and Republican First Line. 
The Royalist Figures are not yet Satin Sealed. 

Republican Army in the Field. 
Note to Self. Keep the Sun at Your Back. 

Another New Project - WWII Toy Solders

 I have started another small project, this time it is Between the War/WWII era using toy soldiers. The figures are from Mark Coppelstone's Little Soldiers, which he refers to as pseudo-nostalgic Neo-Retro. What I call them is simple cool.   

This is more of a quick side project as I gear up for the new REALLY big thing, more on that in a future post. I have built two, as of now, unnamed forces, both organized along similar lines of four units of rifleman with a supporting LMG and officer for every other unit. There are two HMGs, a mortar group, anti-tank rifle and artillery gun with crew of four. There is also a second line pair of units, along with either and LMG, or HMG depending on the side. 

This is Army A Awaiting Painting. 

Here is Army B. 

I am envisioning these forces as something along the lines of Balkan's nations, or perhaps something like the opposite sides in the Spanish Civil War. I will be trying out a number of different rules sets such as Xenos Rampant, The Portable Wargame, Command and Colors WWI, or even something of my own design. 

I am also doing something different, at least for me, with all of these figures getting a Satin Varnish coat instead of the normal Dullcoat I use. This to me really changes the look from Historical Figures, to Toy Soldiers. 

First Basic Test Colors Based somewhat on US Regulation Uniform of the Era. 

A More Comple Version that I Rejected. 

The Final Unform for Army A. You can See the Shiny Effect of the Satin Coating on These Vs the Previous Image. This is the Standard Squad of Four Riflemen. 

FROM TINY ACORNS...

 Projects grow into giant oaks, and so it goes with my Toy Soldiers army. Back around 2009, on a whim, I decided to pick up some of the Eurika Toy Town figures with the idea of putting on a Christmas game. This was a small project as I was only getting about 130 total figures to represent both sides. I painted them up, dug out some simple rules, I think it was Sword and the Flame, and played a few games using a rug, books, and as I recall even a small Christmas tree. That simple project turned into something a bit bigger. I added a few more figures, about double, wrote some simple rules, and put on some more games and to my surprise people really liked this. I had also discovered I really enjoyed putting together these armies, especially coming up with a little background story for each army and why they fought, and oddly, I really liked painting them. I find I keep adding more, continue to tweak the rules, and run games...OK you get it. I am obsessive about these figures. Every time I decide enough is enough and go onto other projects, inevitably during the Christmas season I pull them out for an annual game, then my mind drifts into the dangerous spot of thinking, "You know what would be cool?", and below you can see this year's results.   

The Newest Additions Since Christmas.

The 1st Udderwhere Battalion: The Winter Guard.

The 1st Oberhere Hussars. An Important Addition, as This Gives Both Sides an Independent Light Cavalry Brigade. 

Who the Heck are These Guys?