20 Questions posed by Fran & Ray to ask yourself

Yep they snagged me like many others! The battling gents Ray and Fran came up with this questionnaire that I thought was very interesting so I thought I would join in.


1. Favourite Wargaming period and why?

That would be the American Civil War as the period has fascinated me since I was kid of 10 when I picked up the book Bruce Catton'sThe Civil War and started looking at those fantastic figure maps in it from the shelf of my Dads friend who was a history teacher.



2. Next period, money no object?

It's not so much money as it is time to do what I want is the real issue. My drawers of unpainted
figures can attest to that! So if I could suspend time and completely paint my entire ACW collection then that would be great!

3. Favourite 5 films?
This is HARD!
In no particular order:
-The last of the Mohicans




-The usual suspects

-The Shawshank Redemption

-Goodfellas

-Blazing Saddles


4. Favourite 5 TV series?

-Ken Burns The American Civil War(Probably my favourite of anything ever put on film)

 -Band Of Brothers

-Shogun

-FireFly

-Game Of Thrones

5. Favourite book and author?


Book: Shogun by James Clavell




Series: Warlord Chronicles by Bernard Cornwell




6. Greatest General? Can’t count yourself!!


Robert E. Lee
I'm not sure he is the greatest general in history (with Hannibal probably taking that title), but Lee is my favourite. He was indeed a great general who fought a number of years successfully winning most of his battles outnumbered, out supplied in terms of quality rations, equipment and quantity. By and large "Bobby Lee" was respected on both sides and could be argued if not the greatest commander in history, then at least a contender for Americas greatest.

7. Favourite Wargames rules?
Tough one as I like several, but currently I'd have to say
Black Powder and Hail Caesar are proving very good indeed! Hats off to Rick and the gang!



8. Favourite Sport and team?

When I was able to play I enjoyed American Football and following the Vikings for a number of years until switching my viewing to Mixed Martial Arts competitions in particular UFC when that started up.





9. If you had a only use once time machine, when and where would you go?

Liked Rays lotto pick idea or perhaps buy large shares of Microsoft before they went big, but if to witness a historical event or place in time then I would like to see the Merrimac and Monitor battle it out from the shore.



10. Last meal on Death Row?

American made Pizza with a whopper, fries and diet coke.


11. Fantasy relationship and why?

For the pure wow factor Scarlett Johannson who reminds me of a WWII Pin up.

12. If your life were a movie, who would play you?

James Dean



except you would need to add about 40+pounds and double chin to be more accurate, but hey it's my darn film choice! I do at least still got the hair!


13. Favourite Comic Superhero?
Batman was close, but my favourite is the Green Machine himself the HULK which is the ultimate a** kicker if there ever was one!

"You won't like me when I'm angry!"

14. Favourite Military quote?


Soldier:"Sir we are surrounded!"

Smith:"Excellent we can attack in any direction!"

General Oliver P. Smith at the battle of Chosin Reservoir in the Korean war.

15. Historical destination to visit?
Not really one place but several at once. I would like to rent a mobile home and spend a Summer touring American Civil War battlefields.



16. Biggest Wargaming regret?
I regret that I'm unable to stay focused on one project at a time so I'm always in a state of regret I suppose. Also, not so much a wargaming thing, but one thing I really regret is not keeping some of my toys and comics books I had as kid, because I would be friggin rich by now!!



And yes I had all those at one time plus a heck of a lot more!


17. Favourite Fantasy job?
ACW Battlefield tour guide


18. Favourite Song Top 5?
I'd say late 60's and 70's classic rock is my favourite and naming 5 would be impossible for me, but to name a few:

-"More then a feeling"-Boston

-"Old Time Rock and Roll"- Bob Seger

-"Angie"-Rolling Stones

-Suspicious Minds-Elvis

-"Take it easy"-The Eagles



19. Favourite Wargaming Moment?
I've had a lot of moments I've really enjoyed, but not one thought jumps out in my head enough that I would call my favourite just yet.


20. The miserable Git question, what upsets you?
-Tricky one here as I don't want to upset folks with different politics so I'll steer away from that, as I have quite a bit under that topic and I could get ugly and I do mean ugly if I start.
-Unanswered or extremely delayed e-mail responses.
-Flash and bad mould lines on my figures(I hate cleaning figures and even more so when I have to do more work).
-Wishing I could paint quite a bit faster while still maintaining a standard I like.
-That there is too few hours in a day to do what I want.
-That I can't seem to motivate myself to excise and eat better like I should(wipes cookie crumbs from his mouth while typing).
-High heat combined with humidity.
-Traffic jams.
-Overly crowded places(wargaming events not as much for some reason):-)
-Seeing people doing the most moronic thing I can think of which is texting while driving at the same time( knock it off if you do it please!)
- filling in blog CAPTCHA type ins proving I'm not a robot.
-The usual marketers trying to sell you stuff.
-Always more of course

Le Regiment de Berry

Once again posting and commenting has ran away from me, but I have a small excuse in that my computer has been down for a few days preventing me from doing so.

My interest in the French and Indian War is twofold in that I both have an interest in the skirmish fighting(little wars)with Indians, Coureurs de Bois etc. and the more formal fighting between the Regulars of the British and French. I'll start with the French and then move on to the British over time.

I would probably have started with the skirmish aspect first, but my friend Mike at http://dreispitz.blogspot.de/ is an absolute fan of the Seven Years War and wants to start gaming Maurice. While I don't much care for the Seven Years War I want to support him so I started the formal French and Indian War battle material first, because the regiments I will be doing while based in North America/Canada for French and Indian War look exactly the same as the ones fighting in Europe. In fact the battalions serving in North America had their parent regiment/HQ stationed in Europe.

The figures are from Front Rank and where quite nice miniatures to paint with nicely raised detail and easy access to parts. My critique the poses are bit limited. Typical of French units of the time I went with a light grey and white combination and then added a red which are the regimental colours. I used army painter followed by highlights except the white gaiters were I used no AP on as I like my whites very clean. I didn't save much time with painting as I added so much highlights to the AP that basically it became more another step in painting rather then a complete process.  The banners are from the fantastic GMB designs. I also used the same banner design twice as the solid white colonel's colours were left in Europe and never deployed to North America.

I know I swore off AP , but I wanted to try once more and was once again not completely happy, but the washes also don't make me completely happy either.....as both leave a brownish residue in places that I don't like at all so thought why not. While I'm reasonably pleased with the outcome it took too  long! To be honest I'm quite frustrated with painting at the moment as I can't seem to find my comfort zone. I'm searching for a way to economically paint my figures, but still have them reach the standards that satisfy me and I just can't seem to find it. I'll have to keep using the same method for the rest of the French Regulars, but on my next project I'll be trying something else out which hopefully will pay off in regards to time in and results both making me happy.

I also had time enough to add both white and scenic backgrounds to cater to preferences. Please forgive all the pics as I get carried away!!
 
Thanks for viewing!:-)
Miniature Company-Front Rank

SCW 1936-39 International Brigade Group 1

Hi folks I've been pretty busy lately so I've started to fall behind on both my posting and commenting. I'm not a prolific poster, but I do try for at least one every week to 10 days and more if things are going really well. So I'll try and pick it up some again.

I like to do small projects in between my larger ones to give me a break and skirmish games often are ideal for this like the SCW and others. For example I'll paint a few figures and then back to the big project and then back to small project's for a short break etc.

The Spanish Civil War 1936-39 is kind of a niche period, but is growing. I like the feel of the period and the large selection of very different type of troops, unusual tanks, trucks and vehicles. The range of uniforms varies from civilian clothing to completely standardized issued uniforms with much of it falling in between which can give a real visual feast on the gaming table!

 Since I enjoy working in earth tones so much it's not surprising I was drawn to the International brigade which was by and large outfitted with whatever khaki or brown coloured clothing they could manage to get their hands on. This gives me a real opportunity to experiment with all the range of browns, greens and khaki I care to try as the International brigade seldom had any two soldiers look exactly alike. For example:

After painting up a decent size force of International Brigade troops I'll  probably begin painting some of the Militia next. When I've built up the Republicans I'll move on to the Nationalists as I prefer collecting for both sides on most projects.

As to backgrounds I'm trying different coloured ones as photobucket's ability to adjust white backgrounds isn't very good at all any more and frustrates me to no end. I now do all the work from my computer and just use photobucket for sizing,smudge corrections and distribution. Of course I will still do white backgrounds, but will for sure continue to add others.

I'll be adding terrain to the pics when I get some painted up to add some more period flavour, but until then it will be this brown background for this range. Another thing is sometimes I like my figures to "pop", but with this project I wanted the figures very "warm" and so I tried to keep the tones subtle and not too dramatic on these. Hopefully I got it right.

Remember how I said the period is growing well I think Empress miniatures can take a heap of credit for it in regards to the 28mm crowd. The figures shown are all from Empress as are all my SCW figures and let me say they really are nice figures. Very nicely cast with excellent detail. My only critique are they are small for 28mm which isn't a negative if you like that, but I've been moving up to large slightly exaggerated figures like  Redoubt, Bicorne, Artizan etc. as I generally prefer that. However, thanks to the casting and sculpting being so good I'm able to enjoy painting the Empress figures as the detail is raised enough that I can get to it.
Thanks for viewing!:-)
Miniature Company-Empress

Playing Point Blank from Iron Ivan

Just this past Sunday a group of came over to my house and we played a game of the new Iron Ivan WWII squad level rule set Point Blank. Franz ran the the rules and played the German Navy and Mike over at http://dreispitz.blogspot.de/ ran the German Grenadiers and Michi at http://tableterror.blogspot.de/ played the French resistance and I played the British agents. Please go visit the blogs I listed as they are both really great!

I know the first question on your mind is who's awesome figures and terrain is that! I wish I could say they were mine, but in fact they come from the very talented Michi's collection. That's right folks others provided the rules and fantastic figures and terrain and all I had to do was provide my room, roll dice and eat! Wonderful!!

Not only did Michi provide the superb figures and terrain, but he also designed the scenario we played. Everybody should now applaud. The scenario timeline was 1940/41 in occupied France where British Agents and the French resistance were attempting to sabotage vital shipments or better yet the ship itself that was due to leave the port .
The allies had a few agents/resistance members planted at the docks with the rest starting at the opposite side of the table.

We had to stop before we could finish the game, but it was clear the allies would not achieve their objective with most of the British Agents taken out and the French out classed and outnumbered. The German MG 34's and the difficulty in command pretty much did us in. The game was a great deal of fun and hindsight being everything we would have done a few things different, but I think it still would have been a tough road for the allies. Well done to the German players for using sound tactics. I want a re-match!(Lol):-)

The rules were not played in the conventional ways, but rather were used to enable us to play the scenario and so it's hard to accurately judge how good they are. I think they are good set of rules and I for sure want to try them again.

Some of the pics came out blurry and a bit dark which was my fault and I advise you to go to Mike and Mich's blogs for better pictures.

A special thanks to Franz, Mike and Michi for coming over and giving a great day of fun and enjoyment and on such a beautiful table!

Enjoy and thanks for viewing!

El Cid Impetus style!

I spent the whole past week and a half or so converting my WAB El Cid Christian Mercenary army to Impetus (very happy with the new look) my game of choice for Dark Age/Medieval wargaming. Also I can use this arrangement for Hail Caesar another game that has captured my attention and can count these as standard base size for that system which is convenient. The impression I'm trying to give is one of the army riding across an open Savannah which I think Impetus basing helps to convey and that I hopefully succeeded in doing.

A quick re-cap behind the army concept. It 's a Christian Mercenary army with a heavy Moorish influence that finds itself employed by Muslim Taifa Kings ,but more often then not in the employ of the Christian kingdom of Aragon between the years 1090(King Pedro) and 1135(Alfonso I) covering both El Cid's period and the early Reconquista under Alfonso I "The battler".

The army so far gives me a hefty 300pts in cavalry which is substantial in 28mm. but not unusual for Christian Spanish armies of the period. With that in mind I figure that's plenty cavalry for now and I should probably add some foot slogging support. I think about 100pts or so of heavy infantry, formed missile support and some skirmishers are in order to give me a solid base for my army.

As far the pics go no scenic colour background on this one, but I'll have some at later date. One thing that has ticked me off is the new photo bucket which IMHO is not at all as good as the old one and getting a decent picture is much harder to do then before. Also, if you make any size corrections it sets it all the way back to the start! As it stands my own computer is just as good or better then photo bucket which wasn't the case at all before. Please photo bucket go back to the previous set up!!!! Currently I pretty much do all the photo work on my own computer and use photo bucket merely to distribute pictures.

My foreseeable future looks to be Samurai, ACW, Spanish Reconquista dominating with some AWI and SCW here and there. 
Thanks for viewing!:-)
Miniature Company- Artizan, Perry, Crusader, Conquest miniatures

 

Samurai charging again,but now with scenary

Working on lighting and background and thought I'd show it using the Samurai from my previous post. Photography is always the area I'm most unsure of myself. What looks better a white background or scenery background? White background helps show detail, but scenery shows more colour.
Do you think I should in the future:

1. Keep the white background.

2. Go with scenery backgrounds.

3. Mix it up with both white and scenery backgrounds.

Thanks for viewing and your help.:-)

Samurai Charging with Katanas

Next base for my Shimazu Impetus army is Samurai charging with katanas. I painted my Samurai in strong individual colours which is in contrast to my Ashigaru's more neutral uniformed look in order to distinguish them as the true elites of my army. However, I still wanted them to look like they belong to the same army and so the shimazu mon(heraldry) remained on the sashimono's(back banners) and Nobori(large Banner) and also in the same colour which I hope succeeds in tying them together.

I won't beat around the bush and will simply say these guys were flat out the hardest miniatures I've ever painted and made the Ashigaru seem like a walk in the park. That said, I'm pleased with the results and feel the time spent was really worth it. Now that I know what is required of me in terms of time needed to complete Samurai bases I really need to pick up the pace when painting Ashigaru bases to make sure I meet my goal for 300pts by September which is roughly 11 bases plus a camp.
Thanks for viewing!:-)
Miniature Company-Perry Miniatures