Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge - More and Betterer Preparations & Annoying Social Commentary

 

Its roughly 5:16am on Dec 19th and preparations for the impending start of the Challenge continue at a frantic pace here on the Eastern Shore of Maryland.  Legions of tiny 6mm Romans have been glue to popsicle sticks and primed.  This morning's efforts have shifted back to terrain making for my 15mm Stalingrad project.  I need a bunch of hexes made to finish up the table - about 350 to be exact.  I cut these ones out this morning.  Most of them are the standard 1/2 inch think but the ones on the far right are 1/4 inch thick and will be used for the Volga River and making terrain with depressions - like trenches!

Here's an example of a test trench section I made a few weeks ago.  The area in front of Pavlov's house (upper left of the picture) was heavily entrenched and for the Campaign version of the game I want to give players the option to build trenches and "alter" the terrain board.

I will need to get a ruling from the snowlord on how to treat some of the "landmark" buildings that have been scratch built but not painted prior to the start of this year's Challenge.  Two examples are the Univermag Dept Store and the Soviet State Bank building.  I think I should discount their points by 50% but there is a logical argument they should not be able to earn any points.  Either way is fine - I've got plenty of other buildings to make!

The reason the trench is so wide is to allow standard Flames of War bases to fit.  These trenches need some more design "flourish" to be really look good but the basic concept works.  And yes I have purchased some pre-painted Germans and Soviet troops from Gajo Miniatures.  They are way better than I can manage and having 3/4's of the needed figures "done" makes this project doable.

*** WARNING: SELF IMPORTANT ETHICAL LECTURING FOLLOWS BELOW ***

The other major activity this time of year is Christmas preparations, which this year are pretty easy.  MB and I elected to go light on the whole "gift" thing - we really don't need anything and have decided to use those funds plus a little more to make a donation to our local food bank to help them cope with the unprecedented level of demand.  One of the cruelists aspects of this plague is it exacts its highest toll on our most vulnerable population segments and has economically savaged the lower end of the economic ladder.  The level of demand on our local food bank is at a historic level.  I was speaking with the head of a local Food Bank and she was in tears recounting how they had to turn some families away because there was no inventory.  There's a double whammy at play here as a large source of food donations are local restaurants and they just can't do that right now.  There is no shame in needing help during a crisis - there is shame in choosing not to provide that help when you can.

Please note, this isn't a veiled rant against social distancing - those restrictions are needed and more than justified.  Its more that the rest of us need to step up and help out rather than whine about the injustice of wearing a face mask to protect others.

Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge XI: 6mm Republican Romans Assembling for for duty

Preparation efforts for the AHPC XI are accelerating to a frantic pace here in the Lair.  On the work table getting ready for priming is a good part of my planned Republican Roman army.  All of the figures are from Baccus and there are Romans, plus Italian and Spanish allies.

There will be a lot of 6mm ancients painted during this challenge.  The last time the Baccus cart was opened up in early November, I think I can safely say there were some unwarranted exuberance in the shopping cart.  Somehow over the course of a few days 4 different armies were purchased.  Historical scholars will debate for years on what exactly transpired and if I was lead astray by the wiley Peter Berry and his cunning and diabolical marketing ploy of "superb miniatures for a very reasonable price".  At this point, it's best I do not comment further as my lovely, yet fierce wife does peruse this blog and any statements I make can and will be used against me in a future tribunal.  We live perilous times.

In a addition to said Republican Romans, there other armies to be painted are some Parthians, a Dacian/Sarmatian force and a Successor army with lots and lots of Phalanxes.  

on advice of consul, I can not comment of the prospects of a 5th or 6th army as that does require the Baccus cart to be re-opened.  But there are candidates under review......
 

Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge XI: The Pigment Arsenal is Being Readied for Action

 

With the commencement of AHPC XI now less than 3 weeks away, there are fevered preparations being undertaken down in the Lair.  

The first step is a moderate cleaning of the painting desk.  It will need another pass but at least now I can actually see the wood top.  As with past challenges, I like to start off with a brand new set of Winsor & Newton Series 7 brushes in sizes 0, 1 and 2.  They are super expensive but I've yet to find anything that matches their quality and durability.  Challenge XI will see two new forms of pigmenting weaponry deployed.  A magnifying visor and some extra fine sharpie paint markers (white and black).  There will be a lot of 6mm miniatures involved in this years effort and my eyes are struggling a bit to see the details on those wonderful Baccus casts.  I'll be using a magnifier visor to help with the painting.  It will take some getting used to but it's already a huge help.  On the plus side, I do look truly dashing while wearing them and am hopeful that images of me in the visor will lead to lucrative modeling contracts in the near future.  The markers may be considered a bit of cheating but are really handy for drawing in straps and reins.  We'll have to test to see how durable this method is on the figures.

The terrain work bench has also been cleaned up in anticipation of finishing off the remaining 60% of the Stalingrad table I've been working on.  Pictured are pretty much all the tools I use for scratch building outside on large contraptions like my 3D Printer (when it chooses to cooperate) and my Cricut cutter (ALWAYS dependable).

Here's the north 40% of the Stalingrad table which is pretty much done other than weathering and is not suitable for this years Challenge.  Don't worry there is another slightly large section that will go on the left side of the picture which will require a good deal of terrain work.  Expect to see some 15mm Soviet and German miniatures along with the terrain.

There also may be a little Napoleonic related terrain to work on that will be used for an upcoming LWTV episode but that's top secret so don't go blabbing that to anyone else.  I'm sure I can trust your discretion.

Points wise, the "official" points target will be 2,500 but who knows what's going to happen.  At least my hobby time will not be curtailed by business trips for the next few months.  I really do miss my monthly sojourns to London where I can pretend to be a "investor".  

Stay safe everyone.

"Fabricator Cart" Complete

The rolling cart for my Prusa 3D printer and cricut cutter is complete.  The cart was originally designed to allow the Prusa printer to fit on the bottom.  Why? because the lower center of gravity reduces any wobble cause by the printer as if prints.  That idea was abandoned after realizing the cart is really solid (it doesn't wobble when the wheels are locked) and I tend to need to fiddle with the 3D printer a lot more than the cricut.  The Cricut is super dependable but I'm batting under .500 for 3D prints.  That's not a knock on the Prusa it's a superb machine and the companies tech support is one of the best I've experienced.  There are just a lot of factors the impact the success of a 3D print and I have yet to really grasp how they all work.  Good old bog standard "user error" at work here.

A ways back, I made a simple tool caddy for the 3D printer which was attached to the cart.  Almost like I planned it that way - which I, of course, did not.  

It's always better to be lucky than smart.

The cart has a big drawer to store the bits and bobs associated with both tools.  It also fits the chip and mat board used with the cricut.

I may add a shelf in the middle to hold filament spools for the printer.   It will be really nice to have all the tools and supplies I use with these two machines located in the same place.   There is a good bit of terrain work remaining for the Stalingrad project so this setup should get a good work out.

It's not very pretty but hopefully she'll be functional, which is a type of beauty all its own.

The cart is built out of construction grade materials.  The four legs and cross braces are 2x4 studs I cut down to 1.75x1.75 inches on my table saw.  The two platforms and drawer unit from scrap 1/2 inch plywood.  The drawer face and sides along the top are cut from a 1x6 board.  I think the total wood cost is under $20 bucks.

Doing little projects like this one to organize my workspace always proves to be a nice break when I get in a hobby rut and helps me figure out ways to change up my modeling workflow.  This hobby of ours has a lot pieces to it between paints, minis, terrain materials and tools so doing a little thinking on organization is actually very helpful.  I also tend to find things I forgot I had when doing these projects which is kind of like getting a prize at the end of the project.   

6mm Ancients - UNLEASH PRIMER!

 

With the start of the Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge (version 11.0) a little more than 3 weeks away, it's time to start prepping mini's.  In addition to finishing up my 15mm Stalingrad project, you'll be seeing a lot of 6mm Ancients - literally thousands of the tiny blighters.

My first of two orders from Baccus has arrived.  In that tiny box were figures for a Republican Roman army and a Parthian one.  The second order, which is still being processed has a large Sucessor Army and my favorite - Dacians.

First up for priming are some Roman Hastati, which I will be basing in 3 ranks of 8 on 40mm square bases.  40mm squares are the standard used for the rules Age of Hannibal, which we use at the club and I highly recommend.  I also used 40mm bases for my Russo Japanese armies.

Lighter infantry, such as velites Velites will be less dense, with maybe 6-8 figures per base.  Dense formations like Phalanxes will have 6 ranks of 8 figures so 48 per base.  Steve from the club has a beautiful Macedonian army and has 64 figures crammed onto a 40mm square base.

My Republican Roman army will have 16 bases of Hastati/Principes, 2 Triarii, and handful of Roman cavalry plus both Italian and Spanish allies (mostly light troops)  

 

Fabricator Cart

Building terrain is the aspect of the hobby I enjoy the most but it's both messy and some of the tools take up a lot of space.  The biggest culprits in that last category are my 3D printer and Cricut cutting machine.  Rather than take up precious gaming table space, I decide to build a rolling cart so I can stack these devices and store them out of the way.

The first picture is the base frame flipped on it's side while checking for square.  The joinery for the frame is a "floating tennon" which provides a great opportunity to get some practice with my Festool Domino cutter.  I need that practice because the next big woodworking project is building some new nightstands as a Christmas present for my wife.  Given the year she has had treating Covid patients, she deserves a really nice Christmas.

Here's a picture of the frame right side up and clamped while the glue sets.  There will be 2 main shelves - one at the top and one along the bottom.  The 3D printer goes on the top shelf and the cricut machine on the bottom.  There will be 4 locking caster wheels which will keep this unit from shaking as the machines do their thing.

Todays task will be to add a drawer along the top section for storage.

I should get this unit done in a few days.

The overall dimensions are 18 inches wide, 24 inches deep and 30 inches tall.  The wood is cheap construction grade pine 2x4s cut down to a 2x2 size.  The plans are - well there aren't really any plans, I'm kind of making this thing up as I go.  Usually not the best method for woodworking are building anything.
 

Quatre Bras at the Club, Part 2

 

Last night we finished up the Quatre Bras game.  Tom and Ed returned to command the Allies.  For the French we had new commanders in the form of Greg and myself.  The ruleset was General D'Armee.  Since I was playing, I didn't take any pictures except at the end.

The game resumed at turn 8 and the French attack continuing with the Allies getting ground down.  Last game Josh had effectively formed a grand battery of all the French Artillery and it continued to pound the Dutch troops.

Greg sent in Jerome's Brigade, which had the best French troops in a series a attack columns and punished the Dutch the Dutch in the center.  At the same time both Ed and Tom launched calvary attacks on both Flanks - one forced a French brigade to retreat while the other was me by French Cavalry and pushed off.  Their two British Infantry brigades deployed along the cross roads and became a formidable defensive position.

After a few turns of trading blows, the French managed to break the 2 Allied cavalry brigades on either flank.  That brought our broken Allied Brigade tally to 4, which was enough for a French victory.  It was kind of a cheap way for us to win but there you go.  Taling on those British brigades would have been difficult as the French infantry was pretty chewed up by then.

Greg did comment that the club has played Quatre Bras a number of times with the "Age of Eagles" ruleset and every game resulted in a resounding French Victory.  It's a tough scenario for the Allies to win.  Our game was a little closer run but the French moved with a bit more alacrity than they did historically.  Perhaps a better way to balance the scenario is to put some limits on the French command dice.  I really like the overall scenario and will run it again with some tweaks to make it a little more fun for the Allies.

Announcing LWTV "Caesar Awards"

 

We have a new project on the LWTV channel - The Caesar Awards - which are meant to celebrate excellence in wargaming video and other online content.  There are 10 categories of media type which you, the great unwashed public, can make nominations to by going to our web page CAESARS AWARDS.

Categories include Favorite Wargaming Youtube Channel, Best Painting Tutorial Video, Best Wargame Podcast and even Best Wargaming Blog.  The only rule for nominations is that content from the LWTV channel can not be nominated as it would be a little unseemly to create an awards show just to give yourself an award.

Did I mention there is a "Best Wargaming Blog" category?

Anyway,  Please take some time to nominate your favorite content creators.  People put a lot of work into this hobby and there are some really very well produced videos and other online content out their - even humble personal blogs about geeks in their lairs pursuing the hobby at their own personal uber level of effort.

I think I mentioned there was a category for Best Wargaming Blog.  Yeah I'm sure I did.

OK, unsightly groveling for blog nominations aside, please take some time to nominate your favorite content creators - who knows - maybe they'll win one of the coveted Caesar Awards?

Quatre Bras Using General D'Armee

 

Last night at the club, we re-fought the Battle of Quatre Bras using my 15mm Naps and the General D'Armee ruleset.  I was the GM with Steve and Josh playing the French and Tom, Greg and Ed commanding the allied forces.

I used the scenario for the excellent 100 Days General D'Armee scenario PDF which you can get from TooFatLardies.  The scenario started with 7 French Brigades on the board against 2 Dutch brigades of questionable quality.  The allies will receive a brigade or two per turn.  The French have a heavy Cavalry Brigade coming on mid game and by then the sides will be "evenish" with a troop quality advantage to the French.

The French attack got off to a slow start given some bad luck with ADC rolls and a good number of resulting Hesitant Brigades.

Finally the French made contact Bylandt's Brigade - one of Bylant's battalions managed to form a square and the other, well, didn't.  Lancers and Infantry don't mix well.

On the other side of the table Steve's French finally started moving and began enveloping the Dutch - to their rear there are two British Brigades coming on the table and none-too-soon.

We got to turn 8 of 18 last night and will continue the game next week.

This will be a hard one for the Allies to pull off.

Stalingrad Project: Practical Issues

 

Scenery progress is a little over the halfway point.  One of two 6x4 boards is pretty much done and most of the iconic buildings for the second have been scratch built.  The needed miniatures are also in process and I’m getting some help there from some club members which is greatly appreciated.  

The term “done” is a bit misleading as I’ll keep tweaking with the terrain.  I “may” have found a source of images of a newspaper from Stalingrad dated August, 1942 that I can shrink down to add to the rubble look.  They will be illegible at 15mm scale but still period appropriate.  I’ll pause here while you all roll your eyes......

Finished?, great lest move on.

Terrain making has been paused as I need a break and want to test some rules - I might even publish a set of rules for city fighting.  Sadly, the later point is likely more an act of personal ego inflation than actual contribution to the hobby.

There is one practical issue to work out - how do I organize all this stuff for both storage and transport up to the club or a convention.  The full table is 30 x18 hexes and each hex will labeled on the bottom by row letter and column number (01A all the way to 30Q) so that will aid in setting up but still its 540 hexes.

I need to source or build some containers to hold all this stuff.  Weight really isn’t and issue given the materials I’m using and hexes can be oriented to reduce wasted space in a container.  The total volume of the entire table setup is roughly 20 cubic feet, with the mini’s adding maybe another 5 cubic feet..  All of that will fit in my vehicle and likely may be a lot easier to transport than most of my convention games.

I’m leaning toward just buying some bog standard plastic bins but am intrigued by concept of how cool it would be to rock up to Historicon with all this stuff packed up into replica Soviet ammo and rifle crates.  The mere fact that I could even conceive of such a thing as “cool” proves this blog is aptly named.