First Seven Carabiniers

I've completed the first seven out 28 plastic Perry Carabiniers.  Well "completed" is a relative term, as I still need to dip the models and base them, but their status is close enough to show a picture of.  I really like these models and found the painting to be easier than I expected.  I'll be painting them to be part of the 1st Carabinier regiment and have been trying to following the enclosed painting card as best I can.  It took me about 5 hours to complete this batch of seven so I'm confident I can get the rest done in the next few weeks.

I have discovered that I have more fun and do a better job painting figures in small batches of 5 - 7 figures rather than as either a single fig or a whole unit.  I recently tried to paint a 42 figure grenadier unit like a color based assembly line - lets paint flesh on 42 figs, then white etc.  It took a lot of the fun out of painting and the quality of the middle figures was pretty poor.

On other wargaming fronts, I have been reading the new Black Powder ruleset and have found it to be both a good read and a very interesting ruleset.  I'm thinking of giving it a go with my 6mm American Civil War (ACW) armies.  I'll need to adjust the movement and shooting distances down a bit but it looks like it might be a fun endeavor. I saw that yesterday over in the UK there was an official Black Powder event that sounded like a lot of fun.  Perhaps Mr Stallard and crew will elect to host something over hear in the colonies some time in the future?

A Sharpe Skirmish Scenario

Last night I got together with my gaming club for a skirmish game based on the "Sharpe's Rifles" characters.  As you can see from the pictures, both the figures and terrain are top-notch.  Of course, none of them are mine but they are a real pleasure to play with.  My only claim to fame is that one of my photo's of the same gaming room is featured in the recently published "Black Powder" ruleset (page 4).  Who knew an I-Phone could take pictures worth publishing?

This was my first "skirmish" type game and it was a lot of fun.  I got to play Sharpe and his Rifle company, which you can see leading the British column in the first picture above.  Our mission was to deliver a load of rifles and gold to some Spanish Guerillas who were holding the town we were marching to.  Unfortunately, there was a large French column heading in the same direction so the race to the town was on.

The first day's march was a comedy of errors as each column had to roll for various special events and the french were further delayed by some time lost dealing with broken wagon wheels and issues with the camp followers (yes there were even figures for them also).  The end result was that a french dragoon unit made it to the town first but got caught in between the spanish guerillas in the town and my intrepid lads:

After breaking the French Dragoons, the British were declared to have seized the town and both sides were able to redeploy our forces.  The French prepared to assault the town while the British and Spanish were defending.  The river was declared fordable and the we (the brits) were further hampered that the regulars were all new recruits who had a unfortunate tendency to bolt at the mere sight of the French - thank goodness for Mr Sharpe and his hero stats being able to rally on a roll of 11 or less.  I was having so much fun I didn't take a lot of pictures except towards the end of the evening - the next one shows a counterattack on a unit of French Grenadiers who had successfully taken the bridge.

Oh yes, there was a certain Sgt Hakeswell within the ranks of the British regulars who seemed to cause no end of troubles - taking pot shots at our hero, Sharpe, and then actually trying to steal both the gold and the game from us - you can see Sharpe and the dastardly Hakeswell in a melee as Sharpe was trying to prevent the loss of the gold.

In the end, the game followed the script and Sharpe won the day (but just barely).  All-in-all it was a grand game that was beautifully staged and well deserving of the bottles of spanish red I brought to celebrate the evening.

Our next game will be in January and will be a more normal Napoleonics battle but on a 20-24' table.  I'm tasked with completing 6-10 french units, of which 5 are done - it should be a great game!

Perry French Heavy Cavalry

Just a short post as an update on my progress with the 2 boxes of the new Perry French Heavy Cavalry that recently arrived to bolster my meager forces.  Overall, I am very impressed with the quality of the product.  Each box has fourteen figures that can be modeled as 11 troopers, 1 bugler, a standard bearer and officer or as up to 14 troopers.  You're also given 2 head options to model the figures as either Cuirassiers or Carabiners.  I chose to model this batch as carabiners for the sole reason that they looked more interesting to paint - I know the historical fanatics cringe when that type of logic is used.

The assembly process was very quick and there was almost no flash on the sprues.  It took me about 3 hours to assemble, clean-up and prime the 28 horsemen.  I found this to be a much faster rate than it takes me to clean-up and prime metal cavalry figures (Perry French Light Cavalry).  I modeled the riders separate from their horses to facilitate painting and will attach them once the details are complete.

The horses are modeled in half sections and there can be some minor gaps that occur (usually around the breast of the horse) that will require some minor filling with green stuff.  There's a very good article in Battlegames magazine, issue 18, on assembling Perry plastic ACW cavalry which I found helpful for these guys.

While a small detail, this version of boxed plastics comes with a very useful card for painting and unit identities, etc. which I found very useful.  Overall I would highly recommend these figures for all Napoleonic gamers.  I'm looking forward to the upcoming Hussars from Perry!

Even though they are just primed in white, 28 French cavalry massed together makes a very impressive sight - now I've got to finish them to get them on the table.  I think it will take me three weeks to get them done, assuming I take advantage of the upcoming Thanksgiving holidays here in the US.

My gaming group is planning a massive Napoleonics battle in the first week of January and I'm committed to bring 8 units (5 infantry, 1 cavalry and 2 artillery) of which only 5 are complete!

A Very Busy Week

This week was a very busy one both work and wargaming wise.  The heck with the work stuff, here's the wargaming stuff.  I managed to finish my Uncharted Seas Orc and Dwarf fleets as you can see in the picture to the left.  Uncharted Seas is a simple fantasy naval game which I like playing as a diversion from 28mm  Napoleonics.  It's also a relatively inexpensive game to get into as you can get the rules and 2 starter fleets for under $100.  The game plays quick and is a lot of fun.   I'll post some more pictures of the "fleets" at the end of this post.

The war game table looks a bit cluttered as it's currently being used by my son's robotics team to build their robot for the FTC competition this year.  I'm coaching them and its a lot of fun, but we loose the ability to play war games for 3-4 months each year while robot engineering is underway.  Oh well, it's educational!

In addition to finishing up the fleets, my local wargaming club got together for a game with a Star Wars ground-attack theme.  Kind of silly but at least there were no Ewoks!  It was a set of house rules which played very nicely - think WWII in a galaxy far, far away.  I played on the rebel side and was able to steal the imperial shuttle and win the game.  I will say the scenery was top notch (sorry no pics) and it even featured a working mono-rail (complete with a Disney-tour sound track if you pushed a button on the top). The mono-rail brought in Darth Vader and some imperial reinforcements.  It was a different, but a very fun game.  I also learned that there is an inverse correlation between beer consumption (bass) and the humor of "may the force be with..." quips.  Who knew?

On Saturday morning, I drove up to Gettysburg to attend the Fall-In show with a friend.  We wandered around the show for a bit and bought a few things - I mostly got scenery pieces for 15mm WWII.  The crowd was very light and the mood a bit subdued so it wasn't the best show.

Here are some more photos of the Uncharted Seas Fleets:

Lastly, I just received a couple of boxes of these guys - can't wait to get started!

Grenadiers Completed!

I finally finished off my battalion of Grenadiers, with the exception of a few mustaches I need to go back and finish.  As a relative newcomer to 28mm Napoleonics, this was my first "all-metal" unit.  At the risk of sounding heretical, I think I like painting plastic figures over the metal ones.  I find I can see the details better in the plastics than I can the metal and the overall painting experience is more enjoyable.  I do like the "weight" of the metal figs when pushing them about the battlefield but I', happy to give that up for the better painting experience.  I'm sure my past experiences with the GW 28mm 40K fig's has influenced my opinion.  Next up on the painting list is finishing 2 more battalions of Perry plastics (you can see one of them behind the Grenadiers above) and then (hopefully) I'll have received the 2 boxes of Cuirassiers (the new plastic ones from Perry).

There was yet another mis-step on the Nappy front.  I had ordered some Old Glory limbers in an effort to save a few bucks, but like their artillery figures, the scale is a bit small and the quality really poor (look at me becoming a miniatures snob!).  The limber models were really not usable so yet another effort to save money via lower quality ends up a failure.

As for other modeling, I completed 2 basic starter fleets for "Uncharted Seas"- Dwarf and Orc.  I found the models a lot of fun to paint.  I tried to do some free-hand skulls for the Orc sails but was disappointed with the results so I'm looking to find some details.  The game is a simplistic naval game and it's both quick and fun.

Lastly, I have a confession to make.  As I've reflected on my glacial painting pace with 28mm Nappy's (3 units in roughly 3 months) I've realized that it will take close to a year to get a nice sized force in place.  Being somewhat impatient, I've decided to hire a painter in the UK who was brought to my attention by some acquaintances over there who are in the war game industry.  My initial commission is for 2 infantry battalions.  His quality is outstanding (you'll definitely notice the difference from my efforts).  It's a bit pricey, but as I've learned one usually gets what one pays for (see the Old Glory reference above).  If the quality is a good as I've seen, I'll recommend the painter in a future post.

A Change of Pace

This weekend I decided to give the Nappy's a bit of a break and paint up some WWII items.  First on the list were some 28mm US Paratroopers from Warlord Games.  I picked up a starter force on a bit of a lark.  Overall, I was very impressed with the figures and found painting them to be a lot easier than those fussy frenchman.  I've completed 12 out of the 32 or so I have in the force.  These figures were a lot of fun to paint and there is a good deal of free info on the web for uniform guides and corresponding Vallejo paint colors.  I also found the manufacturer, Warlord Games, a pleasure to deal with and I recommend them highly.  While wandering through their site, I did see the new "Black Powder" rules which I've placed on pre-order.  Now all I need is a set of 28mm WWII rules to use with these guys - any suggestions?

I need to decide on how to base these guys.  I'll likely go with the 25mm round GW bases for individual figures and 40mm for crew served weapons (the 30 cal machine gun).

My second project of the weekend was a 15mm terrain piece.  I picked up a resin model of a fortified casino (as in D-Day) which I'm planning to use as an objective for a "Kelly's Hero's" scenario I'm planning using Flames of War.  I'm going to play test the game a few time with my son before inflciting it upon my local gamers.  The picture's not that great - I didn't realize the background wall was almost the same color as the model!  The floors are removable, which allows for a bit a room-to-room fighting in the scenario.

Annapolis Sail Boat Show!!!!

Sailing is one of my favorite past-times and, to be honest, it slightly nudges out wargaming for the top spot most the time.  One of my favorite events is the US Sail Boat show, which is held in Annapolis. The show is billed as the largest sail boat show in the world.  I'm not so sure about that, but it's a blast.  I've been spending most of my free time the past few days going to some of the manufacturer receptions and strolling about the show grounds.  To put the show in a wargaming perspective - it's like the vendor area at Historicon, except the venue isn't a big convention room is a giant series of temporary floating docks (over a mile) and the vendor stalls are boats.  The sizes range from small single person racing lasers (12') to two masted monsters that require a small crew to operate!

One can really see the impact of the economy by observing the show this year.  The discounts on the boats are very significant, especially if you wait until the last minute and the vendor is facing the cost of transporting the boat back to wherever they came from.  The spreads the vendors lay out are also reduced but that helps my waist line!  It's still very hard for sellers of new boats to compete right now with the used boat market right now, where the discounts are extreme and there is a very large inventory of boats that people bought when they thought they were flush.  There is a bit revenge here on my part for some of my former compatriots in the financial services industry.  One does reap what one sows.  Enough moralizing on my part.  There's a show rumor that the FDIC has a small tent with pictures of foreclosed boats they've taken possession of from bank seizures but I haven't seen it.

I'm not really in the market for a boat, but then again they are all so pretty and my son mentioned something about wanting to move up to the comet racing class.....

Of course, the most likely way you'll discover if I do acquire a new boat will be from my lovely and fierce wife's posting of my obituary.

The one unfortunate aspect of the boat show is that it has impacted my progress on my French Nappy's.  I've almost completed the grenadier unit and have made some good progress on the light cavalry.  We are heading into the prime wargaming season so I need to get moving!

More Battalions

I received part of my recent order from Foundry a few days ago (the guard and light infantry battalions) and got right to work cleaning and priming the figures. I found the quality of the figures to be very good. You can see the Guard unit in the front of the photo and the light infantry in the upper left. There where no real problems with the guard figures, a a few casting "strings" and some bent bayonets which were all quickly dealt with. The Light Infantry came a bit worse for wear - 4 figures didn't have the pom on top the Shako and I broke off 5 bayonets bending them back. All in all, easy things to fix. As you can see I've started painitng the guard unit and since it's supposed to rain today, I think I'll get some quality painting time in. I wonder if it's a sign of age or advanced "geekedness" that I'm more excited to be able to paint toy soldiers than go sailing today?

While I was waiting out the final hours of the primer curing time, I also assembled my third box of Perry Plastic infantry (just behind the guard unit). I've got one more Perry box on order along with 2 boxes of the new plastic Cuirassiers and that should complete my force for now.

I did discover a useful painting tool by accident yesterday - the plastic container from a Bindi Profiterole dessert makes a great paint palette and water container. The top is cone shaped and has a small inner ring with four gaps that allows one to put the paint on the outside of the ring and the thinner on the inside and then draw the paint through the gaps. It really helps to add more control over the thinning process. The large cup can serve as a water reservoir or bits holder. Of course, I did need to eat the rather tasty profiterole dessert in order to gain access to this little modeling gem. Oh the travails I endure to push forward the frontiers of our hobby.

After some input from this blog and several other sources I have decided to roughly model my force on a specific French formation (division) which will aid greatly in helping me select the correct flags and other minor add-ons. Of course this will also require another trip to the Osprey web site.

Oh well, back to painting imperial guards!

Unpainted Reinforcements

I took the plunge the other day and purchased some more 28mm French Nappies. My first order was for yet one more box of Perry plastic infantry (bringing me to 4) and a pre-order of 2 boxes of the new Perry French Heavy Cavalry - I really like the preview pictures of those models. I then wandered over to the Foundry website and decided to buy 2 french infantry units (one light infantry, one guard) and a guard artillery unit (four guns & crews). I think that will be enough of the Nappy's for awhile - HEY! I hear all of you sniggering right now.

When complete my little force will have:

4 battalions of infantry (36 figs each) (Perry Plastic) - I'm excluding the 3 battalions worth of Victrix that I just can't paint well

1 Battalion of light infantry (Foundry)

1 Guard Battalion (Foundry)

1 Light Cav Unit (Perry)

1 Heavy Cav Unit (Perry)

5 Guns (Foundry / Perry)

1 Command

I'd like to hear any suggestions for additions or changes to the force

I should have a playable force completed in the next month or so.

As for gaming - not much on the historical side and only one 40k game with my son. Now that Sean's back in school his gaming time is a bit curtailed - this homework "thing" is very inconvenient for gaming.

Perry vs Victrix, an evolving opinion

I have been busy working on my 28mm French Napoleonics. As you know my infantry consists of plastic Perry and Victrix miniatures. I've completed 84 Perry's (2 36man battalions plus 12 other figs) and have been working on my third battalion of 36 Victrix figures. I must say, I'm finding the Victrix a lot harder to paint than the Perry's. I thought, at first, it was just the change from painting so many Perry's in a row. After working through my first 18 Victrix, I'm very disappointed with the results, so much so I think the odds are better than even that the manufacturer might be tempted to buy my figures back just to protect their brand image!

The Victrix figures are of high quality but the details are very fine, the figures are "thinner" and the details less raised than on the Perry's. They look great unpainted but I'm having trouble getting the detail painting to look "clean". In fact, the results look like I was painting these guys while riding a roller coaster. My comments are not meant to slam Victrix products, they are good looking figures and fun to build. It's just that the level of painting skills needed to make them look decent are a bit beyond what I can muster. I think I'll put aside the Victix's for awhile and come back to them in a few month. I would not recommend Victrix for 28mm beginners.

Since 3 of my planned 6 infantry battalions were going to be Victrix, I'll need to find some replacements. I polled some of my gaming friends and received a very vocal endorsement for metal Perry or Foundry figures. I've come to understand that both the Perry and Foundry figures are really the same thing since they're both sculpted by the Perry twins - very talented fellows. I think I'll give Foundry a try as they have an extensive range so I can augment my little army with some elite Guard units! They are a bit pricey but what the heck.

I did paint my first horse figures this weekend (2 mounted officers for a command stand) and found that painting horses wasn't as difficult as I thought. In fact it was fun. These figures are the first horses I've painted in detail - I don't count 6mm cavalry figures as there is not a lot there. I've got 21 light calvary figures (Perry metals) to paint so may start them next weekend. I am looking forward to getting a few boxes of the new Perry plastic French Heavy Cavalry when it's available.