Analoue Hobbies Challenge #5: More ACW Guns and a Panzer III

 The latest submissions to the Challenge include 2 more Confederate guns & crews plus a Panzer III, all in 28mm.  The artillery pieces and crews are metal models from the Perry's.

 These figures were painted as "generic" rebels and aren't really from any specific unit - sometimes it's helpful to have some non-specific inits to fill out the ranks for a scenario.

 The inclusion of these 2 batteries bring my Confederate "artillery park" up to six guns.  The army as it stands today consists of 13 infantry regiments, 2 cavalry (mounted and dismounted) and 6 guns/crews.

 My stockpile of unpainted ACW artillery is now exhausted.  I will be waiting for the upcoming Perry plastic artillery box set to come out before enlarging the artillery park for either side.

 The next submission is a 28mm scale Panzer IIIJ from Blitzkrieg Models.  It's an all resin kit and the casting is superb.  I continue to be very impressed by the quality of the Blitzkrieg vehicles.

 This model was painted for either the North Africa or Italian theaters of operation.  My 28mm scale WWII bits box is rather depleted so I didn't add any storage.

 I did use the new Vallejo "sand wash" on the model and was very pleased with the results.

 The antenna is just a length of thin brass rod.

I need to get onto some DAK infantry figures to accompany this model.

I highly recommend Blitzkrieg Models for anyone looking to add some WWII vehicles to their armies in 28mm scale.

Loki's Great Hall 2nd Anniversary Give Away

As all marketers know, avarice is a powerful motivating tool.  It's perhaps the second most effective way one attempt to manipulate - oops, I mean to say "motivate" human behavior.  It seems that Mr Saunders over at Loki's Great Hall has mastered this technique with his newest give away promotion.

Please use the link below and go check out Loki's Great Hall.  It's a fantastic blog that features great painting and gaming articles.  Also you'll be warmed by thought that visiting the blog will enhance my ability to win stuff and, really, isn't that what we are all here for?

Here's the link:

Loki's Great Hall

Yes I know the link and the blog name are a bit different, but I'm sure that's part of Mr Saunders very sophisticated internet security protocols.  Who know what he does in real life that requires such clever obfuscation.

Seriously, it's a great blog and worth your time to take a look.

Ok back to painting Perry Confederates....

The Challenge comes to a close and yet even more Confederates

 Regiment #6 was recently completed and was one of my last submissions for Curt's Painting Challenge.  No surprise as these are "yet more" Perry plastics confederates in 28mm.  I still have enough unpainted figures for another 5 regiments but will likely switch to something else for a bit.  As for the "Challenge" it was a blast and has replaced cons as my favorite annual war-gaming event.  I placed 10th out of 48 competitors and am very pleased with my production for the event - please go take a look as there are some amazing submissions

 These figures continue to be a joy to build and paint and I really can't recommend them enough.  This project is being built for a linked game series at Historicon over a two day time frame.  The first day will feature some skirmish battles using Architects of War new ACW skirmish rules "Uncivil War".  The outcomes of the day 1 games will impact the large battle the following day and that's what I'm building these confederates for.

I'm not supposed to say a lot about the games yet but I can divulge that one of the objectives for the day1 skirmish game will be to blow up a Confederate ironclad, which will, of course, be fully modeled - with interiors - and is just under 36 inches long.  Once we nail down the details the games will be going up on the Historicon PEL.

This last unit brings my painted confederates to 7 regiments and 4 batteries so I'm just at the hallway point with the confederates.  For the Union, I'm cheating a bit as I've commissioned a good number of them to be done by the recently re-opened MMPS painting service.  Fons has done splendid work for me in the past and I'm looking forward to the next set of reinforcements from him.

Ok, painting to the workbench...

Cold Wars Saturday - The Bolt Action Tournament

 Pretty much all of Saturday was consumed by the Bolt Action Tournament, which ran from 9:00 am until 6:00pm and it was a blast.  The tournament was organized and run by Stefan (Sheck2 on the WWPD forums) and he did a fantastic job.

14 players participated with 3 rounds each and played across 7 very nicely done table (all of which were supplied by Stefan).  The tournament was a 1,000 point limit and there was an even distribution of Axis and Allied players.

I brought my Japanese list which consisted of:

- 1 vet LT + 1 rifleman
- 1 Medic, veteran
- 2, 10 figure Veteran infantry squads w/LMG
- 2, 10 figure Regular infantry squads w/ LMG
- 1 medium Machine Gun unit, Regular
- 1 Light mortar, Regular
- 1 Sniper, Vet
- 1 70mm Mtn Gun (light howitzer), Regular
- 1 Type 97 Chi-Ha tank, Regular

As with most events I play in, I didn't take many photos (just one) so you get stuck with a wordy summary.

Game 1
Mission: Demolition
Opponent: Mike A's Vet US para's, 2 12 man squads some support and a M4A3 Sherman

I've played Mike several times in Saga events and he's both a great guy and very fun to play with.  We both adopted the same strategy - sending out tank and about half our forces down each of our left flanks while the other half half defended the HQ.  Mike's forces were smaller being all Vets and caused significant casualties for my troops.  I also discovered that my troops had a hard time dealing with the Sherman - I think we may have scratched the paint a few times but that was about it.  The game ended in a draw as we were both contesting the objectives after the end of the 7th turn.

Game 2
Mission: Top Secret
Opponent: Mike P's British Infantry Swarm (pictured at the end of this post)

I've met Mike a few times at past HMGS con's through the WWPD activities.  He a both a very talented player and very funny during a gaming.  Almost distractingly funny, which may be a very crafty strategy on his part.  His forces was made up of of 5 infantry squads (4 regular and 1 Vet) plus a host of support units including an anti-tank gun but no tanks.  It was a very good match up for my force.  The mission involved capturing and then escorting an objective marker (located in the center)  off the table.  With this scenario most of our forces are pulled into the center and game becomes very bloody.  I managed to win the game as my Medic ran in and grabbed the objective.  Unfortunately the win is a bit tainted as both Mike and I did not remember a tournament special rule that only units with 3 or more figures can grab the marker.  I owe Mike a re-match in the future and I suspect he'll pound my poor japanese into the table - but at least I'll be laughing along the way.

Game 3
Mission: Maximum Attrition
Opponent: Jeff B, Veteran Germans.  Jeff had a unique force structure as he had 2 platoons (1 with 3 squads of Fallschirmjaeger vets and support weapons and a smaller platoon with 2 squads of Wehrmacht vets.  His squad sizes were very small given all the vets.  His forces had no vehicles.  Pictured below is our game after the first turn.

 I adopted a defensive strategy and let him come to me.  Jeff marched up my left flank (left side of the photo) and also brought in a squad from reserve on the left flank.

Attacking the Japanese with an infantry only force is dangerous if you close within 12 inches - I was able to get off several assaults (Japanese can auto assault without regard to pins) and I was able to wear Jeff's squads down.

My tank was immobilized fairly early but did weather 3 hits from a panzershreck.  This game went to the Japanese as the Germans just didn't have enough men to break the flank.

Overall, my tournament result was 2 wins and 1 tie, which was good enough to place me third overall.  I really enjoyed the tournament and will definitely play in another one.

Key learnings:
- The Japanese are very effective against infantry that closes within 12 inches, but lack any real capacity to deal with heavy armor
- Both my light mortar and 70mm gun were just not that effective (which may be to my poor play).  I think it might be better to trade them in for either a medium mortar or perhaps an artillery observer.
- LMGs are not worth the points for Japanese infantry squads.  The majority of the casualties my troops inflicted came from assaults and I would have been better of having 2 additional infantry figures rather than the 20 point cost of the LMG
- Bolt Action is a fun game but comes down to plain luck in terms of order dice pulls for some scenarios where one is trying to get something off the board  (i.e. Top Secret).  I would suggest that those scenarios probably are not good choices for tournaments.
- I had a blast!

Here's a shot of Mike P's Brits - that's a lot of very well painted infantry!

Robotics Team Invited to Compete in the World Championship

Saturday was the Maryland State Championship and my son's team (3113) earned a berth to compete in the World Championship next April in St. Louis - it's a pretty big deal in the robotic's world and very exciting for my son and his team (as well as the coach - me!).  This will be our second trip there and we're very much looking forward to the event.

My middle school team also competed in the Championship and did very well, placing 7th out of 32 teams.  They were the youngest team in terms of age and competed against all High School age competitors so not a bad showing at all.

With two teams competing, I didn't get a chance to take any pictures so I'll add some later once i get some copies.

The only bad news is there will be limited time for modeling between now and Worlds, so my standings in the Analog Hobbies painting challenge will continue to decline.  I did mange to finish another confederate infantry regiment this morning.

Priming for the Analog Paint Challenge

A bit of priming for the upcoming 3rd Annual Analogue Painting Challenge!  On deck are:

- 72 28mm Perry Plastic ACW (the new set) - 3 regiments of 24 figures each
- 11 28mm Black Tree Design US Paratroopers
- 28MM Japanese mule train, tank and artillery piece
- 1/600 Scale ironclad "New Ironsides"
- A 28mm Perry Metal Japanese Samurai (the price of admission)

The competition starts on 12/20 and I'm ready to go!

I am Ronin Number 29....

Curt over at Analogue Hobbies has kicked off the 3rd version of his painting competition.  During last years competition I came in 8th out of 24 competitors with a final score of 1,061 points.  At 5 points per 28mm infantry fig that's the equivalent of 212 painted soldiers - that's a big output for my glacial painting style.  I was very pleased with my tally.  Of course it was dwarfed by the winner, Ray (Don't throw a One) who had a staggering 4,940 points!  The final few weeks of last year were a very spirited competition with one amazing entry after another.   From a reader's perspective it was very fun and much more interesting than the usual "look at my toys" type of blog entry.

I used the painting competition to kick off a new War of 1812 project, which ultimately led to hosting a game at Fall-In.  I'll be doing the same this year but will be focusing on a 28mm American Civil War theme - I really like the new Perry Plastic Confederates!

This year's event is much bigger than last years and has 47 participants (hence the 47 ronin reference).  No painting can commence before December 20th (that means you too Ray!) so I'm busy assembling and priming Perry ACW figures along with the competition entry few - a 28mm Samurai.  I have tried to convince Curt that a few confederate units went into battle completely grey - head to toe, in a shade that looks like today's grey auto primer.  I even attempted to back this statement up with almost irrefutable proof such as:

- "I think I saw it in an Osprey"
- "I read it on TMP"
- "Why do you think they called them the 'Boys in Grey?'"

I'm not sure curt will take the bait but one never knows (insert sinister laugh track here)

I've set a goal for 1,000 points again this year but we'll see how it turns out.

Gentlemen, please start your brushes.....

US Rifles Completed and a 3rd Unit Started

 Last Saturday, I completed the second unit of my 28mm US War of 1812 army - the 4th US Rifles. All of my US figures are from Knuckleduster and I really like the sculpting style.  The Knuckleduster style has slightly more exaggerated features, sharper cheek lines, larger noses and the equipment is a tad less symmetrical than you would see on a Perry plastic.  This style isn't a bad thing as it lends a bit of world weariness to the figure.  They look less parade ground and more battle worn.

 Anyway the figures are a joy to paint and I highly recommend Knuckleduster.  My command stand will be using some left overs from a US Regular infantry command pack so they don't have the exact uniform style but their uniform colors match.  I think they'll do fine.  You can see the command figures in the far left of the second photo.

 One last photo of the Rifles.  These will be classed as an elite unit.  I'm thinking of re staging the Battle of North Point for my first game scenario and a US Rifles unit figured very prominently in the fighting.

The final picture shows the next unit up for painting, another US regulars infantry unit.  This one will be painting in Spring / Summer uniform (blue tunics and white pants).  I should get these guys finished over the weekend and then it will be on to either some US militia or the Glengarry Light Infantry.  I also received 2, 40 man battalions of British Infantry (Perry plastics) that I had painted by a friend on commission (Mike M). They came out great and I'll get some pictures up when I can.

4th US Rifles Started

I've started my next US War of 1812 unit, which is a US Rifle battalion.  I choose to do the 4th US Rifles as I like the grey uniform - it's a bit different than the standard "dark green" most rifle units get.  Besides I will eventually have the Glengarry Lights on the British side, who wore dark green, so a little bit of color difference will help players keep track of who's who on the table top.

This unit will have 36 figures, of which 6 are 90%+ complete and the others are about 1/3 of the way done.  I should get these completed over the course of the weekend and submitted to Curt for the painting competition.

Back to the workbench....

29th US Infantry Completed

 The 29th US Infantry is complete!  This is my first US unit for my 28mm War of 1812 project and it consists of 36 figures.  Sorry for the poor picture quality but I was too lazy to get the right lighting in place.

This is the 1st unit of a planned 8-10 unit US force which will consist of:

3 Regular Infantry Units
1 Rifles
3 Militia
1 Artillery Battery (3 guns)
1 Light Dragoons or Mounted Kentucky Militia

As per the previous posts, I have completed these figures as part of the Analouge Hobbies painting challenge.  I've had a pretty decent showing (in terms of volume) but some of the other competitors have some amazing contributions.  The competition has been a lot of fun and I appreciate all the work Curt has had to put in keeping up with all the submissions.

As you can see in the second picture, I still need to add a flag to the unit and will be trying a new manufacturer I found (via his comment on Curt's blog), Flags of War.  The flags seemed reasonably priced so lets see how the work out.

Next up on the painting workbench will either be the 1st US Rifles or a Maryland Militia Unit

First half of a US Regular Infantry Unit

 The first 18 out of 36 figures for a Regular US Infantry battalion (War of 1812) have been completed.

I did these fairly fast but am happy with the "unit-look" and think they will be more than serviceable for the table top.

The second half of the unit should be finished in a few days but I doubt there will be a lot of progress on Christmas day.

Heres hoping that all of you have a wonderful holiday.  Merry Christmas for the Lair of the Uber-Geek!

And so it begins....

 My first entries into the Analogue Hobbies second annual painting competition have been completed and submitted to Curt.  For one brief, shining moment I was in the lead.  Of course there were no other entries but, never-the-less, I was in first place!!  Sadly, more talented and efficient painters have usurped the pole position.

 My first three entries were for SAGA and consisted of the mounted Norman Warlord (I didn't really like the one I completed a few weeks ago) and two Vikings.

 The Vikings are a bit whimsical in nature and are based on a request from my son to depict what Santa might look like if he was a Viking.  The figure to the left is the one that comes with the SAGA ruleset and wields a mighty two handed axe - that makes being on the naughty list a decidedly risky proposition!

 The third figure is another "Santa-Norseman" but comes from the command sprue of the Gripping Beast Viking plastic set.  While you can't see it in the picture, his shield does have a red and green holiday design.  We are very festive this year in the Lair.

 In order to show a sneak peak of my next entries, I need to bend Curt's embargo rules, hopefully he'll not notice as very few people ever read this far into any of my posts.  I've started my first 36 figure unit of regular US infantry for the War of 1812.  The figures are from Knuckleduster and they are top notch.  I'm painting this unit in the Fall/Winter uniform, hence the tan rather than white pants.  The first three are almost done.

 I've got 12 more in process and 18 awaiting there first dab of paint.

We'll see how long it will take me to finish the whole unit.  I suspect it will be at least a few days!

Prime Directive

I just finished cleaning up and priming 220 Knuckleduster War of 1812 figures.  From left to right there are 5 36 figure US units (3 regular Infantry, 1 Rifles and 1 Militia) and 1 40 figure British unit (Glengary Lights).

The figures came in really good shape and had little flash.  Other than straightening rifles/bayonets there was very little clean up required.  I prefer to do priming in large batches as it's much more efficient.  Here are my steps

(1) Clean up flashing and sand bases flat - make sure each figure can stand on it's own.  I also add brass rod flag poles during this step.

(2) Wash the figures in warm soapy water and leave out to dry

(3) Attach to 20mm square base with super glue.  The bases will be magnetized later on so I can group the figures in either 4 or 6 man stands.

(4) Prime.  I prefer to use white primer.  I use a very basic and cheap primer from Lowes (a US Do-It-Yourself store chain).  I let the primer dry at least 24 hours before starting to paint.  In the case of these figures it will be a bit longer.

(5) Try not to operate heavy machinery or sign binding legal agreements while high on paint fumes (this last step is optional but highly recommended)

I'll start painting these gentlemen on 12/20 as they will be my primary source of material for the Second Annual Analog Hobbies Painting Challenge!  Lets see, the challenge runs from December 20th to March 20th so that's roughly 90 days or 2.44 figures a day.  Hmmm, given my current glacial rate of output is closer to 0.1 figures a day I may need to up production speed!

The 2nd Annual "Analogue Hobbies" Painting Challenge

It seems as if I've gone and entered the second annual Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge.  I enjoy watching last years unfold but discovered Curt's great blog after the event had started.  If you haven't yet gone over to his blog, you should do so it a very nice read with great miniatures.  Of course those compliments are in no way an attempt to sway the judging in my direction.  Nope, not a chance of that, but if it did....

This year's event has a bit of a Tom Sawyer feel as Curt is allowing participants to get a 10 point bonus for painting one of his 28mm Viking figures.  Hmmm, I sense a real opportunity for Curt to pawn off all his household chores on point crazed and competition dazed miniature painters "must get more points..."  One wonders if he will use the awesome power of his competition for good or evil.  I suspect if my future posts indicate I'm traveling to Saskatchewan to shovel snow or wash dishes in return for painting points you'll know that Curt has been swayed by the dark side.

As for my entry, I'm leaning towards finally starting to paint my War of 1812 units (with the 200th anniversary coming up and all).  I recently purchased a rather large lot of War of 1812 figures from Knuckleduster (approx 225 figures) to flesh out at least 5 American infantry / militia units and one British unit (the Glengary Lights).  I'll also flesh out my Roman and Dacian armies a bit and there is always a chance that some 15mm Flames of War might sneak in just to keep things interesting.

There are some great painters entered into the competition so I don't have a chance on the quality side so it's got to be a quantity win for me.  Let the games begin!