Historicon Registration is Open

Registration is now open for Historicon.  I'm really looking forward to going this year.  The event will be held in a brand new(and way better) venue.  I'll also be putting on my games as part of the Little Wars TV contingenet.  Maybe I'll even get a T-Shirt but lets not get our hopes up too high.  Here's a link to a video from the club about the new venue - it's looks really great.

As usual, I'm running a large game multiple times this year.  The game format is a big change for me as it's in 15mm scale and will be unseeing a moderately complex ruleset (General D'Armee).  As with most of my games, there will be boats involved, as boats make everything better don't they.

Here's the description of the game from the PEL:

T14:267 To Catch a King - Little Wars TV
Thursday, 2:00 PM, 4 hrs, Players: 8, Location: Commonwealth: CW-25GM: Miles Reidy & Little Wars TVSponsor: None, Prize: YesPeriod: Napoleonic, Scale: 15mm, Rules: General D'ArmeeDescription: The Corsican Ogre has managed to invade England and has the British army on the run. Damn that fool Nelson and his naval misadventures! Still, all hope is not lost if we can just keep King George the III and his court out of the clutches of the French. For the French, the campaign goes well but supplies are short and control of the seas tenuous at best. The Grande Armee must deal the English a final blow before their continental allies can rescue them. This game features both land and naval encounters, all played in glorious 15mm scale. Children welcome w/ parent.

As you can see, it will be a meticulously researched historical game of exacting standards.  OK maybe not but it should be fun and there will be plenty of surprise events for both sides to keep the game moving along.

I'm still finishing up some terrain and have added a few miniatures to the painting lists but we're about 90% there in terms of prep.  The table will have a little over 2,300 painted figures and maybe more if the promised Austrian reinforcements arrive.

The scenario involves the British in a holding action as they try to convey the King and his court across the table and onto a waiting ship.  Said ship will then need to fight it's way out of the harbor.  Alternatively, an aggressive British commander could choose to stand and fight in the hopes that the promised Austrian reinforcements arrive.  They'll still need to use the remnants of the fleet to hold off the French navy from adding their guns to the weight of the French artillery.  Lastly, with King George being THAT King George, his movements may be erratic at times......

The game is listed to be run 5x in the PEL and I'll run a few walkup games in the evenings - I like to run games for the vendors at night as they often don't get a chance to play.

Here are the PEL listings

T14:267 Thursday at 2:00pm

F09:526 Friday at 9:00am

F14:527 Friday at 2:00pm

S09:528 Saturday at 9:00am

S09:524 Saturday at 2:00pm

I hope to see you at Historicon this coming July.

A sneak peak at some of the French infantry.  Its just a few figures......

Another Test Game of General D'Armee

 I've set up the same forces used Monday night at the club for another test game.  I am really enjoying learning these rules and the deeper I go, the more I like them.

 With the exception of the roads all of the terrain was made by yours truly.  The roads are rubber and were purchased from Battlefield Terrain Concepts.  I highly recommend them.

The buildings and walls were all 3D prints and really painted up very well.

I've got some more skirmisher stands being made up so hopefully can add them to the game in a few days.

Finished 15mm Forrests

 OK, we're up to the final two stages of this miniature forestry adventure - making the tree canopies and scenicing the bases.  A word of warning - both these processes are extremely messy and YOU WILL burn yourself on the glue gun.  Sometimes sacrifices must be made the the Miniature Wargaming gods.

The first step is to cut out the underbase for the tree canopies.  I like to use black foam core as its cheap, durable and the black hides any gaps from the attached foam material.  Just trace the shape of each tree base onto the foam core and the cut it out with a new facto knife blade.  For some added elevation I attached another layer of foam core.  In actual practice this didn't really do anything so I would skip that step.

With the canopy bases cut out the next step is the attache the foam.  I strongly serge you get a cheap cake pan as pictured for any flocking exercises.  The pan really controls the mess and helps me reused the flock that shakes off.  I ended up using three colors from the woodland scenic line - light, medium and dark green (very creative names).  Lay out the clump foliage and pre picked some larger pieces of dark green to attached to the sides.

Use a hot glue gun to attach the foam working on 2 to 3 inches sections at a time.  This is a bit tedious but the results are worth the effort.  As stated above you will burn yourself doing this.  You'll also use up a lot of sticks of hot glue so go buy some more right now.  No really go buy some, we'll wait - here's a link:

Hot Glue

I don't have no affiliate program, I just wanted to see how many of you clicked the link.

 After what seems like 10 hours the edges are finished.  Ok maybe 5-10 minutes but it seemed like 10 hours as this was the 6th of 12 tree canopies I was building.

Some of you might notice the lines of hot glue running form the edges into the center of the foam core.  That was done on purpose to control the hot glue strings.  One you're done putting a bead of glue along the edge, drag the tip of the hot glue gun along the top to get rid of any excess glue - that reduces the wisps by 95%.

With the edges in place, start adding the clump foiuliage working in from the outer edge.  You could use standard PVA glue but I went with even more hot glue as it was just faster.  Take your time and make sure there are no holes.  Once I got the edges done I brought in the big guns of tree foam industry.

 Thats right, I used "Foliage Clusters".  Is there a difference between to Clump Foliage and Foliage Clusters?  Kind of yes, kind of no.  Clump Foliage it just Foliage Clusters cut up into small pieces.

 Here's a picture of the two version of foliage.  The foliage cluster (on the right) is used to add height to the canopy and is a lot faster to put down, especially with hot glue.

Once all the foam is attached soak the canopy is diluted Matt medium and water to ensure the foam has a strong adherence both the foam core and the between the foam pieces.  Don't skip this step or you'll constantly need to be explaining to your spouse/partner why there are always tiny pieces of green foam around your house.  Trust me when I say these excuses eventually become ineffective.

And boom, you've got some very nice tree canopies.

 The last step is scenicing the bases.  I used a mix of let over ground foam and some leaves to make this.  I always took the gather twigs, painted the them same colors as the dowel tree trunks and added them on the bases.

 Another liberal coating of diluted matt medium....

 and there are the finished tree stands drying.

 So how do they look on the table - Lets observe this tree stand as some British calvary pass it by.

 The canopies came out grew.  An easy detail to break up the monotony of the green color is to have a dead tree branch of two poking out the the canopy.

Here's the base with the top removed.  I like how the dead (brown) leaves came out and broke up the color pattern.  I'll go back and hit the edges of this one with more flock after it's had another day of two to dry out.

General D'Armee at the Club

Last night Tom and I ran our first game of General D'Armee at the club.  Thanks very much to Ed and Simon for being willing test subjects and for being such good sports as I constantly looked up rules.

The game was a fictional meeting engagement.  pitting a British / Spanish force against the French.  The sides were even with 3 brigades of infantry (each 4 battalions) and one brigade of Calvary (3 units).  2 of each armies infantry brigades had an attached artillery battery.  The only thing lacking is that I only had enough skirmish stands completed to allow skirmishers for only 1 brigade per side.  It did show that skirmishers are really important in these rules.

For simplicity sake, all units were rated "line".  I am sure that I got a lot of nuances wrong - like fighting in built up areas (BUA's).  One thing that is clear to me is that I need to make village plots that outline the shape of the BAU and govern if a unit is in or out.  Using just buildings was very confusing.

The French ended up attacking.  The impact of no skirmishers was really felt by Tom's British left flank (upper right) where my Brigade with skirmishers managed to inflict more damage than received (he lost 2 of his infantry battalions to only one of mine) and the others were pretty chewed up.  In hind sight it was a very unfair but did so how important the correct use of skirmishers are in this rule set.

Overall, I was very impressed by the rules - the command system is both elegant and challenging but not so much as you can loose a game from a single round of bad die rolling.  The combat system is good but a tad complex - I think we'll get a grasp of the rules for club play after another game or two.  I am concerned about using these rules for the upcoming Historicon games this July and may need to figure a way to strip them down a bit.

Overall very impressed with the rules and left last night wanting to play a lot more.

Smaller Scale Tree Stands: I AM A MINIATURE FORREST RANGER

First a reminder of what I'm trying to replicate.  The photo to the left is a close up of one of the three tree stands that Ernie made for me way back in 2010.  Ernie does have remarkable skills and these beauties have held up rather well.

As Stated in earlier posts, I did want to change the design concept and replace the roofing nails Ernie used with wooden dowels.  Even with the points ground down, the nails are still sharp and gamers at a convention are, ummm, not the most graceful in motion.  An impaled gamer is a terrible sight to see and rather messy.

I also wanted to make the trees slightly taller as 15mm scale vehicles sometimes don't fully fit under the ones I've got now.

 I have a bunch of 12" inch long 1/8 diameter dowels which is a perfect dimension for the tree trunks.  So I got out my trusty precision cutter  "The Chopper", set the length to 1 3/4 inches and started chopping away.  The blade is a little worn down so I could only cut three dowels at a time.

Slowly the inventory of tree trunks grew

and grew and grew.  I didn't really keep track of how many I cut but in the end made more than enough for the project at hand.

 The base of the stands I'm trying replicate use "real" tree branches for fallen trees (ok it's just twigs).  That afforded a chance for me to go out in the back yard and find some interesting, scale appropriate, branches.  The outdoor "terrain mall" seems well stocked today.

 A note on tree trunk color - trees in the shadows are black/brown/grey so that's what I'm going to paint mine.

After an extensive search of the backyard and a long nap in the hammock (it was a very nice day), I was left with a sufficient supply of twigs to use as fallen trees.  I'll also put a few sticking out from the canopies to add to the visual details.

 Attaching the dowels to the bases is fairly simple - I put a 1/8 inch bit in my cordless drill and drilled holes along the edge of each base about 1/2 inch in from the edge.  For some of the larger stands I may go back and put a few in the center to suppler the canopies.

Once the holes were drilled, insert a dowel with a dab of Eileens Tacky glue (thickened white PVA glue) and the stands are done.

 The last step before scenicing the bases is to paint the trunks so I mixed up some simple craft paint (1 part black, 1 part burnt umber, 1 part medium grey) and painted the trunks.

So here's where we stand at the moment.  Next up will be scencing the bases which will be fun and then making the canopies, which will define the term tedious for you.  There is also a forthcoming VERY EXCITING dissertation on the differences between Woodland Scenics "Clump Foliage" and "Foliage Clusters".  Prepare to have your minds blown....

BOOM

Smaller Scale Trees: Basing Test Results

The results are in and it seems everything old is new again.

I have two criteria for terrain making efforts - looks, durability and ease of application.  Both methods passed the looks category with a slight edge to the non-pre-mixed version.  The flexible pre-mix on the right can look a little smoothed over.  Since both will be covered 95% by ground foam those minot smooth spots will be covered up.

On Durability the pre-mixed flexible grout won hands down.  How do I test durability - I take the piece , turn 90 degrees and whack the side on the my workbench fairly hard.  The side with the unmixed grout just flaked off while the flexible pre-mix didn't show a mark.  I ended up redoing the unmixed by adding in a 50/50 mic of matte medium and water rather than just water - while the matte medium shows through it now passes the "whack-test"

On ease of application their both about the same so the winner is my tried and true pre-mixed flexible tile grout.  The unmixed stuff is still useful for patches and gravel but not great in covering large flat areas.

My ground texturing tile grout of choice is the "Simple Grout #105 Earthtone" and can be purchased at any big box Home Improvement retailer.  Here's a link to Home Depots listing - SIMPLEGROUT. It currently runs for $30.00/gallon - buy a gallon container as it keeps forever.

I just look for the purplish banner across the top.

I realize this and the previous post are rather basic in nature but its good to refresh some of the more foundational techniques in making terrain.  I've got a few more terrain squares to make up so those will be the subject of the next series of posts.

Smaller Scale Tree Stands: Basing Test

A few months ago, I made a large number of tree stands that work great with 28mm figures but not so well with 15mm and 6mm figures.  Since I've got a large convention game coming up this summer - I really HAD TO HAVE a solution.  At least that's what I've told my wife as she rolls hers eyes at me (again).  A long time ago, Ernie Baker made some really nice tree stands for me that have removable canopies as you can see in the first picture.

The removable canopies make it easy to move troops through the forrest and give a really nice look on the table top.  The tree trunks are nails.

My wargaming club also uses a similar style of tree bases which you can see here.

I made a similar set of tree bases for Curt during Painting Challenge VIII but now need some for my personal collection.

I've also stumble across new (to me) type of material call "PALIGHT" and wanted to test it out for the bases.  Palight is a foam version of PVC - think foam core with a flexible plastic outer shell rather than paper.  It' cheap and can be purchased in several colors - I got some black 1/8 inch thick sheets to experiment with.

Both Ernie's and the tree bases I made for Curt use nails with the points ground down as tree trunks.  Even with grinding, they're still sharpish and can poke through the form core tree canopies is some pressure is applied.  Thats fine for home use but too dangerous in a convention setting where there is always that one gamer how tries to support himself (in these cases it's always a guy) as he leans over to move a unit.  Rather than having to give yet another "impalement statement" to the authorities, I thought I'd go with wooden dowels for the tree trunks.  I'll also very them between 1/8, 3/8 and the occasional 1/4 to given the perception of different tree ages.

My first test involves cutting out the legally proscribed* kidney shaped tree base and then testing the adherence of my ground texture of choice - tile grout.  I had two types on hand:  Pre-mixed on the right (colored "sandstone") and non-premixed on the the left (colored "summer wheat").

In terms of application, the unmixed version was dead simple.  just spray a little water onto the PALIGHT and then sprinkle the grout onto.  The grout soaks up the water and that activates the adhesive.  The premixed stuff requires spreading with a tool and took a little longer to apply.  Both look great but I'm leaning towards the unmixed version.  I'm going to leave this to dry a few more hours and then do some bending tests to see how durable the adhesion is.

One thing I did do to the PALIGHT was lightly sand the face to give the grout something to adhere to.  Cutting and sanding PALIGHT does create a very fine dust (similar to MDF) so I wore a regulator to protect my lungs and you should to.  Scratch that - don't be stupid, wear a damn respirator when working with PALIGHT

* you should check out your local ordinances, I guarantee there's a legal requirement to have at least one tree base that's in a kidney shape.  Some counties in the US require more than one.  You've been warned.  California, of course, requires 4.

Salute Show Report

I'm a little late with the obligatory blog post on Salute, but here goes.  Last Saturday (April 6th), I was able to attend my first Salute given a business trip happened to coincide with the with the event.  I've always wanted to go to Salute and to be worried was a little apprehensive I'd be disappointed.  Those concerns were entirely misplaced as I had a blast.

In addition to my first Salute there is a second "first" with this event - I've made my first video for Little Wars TV by "reporting" on the show for the channel.  Don't worry, you'll not have to suffer through any images of me but you will have to listen to my voice and odd sense of humor.  Please be kind in the comments on the video - I might get banned from further correspondent work if you're really tough on me - that includes you, Ray.  Heres a link to the show report

 I've always heard about the awful line to get into to Salute and managed to arrive about 35 minutes early and found the queueing hall to be relatively open.....

 That wasn't the case about 20-25 minutes later as here's a shot of the line to get just before opening.  To put the size of the show in scale for US readers, the queuing hall is about 3x the size of the vendor hall for Historicon and was packed with people.

 I was very lucky to find my friend, Tamsin, was in line with me and we passed the time catching up.  While I didn't get any pictures, I was also able to catch up with Ray, Lee and Postie at the convention and seeing them is always a great deal of fun.

 The rest of the reports will be a set of randomize pictures of games with the rare witty comment (very rare).  First up - Simon Miller's ancients battle using his "To the Strongest" rules and pitting Romans vs Britons.  What really struck me is despite having super simple terrain - it's just a terrain cloth on a tilted piece of plywood with tree clumps along each side, the game looked stunning and people seemed to be having a blast.

 It seems that Warlord's Cruel Seas game will have a follow on set in the age of sail called "Black Seas".  It looks promising but is a ways out.

 Finally got to meet Peter Baccus and found his booth to be oh so tempting.  I suspect there will be an order placed in the not to distant future.

Franco / Prussian war anyone?

 I made my pilgrimage to the Perry booth and picked up the new set of WW2 US infantry in plastic.

 The was a new company making 6mm scenics for the Normandy campaign.  The first casts looked stunning.  The companies name is "RK Modelworks".  I did pre-order the village set.

Looking forward to getting these.

 Next will be a bunch of random game pictures

 15mm 6 day war model of Jerusalem.  That's pretty darn ambitious and carried out rather well.

 Ahh Osprey was here with lots of historical books....

Oops only fantasy stuff.  OK I used that joke in the video too.

 Giant command and colors game

 This may have been the game with the best terrain at the show

My favorite game of the show was a refight of the Battle of Ligny in 15mm using General D'Armee.  I got the meet ht rules author and found the we had very similar backgrounds.

 It was a wonderful game

 This terrain piece was the subject of a series of "how-to" videos that I had been watching and it was a real treat to see in person.  Mr Aps has terrain making skills that I can only aspire to.

I'll likely edit this post over the next few days as after the LWTV video goes up.

Overall, I really did have a good time and will go again if I can align either a  business or personal trip.  I do think one of the reasons I enjoyed the show so much was I was able to catch up with some UK based friends.

I do look forward to next year.