Moments of Clarity... then back into a blury reality

HI all,

Really being inspired by this to do something with my abandoned SYW Prussian n Austrians...

http://http://saskminigamer.blogspot.com/2010/02/french-attack-fort-harilon.html

While not a player of HOTT I have DBx'd and I do play games using the Songs of Blades Engine, I know its still a game of 6 n 1's but somehow I feel less agreaved at loosing my rookie cops to gangster on a skateboard, yeah i still rolled a 1 to Richards 6, but... he is on a skateboard!! how cool is that!!

The base sizes also fit in nicely with Impetus, if i am ever allowed to play those again.

I Rebased all my ancient Romans onto 50x25 GW bases last year, not keen on rebasing again, making 12x6 sabots and having more units appeals, altho more appealing is just doing it in 10mm..... gaaaaagh

I mean looking at all my figures, projects and just WTF boxes of lead n plastic makes me wonder when i will actually get around to finishing anything anyway. I like 25mm figures, it is really what the hobby is all about.. isnt it? tho?

BUT the 10mm units look cool too, and make a 6'x4' table for 25mm figures, into the equivalent of a 18'x10' for 10mm units....

I have mostly used 8cm by 4cm bases for my 10mm Roman based in 3 ranks of 10 figures, looks mighty meaty... then my 15mm Romans are based in 3 ranks of 6, same sized base... then the 25m Romans are esentially on a 10cm by 5 cm base... oh which have i played with the most... hmm none of the have really been used more than three times anyway!! and who do they fight, well the only ones not invovled in civil war actions are the 15s which can take on the Barbarian Warbands... too much DIVERSITY still after around 6 years of purging, painting and purging again..

With the impending doom of redundancy I find myself thinking of resale values and streamlining the collection yet again, the 25mm units I am feeling may need to be sold on for now as much as it pains me, I know I can replace them one day, with Lottery winnings or something. Painted 15mm doesnt really have a resale value that i have found, but i have so little of it that to catch up with the grand scale stuff might costs more than it is worth, also there is hardly any of it with paint on!! The 10mm was bought n painted quickly to keep.... is pretty much complete and not in need of being added to either.

so what floundering projects do i have to possibly sell...

AWI Brits n Americans... around 600 figures in units of 24, 12 or 6 horse - 95% finished
Ancient Romans.. around 400 figures in units of 24, 12 or 6 horse - 95% finished
Ancient Allies n stuff.. around 300 figures - unpainted
Franco - Prussians ... around 1000 figures - 20% painted
Napoleonics... around 300 figures - unpainted
ECW ... around 300 figures - based n undercoated
GW 40k stuff ... around 600 figures plus vehicles - unpainted, some BNIB tanks but old
GW Fantasy ... around 600 figures
Warzone Plastics ... 240 figures - unassembled
Warmachine Khabdor ... 100 figures - painted by my mate Jon
Hordes Skorne .. BNIB 8 boxes of core units

40mm Lord of the Rings figures .. pre-painted around 1200 figures, including mounted
12mm MechWarrior - pre-painted clix stuff

15mm Romans
15mm Warband
15mm Suleucid
15mm Rennaisance Italians n French
15mm Fantasy Elves n Undead


and then there is the age old problem of where is best to sell it, i guess the new season of shows is comming up, bring n buys maybe, if i had more followers i could flog them straight off here

still if i am sat on my arse doing nothing else than painting figures its still constructive in the long run...

i've rambled..

January Painting

From my logs...

8 x 30 figure 10mm Old Glory 'Dutchy of Warsaw' Infantry units
4 x 30 figure 10mm Old Glory 'Nassua' Infantry units
4 x 8 mounted figure 10mm Old Glory 'British Light Dragoons' Cavalry units
4 x 8 mounted figure 10mm Old glory ' French chassuers' Cavalry units
2 x 12 mounted figure 10mm Old Glory ' French Carrabiniers' Cavarly units
3 x 8 mounted figure 10 mm Old Glory 'French and British Hussars' Cavalry units

all based for use with either LaSalle or BlackPowder

7 bases of 15mm Samurai based for Impetus but being used with BP Ancients - 56 figures

so 640 figure... rounded out to 222 Painting Point at 3 per 1 for 10mm and 2 for 1 at 15mm

no 28mm's painted this month tho

Purchases included old glory 10mm figures, more paint, wotr 25mm perry plastic and 2 board games; Descent and Small world... both aimed at playing more games with my son at weekends, altho i cant see why they wont become an evening option with Richard or indeed at the club nights.

new camera, test shots

here is a 25mm perry plastic, 10mm old glroy lancer and 28mm GW orc...

its a samsung 10.2m pixel on macro lense....

62£ from CEX second hand shop.

old camera was a coolpix 500 ... guess it will have to do..

Shaun

Rules...

A quick post on rules we are playing currently, starting with the most played...

Black Powder, this is not a review but a list of what i like about them...

They are fun, a bit of a no brainer really...
the command pips is a simplified version of warmaster, roll 2d6 under the command value and let the troops fly across the table, no micro measuring and angles rubbish, just get them in and dont spare the bayonets!!
The units stay on the table til they run away, no figure removal to slow the game down or loose figures to drop on the floor!!
D6s.. lots of them
the use of on table markers and damage pips for casualties, no off table grids to tick the boxes off of... "which unit was that? oh have you got a rubber.. piece of bread? anything?"
simple army morale and break rules that are realistic, well to me anyway

These rules are just so generic and adaptable that we have retrofitted them into ancients and fantasy using our old warmaster bases.... worked really well.. we play these for the fun factor

LaSalle

Fun - igo ugo activations, but the reserves can be a pain to arrive, army builder is very useful
D6s - for everything, by the handful.. nice and easy, roll to hit, roll to save... cry when the unit rolls 4 or less on two dice...
Units on table - these are multi-based to change formation, prefer the 'Grande Armee' approach of one stand but this is for smaller battles, will wait and see what 'blucher' does...
Markers - again am liking the disorder marker and casualties pips, its so easy and convenient
Army Morale - 33% loses and you roll over the turn number, sorted!! simples!!
hmmmmm, same reasons as BP really, except i win more with these rules and they are purely Napoleonic in feel... playing the period feel to them, not just a game of toys for some reason, we have used the army builder to make the black powder games more Napoleonic and less 70s airfix army.. ie British highlanders and scot greys vrs French old guard and Cuirrasiers!!

Songs of Blades and Whatevers....

These are the current choice of rules for Skirmish action.... Drums and shakos for sharpe, fear and faith for zombies and soon 'flying lead' for future wars stuff i am collecting... the concept I like here is very DBX, in the opposed dice rolls and doubling kills, simple and fun and quick!! oh and D6s and a very very nifty and nice activations sequence...

Battlefield evolution

WW2 company actions covered here... d6s, fun, simplistic... think there is a trend forming... we are supposed to be starting a pacific campaign at the club with these rules and as i cant be canadian i opted for ozzies, the rules can be very brutal in a 40k way, in that i move and you can shoot the shit out of me way, but they work better than everything we have tried so far... and that list is long!!!

BAsic Impetus and IMpetus...

Want to play this more than i do.... currently just building forces for it, even if they are being pushed into playing BlackPowder with... i like the hit on 5s n 6s thing with these rules, it worked for me, also the unit diarama stands are great, the stats worked well and allowed for some nice match ups with my romans and barbarians, altho the urge to add magic was never far away!!

DiscGame

THis was a simplefied version of warmaster i made to take to LARP events, but ended using with my son to play at home. It ironically seems to be a mix of DBX activation, warmaster unit stats and LaSalle morale, played on a grid 6x8... i wrote them 5 years ago on 5 index cards!! have now finished 4 complete armies and have 8 more in construction or half painted, GW plastics on 7cm disc bases from GW. I have lately been tinkering with them but not sure they needed it...

Rules - the future

One thing i have noticed is we (ie me and rich) do like to get rulesets and have a little tinker with them, so much so that Ganesha Games new rule set 'Flying Lead' is actually written by Rich becase he tinkered so much with a playtest set he was given that he basically re-wrote it for them!! I think that is why we have gravitated towards Black Powder over LaSalle, its just a less rigid set of rules, allowing the game to flow, like a sunday league referee that allows the 'play on' after someone has just been stabbed in the box. We like to play a game and enjoy that, not bluster about the rules in minute detail, protractors out and moving troops to the nearest thou on an imperial ruler!! life is to short for that type of game or indeed player, the hobby is supposed to be about having fun .. innit tho? eh?

Shaun

Happy New Year....

well it is my first post since... oh whenever and a day ago...

2009 - managed to limp in with 1005 Points of figures painted...
95 % finished my 28mm AWI project...
95% finished my 10mm Zulu project..

Benched the Ancients 28mm Project...

Started a 10mm Napoloenics project...

Going through the painted figures list i see a variety of distractions and huge month long gaps of non- productivity, all due to the stresses of RealLife... think i will Keep RL off of here, its about the hobby, innit :)

oh I started a new hobby too... Referee training for Roller Derby, skating at 40 years old after 22 on flat feet was interesting, but i am getting there eventually, so that is now three hobby distractions to keep me occupied in what is already a busy schedule. Oh yeah i turned 40 too, and started a diet.. current loss is 10lbs thanks to xmas excesses which brought me back down from nearly 20lbs lost!!! was a good xmas tho :)

Rules we currently use are....

BlackPowder
Impetus
LaSalle
and DiscGame which i play with my 11 year old son ... he has skaven and the ability to roll 6s like he had a pact with the Horned one himself.. well knowing his dad he may well have..

oh midlife crisis alert... getting new tattoo's to grow old distatefully with....

2010... well get a job (currently being made redundant in May)

buy new camera as mine is missing still... maybe the ex,ex took with her when she left...
find new clients that want 25mm figures painted at 2.50£ per figure in monthly bundles of 40
learn to trust 'Bring n Buys' again, or work out how to use Ebay profitably...

breaking new ****** the recession is over***** well thats ok then...

Shaun

gotta wear shades....

Hi all,

Another month another blog I guess. Painting has slowed, but preparation work has taken place, with more Napoleonics for Pat going onto the table, meanwhile I have build the Perry Plastic British and French, then set about the Victrix French box, OMG what a nightmare in comparison to the Perrys. The poses don’t necessarily build a marching unit either, and I do like my French to be marching to glory, while the British firing poses makes sense., still have the Victrix British to build….. not sure what to do with them either, probably skirmish games. The perrys I think I will keep for making into the start of my big Napoleonic collection tho, which is very much on the back burner till there are more plastic options.

The new victrix Highlanders look too good not to get some sooner than later….

But the French heavy Cavalry from Perrys looks like the next purchase, especially if I do take the ACW stuff and Imagination it… thinking of doing something with the old Grande Army rules and Based units similar to the Impetus sizes, so approx 10cm by 5cm for most units, with 4 cavalry or 10 infantry, with officer, drummer or standard bearers on the bases giving bonus to activation. Which would give me around 25 bases of infantry and 6 of Light cavalry to play around with straight out of the boxes… so no dent in the wallet just yet, oh and with Victrix having British Foot and Horse artillery boxes available inside the year will mean adding cheap artillery is going to be easy.

Need to start shifting some of the painted stuff I have been getting thru, just not sure on what is going to be the best way forward, not liking Ebay or trusting Bring n buys anymore… any suggestions welcome! With my job (well me really) receiving a redundancy notice I will need to either generate some painting orders or sell my stuff to bring some cash in, hobby will move to the back boiler for a while, still the packages look nice and will cover the mortgage for a couple of months, hopefully the job market will improve next year too…. If not then there will be plenty of painting time… see looking on the bright side there!!

take care all

Shaun

EG-TNG (Enfield Gamers - The Next Generation)

Well the swan song evening of pewc saw me playing Rich in NW Europe again... I took the US figures against the might of the Werhmacht, so as to not offend my American fans by loosing i gallantly allowed the figures to double as French..... win win situation i thought, until i won... then hurriedly had to make them Morrocans instead.... pesky dice just wouldnt fail me, Am starting to enjoy 'Force on force' too.

June saw the painting desk return as i mopped up some half painted and pre-prepared AWI figures i have had lurking around for a couple of years, 270 Painting points i am shocked. 24 figure units being churned out every 3 days! 6 figure cavalry unit in an evening? madness

Following TMP figures of the new Victrix Highlanders and Perry Hussars... swoon.. cant wait for these... but Perry Cuirassiers first tho... still not sure what to do with them all tho. So far the Perry British and French are all based on pennies ready for skirmishes with 'Song of Drums and Shakos' but really only keen on the activations bit of the rules, rest is DBMesque... migth need to have a fiddle about.

Also have a lot of Perrys ACW figures, so might do a little imaginations thing with those and the spare heads from the Napoleonics boxes, probably end up looking like Carlist stuff!!

Laters Ox