Post-Historicon

I have been busy catching up at work since returning home from Historicon so that I haven't had time for the full after action report treatment yet. My sons have both been at work on various 1/72 scale plastic projects, so I thought that this would be a good time to get back to working on some Egyptians and related peoples. Norman and I have a scenario for a convention game sketched out, and, with Ross's next visit tentatively scheduled for Fall In next year, time to work on it.

Technical Difficulties

I'm not quite sure what I'm doing wrong with these mobile updates...looks like I'll have some editing to do when I get home.

Anyway, I visited a couple of hobby shops in Colorado Springs today in honor of Free RPG Day, but also picked up some aditional Egyptians to add variety to that project, and the latest Battlegames (that they had, at least) for some in flight reading tomorrow. I had enough time on my hands today that I could theoretically have done some painting, but with the ever more stringent restrictions on air travel, it's been a long time since I brought a painting kit on a trip...

Egyptian Chariots

I finally had some time today to sit down and work on a project which has been nagging me for a while: finishing the last two chariots for a 1000pt WAB Egyptian army.  I've had the army on the table already, but have had to borrow a couple of allied chariots from my son, the Great King of the Hittites.

I don't have all my basing materials with me, but I at least have them attached to the bases proper, and will do sand and grass tomorrow or Saturday.

This pair of chariots completes the original plan, and I therefore ordered a little reward, an Atlantic Pharaoh's Court set to gather a few civilians, and possibly to build a little vignette of a scribe counting a pile of hands, with which to taunt my opponent.

Focus?

After Ross's visit and Cold Wars, I'm inspired, and I wanted to make some use of that inspiration before it dissipates.  I wanted to work on my next pair of Egyptian chariots tonight, but with an eye to clearing my bench a bit, I also finished up one stray Schoeffen-Buschhagen dragoon (who'll need a little foliage clump when basing to hide the casting flaw on the left hind hoof) and an Airfix billman for the Medieval Mayhem project.  Both of the latter had been hovering in a mostly completed state for months, so it felt good to actually get them varnished and be ready to move on to the next thing.  However, that is stuff from three different projects.

Lack of focus has not been the main reason for lack of progress this past year, but it certainly hasn't helped, and I'm hoping to increase my discipline with respect to having too many things on the work bench at once in the near term.

One More Chariot Battle

I had the opportunity to engage my son in another round of Egyptians and Hittites using Warhammer Ancient Battles on Sunday (10 January). We have been playing these rules repeatedly lately for two reasons: to encourage ourselves to paint more figures for this project, with a goal of putting on a game at Cold Wars or Historicon ’11, and to increase our familiarity with the rules to the point where we can get through a game without needing a rules lookup in the main book.

The picture shows the view from behind the center of the Egyptian line. Given that the Hittites have a substantial advantage in chariotry (50% of points versus 25% maximum for the Egyptians), I decided that I would deploy the infantry forward and attempt to soften up his chariots before committing mine. Success was somewhat limited...my foot figures shown here were routed and destroyed in pursuit by the lead Hittite squadron, thought I did manage to destroy the pursuers in turn by archery from my chariots. The game ran about eight turns in two hours, so was a pleasant way of spending the morning before I took him back to school. Next week I think we’ll continue the Warhammer familiarization project, but, unless I finish the chariots currently on the desk, we’ll break out the Saxons and Vikings or the Second Punic War figures for a change of pace.

I am still working on project goals for this year; continuing the expansion of the Bronze Age is high on the list, as is the fictional tricorne project expansion (the Not Quite Seven Years War).

At the desk

I finally had time to sit down at my painting desk for a little while this evening. While I don't really like to show things in progress, the fact that there is progress is worth a little celebration. I have two chariots to go to finish phase one of the Egyptian army. I find the horses take me longer than the other elements of the chariot, so I decided I'd do the horses first on these last two. I set the crews up for priming then slopped varnish on the horses, here seen still drying...

The team painting sticks have helped with these particular unbased figures; I haven't used special purpose painting jigs since I was doing 15mm cavalry back in the late '80's, but I will have to consider it again in the future. A revised chariot edition would include some sort of holder for the car.

New Year, Old Battle

My older son, aka the Great King of the Hittites, has been home for winter break, but will be headed back to school today for a January mini-term. We decided that we had better get in at least one game to keep us encouraged on our chariot project before he left, so we pulled out the figures and cleared the table last night. We had a quick game of Hittites attempting to raze a village against a local force, with the Egyptians coming on the table relatively slowly. The picture above shows the advance guard of the Egyptian force preparing to take on the left wing Hittite chariot squadron. We were not too concerned about scenario balance (which could have used some work), since our main objective is to get to the point where the Warhammer Ancient Battles rules are automatic and don't require stopping to look things up. A few more games should see us at that point, for a while ...

I haven't had a brush out yet this year; but will put in some time clearing and organizing the painting desk today.

Unexpected Treasure

I was on my way home from errands yesterday, and fortuitously decided to stop at the public library. Having just played an Egyptian game the night before, and expecting to play another, I was amazed to find the book shown above on the "withdrawn, for sale" shelf for 50 cents. I'm not sure whether I'd use some of the colors shown, but the artist's renderings of an Egyptian camp and fortresses were certainly worth half the price of a candy bar...

If you keep your eyes open, you never know what you might find. (-:

Into Battle, Again

Inspired by the lack of success in the previous battle, and, more practically, by the fact that my son has to go back to school today, we did a reprise of the Egyptian/Hittite encounter on the same terrain last night. Here you can see the Sea People in action against a group of Hittite spearmen. We are using Warhammer Ancient Battles with house modifications to deal with multiple figure bases; these are still evolving. Tokens (unsightly, but as unobtrusive a color as I could find for this ground cloth) represent casualties.

The results were more satisfactory, from my point of view, although we were both set scrambling back to the painting table to provide dismounted versions of our generals, so that when their chariot is destroyed next time, they are not also removed (per the rules.)

When we were finished with the game, I had the not unusual experience of being ready to sit down with a brush and add some color to something. The project at the front of the bench was a squadron of semi-flat cavalry for Charge!, but more of that later...