1/72 scale digression

Norman was delayed somewhat by traffic yesterday, so the 40mm battle remains to be fought later today. While waiting for breakfast time to arrive, we set up a quick game of 1/72 Hordes of the Things, pitting my incomplete Cold Islands barbarian army against Norman's Mizarene field force. (Basically Vikings versus Byzantines...) Unfortunately for the Emperor's finest, their training and military manuals were no match for the ferocity of the Northmen in the first skirmish, as the Mizarene riders vanished under a hail of arrows, and their knights disappeared in a blinding flash of magic produced by the Blue Sorceress. Not long after, their general was surprised by the appearance of an angry warband on his flank, and he fell in the confused melee which followed...

Help is on the Way!

My son, the Prince-Palatine of Wachovia, is on his way up for a visit with some gaming. Since the NQSYW troops haven't been out in a while, that will be the first thing on the agenda. We're actually dropping back in time to the War of the Western League, which occurred prior to the NQSYW, to the the defense of the Spaetleseberg. A detachment of the Schoeffen-Buschhagen Adelmann Regiment is holding the hill against a combined league force, hoping to hold out long enough for reinforcements to arrive.

Hinchliffe Week

I've mentioned previously that I ended up with a cache of mostly Hinchliffe mostly Byzantines from the flea market at Huzzah in 2015.  Last year sometime, I cleaned and primed a dozen Varangians with axes, intending to add them to my fantasy Byzantine project.

I recently finished them.

Myzantine Dragon Guards

Inspired by this success, I went to the box and pulled out eighteen peasants, a handful of crossbowmen, and ten Pecheneg horse archers.  I figured that, as long as I had the metal cleaning gear out, I might as well add a half dozen Ral Partha/Iron Wind Metals Mongol horse archers to the mix.  That was Monday, the 29th of May.

Metal cleaning day

Old Hinchliffes have a rough-and-ready sculpting style, which responds reasonable well to mass painting.  I'm not too fond of the crossbowman casting, but I painted them anyway, but the peasants came out reasonable well for as little time as I put into them.

Five Myzantine crossbow skirmishers

With eighteen peasants (including one stray Byzantine staff slinger), I decided that I would base two groups of six, and the rest as individuals.  Most of the fantasy rules I'm using now are based around twelve figure units.

Hinchliffe Peasants

Unfortunately for my budget, just as I was cleaning and priming the figures, somebody on the Old School Miniatures discussion on FaceBook posted a picture asking for identification of a Hinchliffe Robin Hood peasant woman.

I ended up deciding to thicken up the individually based peasants with a bunch of Robin Hood figures, since the castings are available from Hinds Figures. Mr. Hinds was very prompt with my order, so I now have a couple of dozen Robin Hood and Sheriff figures in hand, which will probably form a pair of matched war bands for Dragon Rampant, as well as serve as bandits for D&D.

Newly arrived Robin Hood range figures

I have a dozen of those, including the principal characters, primed as of this morning, and hope to get started on them shortly.

As a bit of a digression, I had some time to paint at lunch this week, and finished a unit of Ral Partha/Iron Wind Metals orcs, from the recent Chaos Wars Kickstarter.  They'd been sitting in my cupboard for a good while, so I was glad to clear them out.  I've also primed another dozen goblins to follow up.

Chaos Wars orc warriors

So it's been a good week or two for painting...

Some Recent Painting

Following my string of defeats in Dragon Rampant (DR) at Huzzah, I decided it was time to add a new unit to the mix.  DR calls for 6 figure cavalry or war beast stands.  I had wanted to do some giant rats in Iron Wind/Ral Partha, so I'd bought enough for six bases some time ago.  They have been sitting around primed, but otherwise untouched, for a few months, and this was their week.

I kept it simple, three base colors with three corresponding dry brush shades over them.  The large swarm bases are Iron Wind catalog number 01-045, and the individual rats on the smaller bases are DF-106, originally sculpted by Julie Guthrie as part of her "All Things Dark and Dangerous" line for Ral Partha.  I had them done in about an hour; it probably took longer to base them than to paint them...

These two veteran Minifigs are destined to be part of the upcoming ME war bands project.  The Ithilien ranger (ME34) is an eBay acquisition, but the heavy goblin (ME56) was handed to me by my brother (one of seven), and is one that's been in the combined family collection for 40+ years.

I took my travel paint kit and half a dozen miniatures on my most recent business trip, a week before Huzzah.  My actual painting time turned out to be somewhat limited, but I finished these two Heritage figures.  The Boromir (movie version, catalog number 1750) is a Mike Thomas/Classic Miniatures recast, and completes (finally) my Fellowship.  I think it's been about two years since I bought them from Mike.  The cleric is from a package of four expansion figures for the TSR boardgames Dungeon, based, I believe, on an article in a Strategic Review or Dragon. (The expansion, that is...) He drifted in as part of an eBay lot with a lot of nice (and unusual) Heritage stuff early in my eBay obsession, so also almost two years ago.

While most of them have been done for a while, here's the Fellowship lined up:

I mentioned in my Huzzah report that I took my 1/72 Hordes of the Things armies with me.  These mixed manufacturer Vikings were finished in time for the trip, but Ross's army was using pretty much the same figures, so I thought it would be less confusing to leave them out of the game. (My army was mostly Airfix Sheriff of Nottingham and Robin Hood figures...)

That puts me at 5 bases of "Cold Islanders" for the campaign, so I hope to get back to painting more of them soon.

Huzzah 2017 After Action Report

After taking a year off from Huzzah in 2016 (for my son's college graduation), I made the trip again this year.

Huzzah takes place in Portland, Maine, at a hotel near the airport, which makes flying very practical.  This year my significant other was up for a road trip and some shopping at the nearby L.L. Bean outlet, so I was able to pack my 40mm Renaissance figures to be half of a game run with my long-time collaborator Ross Macfarlane.  In some future year, though, I may find myself limited to staging a game that is air-transportable, but that's a topic for a different post.

The general stress of life has been a little high this year, so I was fortunate that Ross was up to the task of doing most of the planning for our game, as well as acting as the convention liaison for the contingent of HAWKs who came up for the weekend.  As the convention approached, I have been working on something else entirely (1/72 fantasy), so Ross dipped into his vast collection of miniatures and came up with a 1/72 Hordes of the Things army so that we'd have an alternative pick up game.

Irene and I reached Portland on Thursday evening after an uneventful drive.  Official gaming at Huzzah starts after lunch on Friday, so there was a little time to relax and make ready.  When Ross arrived, we grabbed a table for a quick review game of the 40mm Renaissance rules we use, and then moved on to our first official game.

We were both in a 54mm English Civil War game, using plastic figures from A Call to Arms and the Very Civile Actions rules from The Perfect Captain.  The gamemaster, Jeff Estabrook, had chosen the Battle of Brentford, immediately after Edgehill at the beginning of the war, as the basis of his scenario, and we had a good game of pushing around pike blocks.  I used to do ECW in 25mm, but sold them off some years ago, figuring that one pike and shot project (40mm 16th century) was probably enough.  I think I'll maintain that resolve, but I was reminded that I like the toy soldier feel of gaming with the big figures.

My troops at Brentford

Ross surveys the battlefield

Ross and I set up our game in the after-supper time block.  We used a generic scenario drawn from the Stuart Asquith book on solo wargaming, which we set in the 1544 Boulogne campaign, part of Henry VIII's second French war, and which is more or less the default time frame for our troop collections.  The scenario involved two forces on converging paths, each tasked with holding a village and exiting troops off a single road on the far side of the field.  Our forces were somewhat asymmetrical, with the French being heavier, and the English (and allies) being superior in firepower.  I thought the game went well, with all of the players remaining actively engaged right up to the end at the four hour mark.  The French were edged out of the village and blocked from exiting, but it was a near run thing in both cases.

My pikes, French today, advance toward the village

The starting positions; armies converging

My village of Fat Dragon Fold-flat buildings

The English advance guard

Push of Pike!

Ross ran an impromptu demonstration of Bob Cordery's Portable Wargame rules in the Saturday morning block, and I had a go at evicting the British from Zululand a couple of times, using an eclectic mix of 54mm troops from Ross's collection.  Forces ranged from A Call to Arms plastic Zulus to 80 year old vintage Britains, recently restored and repainted.  I already have a copy of The Portable Wargame, so happily I'm ready to try this at home, perhaps using some troops that haven't been out in a while.

Some war-games veterans here...

On Saturday afternoon, local gamer Rob Wheeler (who does business as Pennyfew Painting) stopped in to deliver some commissions and to play a couple of rounds of Dragon Rampant.  His war band was composed primarily of vintage Ral Partha figures, and I fielded two different bands, one of mostly Ral Partha figures, "The Masters of Lizards", and one entirely of early Heritage figures, "Forest Defenders". They were equally unsuccessful, so I will be looking for some revenge at a future convention...

Two Robs

Heritage Treemen send the Ral Partha bugbears packing; one of my few moments of triumph...

Rob's army advances; my RAFM Reptiliads are helpless.

I had not preregistered for anything for the convention (see comment regarding life stress above), so the Saturday evening games were pretty much closed out.  Therefore Ross, Irene, and I had an unhurried dinner at a steak place across the street, and then came back to set up a pickup game of Hordes of the Things, using the 1/72 scale plastics we had brought.  Once again, my skills were wholly inadequate to the situation at hand, and my army was sent packing with a 6:1 loss ratio by Ross's barbarians (built from a mix of Revell Saxons, Orion Vikings, and the classic Airfix Ancient Britons).  

Ross with his improvised army

Ross's Black Cauldron

Ross did a reprise of the Portable Wargame on Sunday morning, so I had a quick session using Russian Civil War figures against fellow HAWK Duncan Adams, before heading out for the long drive home.

Time to go until next year

Huzzah remains a great local convention.  I was glad to be back this year, and look forward to attending again next year, although I might be a little more proactive about registering for games in advance.

Huzzah 2017

Ross and I are running a 40mm 16th century game this evening at Huzzah.

More 1/72 Vikings

I'm continuing to chip away at the Hordes of the Things fantasy Viking-type army for the campaign, with 2 more war band figures finished up at lunch yesterday.