15mm Thirty Years War game

 I'll get my excuses in now, we have got a new Tibetan Terrier (Nelly) after sadly loosing our dog Lexi just before Xmas so I have had neither the time nor frankly the inclination to port on here. The new dog is lots of fun but of course loads of work but well worth it.

Anyhow, I went over to Neil's place for a couple of weeks to game with his TYW 15mm collection and after a couple of sessions using the Twilight of Divine Right rule set by the Pike and Shot Society. Neil knows his stuff and recons the rules combine the accuracy and playability needed, he also has a great collection of figures as you will see.

Both armies lined up, Swedish to the top, Imperialists to the bottom of the picture.

My Imperialist cuirassiers on my left.

Swedish cavalry on Neil's left.

My Cuirassiers piling into the mounted shot and sneaky Hussar types mooching around the flanks.

Kind of ended up a bit of a stalemate on this flank. Rather disappointing as I had hoped for better.

Neil's Swedes had the edge on the other flank. 

Like I said, very nice figures.

The big push of pike in the centre, excellent Swedish Rgts vs large mediocre Imperial Tercios.

It all started to go horribly wrong as the Imperial Tercios collapsed one by one.

In the end my centre collapsed with the Swedish piling forward singing bloody Abba songs!
Certainly met my Waterloo anyway!

Good game,

Dave.

6mm Anglo Zulu War

 I have tinkered with colonial wargaming in the past, I had 15mm Anglo Egyptian/British/ Boer but sold it years ago. The main reason for not doing it again was that you need an awful lot of natives painted up against a small number of Europeans and I apart from the expense I would get sick of painting the large numbers of natives required or in this case "Zulus Sir, thousands of em."

Now offspring can, if your not careful cost you a great deal of money but when they get a bit older they (God bless their cotton socks) can come in very useful as far as modern technology is concerned. This instance being 3D printers, well beyond my ken. My lad (he's 34 for goodness sake!) is a keen painter of fantasy figures, prints his own and was kind enough to offer to print off any wargaming figures that I required. Now having watched Little Wars TV Isandlwana where they used 6mm Baccus figures I was of course hooked, add free 3D printed Zulus and away we went. At first we tried this file in 10mm but the figures were far too chunky but shrunk down to 6mm they worked a treat.

The British and the Natal native contingent are Baccus while the necessary large numbers of Zulu regiments are resin prints cut up from their five base strips and spread about on the bases. An awful lot more Zulus to do plus mounted Brits.

More to come no doubt.

Dave.

28mm Medieval

 Now before I get started, I knew what I would be buying, I just wanted to try these resin prints out. Looking as we do on eBay I came across Reconqer Designs 14th centaury bowmen, they do many other of this period, and other ranges I think, they looked great and not expensive. When they arrived, good prompt service, they came as I figured they would still on the resin sprues. From what I hear most manufacturers of resin print items do this as it would cut into their time cutting them off the sprues before sending them on their way and boy can I see why.

These are beautifully animated figures, really nice and lifelike but brother what a chew on cutting the sprues off, you can hardly see the figure inside a web of resin threads, add to this that the resin is very brittle (I replaced the arrows with cut down metal spears) and you can see that however careful I was I still managed to snap off a couple of bows during this process. Now don't ask me the intricacies but my son has a resin 3D printer and the stuff he prints for me isn't brittle at all, you can almost bend it and he knows his stuff.

I'm not here to knock the company, if you can be bothered then you will end up with some very nice figures at a very reasonable price. I won't personally be doing this again but I had to give it a go.

Here's some pics:

I have been working on 6mm Anglo Zulu war stuff so that's next up.

Dave.

28mm archers stakes

 Lots of things to post but little time to do it!

Came across some wooden tooth pick while shopping which prompted me on to hammer in those stakes for the 28mm medieval lads, poor souls have been nervously waiting for those French cavalry to ride over them while I've been dithering.

Tooth pick cut in half, holes drilled into lolly pop sticks, glued onto appropriately shaped card,  bodge filler mixed with wood glue. Painted and flocked, there you go.

Base sizes are for Impetus rules.

Twilight of the Sun King test game next.

Dave.

Up, up and away. 28mm French Rev balloon.

 This French Revolutionary collection has been ongoing for twenty five years or so, no Eureka, Warlord or as they are now Skytrex figures when I began, only 1800 -1807 bicorn Old Glory and some Foundry. Not perfect but you had to make do. As you can see from the link to the other posts of the French Revolutionary collection Here it consists of many figures from different manufacturers but from day one I wanted a balloon. The paintings of these battles sometimes showed these fantastic, colourful observation platforms lording it over the battlefield and I wanted one. Twenty five years later I got my act together and scratch built the thing.

At first I thought there must be someone out there who produces and sells a balloon from this period but nothing seemed to match what I wanted. Given that most people who peruse this blog know fine well that I ain't no great shakes at modelling it wasn't looking good but I am I have to say quite pleased with the result.

The balloon itself is a polystyrene craft ball sealed and painted, my wife suggested the black hair net! The basket is made from card with garden string weaved in between the upright struts and the various ropes are wires for support. Figures and flags added and there you go.

It's going to take some very careful packing to allow me to transport it to the club when I get round to putting a game on though!

Dave.