Bitsa this and Bitsa that.

 Over the last few weeks I have been trying to  progress on three different projects. Now those of you who don't get bored when organising their socks in colour and numerical order may thing this a little odd. Well maybe it is but single minded concentration on 1 wargaming project to the exclusion of all others would simply bore me witless and the quality would therefore suffer.

 So Gentle Reader  my painting table always has more than one lot of partly painted figures on it. 

 Currently the projects in hand are- 

 1/. Anglo -Sikh Wars. This is progressing nicely. I now have forces for both sides that are bigger than the game shown in the Sikh and Ye Shall Find post a few months back. Currently working on the 1st Bengal European Light Infantry. This is the most pressing of the projects as I need to add sufficient to the two armies for a demo game at The  Battle Ground Wargames show in late November - by which time my book on wargaming  the Anglo- Sikh wars should be imminent if not actually published. Once 1 BELI are done then it is on to 2nd Bengal Native Infantry Grenadiers. Assorted Sikh Irregulars will fill in any gaps on the painting table.

Bengal or Bombay  Field battery- with a 9 pdr. In front 
of a British camp. Bengal Native Infantry in the background.

The same Foot battery with the first of the  First Bengal European Light Infantry.
 More of these on the painting table.
Old Glory  28mm figures . Gun by Eagle Figures

2/. Shinyloo!.  I always have a few  retro style models on the table as a sort of light relief. Most recently finished are some French Foot artillery and a few French Dragoons. Both arrived here in a 'sort of painted' state so didn't need everything doing to them hence they were quite quick to finish and add to the growing collection of old shiny dudes. 

Recently added shiny dudes.
 Hinchliffe 30mm French Foot Artillery.
Connoisseur French Dragoons.

3/. 40mm Thirty Year War.  This project has languished for quite a while. Mostly because I simply could not decide which way I wanted to go with it. However two excellent books  recently published by Helion have helped me on the way. So French and Imperialists it shall be, with perhaps a slight accent towards the Spanish of the 1640s-50s.  But then again I might change my mind .... 

40mm TYW
 incongruously appearing in the Punjab!
Models on their sabots are a mixture of my own Romanoff Miniatures some ex-Jacdaw 
 and some with Sash and Saber heads

After reading a line in the recent Helion book on
Rocroi where a Spanish commander takes up a buckler
 I rather thought I'd make such a figure from various Romanoff parts. 
The result is the chap in the middle. 

 The 18 Musketeers no 2 exactly alike . Rebased on round 25mm diameter bases.

Units will be largish so not too many actual units on the table - accent will be on 'minor tactics' and  battalion command, at least that is currently the plan. Rules will be somewhat retro as many modern rules simply 'abstract out'  many of the interesting bits of 17th century warfare in favour of game simplicity for the hard of thinking but the role of a colonel or captain was very different from that of a general and rules should reflect this- you can't refight Lutzen using Pikeman's Lament-  and it is not meant for such  but I'll not use them for this project as they have many other historical and organisational problems despite being supposedly set at the command level I am looking for.. I have found a Featherstone set which may do the deed if I can graft on some command rules.  We shall see. 

The Second Battle of Fiddlers Rise June 1459

Early in the day. The Yorkist assault force.

 So once again the  Tantobie Warfare And Tactical Society meet in their new(ish) venue for a game. We had a total of five members this month and I was in the chair so decided upon a 40mm Wars of the Roses game. Shaun and new member Paul taking the Yorkists with Andrew and Steve taking up the sword for the House of Lancaster.

Early in the day. The Lancastrians occupy their palisade in the centre
Their right is on the hill of Fiddlers Rise.

Forces are currently quite small with  less than 200 models on the table for both sides . Rules are Tony Clipsom's set 'Foray' as our guide and your gentle author as Umpire..

 The scenario was based very loosely on the Battle of Blore heath- but without the mass of Lancastrian cavalry. Indeed the roles were reversed as the Lancastrians were on the defensive and the Yorkists had more troops so the attack was in their hands.

As it happened the fighting developed into a bit of a grinding match with neither side using anything resembling subtly, but then this was 1459.

The Yorkist cavalry advance.

 The game began with some mutual cannonading , each side hoping the others bombard would explode in an inconvenient manner which this time neither sides actually did though the crews suffered soem casualties and  one Lancastrian crew fled the scene early in the day.

The Yorkists decided on a full frontal attack using their Longbowmen to 'shoot them in' In the event this was less than successful as the Lancastrian defenders had more archers and used them- though with mixed results.  On the Lancastrian right the Yorkist assault was led by a contingent of Warwick's troops under Sir John Conyers. These chaps did not have a good day. After a bout of archery the ragged staff fell and Conyers was killed. The unit did not rout but halted and while not willing to run played little further part in the action other than archery, their attempt to close with the enemy resulting in a half hearted melee which  neither side actually won before a mutual breaking off..  This flank also saw the only cavalry action of the engagement. The small band of Yorkist horse charging the tiny contingent of the Earl of Exeter( not painted many of these yet)  Although Exeter's men were routed the Yorkist banner fell and rather than pursue the routers they fell back to 'consider their position'  and again took no further part in the action. 

Arrows fly.

In the centre the bulk of the Lancastrian archers stood behind their palisade and shot it out with the Yorkists not infrequently to little avail on either side though the Lancastrian artillery was silenced early on by a combination of Yorkist archers and their 'comedy bombard- which was not funny at all in this game.

The Yorkist advance grinds to a halt. 

With their momentum exhausted the Lancastrians did not look able to storm the Yorkist position but then neither did the House of York look capable of doing any more than staying put. Both sides had suffered significant losses with the worst  being on the side of Lancaster so this one was declared a bloody draw.

I as umpire need to tweak the rules a little- making 'counter battery' fire impossible- not merely inadvisable and tightening up some morale situations and command rules. Though most of this is simply organisation. I shall return to the 15th century later in the year . The Hoses of York and Lancaster will battle it out once more across the table.

 Thanks to Norman Oyston for the use of the venure and to Ros for the excellent hot beef - or indeed Pork sandwiches to sustain the innner wargamer ! 

Keep Calm and Carry On !

 More like Carry on  up the Government- without the bad 1970s jokes. Aye well,

An Officer of an Austrian- Hungarian Infantry regiment- now all I need to paint are about50 or so blokes to follow him- 28mm Old Glory. 

  Right up 'em - but never mind the everyday story of farcical folk. I'm currently trying to avoid entering "Thickies R'us" aka the House of Conmans (is that a typos I see before me? Perhaps not.)  So we shall move swiftly on to toy soldiers- they look more lifelike .

Been a bit of a thin time on the painting desk recently. Of course I did receive some lovely Drabant 28mm Saxons painted by David Allen  which I just HAD to base up  see the results on the Old Glory Miniatures UK Facebook page.  But my own painting has suffered a bit simply because my wife and I were getting all the back orders out after unpacking a shipment from the USA and frankly at the end of a days work there are times when I am simply sick of the sight of the little lead gits and cannot face picking up a paintbrush.

 Does not happen all that often but it does happen.

Nevertheless I have painted a few individuals over the last couple of weeks. 

Bizarre image of 3 40mm TYW pikemen that simply will not flip. 

Connoisseur Colonel on Willie Horse and an Artillery Officer of unknown make- Both French Napoleonic and both for "Shinyloo".

A couple of 40mm TYW Pikemen. The chap at "Charge for Horse was a bit of an experiment. I've had the body in a mould for some time but never made one up . Quite pleased with the result.

Another view of the same chaps with a couple of musketeers- one with a cat hair on his hat ! -and a Sash and Saber ECW officer who is doing duty as a Spaniard.. The rest are from my own Romanoff 40mm range .

As for actually gaming with any of these - well thanks to a mixture of brain-dead piss heads and government incompetence that is not going to happen soon. Even if I had enough painted 40mm TYW .

 Ah well  If you can't take a joke .........  

The Encounter at Fiddler's Rise October 1469

Another thin month at the Tantobie Warfare and Tactical Society with only three memeber available for this month's game. Nil Desperandum however the three of us amnaged a fine little 40mm Wars of the Roses punch up with my collection of models in that scale and period.
 It had been a while since these last saw the light of day though I had managed to add a couple of extra figures to the collection.

The battlefield, Fiddlers Rise top right Yorkists on the right of the picture 

Lancastrian troops 

Some of the Yorkists

 Most of these are from my own Romanoff Miniatures range of late medievals - including a good few conversions the cavalry are mostly Irregular and the guns - two are Hinchliffe /.Foremost the so called Heavy Culverin in the Landsknecht range and the large bombard a scratchbuilt item. The few cavalry were Irregular with a single "Mindstslker" model on a Sash and Saber horse that I picked up secondhand and rebased  a few weeks ago.

More of the Yorkists on Fiddler's Rise. 

 Rules used were basically Anthony Clipsom's set "Foray" with  some local amendments to add in gunpowder and changing his metric measurements back to inches simply because I don't see Medieval games in millimetres as that system had not yet been invented !  The rules are simple D6 based but have enough flavour to make them interesting. Simple mechanisms and none of the  farting about seemingly so desired by many "games players"  so decisions are left to the players rather than the rule set. For this kind of large skirmish - small battle they work very well especially as they leave room for the Umpire to fiddle about and make the players think a bit. The table was a bit smaller than our usual being only five feet or so square and terrain was as simple as possible - wooden blocks under the cloth with my venerable collection of Britain's trees for the woods on top of Fiddlers Rise.

Lancastrians.

The cavalry charge. 

So to the action. The Yorkist faction was take by Mechanical Shaun and the Lancastrians by Andrew the Tekkie. I allowed both sides free deployment - simply to see what each would do  and at first both sides played it defensively, Andrew scoring an early success with a flukey double to destroy the Yorkist gun. This caused Shaun to advance and arrows  flew  but without major damage to either side, though the Lancastrian artillery did  cause a few casualties. Then the Yorkist cavalry charged  a unit of Lancastrian archers- in Percy livery but under Oxford.s banner(see what happens when you give free deployment!)  Andrews dice rolling was to say the least awful - several hist but not a single kill and the horse crashed into the archers who then failed their post melee morale and broke and fled . The horse pursued and overan the lighter Lancastrian guns and disappeared off the table.

A melee- the growling began next turn. 

 In other parts of the field honours were more or less even. A Lancastrian charge was held- just- and , though neither side broke the Lancastrians retired both sides then growled at each other, In the centre Shaun had kept his heavily armoured men at arms together and these advance upon the Lancastrian centre which looked decidedly unnerved and began to pull back.. However the Yorkists - who were slightly outnumbered overall- did not fancy assaulting  up hill  especially without cavalry support and something of a shortage of archers. As I went to the bar to get them in the fighting died down amid mild slurping of fine ale as neither side had the numbers or morale to finish the job.

As usual our thanks to Landlady Jean for excellent Beef Butties and fine pints of Consett Brewery Pale Ale.  Now off to paint some more of these for another game next year. The next meeting of our group will be  sometime in November. Don't know what period yet - therein lies the interest!

Bits and Pieces.

3 40mm Imperialist Officer for around 1630 

Still painting away though as you might expect always slower than you'd like. The first of the Mutineer Artillery is finished- with more on the way and I've also finished a few more 40mm 17th century figures- with luck I'll get a game on using them towards the end of the coming year- assuming nothing new takes my attention... well you never know. First "Shinyloo" game this coming Saturday- assuming we don't get snowed off.

Mutineer artillery crew and 6 pdr gun.

Brushes finally moving- well a little anyway ...

It has been a thin time for getting figures painted recently-.Work has seen to that . Busy busy and YES gentle reader  after a day filling orders and casting and sundry other toy soldier related jobs you get sick of the little lead gits so often do not feel like picking up a paintbrush to finish off some of your own gear.
 However here are a few pics of some recently finished- and some re based- 40mm Wars of the Roses. Eagle eyed readers may note that  I recently added 6 new figures to this range. 2 Archers and 4 more Men- at Arms- the latter fully plated up so to speak so that the range now has around 30 different figures in it.

the beginnings of the Percy contingent..

I now have around 70 of the models finished with more to come- but around half still need re- basing on those natty wooden bases from Warbases- the ones he does not call "Flames of War" bases at all no indeed. I don't use 'em for that popular but patronising rule set anyhow so don't care.

More men under the Percy banner,

As usual I don't make armies- or even smaller forces to fit rule sets as this narrows and limits possibilities within a given period. Period being far far more important than the opinions of a rule writer- unless on those rare occasions when he knows his period. So I'm looking at Tony Clipsom's set "Foray"  here though the easy option of Lion Rampart- medieval free medievals  may get used for a quick simple and  possibly brain free starting point.

A couple of lost blokes  in FdwardIV 's  livery find their way into the Earl of Northumberland contingent. 

As for other happenings - well Salute beckons so I doubt I'll get much more painting done soon.. Ah well  if you can't take a joke ......

Upand Coming Russian Magnificence from Drabant.

Nick Bokarev of Drabant sent me these photos of up and coming Drabant releases. there are 2 new 40mm Malburians and a new box of 28mm Dark Ages.  I'll have them all as soon as I can get some in. Hopefully in time for York .

One of the new 40mm Marlburian British. This one may have appeared here previously.

A pose variant. I can see a unit 2at ease" coming along ....

 In time the 40mm will be added to my on off 40mm Marlborough project- currently more off than on .

28mm Russians.  Lovely!

Another Smorgasbord.... Tanks and Stuff ...

 Found some rather battered 15mm  T-55 's in a box a while back  that Jim had painted in green . They'd had a hard life and needed a good tarting up . So checking out the relevant Osprey on modelling the T54 /55  I found a section on making a Northern Alliance T-55  for the Afghanistan War of the 1980s,
 This will do thinks I for another bit of a parody
 Now I'd wanted to add some armour to my "second line" troops in the on off "Harraq"  series of games- read Iraq of course so  with the current contretemps in that unfortunate country the "72 Virgins Martyrs Brigade" have now become members of IZAl.The Islamist Zealots Alliance.
Why IZAl  well chaps of a certain age may remember a medicated toilet paper of incredible hardness... of the same name ... Seemed obvious to me.

The "Fist of Islam "Tank company ... the Oil drums have been added from the appropriate stowage pack 

So these tanks were painted to look pretty nondescript and frankly a bit worn out and hard used and will be joining the "72 Virgins Martyrs Brigade" (read ISIS)  in our next game set in this period along with other stuff on the  painting table at the moment.

Also  newly photographed are some OOP Drabant figures- these have had their pictures taken before but not like this- again a couple needed repairing - bayonets cone and sundry chippings from the time they were in the show display case.

40mm Drabnat figure newly re -tarted and slowly starting to look like a unit.

And finally  a pic which recently appeared in MW  with an article of mine

Parliamentarian Curassiers in 1642- Lobster before the lobsters as it were .... 

and put here simply because I like them.

A little PS soto speak.

Hot on the heels of the 28mm Drabant come a couple of new pics of new 40mm figures. Now my current hatred of Tricorn hats does not extend above 30mm - or indeed below 20mm - so the 7YW Brit is very tasty indeed and some will doubtless be appearing in my 40mm Jacobite rising project in the fullness.

As for the next pic. I've never thought of Russian Napoleonic - but these lads might make me do so.

Up to the usual High standards set by Drabant and again I hope to have these by Sheffield Triples in May.

Smorgasbord

No chaps not a Swedish General but rather to indicate that this post is a bit of a mixture, an assortment. I've been busy of late what with the arrival of a shipment and prep for Smioggy this coming Saturday. Nevertheless the odd soldier or two has been painted - and not all 15mm Moderns either though they have been taking centre stage recently. However in addition I've still kept bashing on with my various 40mm projects

First here are a couple more longbowmen for my Wars of the Roses project - more are on the go but these actually got finished

next up are 3 pics of some 40mm ECW/TYW pikemen. To be honest the standard- one of John the Flags superb flags is ECW but the pikement are set to be Spanish TYW- once I make the standard bearer. they aren't suitable for ECW as they are massivly over armoured. They just might pass as London trained band- who provided their own kit but never for Royalists orParliamentarians after mid 1643. But they look nice even though I say so myself.

Next up a couple of HLBS40mm FIW figures- nice these and IMHO better than most HLBS offerings. I've some of their ranges which frankly are pretty poor with badly hanging coats and short muskets but these are rather niceand fit in well with my small FIW collection.

Finally 3 15mm pictures. All for my

Not the second Gulf War at all -even slightly

project the first being group of regular infantry weapons team- RPG and mortars next a couple of pick up truck for the fedayeen then finally some BDRM with Spandrel AT missiles- how long these will last against Challenger is anyopnes gues as long as its less than 10 seconds.. So there we go a right collection just what you'd expect from a bloke with a restless mind- still better than being boring ain't it.

More 40mm Wars of the Roses.

It's been a good while since I blogged last- whatwith assorted shows and other fol-de -rol. Work as ever gets in the way. What !I hear you shout" but you LIVE in the Sweetie shop" "Pecisely !" I reply "sometimes you get sick of the little lead gits". "Man " as I have opined previously "shall not live by Wargaming alone" Nevertheless I have been slowly adding to my 40mm Wars of the Roses collection. Making new figures which - assuming I iron out the bugs -will in the fullness appear as catings added to the range. To be fair I'm really only converting existing figures but those few I've done look fine so I'll do them again as masters for future release. So here is a picture of a small punch up somwhere in Northern England in the 1450s between the Percies and their rivals the Nevilles

and this one a close up of the Hurly- burly

The 2 long flags- standards in heraldic parlance are of course by John "the Flag" Hutchibson and are printed cloth. I'm a great fan of John's flags for my money they are the best you can get. I had to make 2 figures especially to carry these spendid standard.

More Magnificence from Moscow!!

Here we see some of the up and coming figures from Drabant. A polosh Infantry Command set- with bagpiper no less. A Great Northern War Swedish cavalryman and- a slight departure this- a Britsh Infantryman of the 7 Years War

These are due for release soon and I'll have some of the others to catrch up with stockwise once I build up enough wants for a decent order. I'm sure you'll agree that these new figures are well up to the Drabant Standard.

Afew good (40mm) men

Despite the recnt buy patch I've managed to paint the odd figure or two. Above are a couple more 40mm ECW pieces- a mounted Mosstrooper and an officer of the New Model the former largely jacdaw and the latter Sash and Saber.

Next an addition to my 40mm Wars of the Roses collection. Mainly here its John the flags splendid standard but I had to make a figure that did it justice so a converted ex Brook miniature- now Romanoff- chap did the deed after a bit of cutting and fiddling. Bases for these will be MDF sold as Flames of war bases. Such well made bases need to be put to a better use than that rather childish game !!

and finall this time 3 Sash and Saber Coureurs de Bois from the FIW.. All of these have been on the desk for some time but as ever work gets in the way I've even managed to finish another unit of 28mm ECW cavalry for the demo at the Durham show in June.