This Accursed 6mm Project

Still Alive.

2011-03-07T20:11:00.000+01:00

Soon....

Update

2010-08-16T09:26:00.002+02:00

All work and no 6mm play makes David a dull boy.

No posts here for a long time. Doing 1st Newbury was such a pain that I got tired of the whole thing for a while. But now I´m feeling the urge again. I need to breathe some life into the project again.

Or maybe I will get going on the 2mm sub-project, aiming at playing Lützen.

Nice to be back on track anyway.

1st Newbury at LinCon 2010

2010-05-18T22:27:00.005+02:00

I´ll elaborate more about LinCon soon.

Here are the pictures for now.

The whole album.

As a slideshow

Lots of nice shots!

Testing the Terrain Setup

2010-05-03T22:00:00.009+02:00

This evening I did a trial run setup of the battlefield for 1st Newbury. The purpose was to establish exactly how much terrain that is left to be done.

The result was uplifting. I got almost all the roads I need and just 40 new small sections of hedge left to do. My basic layout is sound, but needs some finishing touches.

As you can see, the pictures are not very good looking or inspiring. I blame the photo flash and the fact that much is yet to be painted.

The Hills are Alive with the Sound of Muskets

2010-04-19T20:37:00.006+02:00

Today, I just went ahead and made that goddamn hill that I´ve been worrying about for so long. My vacation was canceled by the volcano ashes by the way.

I drew the hill on the new game mat that arrived from Hotz a week ago. Then I cut out the hill with a knife and trimmed the edges with a pair of scissors. I bought two sheets of foamboard, drew the shape of the hill and cut the foamboard. Then I trimmed the edges of the foamboard to create a gentler slope. Then I glued on the mat and cut the whole hill in two pieces for easier storage and transportation. All that remains to be done is finishing the edges of the hill. I´m still experimenting on how to best do that. Probably glue, sand and green with a hint of brown.

All in all: The hill is not perfect but it does the trick.

Update on Progress for 1st Newbury

2010-04-12T20:18:00.004+02:00

OK, work on 1st Newbury is under way. Lots of things going on, here is a few:

Today I got the new felt game mat from Hotz. This will be used for the hill. I will cut it up (a scary venture) and glue it to foamboard or something. The mat was not the color I wanted it and had agreed with Hotz. I will complain about that later, perhaps I can get a discount on my next order (a mat with a smaller hex grid for the 2mm project).

I have finally begun making all the roads that are needed for the scenario. The hard part is all those intersections and crossroads. I had worried about doing them. But 1mm plasticard solved the problem.

Trees... I need four hexes of woods. These are fun to do, and turn out well. The process is: 1) buy grapes and eat them. 2) save and then dry the twigs. 3) cut the twigs into small tree-looking pieces. 4) glue and attach green foliage. 5) base the tree.

Now I´m off to Stockholm for a two day conference. The week after that I´m going on holiday to the Canary Islands. I hope I can put work and this project aside for a while and concentrate on getting a tan and trying out different drinks. Maybe I should bring some 6mm figs with me...just in case I get bored? :-)

Pictures of the first batch of 2mm

2010-04-10T14:36:00.010+02:00

Some samples of the 2mm figures, made by Irregular, ordered from Angel Barracks.

And I used to think the 6mm were small, see the comparison!

The photos are:
1) Artillery, heavy and small
2) Various pikeblocks, shot and commanders in front
3) Cavalry, with the 6mm behind
4) Brigades, two types, probably the best looking figures.
5) My finger as comparison.

They are really small, perhaps too small for my needs. This will require some thinking... I will probably have to drop to a smaller hex grid game mat, 1 or 1.2 inches.

As with the ongoing 6mm project, I want to use the heavy infantry brigades as the base for all other sizes and measurements. Why? They are my favourite units and look really cool.

As you can see below, the brigades (pike with musketeers on the sides) are very small. I might be able to use that big pike block in pic 2 and add rows of musketeers on the sides... Or something to that effect.

More to come!

Off Track

2010-03-20T14:02:00.004+01:00

Lately I´ve been contemplating a way to play the bigger Musket & Pike battles. I have found that playing the English civil war battles work well in 6mm, as there are comparatively few troops in relation to the Thirty Years war. But for example setting up Lützen 1632 would require double or even triple the amount of 6mm miniatures and terrain I possess now.

So I have decided to explore a new scale: 2mm. They are made by Irregular, but I contacted the Irregular stockist Angel Barracks and asked if I could order from them instead as he uses Paypal but Irregular does not.

My first batch of samples is on the way. According to Michael who runs Angel Barracks, the 2mm miniatures are "SOOOOOOOOOOOO tiny, very cool though."

Stay tuned for pictures of the little guys, when they arrive.

Edgehill Played Yet Again

2010-03-05T11:38:00.010+01:00

Last Saturday we played a game of Edgehill in Helsingborg. It was a fun introduction game with four players.

1) The first picture shows the Rebel musketeers screening the hedges.

2) The second shot shows cavalry action on the flanks, the white crosses are fired artillery and finished leaders.

3) Photo number three shows the Rebels trying to form a better line but getting hit in the rear by Royal cavalry.

4) Pic four shows a Rebel infantry brigade being forced into hedgehog and then shot up by two Royalist brigades.

Official Start of Project Part Two

2010-02-26T10:27:00.003+01:00

No update for a while now. I have lingered for much too long. Not good.

Being one of those persons that need dates and dead lines to get things done, I have contacted the organizers of the gaming convention LinCon (May 13-16) with the intent of setting up the next part of this 6mm project, namely 1st Newbury.

Time flies, but I think I should be able to do all the terrain that is needed in the two months before the convention. So, in my ongoing and doomed-to-fail quest to become more organized, here is a checklist of things to finish:

Order another game mat from Hotz. I did this today and that settled my dilemma on how to solve the hill issue that I have been struggling with. I will cut up the new mat and glue it to foamboard or something to make the hill I need for 1st Newbury
Find a way how to and then make many, many hedge-lined roads.
Paint the last remaining units I need. This includes six or seven cavalry units and two units of single hex heavy infantry. My last order from Baccus included limbers for guns so that has to be painted and based as well.

There are more things but this is enough for now. Feels good to be on track again! I hope someone out there is following me, feel free to comment, thereby raising my morale :-)

New Units for 1st Newbury

2010-01-18T22:34:00.004+01:00

I´ve finished some new Royalist cavalry and musketeers for the upcoming battle of 1st Newbury.

That means I got all the Light infantry I will need, and just seven units of cavalry left (70 figures).

This means the difficult task of doing all that terrain is moving inexorably closer and can not be avoided much longer.

But that´s what I like, laying wake at night thinking on how to build a hill or a better way of making hedges and roads. The preparation is more than half the fun.

Houses Painted

2010-01-10T12:56:00.011+01:00

Pictures of all the finished houses. The first four or five are meant to be village dwellings or farm houses. The last two are humbler barns or sheds.

Little House on the English Moor

2010-01-07T21:50:00.004+01:00

Painted the first house this evening. Very fun to do. Here are two shots, one without flash and one with.

First Houses Complete

2010-01-05T19:05:00.007+01:00

Today I walked to the hobby store and got some balsa wood for the houses I have planned to do.

A couple of hours later and here´s the result. Together with the building parts from Irregular the houses came out very nice, at least I think so. Building them was surprisingly fun!

Choosing the windows and doors, chimneys and balconies and adding some detail like the spare gun wheel I had saved: all very satisfying. Next step is to paint them, which should also be fun.

These houses are very cheap, I got all the balsa I will ever need plus a can of spray paint for 80 crowns (that´s 7 £ or 11 $).

When I run out of metal building parts I´ll just keep making simple houses and barns. I need houses to play 1st Newbury, the battle features a two hex village and some other scattered farms and houses.

Some more pictures, showing also my new siege guns and a new unit of light infantry, plus a close up of one of the little houses:

Music?

2010-01-01T19:41:00.004+01:00

Music is an important part of the gaming experience. In our gaming group the soundtrack to the movie Last of the Mohicans is the most played. Also, there are some good 17th century albums available on Spotify, such as Jordi Savall's La Folia.

But I´d like something with a more "battle" feel to it. Music with sounds of guns, horses and muskets. See the video clip, this is what I am talking about. The fun starts at 02.35.

So do you have any tips on good music or soundtracks?

Edgehill Played Again

2010-01-01T13:04:00.008+01:00

A couple of days ago we played another game of Edgehill. It was fun and a new player learned the rules.

Actually the whole day was full of Musket and Pike gaming for me. From 12 to 7 we played the battle of Alerheim, from the Under the Lily Banners box, then switched players and place for a 6mm game of Edgehill in the evening.

The Edgehill game opened with quick Royal advances on both flanks. My dragoons on the Parliament right wing did very well and shot the attacking Royalist dragoons to ribbons. This stalled the Royal attack for many turns, and the flank felt safe throughout the game.

In the center not much happened. Parliament pushed forward the left and rightmost brigades, so we had a crescent shaped deployment that I liked a lot.

On the other flank, in the hedges seen on the picture, Rupert's elite cavalry slowly wore down the Parliament cavalry, but our defense there was as good as it can be. The commanded muskets suffered heavy losses as always.

New Toys

2009-12-19T14:37:00.005+01:00

Two packages has arrived, one from from Baccus (my regular supplier of this addictive white metal drug called 6mm miniatures) and one from Angel Barracks (AB).

AB is a new acquaintance, selling all kinds of things for miniature gaming. Their scenery is what drew me to their webpage in the first place, Specifically, I was interested in a very smart little package they had, originally a product of Irregular Miniatures. See picture below!

For the next step in my project, 1st Newbury, I need houses. The kit I´ve ordered is made up of lots of little building components. According to AB: "A collection of windows, doors, stairs, roofs and more all designed to be pegged into balsa blocks to enable you to create your own bespoke dwellings." So now I just need to get some balsa wood and start building.

From Baccus I´ve ordered these babies below. Heavy siege guns to use as the 12 and 24 pounder guns that are part of the battle of 1st Newbury (and Edgehill for that matter). The siege guns are actually much too large for this use, neither army fielded such heavy artillery but I want the heavy guns to look different than the medium 4 and 8 pounders.

New Artillery Done

2009-12-13T09:47:00.004+01:00

Some new guns I finished yesterday. 3 batteries of light 3 pounders and one battery of 4-8 pounders.

New Goal: The First Battle of Newbury

2009-12-02T20:30:00.004+01:00

OK, Edgehill was planned, done and played. Some celebration and a few days of rest later I want to announce the start of the planning for the next goal.

It´s going to be 1st Newbury. Why? This battle is another half mapper, see the picture above. It also has relatively few troops. It´s also a favorite of mine, an exciting and balanced battle. The scenario has free setup which I usually enjoy. The players set up their troops (within limits) how they like and hidden from each other. This makes setup into a game of itself.

To play 1st Newbury I need:

10 double hex heavy infantry brigades. (I have 11 so this is already done)
2 single hex heavy infantry units. (Easy to do, I have the figs but unpainted.)
29 units of cavalry. (I have 20, so 9 left. Not bad at all.)
Light infantry: 2 dragoons (check), 3 musketeers (check) and 3 large units of musketeers (have 1, need 2 more)
Artillery: 2 culverins, 4 sakers, 4 falcons. I have ordered some Siege guns from Baccus to paint up as the heavy culverins. The other guns I have already.

So what is the challenge? As you can see from the map above, Newbury has quite a lot of terrain. There are several types of terrain that will cause me problems:

The hill that covers a large part of the battle field. This need to be modeled somehow. I´m thinking about several options at the moment, which I will get back to shortly.
The many hexes of hedge lined road. I did a long straight section for Edgehill, but this will be much more challenging.
Woods, villages, houses, Roman burial mounds and a river....

More later on this. Wish me luck!

Goal Achieved: First Game of Edgehill played

2009-11-29T19:55:00.011+01:00

My goal has been achieved! Last weekend, at the gaming convention in Helsingborg, the premier game of this project was played twice by me and my friends.

Everything went more or less according to plan. I´m still very tired from painting non-stop for the past two weeks and the weekend was also exhausting (explaining rules, talking to curious and friendly nerds, sleeping in the same motel room as infamous snorer Totte, all while under a serious case of dehydration).

I also lost both games and unfortunately I´m a very bad loser (but in the end I prefer to be, it´s a sign of passion and ambition).

I´m very happy with the way the project turned out. I also got lots of positive and kind comments from people at the convention. While usually not inclined to bragging, I would for once like to say to myself: good job.

I won´t talk more for now, but skip to the important stuff: the pictures! Even more pictures can be found here.

Why no update for a while?

2009-11-23T10:48:00.003+01:00

Why haven´t I written anything on the blog for quite some time? Well, I´ve been very busy with the project lately, just painting all those cavalry, leaders and basing units. No time or energy left for blogging.

I also got lazy in the first part of November, thinking I had all the time in the world. Then suddenly it´s D day! This Friday actually. I still have almost half the cavalry left to paint... But almost everything else is done. The weekend turned into a crazed frenzy of work in a fog of paint, glue and coffee.

This is what remains to be done, a list for my own benefit and relief (it always helps to write things down)

Paint all cavalry
Base all cavalry
Make more terrain: hedges and road sections. Not sure how many I need
Base the last two heavy infantry brigades (Foppa has one, I the other)
Iron out the folds on the game mat
Print out the Edgehill map and setup (because the game mat has no hex numbers)
Make little name tags for the units, such as "Byron 18-8" (Byron´s brigade, strenght 18, morale 8), or "4-8 lb 4-14" (Artillery, sakers, range)
Paint and base all 14 leaders I need (6 of them are done)
Pack all miniatures, rules, charts and counters I need for the game
Pack sleeping bag and everything else I need to stay in Helsingborg for two nights

And much more I can´t remember right now that will probably pop up in my mind on Thursday evening, knowing myself.

Very Hot Mat by Hotz

2009-11-08T20:07:00.009+01:00

Some more pictures of the game mat in action.

Big picture: A brigade of heavy infantry screened by dragoons and two batteries of artillery.

Overview picture: Shows the hedge lined road I need for Edgehill. Could be better but this will have to do for now. I wish I could have a more narrow hedge lined road, but at least this one fits in one hex.

First Cavalry Finished and Game Mat Has Landed

2009-11-02T21:26:00.008+01:00

This hobby is like having Christmas every few weeks. With regular intervals orders arrive by mail and make your day. Today for instance my long awaited game mat arrived.

The game mat by Hotz Artworks looks good. 2 inch hexes on one side, 1,5 inch hexes on the other. To my surprise the mat I got was square, 117 by 117 centimeters.

I had ordered a 117 by 86 cm mat. But the one I got actually works much better for my needs, it matches the Edgehill map I´m using which is is 24 by 24 hexes. The 2 hex inch mat I ordered was only available in 23 by 21 hexes.

But I somehow received a 25 by 23 hex mat so once again I´m happy like a kid in some kind of a store.

Some photos of my first painted cavalry, on top of the new terrain mat. I´m playing around with different base sizes and how many horses I should have per base. These photos are dedicated to Asko (regular commentator of my blog posts) :-)

Goal for October Done: All Infantry Finished

2009-10-31T17:15:00.016+01:00

Today I finished my first set goal for this project. October was infantry month and now they are all done. So this evening I´m celebrating by, appropriately, going to an Oktoberfest at Burres place (my regular gaming buddy who also enjoys German kitsch and horrible folkmusic).

OK, all the little guys are done (except the bases, I´ll do all of those at one time, later when the game mat arrives, which should be next week).

Also, Foppa has borrowed a brigade to paint, I´ll get those from him soon I hope. Here´s some pictures of the (almost) complete army. Heavy infantry, artillery, dragoons and commanded muskets, it´s all there.

Now the next phase begins: Cavalry. I have already started experimenting with them, trying painting techniques and so on. Bought a new Vallejo color today for the horses; "Marron Bichos", or Beasty Brown.

Check out the video as well! Imagine yourself doing a muster, riding by the waiting army. Just ignore the scraping sound of the camera against the table and the illusion will be total ;-)

Nice

2009-10-19T19:59:00.011+02:00

My latest order from Baccus, consisting of cavalry, arrived today... It´s a lot of figures!
The first photo shows the entire order. Armoured Cuirassiers, leaders and two big blocks of cavalry.

It´s more cavalry than I need but I´d like to have a surplus. I haven´t yet decided on how much cavalry I will have per base.

It´s leaning towards 8, but could end up at 10. It´s a balance between getting that massed appearance that I want and reducing time to paint. As you might remember, November is cavalry month.

I need 20 units of horse to play Edgehill. The cuirassiers are to portray the elite units in the game, such as Essex lifeguard, Bedford or the King´s lifeguard. (Edit: More importantly, in later battles, Haselrigges famous "Lobsters")

The mounted leaders will, with some cuirassier as bodyguards, be used as the various leaders in the game. I´m toying with the idea of using circular bases for the leaders, to set them apart.

Light Infantry

2009-10-15T22:48:00.009+02:00

In M&P Edgehill there are lots of light infantry and commanded musketeers running around on the battlefield. Most of it is small units with 1 or 2 strength points. But on the Royalist Right wing a nice strength 3, morale 6 unit of musketeers is lurking in the hedgerows.

I have failed to find information what regiment(s) these guys were picked from. (I have info for the commanded musketeers on the Rebel side and the dragoons on both sides).

So I opted to paint them in a civilian fashion, with all kinds of colors. I´ve read that much of the Royal army looked like that at Edgehill. Parliament had seized all the stores that would supply the imminent expedition to Ireland and the King's attempt to gain the depot at Hull had failed. Painting the Heavy infantry brigades in this manner would have taken much too long but for this lone unit I could take it.

Heavy Infantry

2009-10-14T20:48:00.006+02:00

This is four of the six infantry brigades I have

finished so far. I need 11 of these. Also, my gaming buddy Foppa has gotten figures to paint a brigade of his own. I have started to attach the flags as well, I like the result!

Dragoons

2009-10-14T20:39:00.007+02:00

I painted some dragoons yesterday evening, with horses on the base. At first I planned to skip the horses but it looks good, sets the dragoons apart and is historical (every tenth man was detached to hold the horses). Here´s a picture. Obviously, the bases are not done - I´m still waiting for my game mat to arrive.

Guns and Crew

2009-10-09T20:16:00.008+02:00

I haven´t yet figured out how to take good closeups of my artillery, but here´s a shot anyway, until I can do better.

I´ve painted the crew in a civilian style, with mixed colors on clothes and equipment. On some of them, I painted sleeveless buffcoats, on which Devlan Mud (see below) performed very well.

I have two guns per base as I want to have an impression of batteries, not single guns. The crew is too small of course, but more figures would crowd the base and hide the beautiful guns from view.

It was fun to paint the artillery crew as I put a lot more effort on detail compared to the infantry brigades. Next up is basing the guns. I´m still waiting for my game mat to arrive. I want it before I decide on a definitive style of basing.

Devlan Mud

2009-10-06T17:56:00.003+02:00

After reading the blog of Ruarigh I today purchased a bottle of Devlan Mud wash by GW. Already tested it a little and like the results. More on that later. Oh, I got a new job today, 6 months as web editor up in Helsingborg. More money to buy Baccus :-)

A Weekend in the Country

2009-10-05T16:49:00.005+02:00

I got lots of painting done in the weekend, up at my parents house in the country. I did all six musketeer units I need for Edgehill, some guns and another brigade of heavy infantry. I was very impressed with the Field guns, they looked great. I was less thrilled by the smaller Light guns, I don´t think they look very good at all. Here´s a picture of the guns, sans crew that will be painted next.

I experimented with basing units, starting with some musketeers. I realize it can be done much better, but I´m OK with this look. Perhaps someone reading this blog can offer some advice on how to improve the bases. Take a look at this close up and criticize away!

While waiting for the big order to arrive, which it did last week, I took the opportunity to make a lot of terrain. Hedges and roads are my primary concern, as these are the dominant terrain features for Edgehill. Below is a picture of the roads. They are made of strips of pine wood. I made the wheel tracks by putting Scotch tape over the road and then cutting away what would be the center and sides of the road. Some wood glue, small stones and paint later they looked like this:

Preparations

2009-10-02T13:17:00.002+02:00

Another photo of the new figures, all glued to wooden sticks and ready to be sprayed black.

This took all of my evening and the early hours of the night to do. But I managed to paint a new brigade as well, this time some greycoats.

Why Edgehill?

2009-10-01T23:33:00.003+02:00

I wanted to write something about why I´ve decided to do Edgehill as the first step of my project. At first my plan was to acquire enough miniatures and terrain to be able to play both Edgehill and 1st Newbury. Later I had to reduce my goal to just Edgehill. The reasons are:

1) Musket & Pike: TACW has five battles, of these only Edgehill and 1st Newbury are half mappers. To be able to play the larger maps I would require a larger game mat, more table space, or use smaller hexes.

2) Terrain. Edgehill is the battle with the least amount of terrain. The field is also flat. This is why 1st Newbury has to wait a while, to do the terrain required for that battle will be a lot trickier.

3) Numbers. Edgehill has relatively few units, especially cavalry is not so plentiful as in later battles. To play Edgehill I need a total of 11 Heavy Infantry Brigades (the double hexers), 7 units of Dragoons, 6 units of Commanded Musketeers, 1 Light Infantry unit, 20 units of Horse and at least 12 mounted Leaders (three Wing Commanders per side, one Army Commander per side, and their replacements). I almost forgot Artillery, of this I need 1 battery of Falcons, 2 batteriers of Sakers and 1 battery of Culverins.

4) Edgehill for Musket & Pike is well known as a fun, balanced scenario that can be played in a reasonable amount of time.

New Baccus figs arrived

2009-10-01T14:14:00.002+02:00

I´m happy like a kid in some kind of a store! Yesterday my big order from Baccus arrived. All the infantry, dragoons and artillery I need. Plus some flags. These are just some of the figures, after they´ve been cleared of cast.

I have declared October to be infantry painting month, November is cavalry month. As I said before, in the last weekend of November I need to be finished for the gaming convention in Helsingborg (just opposite the Sound from Elsenore, of Hamlet fame).

Yesterday I also finished a game of Edgehill versus one of my gaming friends, Peter aka Foppa. It was one of the most exciting games of M&P I´ve ever had. I was on the way of winning when I made a terrible mistake and lost King Charles! Here is a picture of the situation in the center, late in the game:

New Brigade Painted

2009-09-29T22:41:00.000+02:00

After the first experimental unit I started painting a new one, this time in blue uniform. It went a lot faster and the result was also better, so I am quite happy with them. To play Edgehill I need 11 of these units, 6 for Parliament and 5 for the Royalists. For the next brigade I´m considering removing the two drummers from the first line and replace them with pikemen. Here´s a photo:

First painted figs

2009-09-29T18:10:00.001+02:00

(This and previous posts are backlogged history, the project has moved forward since. I want to document my steps for my own benefit. Soon my posts will catch up with my actual progress and the blog will see more "live updates". I also want to take this opportunity to apologize for bad language, English is not my native language)

After I had settled on a map solution I went ahead with the actual painting of the miniatures. Apart from Epic 10 or 15 years ago I have never painted any 6mm at all. Here is the result of my first experimental brigade.

I made many mistakes, I painted slow and quite clumsily. Lessons learned:
1) Glue figures to wooden sticks
2) Paint a whole brigade at one time. (In my case 8 Musketeer stands, 3 Pikemen stands and 1 command stand).
3) Use bright colors and paint adjacent fields in contrasting colors (these I also picked up on forums, but their wisdom only became apparent to me when I started to paint myself).

The Map

2009-09-29T10:28:00.000+02:00

The first issue was the map, so that I had something to put my new 6mm figures on and play. This is how the Edgehill map looks like in TACW (picture above from Vassal-module) with the opposing forces setup. Click the picture for a larger version.

My initial plan was to simply scan and print out the regular game map at 200 percent and play on that. But this felt a bit silly and I do want some terrain so some other way had to be found. I then turned my attention to terrain maker systems such as GHQ:s. But their hexes are too big, 10 cm across. I would need hundreds of them to play even small battles such as Edgehill above. Too costly.

Then I found, through a forum, Hotz Mats. They produce felt game mats with preprinted hexes. Perfect for my needs. I quickly ordered a mat with 1,5 inch hexes. After a while I realized that 2 inch hexes would be better and changed my order to a mat with 1,5 inch hexes on side and 2 inch hexes on the other.

As you can see on the picture above, the heavy infantry is formed into double hex counters. These big formations are my favorites. Here´s a closer look at them (picture from BGG):

My project will be centered around the requirements of these big units. The space these occupy will determine how everything else will look.

Beginnings

2009-09-29T09:48:00.000+02:00

Introduction

Welcome to my blog!

Here I will post pictures and write a little about my new project: playing my favorite game Musket and Pike: This Accursed Civil War by GMT Games, using 6mm figures instead of counters and real terrain instead of an abstract map.

I´ve been playing Musket & Pike for almost two years and like the games a lot. They are well made, historically correct and very fun to play. I have successfully introduced the series to my gaming buddies. These friends however (and myself secretly) tend to favor playing with miniatures.

So I found Baccus! One order has already arrived and has been painted. Another with rest of the infantry is on the way and should be here any day now. Cavalry will be the next order. This is how my figures looked when they first arrived:

Initial Goals

For once, I´m trying to be organized and goalminded. I´m starting out small, always a wise thing (but something I never remember to do).

My first goal is to be able to play the battle of Edgehill (from TACW, link above). This tells me exactly how many units of figures and what terrain I need. I also know exactly when I need to be finished with this first step: the 26th of November. Why? In the weekend following this date there is a gaming convention in the town of Helsingborg. I have contacted the organizer of the event and told him that I´m willing to arrange a game of Edgehill on the convention.

So it begins.