Still Alive.

Soon....

Update

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

First Houses Complete

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?

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

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

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

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

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

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.