'Water Feature' from PeteF: Weitzel's Mill and Defenders

Terrain is not exactly a strong point for me - I painted one building last year and I've put together a small number of snake rail fences. I've primed 3 gabions. But in the spirit of trying out new stuff here's a North American grist mill and a section of river.

The Mill needed its defenders - a bunch of militia and the 3rd Continental Light Dragoons.

I've never used Woodland Scenics realistic water before and it was certainly an education. Here are the lessons learned.

• Water in rivers is not blue - although it does look bluer the more it is viewed from above
• Woodland Scenics Realistic Water takes a long time to set
• People who do Youtube videos make things look easier than they are
• It is not possible to stop Woodland Scenics Realistic Water from flowing where it is not supposed to using blue tac
• It is not possible to stop Woodland Scenics Realistic Water from flowing where it is not supposed to using duct tape
• It is not possible to stop Woodland Scenics Realistic Water from flowing where it is not supposed to using packaging tape
• Woodland Scenics Realistic Water - although it seems quite viscous - will soak through several layers of newspaper
• If you touch Woodland Scenics Realistic Water before it has fully set you can leave a finger shaped hole in it
• It is probably best not to do projects using Woodland Scenics Realistic Water in the kitchen
• Do not try to carry an unset piece of river containing Woodland Scenics Realistic water to another room
• Deny. Deny. Deny.
• Thank god for scotchbrite

Armed with this knowledge I'm looking forward to making another 5 feet of river for wargames - either that or buying something off the shelf.

The battle of Weitzel's Mill happened shortly after Cowpens and several months before Yorktown. Details of the battle and its set up are in the Black Powder Rebellion supplement - I was originally going to run the battle as a Black Powder game but now I'm going to use it to try out the new Rebels & Patriots  rules.

I'm most of the way there for the two armies now that these Southern Militia and 3rd Light Dragoons are done.  All the figures are from Perry and I did discover a lot of additional metal tags and snags that I'd missed in the first round of preparation and priming.  I have some command, one more unit of Americans and one British cavalry unit to go.

The river is made out of a bit of old plastic placemat, painted with craft acrylics and then treated with Woodland Scenics Realistic Water. it is about 17" long - not sure how to score it. The Grist Mill is MDF from Impudent Mortal. The main building is 6x8x6.5 and the water wheel is 2.5x4x4 - for a total of 352 cubic inches which I think comes to 33 points.

24 Southern militia for 120 points. 13 light dragoons for 130 points. Together with the terrain that  will be enough to take me past my goal for Challenge IX.

'Mercenary' from PeteF: Hessian Jaegers

Hessian mercenaries were an important element of the Crown's forces in the American War of Independence. The Jaegers were accomplished woodsmen who typically brought their own rifles to the conflict. These came without bayonets so Jaegers also carried a short sword.

The figures are from Perry and are lovely sculpts. They were great fun to paint. Sources differ on everything from breeches to button colour. I opted for a uniform appearance - no mattress ticken pants. Hessians tied their hair in a queue, wrapped with black ribbon. Jaegers had a furry sack/bag on one hip. What I'm finding with the AWI figures is that a lot of these guys ran around the woods with all sorts of bags, bottles and boxes dangling from their shoulders making for much painting of straps.

I'm including a lot of close ups - at the risk of exposing some errors - I'm really happy with the way some of the detail came out and I'm finally getting a little better at highlighting (any tips for improvement are welcome).

These Jaegers are based on 20mm rounds each with a powerful magnet so they can be slotted into a base of 6 depending on rules. They will be seeing service at this year's Enfilade! convention in Olympia WA where I'll be running a Rebels & Patriots game. These Dan Mersey/Michael Leck rules look like a lot of fun - I really enjoy Pikeman's Lament and I'm looking forward to seeing how a similar system works for the AWI. 

6x28mm for 30 points - but nothing for the Squirrel duel as AWI already covered.

'Sport' from PeteF: What's Black and White and Red All Over?

A sunburned zebra

or...

A newspaper

or...

A sports themed alien in a battle suit

Come and Have a Go If You Think You're Hard Enough

Some time ago I was looking at a lot of "starter armies" on EBay. It was one of my favourite searches. I picked up a lovely Warlord Battalia starter army very cheaply. It's a weakness.

I realized I had maybe a bigger problem than just buying more than I can paint when the first thing I knew about my Ghar Starter Army was that it was in the mail and would be arriving in 2 days from Noble Knight Games. I had pocket dialed the exact sequence of button pushes to search for, Buy-It-Now and pay for a box of crazed aliens - most of them in giant battle suits.

Challenge VIII afforded the opportunity to move some of this plastic off the shelf of shame and Challenge IX is doing likewise with the sports theme. Options considered were West Ham (my boy's chosen Premier League team), Portland Timbers (our local football team), Seattle Seahawks (our nearest other type of football team) and the Portland Trailblazers (basketball).

I chose the Trailblazers partly because they are doing well at the moment but mostly because my mother-in-law is a season ticket holder and takes me to see them a couple of times a year.

These well-armed Blazers are futuristic mutant versions of real players: Lillard (0), Nurkic (27) and Curry (31, brother of superstar Stephan Curry recently joined the team).

Oops - I see some touching up needed here - but the logo sort of works

Painting these gave me new respect for anyone that paints a lot of those Warhammer type robots, Titans, Mechs and so on. I did try a few different approaches to the colours, shading and washes - what I think I learned was that white would have been a good choice of primer, that maybe it's time to invest in an airbrush, and avoid lots of colour transitions.

The Ghar are one of the factions in Beyond the Gates of Antares - a game broadly similar to Bolt Action which I'll play if I find an opponent.

And to finish - 2 pictures from Rip City taken tonight (Friday) - a sea of Red Black and White.

I think we counted these as 28mm cavalry last time round for 10 points each - so 30 (and a squirrel point) for the trio?

'Reconnaissance' from PeteF: Lee's Legion

Light Horse "Harry" Lee's Legion had both mounted and foot elements and was part of Nathaniel Greens's guerrilla army in the AWI's Southern campaign. Although Greene did not outright win many battles against his rival, Cornwallis, he adopted a strategy that ground down the redcoats over many months. Lee's Legion was used in several roles - including reconnaissance - and saw action at Guilford Courthouse.

They are going to be part of the Continental Army for a scenario I'll be running at Enfilade! in May - Weitzel's Mill - using the new Rebels & Patriots rules. I'm a big fan of Pikeman's Lament and the other Rampant series of rules for quick and enjoyable games. Enfilade! is the largest US historical wargame convention west of the Mississippi and highly recommended for a great atmosphere as well as quality and quantity of participation games.

These are Perry figures - I ordered a lot of Perrys to finish off my Weitzel's Mill forces and they are lovely sculpts. These ones were cast on the horses which made them a bit trickier to paint than separate horses and riders.

For colours I went with the buff uniform that they likely wore for some of the southern campaign- hard to say for sure what they wore at Weitzel's Mill - it might even have been cut down green jackets making them effectively indistinguishable from the rival British Legion. I'll be painting Tarleton's troops later in the Challenge.

12 x 28mm mounted 120 points.

'Monstrous' from PeteF: Swamp Monster

Aaaarrrgh!

I wonder if the future of our hobby is in 3D printing? I've been toying with the idea of getting one of the new Formlabs printers but it's more than a little spendy for an experiment. Their marketing people sent me a printed chess piece using the highly detailed black resin and it's close to being good enough to match the detail of, say, hard plastic faces. But maybe not yet.

Do my lumps look big in this?

For this bonus round I searched for "28mm monster" on Shapeways and came up with this rather lovely lumpy beast. He came in white with quite a rough surface - this works just fine with a swamp monster - I also got a pike & shot era guy with a halberd - I don't think the rough surface will work quite as well for a historical miniature.

This was an opportunity to experiment with green - I used all of my green paints from black green and bronze green to sick green for some kind of layering or blotching. It was also fun to paint the back of the mouth - one of the strengths of a 3D printed model - if you can get the brush to go where you want it to go.

In an alternative history swampy lived in the Delaware River and, er, changed the fate of General Washington....

What if the Delaware had been more dangerous?

This is going to be my Curtgeld - Curt if I had Kingdom Death and knew the mechanics of monster AI I'd rustle up some fighting cards for it.

It's a 28mm monster from Shapeways for 5 points (+20 for Curtgeld)

'Childhood' from PeteF: Who Do You Think You Are Kidding Mr Hitler?

Arthur Lowe said of Dad's Army "We expected the show to have limited appeal, to the age group that lived through the war and the Home Guard. We didn't expect what has happened - that children from the age of five upwards would enjoy it too."

I was one of those children and Dad's Army was one of the great television comedies in the dim and distant days of 1970s Britain, a land with only three television channels.  My family loved the show, which was an unexpected hit - stretching to 9 series between 1968 and 1977 and 80 episodes.  

Mainwaring: "Stupid Boy"

"Just testing you, Wilson"

These eight characters reminded me of those days and as I painted them I couldn't get the theme song out of my head. I'm wondering whether I want to spring for an all region DVD player so I can watch the whole series again - maybe my boy would enjoy it? We are working through all the classic war movies but maybe the Home Guard would be lost on him.

Wilson: Do you think that's wise, Sir?

Pike: Mum won't like it Uncle Arthur

The Home Guard was formed from the men who were too old or infirm to join front-line fighting units. The Dad's Army unit included a veteran of the Mahdist War (Jones - frequent references to Kitchener), a bank manager (Mainwaring) and a retired shop assistant (Godfrey). The TV series did a lot to develop public perceptions of the Home Guard - which is now thought of fondly. Fortunately Operation Sealion was cancelled and the real Home Guard did not have to do any fighting to defend the homeland - although Dad's Army did have a hilarious encounter with downed German airmen.

The character in black is Hodges, an air raid warden. Part of their job was to ensure that people obeyed blackout restrictions so that German bomber pilots could not use town and city lights for navigation.

Jones: Don't Panic! Don't Panic! (I wonder if Jones inspired Douglas Adams)

Fraser: We're Doooomed!

From a painting point of view this is my first attempt at WW2 for Bolt Action - I went for much more bold highlighting than I normally do to make up for the dullness of khaki uniforms. I couldn't find a really good 28mm guide to the right colours so played around with mixtures of khaki, english uniform and russian uniform (as well as some other browns and greens) to get colours that seemed close to pictures of the characters I found online.

This was the first time I've attempted eye glasses and an all black uniform - I found some great guidance from bloggers and I'm happy with the results.

Godfrey: I was thirty five years in the Army & Navy [a store]

Walker: Sir, I've got an idea

The set is from Warlord and I thought I might use it for Bolt Action Operation Sealion scenarios - although I can't imagine removing any of these guys as casualties. The Warlord metal sculpts are excellent - I love the facial detail that they put in and I'm wondering whether to get the set with the same characters in their civilian clothes (maybe could be used in A Very British Civil War?).

Hodges: Put that light out (or "Ruddy Hooligans!")

If you are not familiar with the show - apologies for the references/quotes - they won't be as funny to you as they are to me! 

Hodges - Who do you think you are?Mainwaring - We're the Local Defense Volunteers, and I'm their appointed commander, Captain Mainwaring, and I must ask you to keep your hands off my privates

The Second World War cast quite a shadow over my childhood in 1970s Britain - from trash mags (comics with British heroics) to Warlord Magazine (where even the Pacific front got a British tinge with Union Jack Jackson) to Dad's Army. As children my Dad was close to being killed by a bomb in Portsmouth and my mum was evacuated from her home in London for the duration. I think Dad's Army  struck a special chord with their generation too.

8 x 28mm foot figures - 40 points. Warlord Games.

Who do you think you are kidding Mr Hitler

if you think we're on the run?

We are the boys who will stop your little game.

We are the boys who will make you think again.

'Cause who do you think you are kidding Mr. Hitler,

If you think old England's done?

Mr. Brown goes off to town on the eight twenty-one,

But he comes home each evening and he's ready with his gun.

So who do you think you are kidding Mr. Hitler,

If you think old England's done?