Colonial River Boat "Hesperus"

The latest theme round at the Painting Challenge is Nautical, for which I submitted the Hesperus below.  Go check out the other wonderful entries which put my humble scratch bodge to shame.

Capt.  puts the crew to work on the foredeck.

This is the stern wheeler Hesperus which has been over 15 years in construction and is/was  intended for my Colonial North West Frontier campaign (aka Wascanastan).  II suspect that she can serve equally well in Pulp/Cthulu games.  She is roughly 28mm scale and it unapologetically intended as a flat out toy soldier bodge of a generic river/lake steamer, not a scale model of any particular vessel.   The dorky home made look is all part of the plan and hopefully the charm.

Construction details are spotty since it has sat in a 75% finished state in my basement(s) for over 15 years.  The superstructure appears to be foam core board with the main deck and sea base from sturdy corrugated card board.  The gunwales, upper decks and wheel look to be artist board and light card.   The vessel survived it's dormancy intact except for damage to the blades of the paddle wheel.

Major Campbell puts the Seaforths through rifle drill.

Full speed ahead to  the kitchen!

Over the last two weeks I have added the following

• replaced the missing paddle blades with card (from Perry plastics boxes)
• added light armour cladding to the superstructure and pilot from light card.  Gun slits and a window for the pilot house were cut out with an Xacto.
• The funnel was created from a penny roller with a plain white paper to hide the spiral seam.
• The single mast is a bamboo skewers mounted in a plastic tube from a paint brush.  The mast can be removed for safer travel.
• I then painted the beast in the classic white all over scheme that appears in just about every picture I can find of a Victorian paddle wheeler.
• I attempted to make bow and quarter waves with white paint and acrylic gel but don't think this was especially successful.
• I added a Red Ensign and name boards printed on the home PC.

Some officers have a gentleman's wager over target shooting with pistols.

Meanwhile the "Civilian" passengers are in an animated conversation.

FYI the figures are from my Wascanastan collection and are mostly Rafm, with at least one Minifig for good measure.  These were painted in the last millennium for the most part so don't count for the challenge!

Good shot old boy!

Hesperus is the evening planet Venus in Greek mythology, and a ship named Hesperus is the subject of a well known Longfellow poem.  I know about the poem not because of a fine classic liberal arts education or because I come from a very literary family.  Rather my knowledge comes from two sources.  First my retired Navy Office dad teasing an old ship mate would have served as an officer on HMS Hesperus during WW2.  And also because an image of the Wreck of the Hesperus apparently appears prominently on the anatomy of Lydia the Tattooed Lady.  As the song say, you can learn a lot from Lydia!

An Interesting New Range...

I got an e-newletter from the Perry twins this morning that directed me to their Metal Workbench.


There are many many possibilities for these…..

Painting Challenge Theme Round II - The Villain(s)

For my submission for the villains challenge, I present the Man Eating Lions of Tsavo.  The original lions were notorious for eating railway workers in British East Africa in the Late Victorian era.  They have been immortalized in books, films (The Ghost and the Darkness) and in stuffed form at the Field Museum in Chicago (I've included a shot of the real McCoy at the Field).  They decided that humans were more abundant, slower and tastier than regular Lion Chow.

More details can be found at the link

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsavo_Man-Eaters

The figures are 28mm Ral Partha lionesses and were primed at least 10 years ago and possibly in the last millennium!  The original lions were males, but male Tsavo lions are maneless and a little sickly so it works as the other key differences between lions and lionesses are not visible on the figures.  I added a potential victim, gifted to me by Padre Mike in one of his visits last year.

The longest lived lion took numerous rifle hits and finally succumbed to 3 close range shots from a Martini-Henri.

Recent scientific research as reduced the number of kills accredited to these two puddy-tats.  Chemical analysis shows that one lion consumed 10.5 and 24.2 humans respectively.  Personally I think there are some questions that science doesn't need to answer.

Colonial or Funny Little Wars Inspiration

Quality is not great I am afraid - taken on my IPhone, it was hot and there was sangria involved!

Contrary to what some wags would say this is not the latest in Canadian Military fashion and weaponry.  Those are bolt action rifles and a MLR artillery piece dating from the 1885 Northwest Rebellion.

It's been a busy musical period in the Queen City this past 10 days.  Last Friday - Sunday it was the Folk Festival with some pretty good headliners.  We passed on this as we had McCartney tickets, but caught Neko Case and Rosanne Cash in a free set on Sunday pm and they were both wonderful.  Wednesday was Sir Paul and then yesterday was the Regina Symphony Orchestra's free outdoor concert in the park.

Which brings us to the photos above.  The concert ended (as always) with the 1812 Overture which requires things that make large booms.  Most years the RSO gets help from the Army lads (although one year they gave the audience members paper bags to burst in unison on cue).  This year however, the bangs came courtesy of the RCMP who arrived in full dress.  The RCMP has both it's training depot and its Heritage Centre (where the MLR lives) in Regina.  This is still the dress uniform and we do get to see it reasonably often in Regina - often at the airport when new officers meet their parents arriving for graduation.

Hat's off to the guys and gal, who were happy to pose for photos, interact with dogs and kids and made appropriate bangs for Mr. Tchaikovsky.  And most of all managed not to keel over from heat stroke since it was 35C with 50% humidity.  My wife and I were melting in loose cotton and the RCMP was in Red serge, leather knee high boots and leather gloves.  The only thing remotely climate appropriate was the hat which while felt at least kept the sun out of their eyes.

Anyway it was a nice afternoon out - we brought a yummy picnic including sangria and met up with our daughter after her work shift ended.

Action in Wascanastan

End of the action, Bengal Lancers and Indian Mountain gun cover the retiring baggage train.

We had my colonials on the table for the first time in at least 10 years with the CS Grant ambush scenario.  Curt took the Natives and Sylvain the Imperial British.  As is typically with colonials, the key is the balance given the disparity of abilities.  Given memories of many Imperial victories in past games, I may have erred on the side of making the Natives too strong.  More precisely, Curt would have had trouble getting more troops to the fore but an extra unit of Imperial infantry would have really helped Sylvain a lot.  However, we had a good game which walked the knife balance of Imperial Triumph against the odds and Imperial disaster!

Forces were as follows
Imperial

• A unit of 12 British Infantry (Rosshire Buffs)
• A unit of 12 Ghurkas
• A unit of 12 Sikhs
• A mountain gun in pack
• 4 baggage train of 4 camels and civilians (2 nuns)
• A unit of 6 Bengal Lancers

Natives

• 4 units of 12 irregular tribesman
• 1 unit of 16 native regulars
• 1 unit of 9 irregular cavalry

Curt was his typical aggressive self and positioned his cavalry closest to the enemy and charged with everything as soon as possible.  As a result, the Imperial column was boxed in and unable to deploy properly.  Even worse, both the dice and the card sequence were against Sylvain.  The local Iman must have out prayed the Sisters!

Having withstood multiple charges (and seen off half the native forces), the Imperial infantry finally cracked and routed off board.  The Bengal lancers (the column's rear guard) arrived just in time to rescue the Nuns.    We ruled that the Lancers and mountain gun could get the camels back to camp, with the Natives being too weak to follow.  A tactical victory for the Natives, but a strategic draw.

Native horse (RAFM) charge Gurkhas and Scots (Minifigs)

The infantry turn to face, but are not able to fire.

Volley fire!

Natives close in on the imperial force.

Natives advancing in mob.

 

The british leave a gap in the line, which the natives exploit

The hole in the wall.

The Bengal Lancers counter charge to save the Sisters' Honour.