AHPC XIV Post 10 With View Halloo Pursue the Gnu (70 Points)

 Second post from me today.  First up is a straightforward points grab for the nature shelves in the form of a 28mm Gnu (ok it's a wildebeest but Gnus are way more fun) from Ray Partha. This figure has been kicking around my spares bin for 20+ years and was picked up for a potential Southern African colonial project.

I think this needs a Wild Kingdom vignette with Marlin Perkins safely in the Landrover while his sacrificial offering assistant attempts to hog tie the gnu.  Sadly this was beyond my resources.

While others may look to use the Gnu as the basis for cheap puns, I instead will use it to reference a much higher art form, that of Poetry.  I present Good Gnu (A Vignette in Verse) by P.G Wodehouse.   This poem comes from the story Unpleasantness at Bludleigh Court in which Mr Mulliner's nice Charlotte (an animal loving poet) comes under a blood lust spell while visiting family friends.  She is most put out when Animal-Lovers' Gazette rejects this poem as seen at 18:00 of this clip Wodehouse Playhouse.

When cares attack and life seems black,

How sweet it is to pot a yak,

      Or puncture hares and grizzly bears,

        And others I could mention;

But in my Animals "Who's Who"

No name stands higher than the Gnu;

      And each new gnu that comes in view

        Receives my prompt attention.

 

When Afric's sun is sinking low,

And shadows wander to and fro,

      And everywhere there's in the air

        A hush that's deep and solemn;

Then is the time good men and true

With View Halloo pursue the gnu;

      (The safest spot to put your shot

        is through the spinal column).

 

To take the creature by surprise

We must adopt some rude disguise,

      Although deceit is never sweet,

        And falsehoods don't attract us;

So, as with gun in hand you wait,

Remember to impersonate

      A tuft of grass, a mountain-pass,

        A kopje or a cactus.

 

A brief suspense, and then at last

The waiting's o'er, the vigil past;

      A careful aim. A spurt of flame.

        It's done. You've pulled the trigger,

And one more gnu, so fair and frail,

Has handed in its dinner-pail;

      (The females all are rather small,

        The males are somewhat bigger).

In other gnus, I have another unit of 4 Pict Light Cavalry.  These are 28mm figures kit bashed from three Gripping Beast plastic kits. They are pretty much the same as the last two units that I have previously posted.

Note to self - I need to fix the labels which got lifted up during posing.

I think it's 5 points for the Gnu, 10 each for the cavalry and 20 for the Nature topic for a total of 65 points.

With two rooms ticked off today, my updated may looks like this.

AHPCXIV Post 9 Saint Germanus of Auxerre for Famous Person (60 points)

 Continuing the catchup...

I missed a week last week, but caught up on some painting during my Uni's Winter Break.  My first post is of Saint Germanus of Auxerre which I am attempting to claim under the Famous Person Category.  There's a bit of ambiguity in the title here, with the Map indicating a Statue and the Library Catalogue just indicating a Famous Person.  However, Big Lee got his painted Patton under this category on the weekend, so I will use this and the ambiguity to claim my points. Also I happened to know that my minion is an archeologist whose speciality is Rome and I'm hoping for brownie points!

Who is Saint Germanus you ask and why is he famous?  He is a Bishop from Roman Gaul who came to Britain c 429 CE to defeat the Picts and Saxons at the Alleluia Battle, where the barbarians were so put of may the vocal chants of the Romano British that they figured that they were badly outnumbered and buggered off.  You can read his Bio here.  Germanus is one if the few named leaders from 5th century Britain whose existence can actually be verified since most of the names (Vortigern, Arthur, etc) seem pretty mythical.

I based my version on this lovely illustration from a recent Osprey offering.

The figures are from the Victrix Late Roman Armoured Cavalry kit, which is excellent.  I didn't have a cross so swapped in a Chi-Rho vexillum for Germanus to wave.  I never liked the jumping jack hold two weapons up pose, so gave him the shield carried by the infantry man in the foreground.  His body guard is a Roman Cavalry officer, who gets a proper helmet instead of his Smurf Hat Phrygian Cap.

Germanus' visit(s) to Britain came after the "withdrawal of the legions" in 407CE, but what happened afterword is very cloudy.  I plan on using him as a standard bearer or general for my Late Roman Defenders of Britain.

Points wise that 2 28mm cavalrymen @10 points =20 plus 20 for the Famous Person bonus for a total of 40 points.  I will claim the figure points under the legions Side Duel. 

AHPC Post 12 Limo to World Cinema

 First up we I have to take a Limo from Under Construction to World Cinema using this 28mm figure from Bad Squid.  Challenge veterans might remember that I've got a lot of mileage out of a Bad Squiddo Women of WW2 kickstarter that I backed a few years back.  I think that this lady feeding chickens is the last of them.

I've painted her up in standard Women's Land Army kit with shiny wellies suitable for mucking about in the farmyard.  Not the most exciting figure but a lovely sculpt and I have a lot of time and respect for Annie over at  Bad Squiddo for putting this range together.

`

As for World Cinema, the blurb says to post something from a different part of the world from where you don't live.  I offer up the Roman trading ship Berenice of Portus Adurni (Portchester Castle).  I can guarantee that there are no sea going merchant ships in my home town of Regina, SK which is about as far from the sea as you can get.  I should note that there is one attempted ship located nearby on the Canadian prairies.  It's a sad story with a Finnish connection.

On a biographical note I should point out that I am the son of a naval officer, was born in England and basically grew up one, in or next to the sea in Halifax Nova Scotia.  Yes, moving to Regina was an odd choice, yes there's a story and yes it's a bit messy.

The ship is 28mm pdf kit from Sarissa Precision. It went together well (even if I messed up a bit at the stern) and painted up nicely.  I have asked my lovely and talented wife to stitch up a sail for her when she has space on her sewing table.  I've named her the Berenice after a trading ship that plays a key role in the Rosemary Sutcliffe novel The Silver Branch.

I did up three crewmen using mostly Victrix plastic bits plus a few Gripping Beast arms. I painted them up in a simple common uniform and left the bases a flat tan to blend into the deck.  During painting I noted that two of them have shoulder belts for swords, but carry no swords.  I guess I call these a late antiquity version of a Sam Brown belt.

A final picture to show that Berenice is not the only vessel to shelter under the walls of  Portus Adurni .  This is a picture of Portchester Castle taken from one of the last sailing trips that I took with my dad before he sold his boat as we sail up to Port Solent Marine.  The keep and church ruins are Norman and there are medieval upgrades other places.  However, the basic walls are from the Roman Saxon Shore fort.

The photo is bit skewiff as the boat rolled as I snapped it.

Points wise I'd count the ship as a 28mm vehicle and there's 3 crew.

Totals

• one vehicle @20
• four foot figures @5=20
• two locations @20 (Limo and World) =40
• Total 80 points.

I will count 35 for the ship and crew towards the SPQR and Carausius Emperor of Britain Side duels.

AHPC XIII Post 5: Attacotti

 

Hey look Curt I used the watered down white glue to stick down my scree before photos this time! 

This week I have a unit of 12 Attacotti fanatics as foes for my Late Romans in Britain.  The Attacotti are a shadowy Celtic people who were most likely based in the Western Isles of Scotland.  The historian Ammianus says that they took part in the Barbarian Conspiracy of 367 (along with Picts, Scots-Irish, Saxons, Franks and Roman deserters).  Later the Notitia Dignitatum lists Attacotti Auxilia Palatina units among both the Eastern and Western Empire armies and there is a funeral dedication in Illyricum to one of these Auxiliaria soldiers.  The writings of St Jerome mention Attacotti, who are at one point he describes as being cannibals. 

Tail end Diarmaid in the blue hood turned out to be a bit needy.  His shield arm kept requiring regaling, including just before photo time.  

In war-gaming terms, the Attacotti are typically lumped in as an option for fanatical war bands in the Scots-Irish list. I've modelled them mainly using Gripping Beast plastic Picts with add ons from GB Irish and Victrix Late Romans sets.  Gripping Beast put out plastic box sets for Irish, Picts and Welsh which all have a common set of torsos with differing heads, weapons and shields.  For instance the Picts get Emperor Palpatine hoods, crossbows and oddly shaped shields.  The Irish get bare heads and round shields and I don't what the Leek lovers get as I haven't bought a box!  A couple of figures have wrap around cloaks from the Victrix Romans.  There are also two metal Gripping Beast figures, the horn blower and standard bearer.

I will add unit tables across the back of the bases shortly.  Still tinkering with font and colour options.

Most of my Scots-Irish have beigish tunics to represent plain wool, but I've painted my Attacotti in an indigo blue for easy identification (they're in blue they must be fanatics).  I've no historical basis for this, but the seam of historical ore that I am mining is pretty thin at best.  This summer I read a novel by Adrian Goldsworthy (better know as a very good Roman historian) about the Usipi .  These were Germanic auxilaries in the Flavian era who revolted and turned cannibal and pirate in the Irish Sea.  Goldsmith has them wearing black, which I lightened to being an indigo.

There's some pretty good motion in some of the plastic figures and lots of head and arm combinations to add variety.

I had some fun trying out plaids and stripes on the cloaks and added freehand shields and a flag.  I am a little annoyed with myself on the flag as I had to a point that I was happy with it and decided to add a wash for texture.  Unfortunately I rushed the timing and the design bled a bit under the wash.

Seamus on the right has one of the Victrix cloaks round his torso, as does Feargal in the middle of the left base..

As Challenge veterans will remember (and Curt will remind them).I am firmly in the free hand shields over transfers camp.  Some folks seem to get truly wonderful results from transfers (BenF) but I can't put a sticky label on a freezer container or a name badge to save my life.  And a reply enjoy researching and painting the shields.  I timed myself this week and it took me 45 minutes to go from beige base coat and plain paper to 11 shields plus the flag, including some time searching Google images.  It is not a matter of a fine eye as my handwriting's unreadable and I can't draw worth beans.  Simple geometric designs and focusing on getting the overall feel right are way more important than precision.  In my younger days I would paint a variety of shield backgrounds for each unit, but I've long since changed to a uniform background so as to identify units with varied designs.

No theme points for me this time, but 12 28mm foot figures should be good for 60 points which also count for the Carausius Emperor of Britain Side duel.

AHPC XIII Post 3: Built Like A Hick Brit's House (20 points)

 

A terrain post for me in the form of three British Roundhouses.  This is a set of three houses sold by Sarissa as Irish houses but would work for many Celtic and similar Northern Europeans in the Ancient and Early medieval period.  They will also fit well in a TTG in my Beowulf DnD Campaign. 

The larger decogonal house.

One of the smaller octagonal houses.  I didn't paint the interiors except to blacken the floor her the door.

With the roofs removed, keen eyes will see that the houses are in fact not round but actually polygonal.  The two small ones are Octagonal and the larger Chief's house is a decagon.  Sarissa may have found that the regular polygons were easier to design and construct or they may have been attempting to estimate Pi by the Ancient technique of inscribing polygonal within a circle.

I had a hard time photographing these buildings and they look much less crappy in person.  I do need to give the roofs a trim obviously

As with all Sarissa kits, they went together easily and painted up nicely.  I added a bit of groundwork, Faux Fur thatching (narrowly avoiding having my wife add googly eyes to the unpainted fur) and smoke.  

According to the formula in text I am using for my MATH110 class they take up about a single terrain cube.  Math is as follows

I painted them in a variety of colours based on the photos from the Butser Hill Experimental Farm.  I have actually been to Butser Hill but it was long enough ago that it was showing off current technology.  I varried the terrascaping a bit for each house.  I figured that the head man's larger hut might be better tended and without weeds around it.

I realize that the attempted play on words may be lost on those who are not survivors of the 1970s.  However, in 1970s teenage lad speak the term "built like a brick sh*t house" was used to describe the figure of a young lady whose curves you admired.  Doesn't make much sense but neither do teenage lads or the 1970s for that matter.  The term hit its Cultural Zenith in giving the Commodores the inspiration for this classic bit of over top top 70s funk (note Lionel Ritchie sporting the Fro and blowing Sax in the horn line).  This video may give rise to many questions (particularly after the 3:00 mark), for which the universal answer is that it was 1978.

Link here in case Blogger doesn't like my insert.

No side duels or Theme Bonus on this, just 20 points straight up

AHPC An Irish Tide for Luna

 The themes for Luna include tides and I present a boatload of Irish Sea Raiders who arrive with the tides on the western coasts of Dark age Britain.  Other than the curragh they sail in, the figures are all Gripping Beas and mostly from their plastic Irish set (or the Paddy O'Furniture set as it's known in our household).

Landlubbers and most North American sailors don't often realize but the tides along the coasts of the British isles are something to be reckoned with, with big tidal height and strong currents resulting from a lot of water sloshing through some narrow openings.  Tides determine when you can sail, which direction you sail in and when you can enter port.

Ireland in the Dark Ages was like most of its history rich in people and culture and poor in just about everything else.  So they exported their people to Scotland and Wales and used some forced acquisition import trade.  The leader here is a metal fig from the Arthurian range meant to represent a former mercenary who acquired better gear fighting foreign wars and has come back home.  Otherwise these are the Plastic Irish done straight up from the box.  I have had lots of metal GB figures but these were my first plastics from them and I was quite pleased with the box.  Nice poses, clean sculpt and good variety of heads, arms, shields and cloaks.  

Here's a back view of the cloaks showing the natural wool tufts that were used as decoration.  I've based them individually so that they can serve in Beowulf RPG skirmishes where they will serve perfectly as Sea Raider.  I also plan to have them serve as a unit of 12 for mass battle games (once I work out magnets and basing etc).

Close up of the second half of the bunch. You may notice that some look a little grainy which is down to my own impatience. The box arrived mid challenge in a cold snap and I was so keen to get them primed that I took them outside before the weather had warmed up enough.  However, they look ok and work well from my standard 2 foot range.  

Back view of this lot again with a cloak or two (these are separate pieces and can go on any torso before the head is attached).    I tried for a unit feel by using a limited colour palette and a common shield theme. Shields are all free handed in basic Celtic spirals.  I gave some figures basic plaids (the modern usage as a pattern, not the traditional item of clothing).  The flag was bodged together quickly in MS Word using Celtic clip art.

Two other metal figures.  The priest originally came with a sword and spear, but I wanedt a less violent Irish cleric.  I tried to bodge a cross by cutting down the sword, and may have to revisit that later.  The horn blower is from the GB Sub Roman British range and will end up with those forces.  Both are venerable but fine figures.  The Currragh is from the Freebooter's Fate range and is a resin cast.  Back in early December I was in Toronto on business and the trip armed with a shopping list.  A search on Meeplemart website of "boats" had unearthed this as a potential stand in for an Irish curragh, but I had no idea where to find it in store.  Turned out neither had their staff, but they assured me that if it was listed as in stock on the webstore, then it was in the brick and mortar store.  Kudos to the lovely young lady who searched all over the store to find it for me.

A curragh is a traditional Irish boat made of leather over a wooden frame.  According to Irish legend, St Brendan the Navigator and companions sailed to the New World in one in the 6th century.  Tim Severin's book The Brendan Voyage (a very good read) has great material on their construction and history.  I don't suggest following Severin's lead by sailing one to Newfoundland via The Faroes, Iceland and Greenland to prove that the legendary voyage was possible if you are determined and crazy enough.

Points wise I make it 14x28mm foot figures, plus I suggest counting the boat as a vehicle for 20, and 20 for Luna for a total of 110 points.  This could be my last post, but I am hoping for the traditional Shelf Soup last week end post of odds and ends. 

AHPC Dark Age Buildings

 Last post of the day as I clear off my workbench.  I've been to my requite four planets on the middle Ring so can move one.  First stop on the Inner Ring will be Terra and a home theme.

I have an 'humble Dark Age house and barn plus a rather more substantial church.  All are 28mm pdf kits from Sarissa (but you knew that I was going to say that).

First up is the 'humble abode itself.  I need to trim my thatching a bit.

Works for my Arthurian, El Cid and SYW tables.

Next up is a timber barn or workshop.

Every time I use teddy bear fur, my wife threatens to glue big google eyes on it.

Last up is this Saxon/Norman church.  It was intended for the later Saxon era, but does look a lot like the early Saxon churches dating from the 6th century.

It should do fine for El Cid games and for SYW games set in the Saxon duchies too.

I didn't do the interior, but there was a set of inner doors entering into the main church.  These became the gates of my ring fort.

Not much to say here and I've blathered on too much today.  Great kits, they were fast easy and fun to assemble and put together.  My terrain cube-calculator puts the church at just over a cube and the two smaller buildings together at just over a half cube.  Let's say 1.5 cubes for 30 points and hopefully 20 for Terra for a home for the peasants, a home for their animals, and a house of God. 

AHPC Sub Roman British for Noel's Comet

 My students and family can tell you that I could give Noel a run for his money on verbosity, but hopefully I keep this within everyone attention span.

Love the Sutton Hoo helmet and the Draco.

Back in September 1980 I started University and a new FLGS opened up in Halifax, in a location that was at least not too far off my walk home.  The FLGS turned out to be run by Ross McFarland of the Battle Game of the Month blog, With MacDuff to the Frontier rules and servant to the world's most superior looking wargaming cat. Ross' store was short lived, my university career lasted 5 years as a student and 20 years as an instructor (with a 15 plus year interlude in between) and we still keep in touch.  We have gamed in the past on my visits back to Nova Scotia, and were hoping to do so again at Christmas, but Omicron put the boots to that idea.  We should try a Zoom game.

The chap on the left is from a Pictish command pack but fits in with the unit.

One of Ross' projects at the time was Late Roman/Sub Roman Britain, a project which I've returned to in my recent Beowulf gaming.  I have another 6 figures from a Sub-Roman rulers comitatus.  These are Gripping Beast 28mm figures and most are from their Arthurian range.  Some of the facial details has gone soft, but it's kinda like painting old minifigs which is pleasant nostalgia in its own right.  As is my way I freehanded some noble headed shields and bodged together a flag using Celtic clip art and MS Word.  

I'm quite happy with the cloaks.  I think that the Pictish fellow is supposed to have a mail coif but it works as ringlets.

In digging through the family photos recently, I found some pictures from a Convention game that Ross ran at Dalhousie in 1987 or 1988, which I am sharing below.

Ross resolving combat on the Pratzen.  The vibrant cloth is still in my basement.  I remember that it was fall when I bought it and the salesgirl at Fabricland asked if I was going as a Frog for Halloween.

This was an Austerlitz scenario featuring Soult's assault on the Pratzen and the defence of the Goldbach (40K players will need to google this).  It was fought using Ross' home-brew rules, 15mm figures and at a 1:40ish scale with individual casualties.   The next year I ran a Jutland scenario using my home brew rules and 1/3000 scale Navwar ships. Ken Reilly you're not the only one who can run crazy big games. 

Struggle for the Goldbach crossings.  We achieved an impressively historical log jam.  Those are my white and green coated Italians masquerading as French on the defence and my Russian infrantry.  

Ross and I were chatting about this game via his blog comments recently.  He gave the French commands to the most experienced players (I was Marshall Soult) and the Allied commands were given to newbies who didn't know the history.  The Allied column commanders were told to follow written orders based on the actual orders of the day.  As a way to simulate historical fog of war and command confusion it worked the charm.  Ross reminded me that the problem was that the newbies figured they'd been set up as sacrificial offerings and some of them left the game in huff.  I had not recalled that aspect, but then again it was 35 years ago and I was rather busy directing St Hilaire and Vandamme.

I still think that it was a great achievement and I have fond memories of those big games are played with small figures in the 80s, as well as the small games that we played with big figures (54mms) in the 90s and 2000s.

Points wise that 6 28mm figures for 30 points and I hope the yarn ents me another 20 for Noel's Comet.