Sharp Practice Inspiration From Others

As mentioned, I am starting a SYW project based on the SP2 ruleset.  For inspiration and eye candy, I provide the following link from one of the Lardies on his own SYW themed Imagination project.

New Project SP2 and the SYW Kleine Krieg

As is normally the case, when I get busy with real life I spend my down time dreaming of new projects.  It's the old wargamer's paradox.  The desire to paint/game rarely coincides with the opportunity to do so!

After hopping about various proto-projects that died on the drafting table, I had a lit on a project that I might be able to stick with for a bit.  We'll test this theory over the summer and see if I got an attention span that last longer than a Trump policy declaration.  On the way my fight plan passed over 15mm Libya and Abyssinia in 1940, Scotland during the Nine Years War, the Indian Mutiny and AWI among others.

The plan uses the recently released updated rules set Sharp Practice 2 from the Two Fat Lardies.  I had PDFs of two of their WW2 rule sets and liked what I saw.  So I took advantage of their introductory bundle offers and plunked down my shekels.  The PDF looks great with the hard copy following by a much slower snail's route.

The best intro to SP2 is found with the videos in Lard-o-vision.  However, the rules are for small scale actions set in the black powder era - 1700-1870.  It uses a basic group of 6-8 figures which can represent a small group on a 1-1 scale or a company at about 1:5 scale.  There is an emphasis on personalities so that one can be Sharpe, Hornblower, Aubrey or who ever one wants.

So what will I do with SP2?  Well I've long wanted to game the SYW in Western Germany, between the French armies and "His Britannic Majesties Army in Germany".  HBMAIG was a collection of Hanoverian, Hessian, Brunswick and British forces led by a Prussian General.  The campaigns feature large scale actions (e.g. Minden) but also a whole string of little actions between light forces in the Kliene Krieg.  I think that SP2 will cover these very nicely.

Book Tour and Signing

The past week my better half and I did one of our infrequent fliers up the road to Saskatoon (a 2.5 hour drive each way).  Unlike our typical "god we need to get out of town" trips, this one came with a specific purpose.  One of our favourite authors Guy Gabriel Kay was at our favourite bookstore  for a reading and signing.

Kay is a Canadian fantasy writer who writes very very good books set in alternate worlds that close follow our own histories.  This are not slash and f*ck novels, but wonderful thought provoking books that are also great reads.  And yes there is some S&Fing in the process and tons of inspiration for any historical gamer.  The Lions of Al-Rassan (go read this book for El-Cid inspiration, it got me hooked!) for instance parallels el-Cid and Al Andalusia, Under Heaven mirrors Tang dynasty China etc.  His latest is Children of Earth and Sky is in a  Renaissance Venetian Empire themed setting.  It was published on May 10th, and Kay was doing his signing in Saskatoon two days later.  In a case of serendipity, I had a meeting set for the afternoon of 12th, but this was cancelled freeing me to take the day and to do the junket.

Kay was a very funny and interesting speaker and we now have a signed copy of his brand new book.  I am looking forward to reading it once my wife finishes it.

Silent on the Blog but Not Inactive!

Forgive me father it has been six weeks since my last posting.....

It's funny how one can blog in great spurts and then completely get off the habit for a while.  I had a big flurry of posts over the Winter tracking my activity in the Painting Challenge along with a few game reports.  The last one was dated March 31, as I posted the last of my Painting Challenge entries.
And then April hit...

April brought end of term, a series of term papers to mark, a business trip to Toronto and final exams.    And then my daughter returned home for the summer from University leading to another flurry of activity. Oh I am trying to get our garden in...

So while I've been battling an acute case of REAL LIFE, what else I have been up to?

• A reasonable amount of painting - some Great Italian Wars and more Seven Years War.
• Several game nights with our regular group, though not at it's top of form weekly rate due to my schedule.  IIRC there were two games of Zombicide, one of Zombicide Black Plague, a lost game of Black Powder Peninsula War battle and a game of the Eldritch Horror.
• Planning for a new project, more to follow.
• Lots of looking at rules, scenario books and uniforms guides

Painting Challenge Gendarmes

Last challenge entry and another set of problem children here, with an 8 man unit of 28mm Italian Gendarmes on barded horses for my Italian Wars project.  This will extend my lead in my Renaissance Men side duel with Curt, but not by enough he pulls off his 32 man Landschneck points bomb. The figures are of course from the Perry miniatures plastic box sets.

I started assembling these guys in December, but they kept getting sidetracked by other projects.  The barding proved fiddly and I am still not happy with it.  A horse or two that I was happy with got requisitioned for commanders etc, etc.

When it came time for painting there were other issues, mostly between the chair cushion and the paint brush.  The gothic, metal barding was too...metal, and I had trouble getting the effects right.  I did the other barding as fabric and that proved fiddly too, plus I made the mistake of using yellow on two of the four sets.  Next time I'll try steel armour with gilded highlights.  Not my best Italian Wars unit by any benchmark, which is a shame as they should be the cream of the crop.  But I'm done fussing over them and am glad to get them out of the queue.

Originally I was going to give them the flag for the Sforza Dukes of Milan, but I didn't think that they were up to snuff for that role.  I went with a generic Cross of St George pennant.   The last issue came with basing. it turns out that I ran out of the plastic Revendra based I was using for Cavalry, so I had to resort to card.  I didn't want to risk heavy paint and acrylic gel on the card for fear of warping so went back to older flocking styles, with an eye to rebasing on plastic or wood alter.  I used Static grass with a blend of two army painter boxes and in the end it doesn't look half bad at all.

I had a lot of fun on the Challenge and really enjoyed my minion duties on Monday.  As always I've learned a lot and been tempted by a lot of projects and ranges.  Good work everyone, and I'll see you next year.

Painting Challenge - Royal Marines

At the end of the Challenge I was  at the point where I was struggling to get a couple of problem children ready for the big night.  First up, the set of 6 Royal Marines for my War of 1812 project.  These guys took me on quite a ride.

I missed two theme rounds with Epic Failures.  My 1:2400 scale Rock of Gibraltar eroded away and my Mousling Lovers had a primer failure.  Going into the Nautical Round (3 weeks back) I decided that I needed a back up plan to the Sternwheeler.  So I started a unit of 12 (yes 12) Royal Marines.  The figures are mostly Perrys with Brigade (ex-Victrix) metal additions, in the form of a drummer, sergeant and a bunch of heads with round hats.  They first gave me headaches as the heads kept falling off.  After much reglueing I had one stick of them (I mount figs on sticks and had 2 sticks of 6 figures each) were good to go and I had them painted by last weekend.  The second set were being problematic, but I got them in order this week and sat down to finish them this morning.  That's when I realized that I had miss glue the backside of the Perry officer - yes you need to glue on the officer's coat tails in the appropriate length for the era you want.  Hence the half-assedness of the unit.  I was in the process of removing said backside and applying a quick Facto fix when I dropped the stick of 6 figures, so the set of 6 is back to the workbench.

So anyway I based the 6 finished figures and left space for their AWOL brothers in arms.  I will give them proper basing when all are mounted, but have gone with a minimal base brown  for today.

I really like the Sergeant, there's some real swagger to his pose.

The Brigade (ex-Victrix) head are nice, but suffer from the c1969 fu manchu sideburns of all Victrix Nappys.  The drummer and NCO are really nice.  I think that there was an officer, but he got repurposed into another unit or command stand.  The round hats are meant for the Marines but do equally well for British expeditions to Egypt, South Africa, Argentina or the Caribbean.  Or for an army of leprechauns for that matter.  Things might have gone better if I had used Victrix bodies, but I like the Perry's better.

I took the canteens and cartridge boxes off of Perry backpacks (since Marines went without packs) but should have also done a better job trimming off the straps.  Of course had I used Victrix figs, the bodies have the canteens and cartridge boxes and only the packs are separate, sigh....And the officer has his backside attached already!  FYI, the truncated packs gave me tarps and a piece of luggage for the Jock Campbell figure.

Painting Challenge Risk Taker

This past week the Analogue Hobby Painting Challenge theme round was Risk Taker.

Be sure to see the wonderful submissions on the link.

So for my submission to the Risk Taker Bonus round I have Jock Campbell, a key figure in the early Western Desert Campaign.  Campbell was an artillery officer who was with the 7th Armoured Division (the Desert Rats), and later promoted to command first the Division's Support Group and finally the Division itself.  He was killed in a car accident in early 1942 shortly after getting command of the division.    The mounted (ok riding a cut down station wagon).  and dismounted figures are 15mm by Battlefront.  The mounted figure is clearly based on this print from the OOP Osprey Vanguard 1.  Battlefront mounts this on a base, so I used what it came with.  However, I added some baggage - the valise in the back seat and a tarp or blanket roll in the truck.  (I'm curious to see if anyone guesses the origins of these).  If Campbell was Canadian he'd be waving an extra large double double  with a half eaten box of Timbits in the back.

Much of the early Desert Campaign (the period pre-Monty basically) was a largely improvised affair using what was on hand and a giant dose of chutzpah.  Campbell was one of the most respected Desert Commanders (by both sides).  He was awarded the DSO after Operation Compass and Beda Fomm where his guns played a key role.  Later his bravery on the Sidi Rezegh airfield during Operation Crusader led to a VC.     

There's a Timmies over that way!  I've gone for hand painted unit symbols looking to get the look right if not the details.

His name is also given to that most wargamer of formations the Jock Column.   Take a company of infantry, mount them in trucks and add a troop of light armour and some guns and bobs your uncle you got a Jock Column.  These were used to scout and harass enemy positions and just general mayhem.  Campbell did so well with them that they named the idea for him.

Best view of the clutter in the back.

I would also point out that I am also a risk taker on this post and I am stepping well outside my normal comfort zone.   First, while I have painted many 15mms in my time (Nappys, SYW, Tudor English) these are my first 15s since 1997 (at least), it's been 28mms only for night on twenty years.  Second, I have with one small exception, restricted myself to historicals pre-1900 - Nappys, Greeks, Medievals, Renaissance, SYW, Colonials etc.    So vehicles, battledress, modern weapons, etc,  well out of my wheelhouse.  The one exception was a dalliance in Western Desert in 10mm in the early 1990s, long since sold off.

So having been swayed by BigLee's 6mm wonders and the excellent 28mm East African work by Scrivs, I have been swayed back to Western Desert 1940-1.  And there's another risk here, as Curt has figures in the same scale and period which I know I won't be able to match.  However, this is a project that I want to do for myself.

The dismounted version needs a wash and highlighting on the base.  

I have been amused by the number "god I hate painting X" posts over the Challenge.  Horses, artillery, tartans, shields, terrain, etc, etc, all of which seemed like great things to paint and a lot of fun.  I did make me wonder what level of childhood trauma had led to these dislikes in some case, but whatever.  Anyway my point here i.e., quit yer whining, get over your self imposed obstacles and Challenge yourself.  I stepped out of my comfort zone and so can you.

FYI, comments, suggestions and feedback on my initial step into this particular madness are appreciated.