Home Counties 1897 - War of The worlds - No place like home.

For me the biggest problem with a new army is painting the first units.
I just can't it must be like authors block or stage fright.

I will literally do anything else. Have been known to do chores, not often enough in the opinion of some, but it makes the point.

So while I research the uniforms and consider how to paint them, prep them and undercoat them, I'll find something else to do (hobby wise).

So whilst this should be about painting the Brits it is instead the buildings.

I have some 6 mm from Battle Scale and they are lovely but Normandy or Russian, the Greek Orthodox Churches will be a miss, but the hovels will do nicely, peasants need to live somewhere and the Victorian times weren't all that enlightened. If in doubt read some Dickens!

I had some more 6 mm buildings unpainted that would do and as I was at the Joy of 6 I went to see what was on offer.
I'd seen Leven Minatures, before but this time I was in 'buy mode' It's so much easier to find what you want when it's in packets in front of you and at only £3 ish a model you get good value for your money, however £50 can exchange hands quite quickly, some wasn't in stock but was receive post free quickly after the show and I've made a similar purchase since and will again.

6 mm isn't cheaper than 28 that is a canard. What you find is that rather than buying a couple of 28 mm farm buildings for £52, you sepnd the same and get 4 farm buildings plus a town, a vicarage etc. and they do have more impact.

I intend to base a few up together, farmsteads and streets, but for the moment they're painted up.

As everyone is hiding on has run away, there are no lights to be seen in the windows!


P.S. I mentioned I had more 6 mm buildings - these went in the bin, I've seen more work from the same store and TBH there are too many pits and lumps and after seeing Leven's work I'll focus my spending with him.

Home Counties 1897 - War of The worlds - No place like home 2

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Home Counties 1897 - War of The worlds - Assembling the forces 1

The Tripods



So we start with a picture from Pendraken's site .

How on Earth, or indeed Mars do you assemble a 50mm high Tripod?

Consider I don't want to base them as I want them to be able to walk over the scenery.





















Plan 'A' was lots of blu tac models upside down and a good amount of Gorilla epoxy, I don't want to be forever repairing. I did consider pinning, I may have to.

Yes it worked but for repairs it was easier to stack some MDF bases tapped with masking tape and blu tack them on that, additional blu tac as required to stabilise or hold in place.
















The six legged crawlers had to be done that way and because of that it did suggest how to repair the others.
















Assembled and curing. I guess I've repaired 4 so far superglue in one case as the gorilla glue had created the shape, the socket for the ball so to speak.








Had to show them off on a sample latex mat from Magister Militum.

(These small latex mats are all different and I love them I use them to define woodland or scrub areas. They go very well with my 'Grass' cloth from Tiny Wargames.)

Striding over Leven Minatures' 6mm Victorian terraces.












For scale I've placed some 6 mm Baccus troops.

I feel I have got what I was imagining.





Painted up, I hope the Varnish will brighten the Green glass windows/eyes

Packed safely away in their Commission Figurines' mdf tray.



Now do I face the idea of painting 6 mm Brits or duck it and go to those rather tasty Leven buildings?








No place like home!

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Home Counties 1897 - War of The worlds

At Salute last year I saw a game called Tripods and Triplanes and it made me think about the book War of The Worlds by H.G. Wells (1897)

I decided I'd like to have a go at setting up a game based on the book, with the Victorian army facing off against the Tripods.

Whilst still dithering over which rules to use would it be, Black Powder, Future War Commander, my own (to be written) rules or a hodge podge of the first two. I decided to ignore such niceties and see what models were on the market, this could determine the ruleset, it would certainly determine the scale.

I have a predilection for doing big games in smaller scales and so began at 6mm.

If it were 6mm the the army choice was simple Baccus' but which army. The British army of that time was using a Spiked helmet at home and a Pith helmet in various parts of Africa and India

Home Service Helmet

Pith Helmet

The home Service counties helmet and Pith helmet aren't that different.
In battle the helemt was often covered

The origins of such a helmet and who might have used it first is presented here at Straight to the Point: The History of the Spiked Helmet  but Russian or Indian in origin they all seem to hail from early Mongolian headgear.

I  digress, at 6mm the two are the same and who needs a spike anyway? So I decided on British Colonial Zulu wars, with a few Germans from the Franco Prussian war for the limbers. 

The scale however still depended on the Martian Tripods, a few questions on various FB pages and GWs Spindel Drones are suggested to me.

They do look the part.

However not enough I want them stepping over buildings.

In the above image I've positioned them behind 6 mm Baccus archers and 10 mm Pendraken ones, 6 mm works better, but there's a little voice saying,  "These are not the drones you're looking for."

Then some genius says have you looked at the Tripods on Pendraken's site, well I thought I had, obviously not. I looked but as I wanted to be sure of their size I sent a question to Pendraken on a Sunday, Leon's immediate response was

Image from Pendraken's site

Thanks for the message, the height of the tripods is:

Small = 40mm high
Large = 60mm high

I'll check on the crab walker when I get to work on Monday, I think it's around 30mm or thereabouts.

And that on a Sunday, brilliant service, I bought, they arrived swiftly and they are big, even better they are exactly as I think thy should be, courtesy of  Jeff Wayne's album cover.

Next phase

Hail Caesar! basing for 6 mm and 10 mm games

We all do it differently. I play this game in 6mm with occasional 10mm.
I'm not about to tell you how to base, rather how I do, you can use this as a comparison. All sizes in millimetres.

Infantry
Standard base is 80x40
Small 40x40
Skirmishes 80x40
Warbands are 80x50
Artillery 40x40 

Horse
Standard Cavalry is 80x50 deep
Small unit 40 x50
Light horse small unit in open order 80x25 whilst formed they are 40x50 , future models will be based 40x25 and position as needed, however current models are both as I have the unit twice once in each formation.

If I did large units I'd probably do 100x50 or 100x60

Tiny units elephants for example 30x40or 50

That's our club's preference

Further we like to represent the unit with a different quantity of models or formation

Infantry

Usually about 12 men to a rank

Heavy  4 ranks  warband the same about 48

Medium 3 ranks

Light and archers 2 ranks

Horse

Cataphracts square block 6x3

Heavy horse 2 lines of 9 'V' formation

Medium horse 2 parallel lines of 9

Light horse usually in small units with just 5 postion depending on open or closed order

I've done 5 on a 80x25 or on a 40x50, when I start a new army there will be 3 on a 40x25, giving me 6 in a line or square.

Examples of 6 mm basing for HC!

Cavalry Roman and Samatian
Cataphracts, Medium, Heavy, Medium and lights

Roman and Dacian Infantry
Skirmishers, Legionaries, Warband, Medium, lights and light artillery at the back of the picture.

Command bases,
The largest is rarely used, only if there is an over all General with two legions

Examples of 10 mm basing for HC!

As the models are a little bigger we have reduced the model count and made a small increase to the size of the bases as a result it plays and feels like the 6 mm games we played, with fluid movement and movement options. Things we feel you don't get in a 28 mm game if like us you play on a 6' x 4' table.
We went down this route like all gamers because we could :) in addition we all had fantasy 10 mm models we wanted to play with so are creating a home made Warmaster - Hail Caesar mash.

Early Imperial/Marian Romans
Both three ranks and 10 wide, lights would be two ranks

Orcs mixed units based for a fantasy HC game
Note it's the same number of models that were in the Warmaster units.

Undead based for a fantasy HC game

Undead based for a fantasy HC game

Undead Commands based for a fantasy HC game

It's been a while but I'm back and WW2 NWE beckons

I've never really done WW2, the plethora  and variety of machines and men, and resultant variations on the tabletop have to a degree put me off. I'm not a great one for looking at charts to see if A has hit and subsequently damaged, destroyed or tickled B. Give me a hit on 4 and destroy on their failed 4 anytime. You can get away with this is ancients, less so in Black Powder BP and onward .

So after a hiatus of some considerable weeks, due to a serious accident which derailed me big time and from which, whilst medically recovered is still creating a different view on what I want to do, messing with my mind I find I now look at the effort I've put in to Post Velamentum and know that I will get back to it, but my interests are changed.

I've been playing a lot of Blitzkrieg Commander recently too. (V2) and version IV is out this April, it is less worried about the version of the Panzer IV that is shooting/being shot at and the variation of the Sherman at the other end of the barrel. There is also a degree of hit on 4 save on 4. So it allows for a broader paint brush of divisional responses as opposed to squad games, which I've discovered is my preferred go to.

My main opponent is determined to fight over the Russian steep, but armies I've acquired are from 1944 NW Europe. This was also the period I first played BKC2 against a group of Madgamers.

As stated I have had for a while a 10mm Late British NW Europe army, I also have a less complete German army to oppose it, gaps in the both armies are being plugged with metal from Pendraken.

Now as you will all realise if you've read anything I've previously written that I do scenery so I'm now looking at what I will need. I have some Normandy houses and church. Just need a few more and the odd barn or two and apparently a hell of a lot of hedges.

I found this article  https://www.dday-overlord.com/en/battle-of-normandy/tactics/hedgerow-warfare


I can see a game here where a force of Brits has to dislodge a much smaller group of Germans. As that fits in with my current models, I'm now off to prepare for making hedges, several meters worth.

Hail Caesar Fantasy (PV) 2

...Continued   You may need to read my previous blog, Hail Caesar Fantasy (PV)

Things have advanced, not as fast as I might have wished, but it is an interesting learning curve.
Having absorbed a lot of the Shadow Storm ideas, I started.

Magic

I've looked at each army re-written the magic so it relates to a unit rather than a stand and made it comply with the Hail Caesar rules.
One point of interest was that the ranged magic attacks in WM counted successful hits as contributing towards the combat results. I didn't think this was necessary. Unlike WM where unless the damage removes a stand it is cleared after the shooting magic phase, in HC! the damage stays on the unit  adding to its loss of stamina.
To reinforce this decision, consider that in WM any wounds caused by closing shots are counted towards the combat (so just like ranged spells) whilst in HC! they are not.

Racial traits, Army Rules and Special Rules.

I'm always looking for the HC! special rule that could be applied and in many instances I've managed to find them, but they don't deal with the undead, Orcs and Skaven so some special rules have been created but I'm trying to keep them to the minimum and am still working to see if I can ditch some of my creations as in my view the less additional PV rules the better.
So one by one I'm going through the army lists, creating each unit, dealing with army traits, special/unique weapons and applying existing concepts where applicable. I've found the addition of each army and its units can cause a rethink of how I've dealt with a previous army so by the time I was doing the 8th army it required checking balance with the previous seven and I determined that a  complete rethink of the stats creations mechanism was required and also at this point a lot of Shadow Storm ideas/concepts were dropped.

One rule I found myself following was always go back to the Warmaster Rules. In many instances this resolved confusion and difficulties caused by my absorbing the Shadow Storm rules and I
found myself ditching almost 80-90% of them as they didn't fit what I was wanting to do which was convert Warmaster to play HC!.
Please don't take this as a criticism of the Shadow Storm rules as if I was looking for an alternative to WHF then I'm confident I'd be going down this route. .

What next?

When I've created every army I'm going to reference back to the army lists for HC!; 'Biblical & Classical' and 'Late Antiquity to Early Medieval'. Whilst I am aware of period supplements; 'Shield Wall', 'Britannia', 'Germania' and others, for the moment I'm leaving them out of the equation.

Other Progress

I've play tested a small 8 units per side game and we both liked the result, the Magic was as good/bad as it used to be in WM and the combat worked out satisfactorily.
I re-based elements of my Orc Warmaster army for this and though friends have based their existing bases on top of MDF, either directly or using recessed MDF to hold the stands as a unit. I'm very unlikely to play WM again as I am convinced PV will work so I'm going for it and have stripped the WM models off their old bases and put them on the new.

Above with their new basing (those done so far)

Above - as they were

 Their right wing

 Their left wing

Centre

I've just noticed the Orcs to the left of the Wyvern in the image above have turned their back's on the camera, I will be speaking to them later.

When I started my Warmaster army I had access to a large number of Battle of five armies Orcs, I based these up and then realised the size difference, so bought Baccus goblins and play GW Orcs as Black Orcs. This kept the size comparison realistic.

Post script - After this I received a rather nasty head injury, that altered me in more ways than I realised. It was some 6 months before people felt I'd returned to my old self so a lot of things went on hold PV being one of them. I will return.


Continued ...

Hail Caesar Fantasy (PV)

A quiet period as I sit down and consider the rather Herculean task I have taken on.

I have played a lot of Warmaster in the past and enjoy the fun of the game but the mechanic can be a bit painful especially with regard to extended combat, they are easy enough to master if you play a few games, but quickly forgotten if you don't play it often enough.
Various people have also complained over the years about how over powerful Cavalry is and whilst I know there is a live fan based rewrite of the rules and continuing improvements, there is an element of me that thinks rather than repair and patch why not start fresh.

Well of course the answer is do you know how much work is involved in writing a rules set? I do I've written a few short rules for participation games and wargames shows and whilst I did win best participation game for one and received request for the rules etc from as far a field as Canada and New Zealand, writing a whole rules set is far too much to take on.

One of my favorite games is Hail Caesar!, from Warlord games and written by Rick Priestly who is of course the same Rick Priestly who wrote Warmaster many years ago. In many ways Hail Caesar! is a third generation development of the original  Warmaster Fantasy, Rick Priestly wrote Warmaster Ancients and I understand put in place a lot of things that were missing from or not dealt with satisfactorily in Warmaster and planned to go back and re-write Warmaster.
Of course that may all be hearsay......

The command and control element of Hail Ceasar! is clearly from the same stable and these elements in Warmaster that people have complained about have been ironed out.

So after a game of HC! the other day my opponent talked about playing his WM armies with the HC! rules, it would almost be as easy as just laying the magic over the top.

And magically he is right, however as we may want to play a Roman army against an Orc horde we need to rebuild/cost the Warmaster units for HC!. We also need to look at changing the spell wording.

That my friends is where I am currently.

I have resourced some information and ideas from a rules set called Shadow Storm that whilst excellent doesn't do what I want. It is a wonderful merge of WHF and HC!, but it's written from the 28mm level rather than my favored scale of 6 mm or 10 mm, there is also for my taste too much magic. I want the same gentle touch of magic and the humorous rules. Like the Giant Rules.

So I've started my own merge of Warmaster and HC!.

So far so good.

We've always played our HC! in 6mm and have reduced the movement and range by 2/3rds so that 18" range became 12". Funninly enough when I looked at range in WM for the same weapon it was 30cm which is as close to 12" as you can get. Again and again, I found convenient coincidence so I'm hopeful of producing an effective HC supplement in due course.

I decided to call it Post Velamentum, latin for behind the veil. in this case the veil of darkness, night or mystery.

I have a provisional supplemental rules set.
I have created an excel spreadsheet that will cost units for me
I have started on the armies doing each in turn, and doing their units, special army rules and spells.
As I complete each army it impacts on previous units, spells and abilities as well as the rules themselves as I seek balance.

Continued ...   Hail Caesar Fantasy (PV) 2

Initial impacts will of course be on basing. Whether you choose to use a sabot or rebase as per the right hand unit the choice will be yours.

Storage Boxes and Trays - 2

In an earlier post I talked about Really useful Boxes and Commission Figurines' trays.
Having finished off a lot of my 6mm ancients I needed to maximise the number I can get in one box, Why carry two boxes when one will do, well it's lighter came to mind when I'd done, but I'd rather pump-lead that walk the distance twice!.

Anyway one 9 ltr really useful box can take 4 20mm trays and 2 30mm trays 6 trays in total for a total height of 140mm. As the MDF is 2mm wide then a 20mm tray gives you 18mm of model space, a 30m tray gives you 28mm

When I fill the RU box I put the Kontos carrying tray in the top s it has at least another 2mm of space because the lid has a raised centre.

In the picture the top two trays are the 30mm ones with cavalry in.
The white tape is masking tape I've passed through the handles and then stuck to itself, these surprisingly robust handle allow me to gently lower the trays into the box.

The tray contain 2 Roman armies, a Dacian Army and a Sarmation Army and yes there is space for a few more units.

The 9 Litre box, yes I can still lift it up.

More here

_________________________________________________________________

NOTE:

Commission Figuerines web site is a link to their PDF catalogue with the following instructions.

Ordering

e-mail us at commission@btinternet.com

Let us know what you want from the catalogue

We’ll let you know how much the postage will be

You let us know if you wish to proceed

We send you a Paypal invoice (which includes an option to pay by card)

Alien Trees 2 6mm-15mm or 28mm Scrub

In my continuing push to make scenery for my Mechanoid game, I was considering the plastic aquarium plant selections, but they all seemed to big and didn't do it for me. I wanted small leaves.

I also wanted an alien feel to them so green was a no go.

In a previous article I talked about making Alien trees these were for 28mm 40K games. These were wire and string efforts. I pushed the idea on with variants for Saga/Frostgrave producing a very tall Cedar of Lebanon. In 40K you also need some Jungle Terrain and you can make that with plastic aquarium plants, the problem being with them that they are too low. However by threading them through a kebab stick fixed in a drilled mdf board, you can have almost as much height as you want.

Mind open to ideas I waited, I find if I go looking for stuff I wont find it, it has to be a light-bulb moment and is often better because of it. I also find that if I don't feel like moving forwards with the plan then there is something, some point I've missed. So I wait for fruition, of course some times it's instant but I wasn't happy with my plans.

It grew on me:
1) the red flock
2) getting a mat with red patches on it.

Then I found a plant option I pulled a few bit out in the store to check it out and the leaves were perfect, I pushed the small spray back on and bought it, in fact I've been back to buy a second and 'Oh there is a large green ball too!'

But... it was mauve, I tried to think of it as purple as that would fit better but it is most definitely the blue side of purple, mauve trees on an alien planet? Why not, but yet...

















I played around with the idea and used cocktail sticks as the holes were smaller than aquarium plants. I threaded 2-5 pieces on each stick to increase height and thickness of the 'plant'.















You get the idea. And there I stopped, dithered.




The the light-bulb moment was more a memory as I went through stuff from way back in the 1990's the precursors to the jungle terrain I'd made for my 9 year old son (who am I kidding? and me!).

The foliage had come from a supplier of artificial planets to florists. This is way back in time before plastic aquarium plants! The items were gold in colour so I'd spray painted them green, in time the green had peeled off.

But now I had proper plastic foliage and proper acrylic spray paint, in fact I had Blood angel Red or Dragon red depending on your supplier and voila, now we are motoring!

N.B. don't be too accurate with your red paint, green and mauve showing through adds belief.

My usual wood filler as basing material on to small MDF bases and some larger ones, can't use CDs as I want to drill trough them and glue my cocktail sticks in. Black spray the bases, dry brush grey and then almost white, as described earlier, flock then drill hole from top through base onto old wood, not wife's favourite table top, as if (cough). For variety do a large base and clump it with 4 sticks.I use the small plants as scatter on my wood defined areas, moving them to one side as unts pass through, the larger bases I place as individual clumps of impenetrable, LOS blocking, dense terrain.









Cocktail stick pushed in from below point first, then last bit  glued before final push through base. At this point my youngest kitten jumped on to the table I had 20 of these bases out and at that moment they looked like a field of caltrops I had visions of a stabbed paw and a large vet's bill. (Never mind the flack from CiC/SWMBO.)

However after threading the plants on I stuck a small bead on the top, it looks like the budding growth point of the plant - need is the mother of invention and inspiration.

I've made these for 6mm, they'd work for 10-15, just lengthen the cocktail stick my max length was 2/3rds. OFC they would also make good scrub for 28mm, and that's what I like versatility.

Hope you approve.