Derby report

As I mentioned previously, I went to Derby today. Boy do I like that show, none of the hugeness and impersonality of Salute-in-the-aircraft-hanger that is Excel, but a nice sized friendly show. I even said as much to one of the organizers whom I got chatting to. A good day was had by all. YO dropped me at the uni campus then went off in a cloud of dust to go shopping in Derby with the missus -result. And guess what, I remembered the camera, in fact I took two just to be sure. 107 photos all found, some not bad, others okay and some a bit blurred but I know what they are so I'll keep them anyway.
Some really good games this year. A 40mm ACW with about 1200 figures and some outstanding and eye catching flags. A large 'L' shaped version of Waterloo and a game with a very impressive model of the granary at Apern-Essling, both in 25mm. And then I came across a game after a my own heart, a refight of Liegnitz (Mongols v Polish in 1241) by the Curteys lads, a nice 15mm version of Fontenoy and a visually impressive 25mm WWII involving a fight over two railway bridges. Got everything I wanted -and some stuff I didn't but couldn't resist, you know how it is. Also spoke to some people who gave me a tutorial on how to make some nice, flowery bases. More on this when I try it myself. Unfortunately, it was a bit uncomfortable sitting on a hard chair coz I have a mahoosive abscess on my posterior which is giving me some stick at the mo.

Pics and yet more pics

To back up the story reported earlier about re-doing the bases of my W W II Das Reich and the Russians, here is the proof. First off, the Germans. As per, all are clickable for hugeness.






Now here are the Russians, which incidentally, I didn't paint. I inherited them from a mate who gave up wargaming after a few tries in different periods. His loss, my gain. Hey, ho, such is the way the wheel of fortune turns.



I think I'm finally getting a bit of a handle on this posting malarkey; now I can move pictures around within the post for effect. (How long has it taken me? No, don't answer that, I get upset easily.)

Problems and solutions.

The problem is -as you can read in my other blog- techno-lology based; the solution...go out and have a shopping figurefest! So I will follow my own advice and go to Derby armed with a camera and some cash. This year I want to get some more b and p's for the Sassys; a few more Mongols, but the big(ish) spend this year is going to be getting more 10mm Romans and Brits. Currently standing at Romans 4 infantry cohorts (1 auxiliary) and 2 cavalry units, all painted, to Brits...nothing, not a sausage, bugger all. However, I intend to rectify that next weekend. The Romans will be increased by 2 more cohorts (1 auxiliary) and the Gauls by getting another Irregular Battlepack plus b and p's giving me a total of nearly 300 infantry (10 units), 2 cavalry units and 4 chariot units.

The Interlude continues

Well that's it; last night I finally finished repainting the bases of my 6mm Germans -total of 110 vehicles and 11 infantry bases. One base coat, some washy blobs, two highlighting colours and finally, blobs of PVA for flock on each base. Now I've started on the Russians; in one way they are easier because there are only 94 vehicles and as yet no infantry (have to rectify that at Derby), but some of them need a bit of touching up seeing as I didn't paint them. Still, definitely not a spectator sport I can tell you! Thank God for Kerrang radio. Already got the guts ache and I've only done 21 T34/85's and 9 IS2's.  Then of course once they are done I have to make some terrain. It just goes on and on doesn't it, but in a perverse way that is what the hobby so interesting; variety is the spice of life and all that.
Hammers, eh? What can I say? Nothing really. Spoke to some Villa fans at work after the match who all said it was nice of West ham to turn up. Sad start. Mind you I have another sport I've got into over the last few months thanks to ESPN and that's Aussie Rules Football. Amazing game, seems to be a mix of rugby league, volleyball and any number of martial arts techniques. Where the football comes in is anybodies guess. The official web site is at
http://www.afl.com.au/ 
and an idiot's guide (that's me)  is at
http://www.australianrules.info/viewpage.php?page_id=3
To someone brought up on a diet of football (the proper one), scoring is strange, tactics are even stranger, scraps abound -on, off and around the ball. 22 players per side with 18 on the OVAL pitch at any given time and free swappsies with the other 4 , 7 refs (umpires). 4 quarters of nominally 25 minutes each. Incredible game, Have a look, I love it.

Not 15mm Sassys

I haven't stopped posting on the other blog, it's just that that one is exclusively for the two ongoing 15mm  armies whereas this one is for everything else.
An occasional task that I have set myself is to tidy up the lid of the gaff so that I can set up a 6' by 5' table. I use the word occasional because, like most wargamers I have known over the years, we are magpies who collect and keep shedloads of bits and pieces knowing full well that the week after we throw something away we will need it. So in the next few days I will post a 'before' picture so you can see the magnitude of the task.
Now where is this leading, you may ask, and rightly so.
Reading through some of the blogs, and being somewhat of a solo wargamer, (at the moment anyway), I have thought about various periods that would work well as a solo project and a period that I already have armies in. In a flash it came to me -World War II. Now it just so happens that I  have most of the fighting elements of Das Reich Panzer Division at 1:5 -works out at 15 Panthers and 30 Mark IV's plus an attached Schwere Panzer Abteilung to start with,  as well as a sizable selection of Russians. So I dug them out from their video-case storage, blew the dust of the lids, and thought these only need the bases repainting and a coat of matt varnish and Robert is definitely your mother's brother. Now in front of the 24 half-painted Sassanid LI there is a battalion of 6mm Panthers with damp bases.
More as it happens.
Mick

They think its all over! It bl**dy well is now!

Well, what can you say about the World Cup. Rated up there with the best and yet fell at the second hurdle. No doubt there will be much wailing, finger pointing, distancing from any limelight just in case and gnashing of teeth from any number of the footballing hierarchy but it's the supporters I feel sorry for.  The poor bu**ers spent well above an arm and a leg to follow their beloved country's  team to the bottom of the planet and what do they get... 360 minutes of shambolic ineptitude from the top down. Sort it out for God's sake! How is it we can invent games but within ten minutes the world and his brother are better at them than we are?
And another thing, possibly trivial to some of you anti-royalists but important to me at least, shouldn't you be proud to be chosen to represent your country? Next time its on, watch the England rugby players when our National Anthem is played, chests are thrust forward and they are singing their lungs out with pride. England footballers, hardly any of them move their lips and even that seems an effort. Perhaps they don't know the words? Too busy getting their heads into the 'right place/mindset' I suppose. Overpaid prima donna's the lot of them. So they got kicked out early, never mind eh? Come back home on a specially chartered plane to a safe area away from any possibly angry fans; whisked away in German cars (how's that for irony?); home to their respective companions before jetting off to the Caribbean or the Maldives or somewhere equally exotic to recover from the stress. Good, get rid of them and replace them with footballers who play for the love of the game and country not just for the outrageous salary it can bring.
 For one mistake, Ashley Cole was booed for several games afterwards. Except for Green-who to my mind was exonerated after several other keepers had similar problems with the new ball at the tournament- and James who was MotM against Germany, for such a lacklustre performance it should happen to all of them when the new season starts...for a long time.
The FA, (thats Football Association by the way, not the other abbreviation),  needs to take a collective step back away from their sinecurist positions and start getting people in place who know the game: then listen to them once they're there. Wilkinson and Brooking are the proverbial voices in the wilderness, banging their heads against a brick wall of white collar aggrandizement.
Plus, don't get me started on the new Jubulani ball and that goal. 
So now I have a bit of a dilemma. Being of Anglo-Saxon descent from way back in the genealogical mists of time and a proud Englishman, I naturally follow England. But the Saxon bit is very important because my surname is one of the few derivations of the word sax and actually means Saxon. So now I will transfer my allegiance to Germany, the better team on the night and eventual winners of the tournament. I hope. (Still, 5-1 is still better than 4-1 by my maths, so we are ahead overall.)
Bloody Hell, I could go on all night...but luckily for you I won't. I've had enough now anyway. Only two years to wait for the European Championship. Bring it on!

Mick

Period Building Post

The other weekend the good lady and myself  went off for a break in Stratford upon Avon. Now the last time I went there was in 1978? when I was working in Redditch and staying in Halesowen (a few miles across the other side of south Brum for those geographically challenged amongst you. No great shakes if one drives but I didn't then and still don't). So anyway a few friends and I went to Stratford for an evening out. In the darkening light we strolled along the riverside, found a pub, had a few, ate a curry and came back, end of non-eventual trip.  

This time it was a whole different experience. For starters we got there in daylight and I was armed with my trusty 7 million pixies camera -still can't work out how they all fit- and, over the two days I took sh*tloads of piccys...of buildings; over a hundred at last count. I have never seen so many period buildings in any one place. Amazing, absolutely amazing. So I am putting a few random shots on the blog as a taster. 

If anyone is interested in the look of 16th and 17th Century buildings for Renaissance generally and ECW in particular then let me know and I can post some more. 

Damp is good,

Mick

P. S.  The first is of someones house, the second is a line of someones houses. Third is of a local hostelry. Fourth piccy down is of the house of a 17th Century rather well known local playwright, Mai Will Rapesheake; the author of such oft plagiarized classics such as Thamel; and gave us such unforgettable lines like A Shroe, a shroe, my dingkum for a shroe and Beot or Botneot, tath is the nestquie (homage to the M. Python team for that one). The fifth is of a Tudor period building which is now a museum.

The Glorious game!

It happened. Zola came to the Midlands looking for a point with a 5 man midfield, 4 at the back and young Nouble up front for his first game, and he got it. The whole team did well; Faubert, Upson, Spector and Tomkins were great in defence, ably supported by Noble, Parker, Kovacs, Collison and Behrami in the middle. I felt sorry for Nouble as a lone striker up against the man-mountain that is Richard Dunne in the Villa defence. The young lad could have put the Irons one up within five minutes but a perfectly timed off-putting tackle kept the scores level.  Green played out of his skin with at least 3 great saves.
Then you look at Villa. An attacking side if ever I saw one with Heskey (later Carew), Young, Agbonlahor, Milner and Downing all playing. AND THE HAMMERS HELD THEM, speaks volumes, don't it? I ran out of superlatives three days ago. Now last night the local claret and blues put 6 past Blackburn with a response of 4. Amazing, innit? Excellent game last night as was the one the night before between the real Manchester team and the one in red.
There, that's the end of that.

Not a thing about wargames

Well, not much has been happening outside of 15mm at the mo (check out other blog). BUT the good news is that I have found out that EO and one are going to watch The Hammers on Sunday afternoon at the local club, Ashton Villi or something similar. Should be good, hopefully the Irons will come away with all three points although even one will be okay.

Da! Da! Numidians finished

Been a fair old time since the last post so a quick update is called for. Most of my time is being spent on 'This Years Project' which is being chronicled at http://subedaissassysassanids.blogspot.com/  so input for this blog has slowed down for a while. that notwithstanding, I do have some pics to share. These are of the 25mm Numidians for the on-building Carthaginian army. Several conversions in this unit, two casualties and a sword carrying bloke who has lost his horse on one end. The rupert is a Warrior figure from way back although the company is still turning them out...nice figures when painted up; the rest are Mini Figs from back in the day.

The Start of Something Else

This blog was started with the intention of writing about 10mm figures. That, as regular readers will know soon went out of the window. Now this one covers just about everything that concerns me about wargaming. Therefore, to ensure that I don't digress any more than is absolutely necessary, I have started another blog purely for this years project...Sassanid Persians and Maurikian Byzantines in 15mm, the startings of which were purchased at Derby this year. any further information on this subject I would like direct the reader to my Links List on the left.

Mountain reducing

A never ending job really, a bit like trying to empty the old Norse Horn of Plenty (or whatever it was). Just finished basing up the total current cavalry contingent of the 25mm Carthaginians - 10 bases of Numidian light cavalry. In fact 18 cavalry, one infantryman (a conversion using the top of a Numidian cavalryman and the lower half of a Spanish Scooterati bloke,  gave him a sword insted of a javelin. Standard bearer is also a conversion with a Libyan infantry head on a Numidian cavalry body and a Roman head stuck on a stick. All by Minifigs. The rupert is a rather nice Liby-Phoenician heavy cavalry wallah in dramatic arm-in-the-air pose and made by Warrior. Not bad figures and very reasonable prices.  Pictures to follow when the bases are finished. All I have left to do for the army are about forty Scootorati and Cartrati. Then I should really start thinking about more cavalry.
Slowly clearing the decks in readiness for this years big project.  Getting the figures on Saturday for two compatable armies from the Ancient period... well, mid to late ancients really... actually 6th century AD.

More pictures

At the same time as I was clicking away at the Chin I took a few of my ongoing 25mm Carthaginian Army, (remember them, the army using Mini Figs back from when Noah and myself were young). So here they are; the Gallic Warband chaps are from Mini Figs while the hoplites are Lamming. Both units have a number of conversions including head and body swaps - there is even a couple of left-handed warriors in the Warband!
Oh, and by the way, the butterfly mind of yours truly has made another tangential leap of wossname and is now focussed on something completely different. Something that has all the colour and spectacle of 25mm without the mega expense. Yep, 15mm -but not as we know it, captain. More later, when I come back from Derby, which incidentally, is on the weekend after next. If anyone is interested, I will be the madman wandering aimlesly about on the Saturday wearing an Irons  shirt. (Much more modern than a folded copy of the Times under one arm and a pink carnation in my lapel.)
Talking of the Irons, they gave the Reds a run for their money so I heard. It was on Silly Telly but I had to work (not impressed). I got home after the match had been shown on MoTD then refused to get up at 0700 on Sunday to watch it repeated. Saw the goals on MoTD2. That blond Spanish bloke is the best striker in the Premiership at the moment, bar none...unfortunately he wears a Liverpool shirt. Still, can't have everything -at least he doesn't play for Arsenal.

Photo's of Chin militia infantry as promised

Really pushed the boat out the other week and bought myself one of those ten megalo-pixie cameras; so here are some photo's of the Chin militia (Irregular Miniatures), taken this morning outside in the gardens of ma maison. As I said before, I was quite chuffed with the standard, basic in both colours and ornamentation, but nonetheless looking alright. Standards must be on the up, ha, ha.
As you can see, only basic conversion work on these fellows. Wobbly edged hats, plumes removed, replaced the flag pole...that's about it really.

Staying faithful

So, as the title says, I'm still knockiing out the 25mm Sung/Chin/Khitan/Xsi Xsia/Khitai (delete where not applicable) spearmen. So far, all the chaps are finished, its just the rupert and his flag waving sidekick to do. I tried the LoA method and I must say, without a shadow of a doubt, I'm definately impressed by the whole thing. Once the whole unit is painted, based etc I will post some piccys. Also found a site which translates English into Chinese so some standards with proper trad writing on them is happening. Bit of a personal thing with the standards...more later when the piccys are here.
  Found another tree makinig idea; this time at http://www.matakishi.com/fiwtable.htm. This site is amazing for its simple but brilliantly effective scenery construction. GO AND LOOK---NOW! Clocked it for future reference.
Now, the Irons. Not too bad a start to the League -one of each- shame about Calum Davenport, bloke who did it should have the same done to him, see what problems it causes him in his career.
What have the 'authorities' been doing, eh? West Ham v Millwall = Powder keg of the first order. Bleating 'Shame', 'Disgraceful', 'Disgusting' is like closing the door after the horse has gone. Sheep disguised as the powers that be again. You cannot tell me that two groups of hooligans (you can't call them supporters) weren't going to cause trouble. So now, because of a few, the name of football is being dragged through the mud again. I even read that it may go against us for our bidding for the World Cup in 2018. What! Wake up and smell the advertising hoardings -IT'S HAPPENING EVERYWHERE! Russia, Germany, Poland are just a few examples. Danny Dyer had a whole Silly Telly series on just such a topic and he travelled all over Europe.  In Poland, one team actually burnt all the opposition shirts that they had 'aquired' throughout the year. This was at Half Time. A line of burning shirts along the railings inside the ground. During the last World Cup, two groups decided that there were too many police around so they organised a little soiree in a field outside of town. they still do it, even though in these countries, the Old Bill don't mess about, its a cohort of police legionnaires advancing, shields up, happy-sticks at the ready. Why are we being singled out, eh? We go abroad for Internationals, get goaded, respond and who gets the blame. No prizes. Ridiculous, absolutely ridiculous. Yes, there is a problem that hasn't really gone away and if anything, the advent of the interweb and mobile phones has made it a lot easier to organise.  I lived though the original, wasn't nice then and certainly isn't any better now. Answers? I really don't know but hopping with the wooly herd isn't going to solve anything.
Political/Sport diatribe finished. Back to wargaming for the next one. Promise.
Mick.