ImagiNation: Finished Wine Guard

I've finally gotten around to finishing off the basing on these eight figures.  I had put off getting some more wood filler for way to long.  It took a trip to the local hardware store to buy a wine decanter (fitting reason I guess), I finally picked up a new bottle and got back to work.

Overall, I am happy with how these turned out, considering it was bodged together with the leftovers of other units.

Up next is a small order from Front Rank, finally completing my first of three cavalry regiments, the overall commander stand and some more (and much needed for a flavour standpoint) "Notables" to be used in conjunction with the ruleset Maurice.

ImagiNation: Secret Project #2

Finally I can reveal the completed model:  "Arch Bishop Ambroise de Chabichou du Poitou".  The newest member of the Grand Duchy of Gourmandie.  This bad-boy "Most Holy" will be used in Maurice for the Cleric national traits.  I plan on adding my own, but that has to be ordered from The Assault Group and can only be had with a certain amount of pounds purchased.  Lucky for me, my entire second army for my ImagiNation project will be sourced from this fine company.

I tried to match the colours used in the different uniforms of the Grand Duchy of Gourmandie when painting this one up.  Dave and I tend to "compete" with each other when it comes to including various narrative elements to our armies and I feel that this one will fit in well.  He may have gained the upper hand with both the carriage that accompanies his Duke into battle and now this Bishop versus my single wine cart.

This model is HUGE!  Most certainly a 30-32mm one.  It has massive "pitchers mound" syndrome going on.  I was going to dremel down the bottom of the figure, but was a bit unsure with my nerves to do so.  Oh well, I guess Dave can just play it off as being a giant of a man.

I had to resort to basing him on a 30mm base vs the usual 25mm... Yea, its that big...

ImagiNation: None shall drink wine...

...unless authorized by the Captain of the Wine Guard!

I don't normally show off models that are not 100% finished, but I ran out of woodfiller to do the bases, so I decided why not.

This is a one-off "battalion" for my ImagiNation project.  When I reorganized the structure of my project, I was left with a random assortment of Crusader and Front Rank Hungarian infantry figures.  Five musketeers, one standard bearer, an officer and a drummer... what could I do with this I pondered to myself.  After a bit of math, I came up with three plans:

1.  Order enough figures from Crusader and Front Rank to fill out an entire regiments worth of figures.

2.  Use these figures in conjunction with two spare officer models on their way from Crusader (I only needed the mounted commander) to make a sort of "Honour Guard / Lifeguard" battalion of 10 figures to follow my overall commander around.

3.  Sculpt some sort of icon to convert the standard bearer to a Sergeant styled model and then make a single battalion.

Of course, I chose the cheapest, but possibly most difficult option #3.  Why would it be the most difficult? I'm not a great sculptor and I wanted to have the icon be a bunch of grapes.

As you can see, my sculpting job was half decent, it sort of looks like a bunch of grapes.  I my ImagiNation world, this represents the Icon of Saint Trifon the Pruner, patron saint of winemakers, a perfect patron saint seeing as this is the "Wine Guard", an elite unit raised by the Wine Merchants Guild to supervise and protect the supply and sale of wine to the field armies of the Duchy of Libations.

I quite like the purple and blue.  I was very hesitant about how it would turn out, but like pretty much everything I paint, it somehow managed to pull itself together right at the end.

Flocktober #6: A few good buildings

Well, October is almost over, which in turn means that Flocktober is almost done.  I still have much to do, but I can now take my time since I have more then enough terrain to game with.  I've had these buildings now for going on three weeks since I got them on special order from my FLGS.  I like them.  They are simple and fantastically cheap.  For about 7$ a building, I'm looking forward to getting the rest of them.  

I'm going to plug another blog at this point because I got most all of the inspiration for these buildings from him.  I highly recommend anybody interested in French and Indian Wars to head over to Jay's Wargaming Madness and check out just what he is doing in regards to terrain.

With a little converting, these buildings work perfectly for both North America and Eastern Europe

Podcast Episode #0

Well, its official!  I finally got around to starting up a PodCast with my best wargaming mates.  Warning: Lots of drunken rambling about the hobby we love.  You can find the episode over on our blog: Trolling for Sixes.

ImagiNation: Secret Project

I know I'm not supposed to be painting any models during Flocktober, but doing only terrain is a little boring sometimes...

I will release full pictures once this model finds it's way to a new home.

A civil war fuelled by wine

Seeing as I only have one side of my dual ImagiNation project at the point in which I can play games, I decided that it was about time I played a game using my newly finished terrain. So, off to the FLGS where my informal club has now taken up a semi-permanent residence. The nice thing about the store is that they have a very large gaming area adjacent to the actual retail area. You would not expect it when walking in the front, but it is quite spacious.

I decided to set up an even moral point civil war game between two "factions of wine enthusiasts" within the Duchy of Libations. The despicable lovers of white wine (defenders) had stolen the wine supply of the much superior red wine snobs (attackers). The whitists brought the wine cart to their small encampment and then drank themselves into a stupor. The Reds, sensing weakness launched their attack.

Because each side only had four units of troops and an artillery piece each (with the Reds getting a unit of Irregular Infantry which do not count towards the moral count), the game actually ended up being played on a much smaller surface then the 6 by 4 foot table used. The FLGS kindly provided a nice old fashioned GW gaming mat (which I had wanted to order, but now feel is too "soccer pitch" for my liking.























In the end, the game really boiled down to a lot of hammering of musket fire, followed by rallying and then rinse and repeat. The Reds had an entire regiment rout from the table, but with a couple of lucky (or I guess unlucky) dice rolls from the White player, survived with just one Moral point for much of the game. A series of terrible rolling and the very useful fact that the irregulars get a -1 to hit lead to them routing a battalion of White infantry, which was somewhat quickly followed up by a charge from the last remaining Red regular line infantry regiment, which in turn sent a White battalion running and eating away at the remaining Moral points of that side.

All in all, it turned out to be a bit of a messy affair, which both sides having terrible luck at times. I blame it on our little metal men having drank to much top shelf Claret...


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Flocktober #5: Mmmmm root veggies!

So next up is a pair of objective markers for SAGA Irish warbands: Potato fields!

I kid, I kid, I am half Scottish... its kinda the same... ish... yea.... anyway.

But to be completely honest, it is getting very, very hard to resist the allure of SAGA, Dux Britanniarum and Dux Bellorum...  I enjoy the fact that with a little math and pre-planning I could play THREE!!! rulesets with the same figures, kinda like what I'm doing with my ImagiNation project.

Right, root veggie fields.  Man cannot simply live off of wheat, even if its a plentiful bounty (see the absurd amount of wheat fields I made earlier this month), so I whipped up some fields for root vegetable.  Why root vegetable?  My mother (the former farm-girl) and my own slightly hazy memory of my Grandfather's farm reminded me that root veggies grow best when slightly raised above the ground, better water flow if there is a lot of rain.

Hopefully I can summon the necessary willpower to start working on the miles of fences that I will require and add an actual grazing field and pen for some livestock, I'm not a vegetarian, so why should my figures?  Plus wine goes good with all things animal.

Flocktober #4: Mid-Month round-up

I haven't actually been working for a full 15 days now on Flocktober, only 10 days as of the time of publication of this report, but as it is the middle of the month, might as well take an inventory of what I have actually gotten around to finishing.

Completed:

-6 Large wheat fields;

-4 Small wheat fields;

-6 Small Encampments;

-3 Buildings;

-3 Explosion Markers.

-Well;
-Campsite;
-Bridge;
-Graveyard.
-2 Turnip / Potato patches.

On the block:

-2 Pegasus log-cabins

-Small Coral.

The vast majority of my terrain pieces are nearing completion, but have no fear (I say to myself) with some luck the rest of my Pegasus Hobbies buildings might arrive soonish.  I was planning on finishing off the log cabins, but I'm actually starting to run out of supplies, notably black primer spray paint, wood filler, PVC glue and wood glue.

I've had these terrain pieces since HistoriCon, but it took me until mid October to finally get around to finishing them off.

The state of these buildings haven't exactly evolved to much since the last picture.  I managed to wring out just enough primer to do half of the first building... crap.

In Maurice, there is the possibility to put down "Rough Terrain" markers in front of your opponents units, causing chaos and moral points.  There is a wealth of stones outside of my building, so I decided to grab some on the way back from class.  I made sure to sterilize them with both a very warm soapy bath and a soaking in rubbing alcohol.

Flocktober #3: The first of 16 buildings

I've taken a couple days off working on terrain and had to resist starting painting a single Malifaux model (the only other major project I have on the table for this year).  I somewhat failed in resisting to paint the model as I primed, pre-shaded in white and then painted the base coat for the skin (which makes up about 60% of the model), but put it away while I get back to the goal of this month.  I might have also started transferring my GW paint collection over to dropper bottles, but that is a post for another time.

Anyway, I finished up the first of many, many, many projected buildings.  I wanted to finished this one and put it up on my blog first as it was a gift from Dave Hoyt.  From my understanding, he had owned this building for a very long time, but has never had any sort of use for it, having glued it onto an MDF base, but never based or flocked.

The building in question is from Pegasus Hobbies (where incidentally all of my buildings, planned or owned come from) and is technically in 1/72nd scale.  I find that it fits really well with my 28mm Crusader / Front Rank figures as I have grown much fonder of my buildings having a smaller footprint. I own two of Pegasus Hobbies' "28mm" Stone cottages and will probably end up using them for when I'm playing Maurice and only want a small amount of buildings.

I did not even bother to repaint the "Ukrainian" building as the standard one is quite good.

I was thinking of adding something to the back section of the MDF base, but decided against it as I will just place a tree instead.

Yep, not a huge amount of say other then thanks a huge amount Dave for the gift.

The first part of my large building order I made through my FLGS arrived last Friday and I set to work on them.  Again they are Pegasus Hobbies stuff from their 1/72 scale range.  I'm quite happy with the buildings themselves, but unfortunately the roofs suck.  In the two building box set, one comes with a wood-placked roof while the other has a very very cheap looking thatch job.  But honestly, for 12$ Canadian, I cannot really complain.  For 6$ each I am more then happy with doing a bit of graft and conversions to get them the way I want.

As you can see I used thin cardboard to make shingles and glued them onto the actual plastic roof provided.  Does the job quite well.  I am dreading the amount of work that I will have to do to bring the remaining 11 buildings I ordered up to par.

As you can see, these buildings work perfectly well with the other 1/72nd stuff by Pegasus.  I left the roofs removable on the log cabins, perfect for skirmish gaming.  The "Ukrainian" building in my books will be owned by a wealthier member of the town I am working towards.

I may end up ordering the second varian of the "Ukrainian" buildings for my ImagiNation project as well as one or two of the 1/72nd Russian Izba buildings.  Possibly converting one of them to be some sort of Church if I am unable to source one from Hovels.

Flocktober #2: Small camp

Yep, I'm at it again.  Another batch of terrain off the blocks.  I've actually had these built for a couple weeks now, but finally got around to painting them up.  I got two packs of the tents from HistoriCon.  They are Renedra and I are fantastic value for their low cost.  I want to add a couple of larger tents for "officers", a table for said officers to congregate around (using models that I might not require in a game) and the two packs of roasting pits and fires from Architects of War.

Flocktober #1: Fields

The first batch of terrain to emerge from my table are a set of 10 grain fields.  I picked up a choir mat from Ikea over Thanksgiving and had I measured better when cutting, I probably could have squeezed out one or two more small fields, but overall I'm quite happy.

As you can see, I started by making sure my rather untrustworthy measuring abilities came through.

Next was a matter of using a metal ruler and a sharp hobby knife to cut out a "frame" of choir matting.  the next few parts get rather messy and I should have done the work someplace else, but oh well.  Make sure to keep the internal portion of the matt.

As you can see, I put the internal sections back into place.  I cut the larger fields into fours.  I had to trim these quite a bit to make them fit.

I sanded, painted and flocked the boards.  I tested highlighting on one of the fields (its pretty easy to determine which one I used) and decided to do the same with two more large and two small, just for a bit of colour variation.

Anyway, next up is my campsite and then maybe another 10 ployed fields.  I have enough cut-offs from the choir mat to make some more organic shaped fields.  My mother (who comes from a farming family) suggested I also make some fields that have had their crop cut very short, almost down to earth, but not plowed.  This would have been done for crop-rotation purposes.  I'm still not to sure how to go about doing this, maybe find some sort of faux-fur material that is around the same colour.

Also, I was instructed not to build any sort of fencing to mark the divide between different ownership of the fields.  Instead I need to build up a sort of hedgerow filled with rocks and what not from the clearing of the fields.  Again, not sure how I am going to do this, but this time I have an idea where to start.

The objective I have is to be able to comfortably populate an 8' by 6' table with terrain.  Oh and I have 13 buildings on order from my FLGS to build a town around, so that should fill up a decent section.

5000 pageviews!

If I might permit myself to be slightly childish:  YAY!

I started this blog waaaayyyy back in 2009 and well... it did not really take off, neither my readership, nor myself had really any interest in it.  I posted a grand total of four times in its inaugural year (actually, I did post a few more then that, but retroactively removed some posts that I felt was not up to par).  In 2010 I posted once... rather sad I know.  It took be until 2011 and graduating up to painting 28mm figures to start posting with a bit more regularity.  In the last two years I have posted up 49 articles and finally have breached the "fabled" 5,000 page view mark.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank all of my readership, all of my followers and anybody that might have stumbled upon this blog.  Thank you for your contribution to my slowly evolving blog.  I hope to continue publishing quality articles.

For added Canuck effect, I thought it would be smart to have a picture of fireworks above the Canadian Parliament in Ottawa.

I proclame this month "Flocktober"

The month of september saw me complete all remaining ImagiNation models left on my painting desk.  Unfortunately, this has not satiated my need to continue painting ImagiNation stuff, so in order to save up for my next bulk order, I have decided to freeze all figure purchases.  So, I'm allowed to buy supplies for building terrain, but not for figures.

I've got a LOT of stuff to do this month, be it buildings, fences, trees and fields.  So with that said, lets start Flocktober!

Something a little different

Rummaging around in my box of Napoleonic figures I found a single Native American in 28mm.  I have no idea what manufacturer or where it came from, but it fits really well with the rest of my slightly-larger-then-28mm 28mm figures.  This model serves as a prototype for additions to my planned F&I Wars ImagiNation project.  I'm not 100% sure on my technique for the skin, but I know how to refine it now.

I've used pretty simple techniques to paint this model.  Prime, dry brush model with white, base coat primary colours, wash and then highlight.  Used four shades of fleshtone as I worked my way up.  I'm not a huge fan of of the "red skinned" or overly tanned Native American style of painting, it looks to artificial (not that my cartoon style of flesh painting isn't mind you).  For the next batches of Native models, I will darken down the flesh slightly as I do think I over-highlighted slightly.

ImagiNation: Some things go boom and other things go BOOM!

I said I hoped to finish off the rest of the models by the end of the week, but it seems that I underestimated the amount of time needed as I finished them off today in record speed.  This is the last of my ImagiNation models for now, so I will probably be switching gears and starting work on one of my side projects or terrain.

Small booms, only 3 pounders, each are attached to one of my regular line infantry regiments

The Big BOOM.  8" Siege Mortar.  I don't have a crew for it yet, but its growing slowly on me.  At first I preferred it with its wheels attached, but that would have defied physics, first shot and the carriage would collapse.

Even the 50mm bases I have could not accommodate all the parts to the mortar provided with this model.  Quite a fantastic price for 10$

The finished cart with its wine salesman.

Ahh the wine salesman.  

Prior to painting him up, I loved every single model made by Perry.  Nothing but massive respect for the brothers, but to be honest, it seems as if this one was a little rushed.  The fingers are next to non-existant, the face is a little soft and pudgy compared to the rest of the Perry stuff I own.  Oh well, I present to you: Silvio "Ebreo del vino" Dante.  Yes, I may have watched a little bit to much of The Sopranos lately, but in any case, Silvio here was once a figure in the Libagioni mafia, but was forced to flee after a war with another family.  A man without fear, he accompanies the field armies of the Duchy even into battle in order to supply the men of libations... and the squeeze every uva dell'oro (Gold Grape, the currency of the Duchy) out of the men.

ImagiNation: The wine must flow!

Yes, another corny title.  Last post I had a dearth in pictures, so I shall remedy it with a few more in this one.  I picked up this fine little piece at HistoriCon.  One of the few "new" releases from Perry that Architects of War had in stock by the time I came by their booth.  It is part of Perry's European Armies range, so it is intended for the 15th Century, but I find it works fine.  The standing model that comes with the cart is dressed in 15th C garb, but I think with some paint, it will be passable.

ImagiNation: Let me play you the song of my people

I guess the title is a terrible reference to how old I actually am...  Anyway, yesterday I had a lot of free time so I sat down and powered through the remaining "combat" models that I have on hand.  Pictured below is the regimental command team of the Cacciatore di Galliano.  Models are from Crusader's Austrian SYW line and are actually the Grenz command.  Originally I wanted to have my entire army using the Grenz uniform, but events (and free models from Dave Hoyt) conspired against me.  Not that I'm complaining any as I can always come back and add a regiment of them...

So, now we come to the question on all two of the people who probably read this blog on a semi-regular basis:  "What exactly do you have left Phil?".  Well I have a Perry Wine / Water Cart, which will of course be a wine cart given the nature of my army.  Secondly I have a Sergeant-Major Miniatures 8" siege mortar from their Indian Mutineer range.  It might be a century from the future, but I'm not really concerned as its really cool and typically useless on an open battlefield.

I should have these models done by the end of the week if I keep up with my painting binge (which is helped along by the nicotine patches that are enabling me to quit the vile tobacco).

ImagiNation: Back to green

My current painting spree continues with the first battalion of the Cacciatore di Galliano.  These are my irregular / skirmish infantry and excel in combat over rough terrain.  I've already started working on the command figures.

These represent the last "combat" models I have on hand.  They were also a nice change of pace for my painting schedule.  The more active poses made it for a bit more intense painting then I had been previously used to.  Painting the flesh was also a little interesting, but nothing unsurmountable.

I rather like this model, he was the "Thousand-Yard Stare" going on rather well.

I'm going to need skirmish movement trays for these bad-boys.  They will serve in my duel project scheme and in the planned F&I Wars rules will act like "Rangers" or "Canadian Militia".

ImagiNation: Painting something other then green...

Actually, I'm lying a bit with the title, there still is green with the next batch of figures.

What you see below is the last batch of Austrian German Musketeers I have currently in stock.  Which means, yes I will have to buy more and paint up the rest.  In the case of these figures, they were the leftovers of a "regiment" box that I purchased from Old Glory back when they still carried Crusader.  Now that they don't and I'm a sad panda, I have to order from the source, get hit with an ugly shipping fee from the UK and of course, I don't get the very awesome 40% off that Old Glory members receive.

Without further adieu I present: Truppa della marina di Frangelico.  Based off of the French & Indian Wars French Troupe de la Marine, my version is similar in that they their primary theatre of operations is the "New World" (aka the setting for my F&I Wars ImagiNation project).  I inverted the standard colour scheme of the Duchy and to be honest, I almost like how these look more then the regular scheme...  Just the like Troupe de la Marine, they are a regular infantry, conscript level (for Maurice). They give some nice colour to the table and add a little diversity to what I do believe in retrospect is a bit of a monotone army.

The lack of bayonets was a the result of a single model arriving with its pig-sticker being snapped.  I decided to just remove them completely.  I don't think it adversely effects how they look and again add a little bit of diversity to my army.

With the project I'm starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel and to continue with the cheesy one-liners, I'm getting into unknown territory.  In that I mean that I have under 20 models left on hand to paint and well under 50 still planned.  Not only have I breached the 100 models mark (now sitting at 107), but I have never really reached the completion mark for any 28mm projects.

ImagiNation: The Battle of the rainy desert...

After our gaming night on Friday we decided to keep the large tent up in anticipation of the arrival of Dave from much ado about nothing and his ImagiNation army.  After some fantastic weather the night before we left the gaming mat on the table.  Murphy's law dictates that if something bad can happen, it will.  Somehow the wind picked up around 7AM on Saturday and managed to blow the massive and heavy tent onto its side.  Thankfully the table was not damaged in anyway and when Mike went to fix the tent (I was trying to pull on my pants at this time, still asleep) he was able to lift and return the tent to its original location.  The weather, which has nicely held off the night before decided it was a perfect time to start raining heavily... just as the gaming mat was exposed to the elements.  With the now rather wet mat being useless, we had to resort to pulling out some tan mats that were laying around.  For a while we contemplated going "old school" wargaming and using just the wooden table, but that idea was quickly shelved.

With that we set up the table with a couple of buildings, so trees and a little bit of other terrain.  This was the second time I have played Maurice and I'm still as excited and happy about using this ruleset.

The weather was again rather horrible for the first few hours of the game, but as the fate of the Duchy of Libations was sealed, it became very nice and sunny out... just as I put away my camera...

As you can see, the original lines quickly devolved into a melee in the centre-left with units breaking left, right and centre.  After a protracted battle, the units under Mike's command finally relinquished the town and the loss of that last infantry battalion lowered our armies moral to zero, giving Dave the victory.

Overall another very fun game of ImagiNation.  Had the weather been nicer, the pictures would have turned out better and I would have been inclined to take more.

Finally, I present to you the 100th model I have painted for this army:

This particular one was the test model for my "Marine" regiment.  As you can see I inverted the usual colour scheme of my figures.