June 2008 Painting

Almost all my painting time in June was spent getting ready for the big Zulu game I was running at our regional convention, Bayou Wars (see previous post). Many, many movement trays had to be cut and painted, several hills made, and the "Royal Kraal" (also on previous posts) constructed. So I did not get a single soldier painted.

But I did get a few little trinkets at Bayou Wars. The first being a pre-painted European style house, with a removable roof, that can be used almost for any period from Medieval to Modern.


Here you can see a SYW Russian (Courland) artillery officer and three of his artillery fusiliers outside the house.
And the same group of figures are posed here, with one of the fusiliers now moved inside. The roof is deliberately askew to show its removability.

And I also purchased this fine pavillon for a headquarters tent. It was unpainted and I decorated it in the colors of the Markgraf of Carpania, one of my SYW imagi-nations. I don't have any individually mounted Carpanian infantry painted right now so I used a couple of Courlandian artillery fusiliers to show the scale. It is slightly undersized but not so much as to be obvious.

I will get back to full painting mode this month as I've already started on a batch of senior officers, ladies, and other civilians to decorate the rear areas and a company of 15 jagers for the Markgraf of Carpania's army. Most of the civilians are Old Glory (from the Island Governor's set) and the jagers are Old Glory AMR Hessian jagers.

Well, enough of this. Back to the painting desk.

Bayou Wars 2008

I attended our HMGS-Gulf South regional convention this past weekend (June 2o-22) at the Radisson Hotel in Kenner, Louisiana (a suburb of New Orleans). The games were very well attended, as these pictures indicate. I got to see a number of wargaming friends from Louisiana and Alabama and met several new wargamers. The following pictures are just a sampling of the convention. I'll be posting detailed reports on the two games in which I was involved, a Franco-Prussian War game and the George Carr, Sr. Memorial Colonial game, later.

This was a WW2 (I believe) naval game being fought on the floor Friday afternoon. The game master was using interlocking foam mats as his playing surface.

Another naval game (1:2400 WW2 in the Pacific) was run by a fellow Jackson wargamer. In the background of this and the next picture, you can see some of the furious tournament action, everything from ancients to War Machine.

This 15mm American Civil War game was also run by a fellow Jackson wargamer. He did a play test of it several weeks ago and a detailed battle report will soon be on our group's web site (www.angelfire.com/games3/jacksongamer).

This was also a 15mm American Civil War game of part of the Battle of Antietam. The game master had scanned in a topographic map of the Sharpsburg area, printed the contours out of a large plotter, and then transferred the contour lines to his blue foam board. He then used a rasp and other tools to carve out the various levels. It was a stunning set up!

And finally, my good friend, Ken Hafer of Metarie, Louisiana, ran his "Brain Dead Sunday Morning" game. This was a reprise of what he did last year - a fight among various factions in the Star Wars universe using the 5150 rules from Two Hour Wargames, the owner of which was at the convention. Ken always wears at least one costume at the convention - this one is his approved costume as a member of the 501st Legion.

Bayou Wars was a very nice regional convention and I would encourage all gamers in the south USA to plan on coming next year. The dates will be established shortly, I've been told. The convention web site is: http://www.bayouwars.org/ .

Building the "Royal Kraal" - Part 2

Once I had all the wall sections put together and painted a dark gray, I then glued them to the base using Liquid Nails. Larger poles delineate the corners and the gate.

As I said in Part 1, the huts are paper mache bird houses from Michaels that have had the door enlarged and some basic painting done to simulate thatched roof and walls. Several "true" 25mm Ral Partha Zulus are posed at the gate to give some scale.


After the Liquid Nails had dried, I then dry brushed the walls with a light gray to simulate weathering and painted the exposed base with a darker brown. I was going to add some flock and ground cover, but I ran out of time. That will come later.


And finally an aerial view of the kraal.

Building the "Royal" Kraal - Part 1

As I mentioned in my May Painting entry, we are running a very large Zulu game at our regional wargaming convention, Bayou Wars (http://www.bayouwars.org/), on June 21. As part of the game objectives, the Imperial expedition will try to burn the "Royal" Kraal. the pictures below show my initial steps in building the kraal. The outer wall will be made of slightly trimmed toothpicks (almost 500 of them!) all glued together. At first I was glueing them together in small batches of 12 and was planning on sticking them down to the masonite (mdf) base with Liquid Nails. But that didn't work too well. I finally constructed a simple jig using tape to hold the toothpicks in place and a ruler to keep the bases level before coating the surface with white glue. Two strips of 120 toothpicks each can be seen at the top of the picture, while a third is on the jig.

This picture shows two of the strips of 120 toothpicks set up around the masonite base.
They will be painted dark grey and then dry-brushed light gray to similate weathered wood. I'll use a mixture of dry-wall spackle, sand, and white glue for the earthen interior and exterior, suitably painted. The huts inside will be some paper-mache bird houses that I picked up from Michaels some years ago and painted to represent standard native huts.

More later as the project is completed.

May 2008 Painting - Finally!

Finally I get my pictures taken and posted of the troops I have added during May 2008 - a total of some 91 points (three guns and 88 foot figures). These are some of them:

The Carpanian Army added the Paulaner Fusilier Battalion, 24 strong, using Crusader figures. It will be paired with the von Stuppe Fusiliers to create a 48-figure "big battalion" for BAR games.



The Carpanians also added two guns to its arsenal, both products of the Eisenmuhlen Cannon Foundry. The first is a 12-lbr (an old Miniature Figurines gun) manned by Crusader gunners.

The second piece of artillery is a 10-lb howitzer (also Miniature Figurines), this time manned by Old Glory gunners.

And the Duchy of Courland has also been busy, uniforming the Duke's namesake Pavlovski Grenadiers. This 24-figure battalion will be paired with the Severinski Grenadiers to make a 48-figure "big battalion" for BAR games.

Among the extra and "one-of" figures I painted in May is young Alaistair Campbell, nephew of the Carpanian mercenary Scottish general, Seamus Campbell. Young Alaistair will accompany the Margarve's nephew, Siegfried Hapnich, across the water to fight with the Britannians against the Jacobite usurpers. You can read more about this on the Emperor vs Elector blog ( http://emperor-elector.blogspot.com/ ) and on Der Alte Fritz's blog ( http://altefritz.blogspot.com/2008/05/prestonpans-battle-report.html ).

Alaistair is a Front Rank figure and is my first real attempt at painting a Scottish tartan on a 28mm figure. The tartan is real simple, bright green base and bright blue stripes, but it looks fairly realistic from wargaming distances. I have Seamus and his 24-figure battalion still to do.

And finally, to complete my Colonial forces for the big George Carr Memorial Colonial game that we are running at Bayou Wars in New Orleans on June 21 (see http://www.bayouwars.org/ ), I painted a 20-figure British unit. During Bayou Wars it will be the 2nd Battalion, 24th Foot, joining its sister battalion, the 1st, in the Imperial expedition to chastize the Zulu. But there will be over 1,000 Zulu figures (over 40,000 warriors) versus the slightly less than 400 Imperial troops (about 16,000 soldiers of the Queen). A battle report will follow.

June's painting will not be as impressive as I have been working on magnetic movement stands for that horde of Zulus and some terrain for the game. I'll get back to my imagi-European (SYW) figures next month, beginning with a squadron of Carpanian dragoons.

April 2008 Painting

April wasn't a very productive month although I started a few units that aren't finished yet.
My first unit is composed of old Spenser Smith plastic cavalry, painted as the Constantine Dragoons of the army of the Duchy of Courland. The mounted officer and four of the troopers came to me in an eBay lot with a large batch of artillery. When I lamented on the OSW Yahoo group about what to do with the four troopers, Peter Constantine of the UK sent me eight figures, including the mounted officer.
So I made him the honorary inhaber of the unit and asked him to suggest a uniform, which was a red coat with green facings. I liked that color scheme and the Constantine Dragoons were raised. I used the new Krylon plastic spray paint to prime them black and then used craft paints over that. The detail on these older figures was severely lacking so it was a chore to get the various bits and bobs painted. After glueing them to metal bases (for a little heft) I attached them by twos to 2" square Litko bases.

The remainder of my April painting was Victorian colonials figures to start getting ready for the George Carr, Sr. Memorial Zulu game at the Bayou Wars convention in New Orleans in June (20-22 to be exact). George Carr, Sr. was a friend and fellow gamer who died of cancer late last year. He gamed with Larry Brom (of the Sword and the Flame fame). The first time I went to Bayou Wars many years ago, George and Larry ran a huge Zulu game and invited members of the Mardi Gras Crewe of Zulu to come open the game, which they did in their (modern) Zulu finery. It was something to remember. So if you are in the southeast or south central USA and want to know more, check out the details at http://www.bayouwars.org/ .

The above picture is my first battery of British artillery, consisting of three muzzle-loading rifled guns and their crew. For the Sword and the Flame, there are 4 crew per gun, but we're using Larry Brom's convention rules, "By Battalion, Volley Fire!" which only has 6 crew for the three guns. By the way, (blatant advertisement) you can get any of Larry's rules at his web-store: http://www.sergeants3.com/ .

And finally, I painted dismounted officers for two of my previously painted British mounted officers and a senior Induna to lead the three units of Zulus that I have.

Next month I have to finish a unit of red-coated British infantry which will be painted as the 24th Foot (of Isandlwana and Rorke's Drift fame). May will also see more Imagi-Nations Seven Years War figures painted as I continue to prepare for the Big Battalion BAR game in Austin, Texas, in November. Details for that game, which will include Der Alte Fritz (http://altefritz.blogspot.com/) and Mssr. Chevert (http://www.oldregimerules.com/) among the gamers, can be found here: http://texasbigbattalions2008.blogspot.com/ .

So for April I painted 1 mounted officer and 12 Spenser Smith cavalry, 3 Ral Partha British guns, 1 artillery officer and 4 gunners, 2 foot officers, and 1 Zulu induna, all Ral Partha figures. Total is 13 mounted, 8 foot, and 3 guns, or 37 Olley points if my figuring is correct.

March 2008 Painting

It seems like I didn't do much painting in March, but when I add it all together, I did 2 mounted officers, 16 cossacks, and 6 mounted knights, for a total of 24 mounted figures or 48 points.

Above are Yakov Alexandrovich Pavlov, the Duke of Courland, and his son, Colonel Pavlov. These are both Front Rank figures from their Russian SYW line.

Above are 16 cossacks of the Timofievich Pulk (regiment) of the army of the Duchy of Courland. I bought these from a gaming friend named Tim Broome (hence the name). I'm not sure what manufacturer these are, but at least two of them were two piece rider castings. They will provide a light cavalry screening and raiding force for the Duchy in its wars against the Markgraviate of Carpania.

Finally to get ready for a medieval game on March 29, I painted six mounted knights. Three of them are shown above (along with the High King from last month). The other three were figures to fill-in existing units. In the above picture, the High King (John de Bullion, who always wears black) and his banner bearer are on the left and William Worthington, Duke of Bentwood, and his banner bearer are on the right.

The Courland officers and the knights are mounted on Litko bases while the cossacks are on home-cut masonite (hard-board) bases.

Next month should see some more imagi-nation cavalry (especially a unit of Spenser-Smith figures), so stay tuned.