For Trade

I was going through my collection of Peter Pig Spanish Civil War miniatures. If I ever get around to painting and playing with these it will be limited to my Carlists platoon. The means I have some Nationalists and some Moroccans that I will never get to. If anyone is interested and would like to trade some other 15mm miniatures, let me know. I am not sure what I would be interested in so any interesting offer will be entertained. I have nearly a full platoon of Moroccans for TW&T. I have some assorted nationalists. If anyone is interested, I will take pictures and send them out.

Missing Figures - WWII Italian

I am looking for some specific figures to round out my Italian Army for IABSM. I am looking for the Italian figure that Battlefront/Flame of War did that looks like the picture from the Spanish Civil War of the man with his arms wide as he was shot.

Also there was a figure set of a couple of guys around a radio with a large circular antenna. Anyone have either of these? I really don't want to buy whole packs of figures to get these. Anyone?

Thoughts on Independent Publishing

I was trying to decide what to do with my Italian Scenarios that I am working on for IABSM. I was trying to decide to publish on my own or through Rich at TooFatLardies. Then I thought about how to deliver if I were to publish on my own.

PDF seems to be a universal format for everyone. But would it be worthwhile to create a Kindle (MOBI) format version? Is it worth the effort to attempt it? Given a choice, would you prefer a PDF or an MOBI file for a set of scenarios?

Casualty figures

I have really liked the look of casualty figures in my skirmish games. Especially in "Sharp Practice", "Mud and Blood" and "Troops, Weapons and Tactics." It also helps track the flow of the action in the game.

My problem is finding fitting casualty figures for various ranges that I am using. Does anyone have any suggestions on how to create a casualty figure?

Italians, Romano-British and changes in direction

It has been a productive week. I managed to move forward on two projects. The first is my East Front Italian project.

CSIR - Italians In Russia: 1941

I completed my second Infantry platoon. I also have another squad completed that will form part of my third platoon whenever I get around to painting that. Somehow I was under the impression that I had painted enough infantry for both 2nd and 3rd platoon. I was in error. Apparently I have no ability to count.

Here are some pictures of the miniatures. First up is the group shot of the platoon.

The platoon consists of the Tenente, his runner and two squads. Each squad is split in two parts - a nine man LMG team and an 11 man rifle section.

Here is the platoon leader and his runner.

What I did with this platoon is I changed up the basing. I left some dirt portions of the bases visible. The previous platoon began to look to me like they were walking on a golf course. Take a look and let me know what you think. Am I better off in covering the base with flock or leaving some of the dirt exposed underneath?

Dux Britanniarum

The second item is my 15mm Dux Britanniarum Romano-British army. I had been on a stuck point with this army for quite a while. I really enjoyed painting up my Early Saxons. But these guys.... Well I am just not sure what happened. The armored fellows were fun but the warriors just annoyed me. I like the figures, I just did not like painting them. Well here is what I have finished up.

First up are my nobles. In the rules, your starting are your lord and his two subordinate nobles. You also have a hero for the force. Well, I have not gotten to my hero yet because I wanted to paint up a priest first. Won't use him for the first few games but I liked the figure.

After the nobles came the Comanipulares or elite troops. These fellows are heavily armored and armed. Splintered light has some fun command sections that I included in this grouping. They play no role in the rules but so what. They are fun and look pretty good to me.

Here is another shot of them in a line.

Now I am still stuck on the Warriors. I have 15 of these poor fellows on painting sticks at about 70% completion. I should be able to knock them out this week. I had a radically different idea of what levy troops would be during the play testing of this than Rich placed in the rules. I created a levy force of peasant levy. These are farmers with various farm implements. Here are what I have finished. Eventually I will have three groups of six of these troops.

The more I look at them, I really like them but they need some additional rules to make them viable in the rules. I think I may tinker with this for a special (unless Rich beats me to it).

I am thinking of changing my force and separating out my warriors that I have into warriors (cloaks and/or helmets) and standard levy (shield and spear only) to match up with the rules better. I will need to buy some more figures from Splintered Light to finish this out if I go in that direction.

I have some Picts that are sitting in a drawer that I will not touch (no, honest, I really, really won't.) until I finish off these guys. I plan on having a small cavalry force to add to the Romano British with both light and heavy cavarly. At this point I only own 2 mounted figures for them. However for my Saxons, I have 8 or so mounted figures. That seems somewhat backwards to me somehow.

Speaking of Saxons, I am planning on getting some reinforcements for these guys too. I have my eyes on the Khurasan miniatures Germans with spear and francisca to serve as allies for my Saxons. Once the Picts make their way onto the painting table, they will serve as an entirely different army and as mercenaries for either side.

Lastly, I have decided to rebase all of my Dark Ages to put them all on US Pennies. Brian, who I am trying to organize a campaign with, is also basing his on pennies so that would make things line up a bit better.

Well that is it for this installment. Let me know what you think.

Work done at last!

A couple hours of painting was done last night. I managed to get some figures dipped:
52 East Front Italians
20 Romano-British Pesant Levy
9 Romano-British Comanipulares
1 Monk
4 Romano-British Bowmen
Then I finished off six additional East Front Italians by basing them.

Lastly, I managed to put a few more brushstrokes on remaining Romano-British Milites. They need another 2 hours of work but I am closer. It felt really good to get this done and is the first painting that I have done in over 2 months.

Back in the Saddle Again....

I just got back from vacation. Tanned, rested and ready to roll. A big bonus was receiving both Dux Britanium and the Summer Special. This has proved to re-energize me.

I have been trying to read through all of it. The one thing it has done is motivate me to get back to painting and writing again. I really want to get some games in. This month, it looks like my local group is going to get in a game of Coastal Patrol and possibly another Sharp Practice game.

One of the things I am looking at is adapting some of the stuff I had worked on for the Dark Ages to the Dux Britanium. I have two scenarios. One is based on the Icelandic Sagas involving a fight over a dead beached whale. The other is the Battle of Heavenfield (circa 634 AD). Both are fun scenarios and would work with a bit of tweaking. One tweak is to create a unit type that is peasant levy and another that is haphazardly armed warriors. The battle of Rib-Skerries (Icelandic Whale scenario) has warriors armed for flensing a whale and not each other. The scenario includes fighting on top of the whale with one hero armed with a whale rib!

I need to finish off my Italians for the East Front. I have them painted but need to dip them still. Will try that tonight.