Reinforcements

My Blue Moon order arrived. I picked up a pack of civilians from their Pirates range and Skirmishing Grenzers and Grenzer Command from the Seven Years War line. The latter will be the start of my Austrian Army for the Seven Years War.

I believe that I have a campaign picked out that I will work on for the Seven Years War. The Battle of Peterswalde April, 1759. This is an interesting action as it featured mostly skirmish actions on both sides. The Austrians were defending and had a number of garrison troops while the Prussians had considerable amounts of light troops that raided forward deployed magazines of the Austro-Hungarian Army.

I have found near period maps of the area. These were featured in the First Military Survey Maps of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Below is teh excerpt of the map from https://maps.arcanum.com/en/map/firstsurvey-bohemia/?layers=141&bbox=1544730.2649412372%2C6581595.444347261%2C1570508.652730413%2C6591130.963625838.

I am keen to look at the forces commanded by Johan Jakob von Wunsch. His Wikipaedia entry indicated that he was a skilled leader of light infantry.

Seven Years War Research

I am slowly working my way through the De Jeney book. Yesterday, Amazon delivered the Grandmaison book that I had ordered. It seems that De Jeney has a bone to pick with Grandmaison as he makes reference to his book and expressed disagreement with his conclusions in places. In flipping through the Grandmaison it makes reference to the end of a war in which he drew his conclusions circa the 1740s. This makes these more interesting as this would have been opinions of tactics going into the Seven Years War rather than an output of developments that came out of the war.

I have also found a copy of Treatise on Partisan Warfare by Johann Ewald. I still have much to read. De Jeney includes several drawings to detail examples that he is talking about. It is proving very interesting. It is also impacting how I am building my forces for Sharp Practice. For instance, I had previously purchansed some Eureka Miniatures Prussian Musketeers, some Dragoons and a light gun. This was loosely based on Rich's articles on his Imaginations campaign. I just placed a Lancashire Miniatures order for some Ottomans. I bougt 8 light horsemen and a group of Serbian or Bosnian musketeers. Not nearly a full force but a start on one. I am well aware that the Ottomans were not part of the Seven Years War, but they did have a number of engagements before and after it. The Ottoman miniatures will be very flexible as they should be usable throughout the whole of the 1700s and through the Napoleonic Wars.

Then I placed an order for my first Austrians. I decided to go with Blue Moon miniatures for the Austrian force. I bought a command pack of Grenzers and the skirmishing Grenzers. I plan on ordering both Hussars and Dragoons. Lastly, some musketeers and a cannon or two as well. Again, I see the Austrian force as a defending force. This will take a while to build up. Unless I get a resin 3d printer for Christmas. Then I can see this moving more rapidly.

I have forces in mind as to how I will paint them. My mother grew up in Dessau both before and during WWII. During that time, she became friends with the Von Anhalt's who were the hereditary nobility of Dessau. Because of this, my Prussian force will be based off of those raised in Dessau. There was a regiment of Infantry and some cuirrasiers raised under the von Anhalts of Dessau. There are also Von Anhalt-Zerbst troops raised as well who fught for Austria. The intent is to have the Anhalt-Zerbst forces be the defending forces while the Anhalt-Dessau forces be the attackers.

Both Zerbst and Dessau raised units of infantry and currassiers. I will likely get the Currassiers later. The main thought right now is basing. I am not liking the sabot bases I am using as I feel formed troops should be more tightly packed for the SYW.

Miniatures Purchased

Nation	Troop Type	Number	Painted
Prussia	Musketeers	24	None
Prussia	Dragoons	??	None
Prussia	Artillery	1 Gun & 5 Crew	None
Prussia	Jagers	15	Need rebasing
Prussia	Artillery	1 Gun & 5 Crew	None
Ottomans	Yoruk Light Cavalry	8	None
Ottomans	Derbent Infantry	8	None
Austria	Grenzer Infantry	20 + Command	None

Seven Years War

I am looking to work on a scenario supplement for the Seven Years War. I am looking to model actions by small detachments instead of recreate any grand battles. In my search for sources, I found the amazing http://www.kronoskaf.com/syw/ site. This gives great information on uniforms but not the tactical inforamtion I was looking for. In 2019 I found a book by De Jeney, The Partisan; or the Art of Making War in Detachment. Then yesterday, I discovered Grandmaison's book, A Treatise on the Military Service, of Light Horse, and Light Infantry, in the Field, and in the Fortified Places.

Both of the books were translated close to the time of when they were written. I am a quarter of the way into the de Jeney book. The original author claims 25 campaigns served in the period, all across Europe. He offers recommendations on force sizes and provides uses for them. His recommendation is over half the force should be mounted.

So far this is proving to be an interesting excersize.

Next Projects

Now that the War of Jenkin's Ear supplement is complete, I am looking for the next projects. I will hopefully get some games in with the supplement but I am looking towards the next ones.

ACW Naval

I am keen to try naval landing scenarios. I am using 1/600 scale miniatures. So far I have a couple of painted ships. I am trying to decide if I want to go with Peter Pig infantry or something like Pico armor for the landing forces. I think this could make for an interesting game. The naval miniatures that I have are for actions that occured on the Atlantic coast from Virginia to South Carolina. What is limiting progress at this time is some research and a 3d printer. I have STL files but currently no printer to use. But I have my letter in to Santa already.

Thirty Years War

Here I would like to have a skirmish game about the size of Sharp Practice forces. The rules I want to use are up for grabs. I have a handful of miniatures so far but none have seen any paint. Ultimately, I'd like some Holy Roman Empire, Ottoman, Swedes and Germans. I am looking for good books about skirmish actions in this time period. Not having that much luck so far.

Seven Years War

Another period that I have started and not done anything with. I have a couple of Prussians and Austrians. Some I purchased painted. I will use Sharp Practice for this. I do have a good book about skirmish actions that I need to finish reading. Ultimately, I would love to have an Ottoman force as well that I could use with Napoleonics as well.

WWII

There are several possible directions here. One that currently interests me is the fall of Dessau in April of 1945 by the US 3rd Armored Division. This is largely due to my Mother being in the city at the time. I have her account of the American occupation. This will require me to get some child troops given the state of the defenders at the time. My Mom wrote of Hitler Youth training with panzer fausts and one of her friends died when the one he was training with exploded on him.

The other campaign that interests me is the 3rd battle of Kharkov. I have put off looking at this with the recent troubles that the city has befallen with the Russians. But I am still interested in doing the campaign.

Another area that I considered doing was part of the Italian campaign. Possibly following the jewish Brigade.

Lastly, possibly the Tunisian campaign. This is one campaign that I have done no research into. The terrain could prove to be a challenge.

Yom Kippur War

Lastly, a What A Tamker campaign set in the Golan would be interesting. I have a few tanks for this and given What a Tanker, this would be enough. If I end up with a new 3d printer, I would create a bunch of wreck models for it.

Anyway, there are my thoughts for next year. I'd like to hear if there were any of these that interest you.

The War of Jenkin's Ear supplement is Released!

I have settled on a final cover. The product is released to the PayHip Site. The product includes a history of colonial Georgia and the War of Jenkin's Ear in the colony. It has some rule modifications for To Covet Glory and some adidtional rules for Sharp Practice to complete the scenarios. It includes ships stats for a number of additional vessels and an All At Sea campaign modeled after the Rich's article from the 2013 Christmas Special.

The historical scenarios include five scenarios modeling actual and hypothetical actions before the Spanish invasion. These include four for Sharp Practice and one for Kiss Me Hardy. There are nine scenarios covering the Spanish invasion of Georgia. These are divided into four Sharp Practice scenarios and five scenarios for Kiss Me Hardy.

In addition, there is an outline for a campaign dealing with the Spanish invasion of the Outer Banks of North Carolina in 1741. Some suggestions for additional scenarios from the time period, and instructions for assembling the Scout Boats, Piraguas, Fusta, Galliot and Galley 3d models.

I would like to point out that this would not have been possible at all without the help of many people. Rich and Nick at TooFatLardies have created some exquisite rulesets that provide toolboxes to create with. Jonathan Jones who playtested the Kiss Me Hardy scenarios and provided pictures of their fantastic miniatures. Mark Luther for testing out my Sharp Practice scenarios and also sent in pictures of his fantastic terrain and miniatures. I really wanted to use his picture of a wild pig attack against the Georgia Highlanders. Tom Davis and Brian English encouraged me throughout the two plus years to work on this.

Click the picture of the cover below to go to the webstore.

It is also available on Wargame Vault.

A print version will be made available through Amazon by next year.

War of Jenkin's Ear - Approaching the Finish Line

After working on this for so very long, I think I finally see the light at the end of the tunnel. In doing my research for this, I came across this and have since lost the source for it. To the creator, I'm sorry I have not given you credit. But you produced a meme that made me laugh.

At this point, the book is 138 pages and included linked scenarios for Sharp Practice and Kiss Me Hardy using the To Covet Glory modifications. There is a bonus campaign for the War of Jenkin's Ear in North Carolina. There are suggestions for how to do a combined arms campaign of your own modeled after the Spanish Invasion of Georgia. Lastly, it will include the STL files the I created for the vessels in this campaign. These include a Fusta, a Galliot, a Galley, a South Carolina Scout Boat and a Piragua.

I am still trying to sort out a cover. This is my current attempt.

Edit: This is a followup attempt that I like better.

I will look for other alternatives but for now, this is what I have.

War of Jenkin's Ear Update!

Had a good day editing. I have it narrowed down to just six images left for the final product. For that, I have the fort painted and ready. I need to paint up a shore battery that I already have. In all, this is the closest I have been to releasing this.

Of course I got distracted. I found a scenario that I just had to work on. As it turns out, there was a naval battle during the American Revolution that occured right in the area that the War of Jenkin's ear book takes place. It will make a nice smallish scenario for To Covet Glory with three vessels per side.

That will be released soon as well but may be absorbed into a campaign that I have wanted to do for a long time around the Third Invasion of British East Florida cullminating in the Battle of Alligator Creek. Stay tuned for more on that later.

Annual Birthday Scenario Sale and Updates

It is that time of year again. I am running a sale on everything on my webstore for 52% off. Since it is my birthday sale, you can guess how I came up with the amount. The code needed for the payhip store is UPVXRW29HN.

https://payhip.com/ChrisStoesen

Please swing by and see if there is anything you are interested in.

War of Jenkin's Ear

I was trying to hold off until I finished up the War of Jenkin's Ear book but that doesn't seem to be happening quickly enough. But a quick update. i painted up a fort. It is an earthen four cornered star fort with some wicker bastions on top in 1/300th scale. It is roughly the same size and the historical counter part for the scenario. It will do the jon. I am adding some naval guns to it and will call it done. The base coat probably could have been more of a sandy color but I am just going to run with it. The sale ends on November 7th because I started it late.

ACW NAval

My ACW Naval project is coming along faster than it probably should be. I have most of the ships printed and base coated for the Battle of Hampton Roads (both days). I have a few ships painted up already. But I bought prints from XPForge on Etsy of ships that I have STLs for but lack a good enough printer to print myself yet. One of which is the USS Minnesota. I am interested in seeing how it comes out. I have the cards printed for Dawn of Iron. I might be able to get in a test game soon.

The Spanish Navy - War of Jenkin's Ear

Here are the updates to the oared galleys for the War of Jenkin's Ear. I have one of the full galley's in good shape. I have to glue and paint the yards. You can see one clipped on. The others are coming along.

The Brig is taking shape for the second time. I am getting close to having it back in shape again. I have a few others on the tray in worse states of assembly. I am steadily making progress.

I also have undercoated a model of the CSS Virginia and some sprues that I will use as a 1/600 scale forest. In the coming week, this should get some attention. I did finish painting the USS Monitor. This continues to build my 1/600 scale ACW navies. I also placed an order on Shapeways for three more vessels. I am looking forward to seeing these.

Next up is the Fort that will stand in for Fort St Simons. If I have enough spare materials, I will do something for Delegal's Fort as well. Fort St Simons will be interesting. Instead of a palisade, they used barrels filled with sand that were topped with spiny vines. Not sure how to represent that.

Painting Time

I managed to get some time to paint. I am working on the Galleys and Galliot I need for the War of Jenkin's Ear supplement. I have completed a hull for one of the Galleys and am currently fitting it with Yards. I am following the modeling instructions that I will be including in the WOJE appendix. The hulls are the ones that I have on the PayHip site. I believe that I will ignore the sails for now. But I may address that at somepoint later. I completed another Galley earlier. I left the masts bare and didn't inclue yards.

I have a base coat on the deck of five of the Galliots. I am struggling on what to paint the hulls. I have gone with a brown for the moment. I may paint some black. I have also thought about doing the upper portion of at least one in white. I haven't seen any historical description of what the various rowed vessels of the Spanish fleet looked like. Oglethorpe barely mentions the type let alone any more detailed information. Other sources are equally unclear, including the Spanish ones that I have found.

I have also begun the repiar work on a Brig that dropped during transfer. So far I have repaired the sails on the main and mizzen mast. I still have the bowspirit and the jib sails to repair. I am gluing one part per day and leaving it clamped together for a day for the glue to dry. I should have it finished in two more days.

Lastly for WOJE, I found some more piragua prints. This should get me to the numbers that I need. They still lack sails and masts. I may just finish these with bare masts. The 3d printed ones look so much better than my original paper attempts using thick cardstock. I will use the card ones as I am sure not all of the piraguas were uniformly built nor particularly handsome vessels.

This should put me in good shape to finish out the playtesting of the rest of the naval battles. I'll take some more pictures when I have them sorted out.

I also managed to sneak some of my 1/600 scale ACW prints into the painting queue. These are all models from Wargaming3d made by East Coast Iron Clads. They have an excellent line of files. A friend at work printed them for me in resin. While he only used Draft details, they came out well.

I started with the tugs and gunboats for the Battle of Hampton Roads. These small ships each are interesting in their own right. I think they would make for a great game just using them. I have them with their cards needed for the Dawn of Iron rules above. The generic tug set includes 3 diffferent tug models. The Teaser is my favorite as it has the lifeboat modeled on it. I may pick up some prints from Shapeways as they have a few small boats on their site as does Peter Pig in their range just to have more variety. I have worked on moding a few designs in Tinkercad to try and make some additional models as well. But nothing this small yet.

I also have prints of the USS Monitor and CSS Virginia. The Monitor did get a coat of paint. But there really isn't much there to paint for it. The first two prints that I had of the Virginia were not what I was looking for as they had a large base around the model. I did get a replacement without a base yesterday that will makes it way there soonish. The Virginia will need a bit more details than the Monitor did.

To Covet Glory

I just received the proof copy from WargameVault for To Covet Glory. The book itself looks great. In some ways it is better than the copy I have from Amazon. BUT, the game pictures are terrible. They are pixilated and are not very good. I am not sure how to fix it and I don't really want to spend more money getting a potentially bad book out of it. Thus far, doing hard copies through WargameVault is a bust.

Kiss Me Hardy/To Covet Glory Items

I just received in my new turn templates from Stephen from the Kiss Me Hardy facebook group. These look great. Much better than the pictures I took. My original turn templates and wind direction tools were printed paper glued to card stock. They worked but didn't look good.

Stephen's new clear ones look great.

The picture, however, caught a bunch of glare from my flash.

I have been going through my ships and looking with dismay at how many I have left to paint. I have two galleys and five galliots that are untouched. I have most of the other vessels. The War of Jenkin's Ear book has seven scenarios for To Covet Glory. Several involve coastal forts. It is the coastal forts that I need to work on the most as I have none. In moving my ships around, one of the WarArtisan ships fell off my tray and shattered. I have been slowly gluing it back together. In this reguard, the chunkier models from Sea Dog Miniatures take less damaged when dropped.

I have printed all of the Galleys (2), Galliots (5) and Fustas (2) that I need for the scenarios. Only the Fustas are painted at this point. They can be quickly done, just takes time.

I have a couple of printed ships from Wargaming3d. I have a large schooner and a 6th rate. Both match well with my Sea Dog Studios ships. I made the masts a bit short, I think, on the 6th rate but they are out of scale and repreesntative anyway. For the schooner, I just have straight posts at this time. I may fix them later but they are something for the moment.

I still have a few Sea Dog ships waiting for paint. There is an 18 gun Brig of War that I bought. It is a nice model and fits in closer with the War Artizan. IT is 3d printed and has much finer details than their earlier 6mm offerings. I also bought the cutter that they sell. Neither has received any attention to date.

To my surprise, I found two ships from Thoroughbred Miniatures. I am not sure what these even are. They are some kind of gun boat with lanteen sails. They look nice and come with lead ratlines. It doesn't really fit with the WOJE but may make its way to the painting table. It was in a plastic baggie with some 15mm 32 pound carronades. A nice find that I do not remember buying.

War of Jenkin's Ear - Terrain Update

I finally had a chance to finish off another set of trees over the weekend. I also did finished a rocky outcrop that I had purchased for Infamy, Infamy. Lastly, I got to play with some of the new tufts that I bought from Game craft miniatures. I bought some basing gel from them that was a bit too thick. I had to dilute it with PVA to be able to spread it on the base (used an old Flames of War large base). I tried out a few pieces of the new tufts on this test piece to see if it will work out. I like it so far.

I am not sure which one was done with flash and without. I have new lighting in my game room but I don't think it is really enough. I may have to get some lights to use for pictures.

I had purchased some eBay woodland Indians a couple of weeks ago. I received them and wanted to take some pictures. I threw the figures out on the table to see what they looked like. Again, lighting is inconsistent.

Anyway, it was a productive weekend. I also started to mess with a block of foam for Fort St Simons. I just made a template for cutting it out. I am looking forward to being able to work on it this week sometime. Who knows if that will happen.

Fort St Simons

I want to be able to model Fort St Simons, the shore battery and Delegal's fort for the naval battles that I am planning for the War of Jenkin's Ear. There are French drawings of Fort St Simons that are available. There are also descriptions of the fort available. What is interesting is that the French drawing, while really nice, has a scale measured in Pieds. A quick search on line gave me a measurement of 1 pied equals .324 meters or there about. Using the scale in the drawing I was able to calculate out the dimensions of the fort. to be able to attempt to model it.

I have some foam off cuts that I can try out to make the principle buildings. They were aranged in a rectangle in the center of what appears to be a palisade on top of an earthen mound. The buildings of the fort were made of tabby - a concrete made with seashells.

To better visualize the fort, I am also looking at renderings of the fortifications at Fort Fredrica where some of the structures have been preserved and there are remains to model. The national park service has an excellent book on Fort Fredrica available online (https://www.nps.gov/fofr/learn/historyculture/upload/Fort-at-Frederica-1962-Manucy.pdf).

In looking at the image of the fort, I am trying to figure out where they would mount the guns.

I am not planning on adding guns to the model, I am just curious where they would be placed.The intent is to try an cut some foam out this weekend and see if I can make something reasonable.

WOJE - More Progress

I have done some layout work today. I am also working with a design package - Affinity. I am converting To Covet Glory to it and have uploaded files to WargameVault to do a hardcopy with them. However, it seems like printing from WV will be more expensive than on Amazon. I am not sure why. I need to look and see if I can reduce costs. I assume that because it is full color, that is the issue. I am looking forward to seeing how it comes out. I am debating on the pricing but to get anything out of it in royalties, I will have to charge more. Which is disapointing.

I have submitted it and paid for the proof copy. I should have it from the printer in a week or so.

I had a playtester find a few issues with the To Covet Glory scenarios. Those are now corrected and ship shape. I am planning to rough out some shore batteries and a rough fort for the sea landings. I used to have some foam around that I can piece together for it.

I really need to paint some more ships for this. But I have been far too tired when I get home to do much of anything lately. Maybe I can steal some time away over the weekend.

Oh, I also ordered some really nice turn templates for KMH. When these come in, I will take some pictures.

War of Jenkin's Ear - Random Events

After Mark's recent playtest, I am convinced, I need to update the book with custom Random Events. The best part of their after action report was a random event that came up. Mark used his that he developed for the 2nd Seminole War. A wild Boar charged the Darien Scots who managed to get the pig for dinner. The cover that I put up yesterday was a picture from that random event.

The random events can really add period flavor. The ones in the core rulebook are fantastic. 80% of them apply almost universally. However, not all of them apply to the Southern Colonies in this period. For instance, "Hello Ladies" can work, but most scenarios are in spots where there won't be any ladies for the Big Men to attempt to woo. Several battles are just out in the woods. So I am looking to tweek the lists to have some more appropriate events for the battles.

Thanks to everyone who gave input on the cover. I will go back to the drawing board. I know what I want to try to do. Will see if it works out. The title is now "Colonial Georgia and the War of Jenkin’s Ear: July 1742" with a subtitle of "A Campaign on Land and Sea Utilizing Sharp Practice and Kiss Me Hardy". Hopefully I can clear the table of tree parts and get the cover setup.

War of Jenkin's Ear Update

It is getting closer to the finish line. I have begun work on the cover. I have made an initial stab at it.

This was my first pass at it. When I showed it to some friends, they had some notes. One suggested a completely different cover. She prodived this.

Just curious as to what you think would be a better option?

Woodland Indians

One thing I have been lacking is woodland Indians. I have enough for most scenarios but was a few short for some. So I have been scouring eBay for a while. I just happened to find a group of 11 painted woodland Indians online for a good price. I had a bid out on an entire French and Indian War French army just to pick up the dozen Indians within. Thankfully, I was outbid on that. Good for the seller too as the price went up quite a bit after my bid. But i did come up with a lot of 12 painted indians. They came three to a base on metal bases. They are a bit darker than they were in the ebay photographs. The basing is very different from my basing, but they get me closer to my goal.

The seller had another lot for sale but I had spent my money on STL models for ACW Ships. In all, very happy with the purchase.

Other news, Mark did a game at Gigabytes today. The table looked amazing. Can't wait to hear back from him.

Naval Games

I am relooking at To Covet Glory again. It is a fun game and I have really enjoyed playing it. But I have wanted to play an ACW naval game. The issue is, I know nothing about the naval war during the ACW except the small things taught in High School history class.

So I have been exploring Dawn of Iron rules. These are interesting. They do have an IGOUGO type of turn resolution but that can easily be changed out. I am looking to try out their Hampton Roads game a few times before I go off on my own for some games.

As this is pretty much a new project, I need miniatures. I settled on 1/600th scale minis that I have purchased on Wargaming3d. They have miniature packs that match with the scenario books produced by Dawn of Iron wich is very convienient. The set I bought was for the Hampton Roads supplement and contained 8 ships (both based and unbased versions) and a shore battery for $20. The CSS Virginia and the USS Monitor would work with a filament printer but the others would benefit from a resin printer. The Dawn of Iron has a print and play set that gives you some flat paper minis that you can use. That will likely be the first attempt as I am waiting on my 3d printer to be fixed.

I also found some splash markers on Wargaming3d! I have wanted some of these for naval games. The one I found was free. It was a circle with three splashes on it. I pulled it into TinkerCad and make three separate markers out of it. I mainly intend to use this for Coastal Patrol but I can see using it with this as well.

The company behind Dawn of Iron is Scary Biscuits Studios. They have some fantastic tutorials on their website to really spruce up your naval games. I plan on using some of these in my games in the future. The Water Hazards tutorial looks really interesting. Their method of making woods from 3d printing sprues is just perfect. These would be great for To Covet Glory or Coastal Patrol. Being close to shore makes for more interesting games.

On the painting table is currently trees. Many, many trees. I also want to make some stands of undergrowth. I have bought some plants from Game Craft Miniatures that look pretty good. I am basing these on old large FOW bases. I hope to get some work in on them and move on to my To Covet Glory ships. I need to finish the Galleys for the War of Jenkin's Ear supplement. That should get me close to having everything needed to finish the book.

Distractions

I just picked up a copy of the rules Dawn of Iron. Thus far, they seem straight forward. This is the second or third time I have looked into taking the plunge into ACW Naval gaming. The original idea was to support a naval landing campaign for Sharp Practice. My main problem is a lack of understanding of what the key factors are in early steamship naval battles as opposed to Age of Sail battles. My thought has been to try and convert KMH and TCG to the ACW. But steam vessels move very differently than sail vessels. The rifled guns of the ACW are significantly different than the smoothbore guns of the previous era. The wooden hulls of the Age of Sail are completely outclassed by the iron hulls of the USS Monitor and CSS Virginia. But then there are other items like Cotton Clads to consider.

So I am looking to see how others have addressed this. Dawn of Iron is interesting. I will play a few games with it before I say more. the bundle include a print and play kit for the Battle of Hampton Roads. It has some paper ship flats to use if you lack any miniatures. So it is ideal to give it a try. I have the link at the top to the Wargamevault site for it. I am also looking into some STL models for this. There are some free ones on Thingiverse as well as some in 1/600 on wargame3d and more on WargameVault.

Anyway, this is a slight disctraction from finishing my War of Jenkin's Ear book. Hopefully that will get more attention in the near future.

Reading and other distractions

Things have slowed on the hobby front. Scouting events have taken most of my free time. With my son now in the Order of the Arrow, there are more events than ever. I wouldn't trade it for anything. My back may disagree after that last campout.

I started work on another paper building. This time it is the Brooklyn Hotel from the White Wash City line again. I made a mistake and didn't print out the roof. I corrected that but lacked the time to cut it out and glue it to the building. The main drawback of doing these buildings in paper at 15mm (1/100th scale) is the stove pipes. Rolling the paper ends up a mess and I am never able to get the angle cut correctly to glue it to the roof. As such, I am gathering plastic coffee stirrers. The ones that look like small straws. This should give me roughly the correct size. This still leaves the cone on top of the pipe. I haven't solved that yet and may just ignore it.

Trees are still a priority to wrap up the War of Jenkin's Ear book. I have some bases ready and tree trunks preped for foliage. I just need to make the time to work on them. Hopefully, that will happen this week. Once the current batch is completed, I will reevaluate how many more I will need. I am running into storage issues for the current ones that I have made. If I have enough coverage, I will push forward with the scenarios to wrap up the book.

Quick Update

War of Jenkin's Ear Terrain

I completed another stand of Pine trees. This one had three tall pines on it. I have the basing done on another smaller pine group that will have 4 shorter pines. I still need to cut down and flock the trees. I also did the basing on a larger section of deciduous trees that will hold six or seven trees. I have the trees based and the trunks dealt with. I still need to do the upper portions of the trees and flock the bases. If all goes well, that can be wrapped up in a couple of hours.

What a Cowboy

I did have some additional hobby time and worked on getting some more paper buildings completed for What a Cowboy. I did a two story doctor's office and two houses from Eric Hotz's Whitewash City sets. I had considerable trouble with the chimney's in 15mm. They are very tiny. Also the pipes for the stoves were difficult. I ended up finding a paper Q-Tip length that I cut to size. I need to paint them to finish these off. There are a sidewalk set that comes with one of the collections from DriveThruRPG that I had purchased and made as well. They really add to the look. I am looking to build a few more houses, a ranch and some fences to complete the town that I have started. For a quick and cheap western town, these can't be beat. If I really wanted to put in the time, they could easily be as nice as some of the MDF terrain that is out there.

Fantastically Quick Service and my What A Cowboy Project

I placed an order to Sarrissa Precision a few days ago and already received the product. It was delivered extremely fast. The buildings came with a nice painting guide as well. Very pleased with the service.

I ordered some row houes, row house gardens and a cantina. The first two are for some Normandy games I have been thinking of and the latter to prepare for What a Cowboy whenever it releases. At the same time I ordered from Sarrissa, I also ordered a Mexican force for What a Cowboy from Peter Pig. I have the makings of a nice little Mexican village. I have a church and a few low buildings. But the cantina looked really nice and I thought it would make a great addition. They have a few other western buildings that I would like but I held off for the time being.

What a Cowboy is really interesting to me due to the low figure count. That and Peter Pig's western offerings are interesting. They have big man packs that include mounted, dismounted and dead figure. Their minion packs have mounted, foot, dead and now a wounded pack. The dead and wounded are generic figures for the type. The foot and mounted come with either pistol or rifle armed. Some packs have shotguns. I have a few of these figures already. The plan is to have small forces that I can swap out figures for depending on their current state. Since the figure count is rather low (3 or so figures per side) this would work out well.

I have enough to play but I have wanted to field a Mexican force. I picked up the pistol armed figures and the Big Pedro figure. My existing force has a few lawmen and some bandits. My western terrain, besides the Mexican themed terrain, is all paper buildings from the wonderful White Wash City line. The price was right at the time and it didn't take too much effort to make terrain to fill a table to play a few games with my son. Now, though, I am looking at some of the options for MDF terrain and rethinking that strategy. I may have to revisit it. But for now, I have terrain to use.

For paper terrain, I have almost the entire set from Eric Hotz's Whitewash City. I know of 2 buildings that I am missing in his existing set but I only have about a dozen of them built. I think my other terrain are old JR Miniatures buildings.

In going through what I had completed, I pulled out the miniatures that I have. As it turns out, I have more painted figures than I thought. I have the makings of four groups and a group of civilians. The civilians were a gift from a wargaming friend in Canada (Thanks Mike!). I have not really based them yet. They are glued to a piece of computer motherboad material. I want to finish them off at some point. The signs and railings behind them are also from Mike as well.

The gangs will eventually be used for What A Cowboy. I have them painted in schemes where they will more or less match one another. I have one gang painted up with a leader in mounted, dead and foot poses. He then has 3 minions with two of them with dead figures. In the picture you will see that there are multiple basings used. This is because the tiny based ones were purchases off of ebay years ago. The ones based on US Pennies are the ones I painted up.

My second gang has five figures in it and one has a dead pose. The mounted leader figure is still on its painting stick. I also have five more dead figures to paint up. The third gang has two painted figures. I have two more unpainted figures for this gang. The last gang will be treated as lawmen. I have five of them painted with no dead figures... yet. The mounted leader figure is on the painting stick but not even undercoated.

I found someone's campaign game that they had set up using Whitewash city buildings. The doc they made had maps of various cities in fictional Fromme County, Nevada. https://www.iandrea.co.uk/wargames/resources/W3G/FromeCountyMaps.pdf is the location of the maps. The site is well worth checking out for some canned backgrounds to start a campaign. They did a great job with it.

Trees and More Trees

I am not sure if I posted about a recent Etsy order. I found a person selling tree bases. These seemed useful and I placed an order. Here is what I received from them.

I had some of my existing pine tree bases laying about and had some time over the past couple of weeks to get started on them. I have completed 3 groups of trees so far with many more to go. One pine tree base is complete as well as two of the new bases. I am playing around with how to make the trees. I have several articles and youtube videos I am trying to emulate to varying degrees of success. I have these finished beyond this but only took a picture before flocking the pines and the other set.

I am starting to run into storage probelms with the trees. But the trees are getting better than my original efforts glued to a washer. I hope to get some more work done on them next week.

Happy Valentines Day

Been a rough weekend and the week is hopefully going to be looking up. Dealt with a little Covid in the house over the weekend to keep things exciting. But the worst of it seems to be behind us.

I did get to finish a Game of Sharp Practice with my son over the weekend. Bending the rules a bit (because I lost my rulebook!) we combined what I could remember with my copy of the first edition of the rules, that I could find. My son managed to get both of his war canoes across the river and won the game. The Scout Boat took enough shock that they fled off down the river before I could manage their shock.

The scout boat is my 3d model printed by a friend with swivel guns attached from Thoroughbred Miniatures. They recently updated their website. The gallery shows some 15mm models but the store does not have them listed. They probably just haven't gotten to it yet.

It was a fun game but I really need to improve my swampy grount terrain. I have the plants to do it, I just need to spend the time.

I will work on some more trees before I run my next game. I bought some packs of MDF tree bases from Etsy. It is amazing the stuff you can find there. I have enough to cover about 3 square feet of table. Hopefully that gives me time to find the rulebook. Fortunately my opponent is both patient and a good sport about these things.

I have made some changes to the map for the Battle of Bloody Marsh based on my trip to Cumberland Island. I wish things were moving faster but such is life.

New Terrain Stuff from Game Craft Miniatures

This is the first time I had ordered from GCMini.com since thier move from California to Tennassee. I placed an order from them and WOW was the service quick. They had an ad going on Facebook fro the Gamers Grass products. I ordered some of the lazer Plants. The Elephant Ears and Bracken. I also ordered some of the basing mix and the Spikey Green Gamers Grass.

I received the package in record time. But instead of the Spikey Green, I received a second pack of Elephant Ear. I emailed them and got a response in an hour. They had the replacement on its way. Fantastic service. The replacement Spikey Green Gamers grass arrived along with some GCMini.com dice and candy. All in all, I couldn't be happier. If they only sold trees.....

I plan on making some terrain items that are difficult going terrain. I have never used these products before so we will see how it goes. I am excited to try out the basing mix. If I end up liking it, I will order more. The tub is small so it will be used for miniatures and not covering terrain.

I have plans for the weekend but if I get a chance, I will try to work with this stuff on Sunday. Check out Game Craft Miniatures. I really like their stuff.

WOJE Playtests

I was able to do some work on my game room to get organized. I installed some sliding shelves in a couple of cabinets. I have added a folding table to the painting area. All good changes but nothing that moved me closer to completing the WOJE book. But I was able to set up a couple of tests.

First I did some small scale actions with the Scout Boats. I have a scenario that honestly can be run with either To Covet Glory or Sharp Practice. Spain's Indian allies have stolen a scout boat. They are escorting it with a couple of war canoes. The Georgian's are in hot pursuit with a pair of scout boats. I was playing around with it and noticed that the plastic sheet that I use gave a slight reflective surface when placed over the blue felt that I use for naval games. I place some small sand colored circles under the plastic for sand bars. Then can place other terrain on top of that to show the shore line extended under the surf. This led to a fun picture.

I had trouble with the river I created. I made a thin plastic river that I painted the underside of. I was pretty happy with the results but put the river in storage. While in storage, the paint stuck to itself and peeled away from the sheet. I had to throw it away. Was very disapointed. I had a home made ground sheet that I was curring up to use for various things. i cut a large section out of it for my new wide river. It looks OK but I may get some more plastic sheet and try to adhear it to the cut ground cloth to get the look I want. Who knows if that will work or look right. But to my colorblind eyes, it looks OK for now. Would love to get some comments on it.

I will be running a scenario with my son on this table soon. Hopefully it will go off well.