Building out some Tanks and AFVs and Finally painting

I managed to get some work done on the Merkava 1 that I am working on. I managed to get the barrel fitted. I still have to glue the bustle to the turret and the MGs to the turret. I need to finish the other Team Yankee T-72s that I have. I need to fit the mine rakes to the front of at least one of them. I found some spray paint that I will use as a primer. I managed to get my miniatures primed. They will need a second coat.

On Saturday afternoon, I reecived my paint sets. I received two AK sets, one was for MERDC and the other was late Cold War Soviet. The first up on the painting table was some of what I think are Old Glory or QRF T-55s? I am not entirely sure. They are smaller than the other T-55s that I have including the wrecked Peter Pig one that I got for Christmas years back. They still look like T-55s to me just undersized. Anyway, I was able to get some paint on them. I plan on going back with some highlights.

I also got started on the bases of the painted Soviet infantry that I have done. These are all Flank March 3d prints. The bases need more work. Mostly just some highlights and flock.

I aslo took a look at my 1980s IDF. Partially, I wanted to know how many M60s I had that I might steal for my US forces. As it turns out, I have one. I have a pair of 3D printed Magach 6s that I may have pulled from Thingiverse a while back. Those will stay with the IDF. The lone M60A3 will likely be pulled for service with the US. I have my base forces for the IDF but these are all extras that I want to finish off. Especially the armor. Not shown here is the Merkava 1 I am still assembling. I just have the machine guns and another piece to glue on before undercoating.

Painting Merdc or Not

Well, the paint that I bought wasn't what I thought I was getting. So matching the color on my existing vehicles has proven to be very difficult. I stopped by Hobby Lobby to buy some paints but found out they nolonger stock Vallejo paint. The Hobby Shop near my house is closed on Mondays and Tuesdays. I will try again today. I did manage to use superglue without gluing my fingers to each other or the model. I built out two BMP-2s and a BMP-1. I need to get some primer and a forest green paint. hopefully, I can get that sorted tonight and get to work on these remaining figures. I really want to get a game of Cold War Chain of Command done.

Waiting for the primer I have an M577 command track, a T-72, a pair of BRDMs, another pair with rockets instead of a turret, about 20 or so Soviet Infantry, a couple of BMP-2s. There is also a M60A3, at least 1 M1 Abrams and a few other things I can't remember. Looking forward to getting moving on these.

I also found a sprue of a Merkava 1 that I had bought on eBay a year ago. The hull went together very well. But the turret is proving to be more of a challenge. I am trying to figure out which pieces go where. I need to look online for some instructions.

I also need to finish out my Operation Battleaxe campaign. Honestly, each of the player squadrons are so shot up, I don't think there will be any other big games. Not much of an update but I am trying to keep moving forward. My British Legion infantry keeps looking at me from the side of my painting table and making me feel guilty. I will have to get to them soon as well.

House On Horseshoe Bend Playtest

I ran a playtest of my secnario for Mountain Lard. The scenario should play out quickly. The main determinant will be how quickly will the British advance. I rolled randomly for the side that the British would advance. They ended up on the road. At Mountain Lard, I will ask the British players where they want to enter. Using the bonus die to movement, Col Fanning moved three groups of Loyalist Militia straight up the road with a good roll. Unfortunately, on the Tiffin card, the sentry rolled really well and immidiately spotted the British Force and alerted the sleepy troops inside the house. The next turn, the Rebels immediately took the British under fire. They squandered their first fire at long range and just added some shock to the three groups. Then the subbordinate Rebel leader was drawn who had his long term militia in the first floor. They fired and stacked more shock on the Loyalists. On their next activation, the Loyalists darted across a fence and took cover behind the snake rail fencing. The Loyalist raiders did VERY little. I positioned the Loyalist 2IC with them who was not able to move 12" in the three turns before chapter end.

A firefight ensued between the two groups in the house and the British formed behind the snake rail fences. The Long term militia landed some good hits on the Loyalists since they had moved into close range. It was here the fight became bogged down. The Loyalists were not able to break contact. Shock was climbing. Col Fanning received a wound that degraded his status. The rebels took some casualties among the troops on the second floor. But with only 4 windows, they only had room for 8 of the 10 memebers to shoot anyway. (This was a problem with the model. The historical house had 5 windows on the second floor but I didn't pay attention when gluing them on.

The game was great fun. I stopped at this point and was going to run it again. The house never really was in danger and the Loyalist Raiders didn't really do anything. I think the number of points needed by the sentries was about right. A lucky roll just saw the British spotted at once. With an excellent roll, the British can nearly march into the yard of the house. I will run this a few more times to see what needs to be changed before the weekend.

The Mountain Lard Scramble

With a goal in mind, I managed a few hours of work to get miniatures rebased for Mountain Lard. The rebasing efort went fairly well. The bases and sabots were flocked.

Once that was all dry and set, I began to work on the bases to get them to fit back in the Sabot bases. This required a good bit of trimming. In some cases, i had to cut away part of the base itself to make them fit back into the sabot. The process was rather time consuming.

Once fitted back to the sabot, most of the figures held in rather well. I am just over half way through with the rebasing effort. I am pleased with the look. The new basing has recuced the width of my troops considerably from the original penny basing. I would say the frontage is about half of the original. I have round leader sabots for the leaders giving a number on the back to identify which leader is which. Given this, here is Colonel Philip Alston's Regiment of Militia.

Actually this is larger than force as he only have a three groups of militia. I have a three more groups to finish off. Then I have to figure out basing for a "skirmish" group. I am not sure how I will handle that yet. I also am looking at what figure to use for Colonel David Fanning. I think I will just pick on of the Provincial officers that I have so he will be in a suitable red coat. And just because one can never have too many militia, I just bought another group of 12 militia off of eBay. These probably won't be ready for the game. But I am getting closer to being ready for April.

Weekend Update

Sharp Practice - AWI

Saturday was rather productive. I made some progress on my AWI miniatures. The British Legion had some bases finished off for their first group. I went as simple as possible given the small size of the bases and trays.

I have the other group to do as well.but still it is good to have at least one completed. The infantry has one group that is at about 60% painted. Another that is 10% painted and an additional four big men and a standard bearer that are just primed.

I was able to get a few minutes to work on the bases of my provincials. One group is rebased but needs finishing. I still have plenty more to rebase and even more to paint.

The British Legion Cavalry didn't get touched. I have 8 cavalry that are six cavalrymen, a bugler and an officer. Then I have more command figures. At some point, some will have to be used as troopers. To save myself some painting, I will likely only paint 1 bugler. I also have horse holders and horses to account for a dismounted group.

Lastly for the AWI, I have all seven of my Militia groups on the new basing. I have a single group of militia skirmishers remaining. I am happy with how these are looking in formation.

What A Cowboy

For WAC, I painted up the Peter Pig Sheriff figure. I really enjoyed painting this. I am not a great painter, but it was fun painting him up. I still need to base these miniatures.

I also managed to get most of a store done for the Mexican town. I think I will change the windows. But it is close to done. I should have enough terrain now for a game on the Mexican village. I have number of buildings still in my want list at My Miniature Factory still but I have enough to start.

I also started work on a train station. I had no idea what I was going to do with the building. I decided to start with painting the brick and stonework on the building. THen I will drybrush over this. I want to wood to be painted and have the building look well maintained. I just don't know what to do with it yet. I need to google some pictures.

Painting Update

Over the weekend, I managed to get two sets of Peter Pig Character packs primed. I started to paint them on Monday night. The hats, pants and duster are done with one of them. They are fun to paint up. I should be able to finish up at least one pack this week.

I have been eyeing some terrain to purchase for WAC. At the moment, I am sold on some Warbases 15mm Cactus Creek buildings. In working our the area surrounding the town, I am trying to figure out buildings that can be part of the town and in the outskirts as well to get the most bang for my buck. But I just found a new to me company - Tre Games. They are US based which is helpful for me as postage will be less. There are a number of buildings that are of interest. Some will be of use for ACW or AWI as well. I am particularly interested in the windmill and the mill building. The mill would be fantastic for AWI games.

Using the Knuckleduster book Cowtown Creator as a guide, I am looking at making a "trading Post" and a "Hog Ranch" for the outskirts area. A Trading post would be a single business structure with some outbuildings that would offer trade opportunity for outlaws, homesteaders, Indians and others living outside of civilization. The Hog Ranch is an illicit pleasure district that would spring up outside of a town. There would be saloons and several small cabins with some outbuildings. I focused on these buildings for my pending Warbases order. Turner Miniatures just released a new set of miniatures for British Legion Cavalry. That has gone into my cart at MyMiniFactory. I need to get back to painting up my British Legion. Maybe I will do so this week. There are just two groups of Infantry that need wrapping up. Also I have cavalry that are next on the list. I paint so slowly but hopefully I can find some time to get a bunch done. I need to get a game on the table.

I started painting the bases to my British Legion last night and finished up the painting on one of the Peter Pig Character figures. It needs a little help with the basing but it is mostly there in mounted, foot and deceased form. The room was dark and I ended up using the flash. The picture is better but still bad.

I also started work on the base of one of the Turner Miniature horse casualties for the British Legion. I need to pick up the pace with the British Legion. I pushed it to the side too much lately and need to wrap this up. I have at least one more group of cavalry to do. I have five mounted troopers and three mounted officer figures. I will use at least one of the officers as another trooper. I also have a pair of standard bearers and something like 3 buglers.

Somewhere along the way, I managed to delete all of the files on the thumb drive I was using to 3D print with. Not sure what happened there. I also had some trouble with my vehicle. The radiator cracked and it was overheating. Too much money later and I have a working vehicle again. Ugh. I need more miniature time to recover from that.

Rebasing Militia

I did something British Legion adjacent as I worked on rebasing my militia. I have rebased two groups of 10 militia. I started another. I have five groups left to work on plus a group of 6 militia skirmishers. The Big Men will remain based on US Pennies. The infantry bases are 3d printed and are a unified size between militia and regulars.

I am really liking the look of the new basing. I have my two finished groups of British Legion so based. But I have six more groups of Provincial Infantry to rebase. Some are on small washers. I still have some on my original basing which was three to a plastic square. I have not figured out what I will do for a cavalry base yet. I only have one completed unit of British Legion Cavalry. My thought was to make a sabot that will fit the bases that these are already mounted on.Who knows if that will stick.

I have six figures of a regular Continental unit painted up that will need rebasing. I want to complete these out to a group of 8. I will see if I can get my STLs from Henry Turner to match. Will have to see. I also have two groups that have yet to be primed of Georgia Continentals. Those are lower on the to do list.

If, I can get my British Legion troops finished and all of my existing troops rebased, my next priority is to print some Continental Dragoons. I want to have some as Pulaski's Legion and William Washington's Dragoons. I have a single group of 8 Militia Cavalry. I have Henry Turner's Militia Cavalry STLs to print out to add some more. I have Horse Holders for the British Legion from Peter Pig. I will need some for the others as well. Anyway. it was almost progress on a project.

British Legion Casualties

I have put the prints of the casualties that I made into the curing station last night. Even though I left them wet on the build plate for days, they came out pretty good. These are Henry Turner's models from his AWI range. I am quite pleased with these so far and am looking forward to priming and painting them.

I like the dead horse poses. They seem more dynamic than the lead scupts that I have in my collection. There are three different dragoon dead and one wounded. The casualty range has multiple dead poses for most of the troop types that he has. They come with the base as seen but it shouldn't be too hard to remove the base from them.

I still have a bunch to paint. Here are the items that are in the painting queue. Mostly cavalry and the last two groups of infantry.

I also took a picture of the two complete groups (minus basing).

Trying to keep my focus on these to have them in a game this year.

British Legion Project Update

Less on the British Legion but more on rebasing in general. I have managed to get some more militia bases and trays printed. Not from my printer but on a friends filament printer. He was able to print 10 trays and some 80 bases. This should be more than enough to finish rebasing my existing militia troops. They are printed in white but that is not a problem. I plan on priming them before using them.

I will be printing some British Legion casualties tonight. I also thought about printing some tricorn hats that came with the Henry Turner casualty pack. These would be great for markers on the field. He also has some weapons as well. We will see. The prints came out well. I am wondering if I lost some detail since there was a span of a few days between the print and cleaning the miniatures. I am waiting for them to dry before throwing them in the curing station.

I have the remainder of my British Legion already on painting sticks. I have to prime some of them still. If possible, I will try to take care of that tonight as well.

The scenarios that I am working on for this project are coming along. I am enjoying the book, A Gallant Defense by Carl Borick. It basically walks the reader through the build up of troops by the British through the siege of Charleston and ends after the battle of Waxhaws. Which is what I am looking to track as This Land Divided picks up after the battle of Waxhaws. The aim is to cover the actions of just the British Legion from Cecember 1779 to June 1780.

Reinforcements for the British Legion

My order from Old Gory 15s arrived. I am pleased with the miniatures with only some minor gripes. The pack of Continentals came with two miniatures with bad bayonetts. The command section is one flag bearer, one officer and one drimmer. I will get two full groups of infantry and five other troopers. With the two bad bayonetts, that leaves me with three extra figures. Still it will be the core of a force. If I can find similar miniatures from Peter Pig, I can make a group with those to round out the force.

The cavalry was much better. I will not get a full group from the pack. There are 6 troopers, an oficer and a bugler. I will need two more figures to round out the unit. These have already made their way to painting sticks.

Brookhurst Hobbies came through again and delivered my Dismounted Dragoon Command. These match well with the Legion foot command. There are three figures that can be used as big men. They strike me more as NCOs rather than officers. Then there are three buglers and two standard bearers. These are less useful. I will likely only paint up one of each of those.

Lastly, i had an eBay purchase that was rather disapointing. I found some mounted militia. There were five in the bag. I thought this would be a good start on a second group of mounted militia. But they came with one broken off its base and two more with broken rear legs. Leaving only two good figures of five. I am not sure I have the skill to fix these.

I based the two foot buglers and the two officers for the British Legion Infantry. The pictures were pretty bad so I am not including them. I am currently eyeing some other eBay auctions that may help me fill out the second group of my British Legion Cavalry. But I am holding off for now.

Sharp Practice - AWI British Legion

Weekend summary

I just got in my version 2 of my 3d printed bases for AWI Sharp Practice. I received 2 movement trays and about 20+ bases. I will be using this to base my British Legion infantry/Dismounted British Legion Cavalry. I messed about with these in Tinkercad. The first version was a 9.5mm square base. These proved to be too small for the miniatures. I enlarged this to 11mm square. If the miniatures fit, the next step will be getting the movement tray correct. I have a milimeter gutter between each space. This may put the miniatures too close. Still, it will give a better close order look than the existing US penny basing (19.05mm diameter base).

I think I will still base the Big Men on US pennies to set them appart from their men. The cavalry basing is still not sorted. I have some bases on the existing British Legion Cavalry group. I may make a movement tray based on the existing base.

Tuesday 11/4

The first group is now mounted on the bases that I had printed. They fit and I am very happy about that. The bases are thin at just a single milimeter in height. The trays are 2mm deep and have holes that are 1.5mm deep. That leaves room to work with. Since the glue was still drying, I have not put them into the movement trays yet. I will still need to base the Big Men for this. The second group has started to receive some paint and is going well. The pants and jackets are done. The boots, belts and hats are next. For the crest of the helmets, it is supposed to be black. What I have done is used a dark gray speed paint on it to make them stand out a bit. Probably not correct but it looks good so far.I am thinking I have about 3 more hours of work to complete out the second group.

Wedneday 11/5

Besides the one in progress, I have two other infantry groups left. In addition, I have 4 horses and two horse holders that I undercoated last night. One of the groups will be used as skirmishers. I am trying to decide what a skirmish movement tray should look like for them. I will paint the group of 8, knowing I will likely not use two of them with the skirmish group. I also undercoated the mounted officer for the force. I have a standard bearer and a bugler for the force as well. I am trying to decide if the bugler and standard bearer should be part of the group of 8 cavalary or be separate figures. It will really depend on the miniatures I am waiting for from Old Glory 15s. The pack is labeled as 8 cavalry but it does not state if there is command elements or not. If there is command elements, I will end up using a standard bearer or a bugler to fill out the group. We will have to see. I am guessing that both the OG15 and Brookhurst orders will come over the weekend.

Planning

Once the British Legion is complete, I have 2 other forces to sort out. The priority will be my militia. Currently, I have a large swarm of militia troops painted up but on various basings. None of which I like. If the British Legion project goes well, and I like that basing, I will duplicate it here. The goal of the Militia is to have 9 groups of 10 militia. Two groups of 6 militia skirmishers and two groups of 8 Mounted Militia. I currently have one group of mounted militia. I have been looking at expanding that. While the rules for the Mounted Militia do not have them needing horse holders, I thought that the Scouts Pack from Peter Pig could work well as horse holders. For mounted leaders, I have a miniature of Francis Marion as he appeared in Hillsboro, NC when he presented himself to the Continentals following the fall of Charleston. He wore his SC Continental cap and had a red coat. He made quite the impression. I would like another mounted Big Man for the Mounted Militia. For skirmishers, I bought some skirmishing militia with rifles that never made it past getting a base coat. Those will need to be painted.

The second force is some Continentals. My plan is to base them off of the Georgia Continentals under Colonel Samuel Elbert. These would be in hunting shirts. I cannot find any reference to what the regimental colors would have looked like thus far. I will likely do some variant of a liberty flag for them. I purchased a pack from Old Glory 15s that I plan on using for them. The pack should give me two groups of 8 and some command elements. Once they are painted, I will look and see if there are any additions I want to add to these men. Keeping them at just 2 groups works as they would be working in conjunction with militia.

Next, I want to revisit my Provincial troops. I have plenty more on painting sticks in addition to the ones that are painted. Again, basing is the issue. I have one unit that is based in groups of three and a few individuals. Then another based on small washers. The ones on washers look better but I don't have any movement trays for them. The goal is to make them consistent. Their upgrade will be dependent on the British Legion project.

I will try to get some pictures tonight so the next post will be less boring.

Sharp Practice - AWI Painting

Managed to paint the two officers and two buglers for the British Legion Infantry. It took quite a bit of time to get these done. However, I am pretty happy with the job so far. I will give these an army painter wash and see how they look afterwards. This will determine how I approach the rest of the infantry. I will work in batches of 8 figures so that when one strip is done, I will have completed a group for Sharp Practice.

I am not sure if the green I am using for the jackets will match the cavalry that I already painted. I am happy with the progress so far. After taking the picture of the two officers and buglers, I realized that I am missing one of the buckles for the officer. At least that is an easy fix.

Also on that painting stick was an officer in a tricorn. I have not figured out what he will be yet. As such, his coat remains unpainted. I started on my first group of British Legion Infantry. I figure these have another hours worth of work left before they are in a similar state. The infantry is going faster than the officer and buglers were. I have hope that I can finish these troops off by the end of November.

My mounted officer for the British Legion still needs a base coat. As do the horse holders and horses. I am still waiting on my order from Old Glory 15s. I am keeping my fingers crossed that those do not have command elements to them.

Reinforcements

I purchased a lot off of eBay of what I thought would be a full winter platoon of Germans. They were based for Flames of War. The painting was very nice and the miniatures looked great. I bought these because I needed to get three additional LMG teams for my Winter Panzer Grenadiers. What I ended up with was five stands of 4 riflemen and a single LMG team with two additional riflemen. Very disapointing. Unsure of what to do next, I reached back out to Gajo Miniatures who I bought my first painted platoon from. Gajo is fantastic. They said they will sell me just the LMG teams. Now I am just waiting on the invoice from Gajo. These I won't have to remove the base from and rebase individually. I should have gone with that to begin with. The miniatures I received are still really nice and I will find a use for them somewhere. Possibly for a mid war regular infantry platoon.

I also received a second eBay purchase that I am 100% happy with. This is a set of Plastruct tiles for the buildings. I can finish building 28 now. Once the roof tiles are complete, I still need to paint the roof and add some water stains/dirt to it. For a very simple 3d model I based off of the measurements on Google Earth, it is not too bad. I also need to make doors as well.

Based on the city description, I have, one of the dominant colors of the houses in Singling was pink. I chose this for the Warbases townhouse that I have built. The building is getting close at thsi point. The roof is fully built. I am currently trying to figure out the windows. I think I need a white technical pen to finish out the window frames. I used a gloss varnish on the windows to try to make the windows look better. I need to add some water stains on the building as well and paint the roof. But it is getting close.

I am still trying to work out a couple of more buildings for the scenario but I am getting close. I need somekind of apartment or rowhouse behind buildings 8 & 10 (Building 9). I have a really nice one from Sarissa that I have started to build. This will probably serve for this. And a ruined one for Building 12. The ruined one really just has roof damage that a bazooka team can use to engage the enemy armor from. I think I found a vendor from the UK that has what I want on eBay. I would have to make the damage sections myself. For Buildings 8 & 10, I have one 3d printed building that I have started work on. I have an old Impudent Mortal L shaped MDF building that I am looking at modifying to be the other building. The way the roof is shaped will take work to get it looking normal. I will need a chimney to add to it as well. I have not started on it yet.

Lastly, I have started to base my German Infantry. Basing is a chore that I don't like but has to be done. I have about 1/3rd of the German Infantry based. None of the Americans are based yet.

The trees that I worked on didn't work out too well. I used some PVA spray on the trees and sprinkled snow flock on them and it didn't look good. I am trying something else to see if that will work.

Over the weekend, I pushed through and finished off two buildings. Building 28 and the pink building that I haven't figured out where it will go.

Singling Progress 3/26/2025

I worked some more on the buildings for the Singling project. The progress has been exceedingly slow.

The first up is building 10/8. I will try to print the opposite image of this building to make the other half. It is coming along. I have fixed the roof and will glue the roof to the main building just to simplify it.

I finished the plastering of building 28. It still looks horrible. I will paint it before putting on the roof and chimneys.

The school is stalled while I was waiting to finish a print job. I am uncertain what I did with the print stick. So it is unchanged in a while.

I have finished bricking one chimney of the warbases townhouse.

The L Shaped Barn has the most progress. It is coming together. While gluing the building I ran out of super glue. So it is still in some pieces.

I purchases some snow flock for the infantry. I promply ran out of spackle for basing. I did get two successful prints of 76mm gunned Sherman tanks. At the most, I will need four of them. This is very achievavble. I also bought a US Army paint set from Vallejo. I should be able to cure and base these in the next few days.

Roman Mansio and Pint Sized Campaign Musing.

Infamy Infamy Project

Over the weekend, I had a few moments to work on some miniatures and terrain. I wanted to finish the mansio that I started. The base that I decided on using was some thick cardboard that I had lying around. This was likely a mistake. After putting basing matter on the cardboard, it began to wrap upwards. I flipped it upside down and coated the bottom in PVA glue in hopes to reverse that. This made me rethink how I plan on basing the Villa. I will use plastic for that. We will see if the base can be saved of the mansio.

The tower is complete. I do not plan on basing it.

The new Celts I received, I managed to get mounted to painting sticks. This should complete out my Briton/Celt/Gual force. This will give me 3 full units of armored/noble infantry. The problem that I have for them is basing. I had based the rest of the celts on steel washers, and then used a magnet sheet for the movement tray. What I noticed was that this does not work as well as the reverse that I use for my Romans. The Romans are based on magnet sheet and I use a steel rectangle for the movement tray. To assist the Romans to be able to line up better in formation, I have glued a thin wood strip to the front of it that the bases can push up against. Their basing has worked out well. The Celts are another story.

I did get some paint onto the horses and riders for my Roman Cavalry. Not much but the spears are painted as well as the horses tack for a single group.

WWII

I have been looking for winter troops to buy for an upcoming project. I may go with Gajo Miniatures as I can get them painted already. It seems like all of the metal Battlefront figures have been replaced with plastics or are unavailable. That was disapointing. eBay was not that much help either. Now that I have a snowy ground cloth, I really should have winter equipped soldiers. My previous supplements had summer uniform troops running around in the cold. I should do better. I am eyeing a German platoon at the moment. I found a box of winter Soviets in a drawer that are unpainted. Not what i needed but a welcome find.

For the village Church, I am happy with the STLs that I have made for the details. I found some plastic bits that I plan on adding as well. Next step will be to make the walls of the building and see what I can make. I have some unstarted buildings that I was looking over. I am seeing what can be modified to make it look more like the buildings from the town.

Reading the account, I have decided to custom model the buildings around the town square. Thus far I have targeted the church and school house. I will also work on the other building between the two. I am still trying to piece together what that will look like. The tough part is figuring out the maps and where to snip them to match the action of the historical battle. For most of the day, according to the US Army publications on the battle, the Germany infantry has little to no impact on the battle on the 5th of December right up to late afternoon. The German panzer Grenadier battalion was reduced to just 150 to 200 men. Those troops that the Americans did encounter tended to either get shot or surrender without much of a fight. The German Armor and artillery played the largest roll in the battle.

My thought at this point is to have three simultaneous tables for the battle. An oversized section that is slightly out of scale running up to the north west, another centered on the village square and a third on the east side of town running up to the valley in the north. The Germans would have some set forces that will be present on each table already deployed with some static jump off points. The Americans would enter the table at specific points with the goal of taking the town. The Germans would have a number of forces that they can use as a reserve and pick which table they want to deploy to. So once that resource has been deployed, it is committed and cannot be used elsewhere without leaving the table and attempting to move to the new location. They will have to have a clear path to get from one point to the other or the resource does not arrive at the other location. This is just a preliminary idea. I also want to utilize some off table resources. There was a 75mm anti-tank gun that was deployed north of the town that fired into the town and knocked out at least one American tank. I am not sure how to use that yet. My thought is that the infantry can spot it and relay the message to the tank crew or if the tanks are unbuttoned they can have a chance to spot the gun in the distance.

I am looking forward to v2 of Chain of Command and what it holds.

Celt Village and Happy 2025

Over the Christmas break, I was able to get some work completed on some terrain. I finished painting the Celt Village from Blue Moon/Old Glory Miniatures. I am mostly happy with how they came out but feel that the thatch roofs could have been better. The picture is on top of some small shelves that my son bought me for Christmas. It was a pretty useful gift.

I also managed to finish plastering the watchtower. I also have gotten some paint on it as well. I have purchased some speed paints with my Christmas money and tried a dark wood on the platform and woodwork. I am still undecided on how it looks. I started painting the tile roof but that still needs more work.

I also plastered the Mansio and most of the Villa. The Mansio has been mounted on a base as well. This should help keep it together. I also glued the elements of the mansio together. I will have to do the same with the villa as well. It is just proving to be more fiddily than the Mansio was. The hope is to make progress on these soon.

I also placed an order with Sarissa Precision for the barracks from their 15mm line of Roman Buildings. I saw that they have a Roman farm as well. I am very excited about picking that up as well, but that is for the future. I found a nice small house on Etsy that seemed to be at a reasonable price. But the shipping was close to $60 for it, so I passed on that one. I will probably get the Vicus buildings from Warbases 15mm line at some point.

Celts.... I got in my order from Stonewall Miniatures. I now have enough for two more groups of noble warriors for the Celts. These will be a mix of sword and spear armed.

I also now have more Auxilia to paint. I was really surprised that I have three more groups worth of Auxilia infantry to paint. This is besides the cavalry and the painted Romans that I have. I am wondering if I should get some Legionaries but at the moment, I will pass.

Other items, I purchased a BattleMat Bazaar ground cloth. I got the double sided one with a winter snow on one side and something green on the other. I am looking forward to getting it. I have plans for a December 1944 pint sized campaign for Chain of Command. I am concerned about how much in the way of rewrites will be needed when Chain of Command 2 is released.

More Roman Cavalry

Over the weekend, I was going to spend time printing out the remaining ships of the North Carolina Mosquito Fleet. I successfully printed several of the vessels. However, I found that the pad that my magnetic build plate was starting to pull off and did while printing the USS Wabash. So another item that needs to be fixed.

While waiting for a print to finish, I looked through my lead pile. Apparently, I have found another stash of Roman Cavalry miniatures. This was an exciting discovery. These are all spear armed and have been mounted on painting sticks and basecoated in black. I will respray the horses in white. I also received my order from Old Glory 15s. This was less than exciting. It turns out that only four of the miniatures were spear armed. The other five are armed with a gladius. Making them not as useful to me. They also came with a round plume of somekind on top of their helmets. That part at least is easily fixed. They will still be painted up. I will probably only use two of the sword armed versions. Between the found miniatures and the purchased ones, I should have three full groups (Infamy, Infamy wise) of cavalry.

In addition, I found a nifty senator figure. This would be a good objective for the Celts to try to grab during a raid.

I have yet to make any progress on the Mansio or Villa. I cut a template for the main roof of the mansio to cut tiles for. I hope to get the roof done today.

Painting More Romans and Other Projects

I managed a few moments to paint yesterday and finished a few figures. I painted the Decurion to complete out my cavalry command. I also painted a Praefectus on foot. I now have him based with two servants behind him. I think it looks pretty good. I painted an additional Optio and one more Auxilia as well. These all need basing. I am basing the Decurion on a round base to make him stand out on the table. I don't really have a standard for the leader figures for my Romans.

I took pictures of the above but they are all terrible. Once the basing of the above is done, I will be working on painting my Mile Fort. I think I will go with the sandstone look. After that, I think work on the Mansio and Villa would be next. I will save the watchtower for later.

I am looking forward to getting these miniatures out on the tabletop. I have an idea for a campaign that I want to run. The Briton/Celts that I have should be mostly ready. I have a base force that matches with the rules and some additional items on order. Both Romans and Celts need some more casualty figures painted.

ACW Naval

My North Carolina Coast campaign has warmed up again with some fixes to the printer. I printed a really nice version of the CSS Curlew. The front half matches the book description of the curlew. The back half should be more like a passenger vessel than what I have but it will stand in. As I was removing the support for the vessel, half of the front deck broke off. So the model ended up in the trash. I kicked off a print job for the CSS Appomattox as well. Will check on that when I get home from work. I think I will start printing these without supports. That should help. Once the miniatures are ready, I have several scenarios to try out. I need to ask the designer of the Dawn of Iron rules about how well his land rules are coming along.

Negev 1948 Campaign

I had a request to dust off my old SOTCW scenarios for my Israel War of Independence scenarios. I decided to rerelease the original scenario set which was written for the Arc of Fire game system and used the Skirmish Campaigns format. I converted one scenario of it to IABSM years ago and did nothing else with it. In reviewing the scenarios, the maps are terrible. So i will redo the maps in Campaign Cartographer before releasing. I did one of the maps so far and it looks much better. I do want to finish the conversion of these scenarios to either Chain of Command or IABSM at some point. But probably not any time soon.

France 1944

I have been working on a pint sized campaign on an action that took place in Singling France in 1944. It presents an interesting set of challenges for how to present it on the table. It was a combined arms attack that would allow the players to each have a platoon sized element to work with. I am working out how to make them work as stand alone pieces or make them for a games day type of action where two tables would be going simultaneously and a reseve force would be allocated as needed for each side. There is some really good documentation on this small battle that I am working through. It has proved to be a fun research project.

Early Imperial Romans for Infamy Infamy

I think I am now at a point that i am only missing 4 figures for my Roman Auxilia. Three cavalry figures to round out the last group and a Cavalry command figure. All in all, some good work over the holiday week last week.

I managed to finish my Medicus figure by giving him a patient. The dead Roman is a Xyston model. The Medicus and box is from 3dBreed miniatures that I printed.

I finished a basic engineer cart. I may go back and give the cart an ink wash as it looks a bit too new. Or possibly place some form of materials in the back of it. But it is close enough for now.

The first of what will be two engineer groups is also done. One thought would be to make the base part of a Roman road. But I couldn't figure out how I wanted to show that. Still, they are complete.

Here is the core of my Auxilia infantry. I have six groups of 8 Auxilia. with a Cornicen, Signifer, Optio and Centurion.

I also have a group of 8 Auxilia with bows. While they normally would be separated out into separate Sagitarii units, the game calls for them to be a group. I have two additional bow figures as well. For some reason, I have two different manufacturers. I am not sure of the manufacturers. The ones in a loading pose are probably Corvus Beli figures. Not sure who the giants are.

I also have a spare command group with a Cornicen, Optio, Signifer and Centurion. I figure these may come into play with Midgard.

I have a senior command element as well. Two figures I can use as a mounted or dismounted Praefectus.

I also finished my cavalry figures. I have a group of 8 Auxilia cavalry, a half group of Auxilia Cavalry and a standard bearer. (can't remember the name of the cavalry standard bearer.) As noted above, i still need 3 more figures to flesh out the group and a command figure. Also in the picture are some support elements that were finished, a pair of pack mules and a scorpion with crew. All of these have their basing finished but I didn't take a picture of them yet.

I also have been working on a command base for the Praefectus. The plan is to have a shield bearer and a slave with a wax tablet standing behind them on a small Flames of War base. i have a replacement figure for the foot Praefectus that I need to paint. The two background characters are already painted. I also have most of a 3rd command group painted. I need to finish painting the Optio and get a good Centurion figure for it. I will likely giev the centurion a fancier comb on his helmet to signify him as a Primus Pilus or the like. I also have a seventh group of Auxilia Infantry ready to go. They just require a movement tray. The problem is, I have no idea if I cut the movement trays myself or bought them. I have the start of an 8th group of Auxilia Infantry. There are three painted figures on an old base that they need to be pulled from. I also have a lone Auxilia on a painting stick leaving just 4 miniatures to be purchased. But as it stands, I should have enough for a game.

I do have a number of Roman Auxilia in more skirmishing poses that are either thrusting with a spear or throwing one. The problem is most of the spears are either bent or broken. A longer term item would be to purchase some wire spears and replace them then base these to be an additional set of groups. If I were to do this, I would be coming close to having a 1 to 1 Roman Century worth of Auxilia. This is really not needed for either Infamy Infamy or Midgard. Still, it is something.

Terrain:

I painted some test pieces of Hadrian's Wall. One in a gray stone pattern and one that is supposed to be sandstone. I can't really decide which one I like better.

I like how the sandstone came out. My wife likes the gray walls better. Still debating.

I have not done any more work on the existing Mansio, Villa or Watchtower yet. Hopefully soon.

Roman Cavalry

I managed to paint ten Auxilia Cavalry figures in the past two days. I am using Army Painter Speed Paints on the horses and they came out rather well. I still have to base them. I have settled on how I will base them. I cut up a magnet sheet and glued down each individual figure. This way I can make a magnetic base to put them on. I should be able to finish off the basing of these over the weekend.

I also managed to get the Engineers onto a large Flames of War base. They look like a work crew. I have also painted and based an engineer cart. It has felt good to get things done this week. I still have another set of engineers to paint up. I am still not sure why I have so many. I also have some figures that I will use for a rally point. These are slave figures that are holding a shield and have wax tablets to record the action. I will likely put these on a small Flames of War base. I also painted a scorpion and crew. These will go on a medium Flames of War base. Not sure it will ever see a game but I wanted one. The crew are legionaires rather than Auxilia but that is fine.

I also got some paint on a few pieces of the Hadran's Wall Mile fort. I am not happy with it and will likely try something else.