White Metal - Red Lead

Welcome to Mother Russia. In this episode, tea will be served from a samovar and caviar will replace butter on our toast...

Stop! Enough of this bourgeoise nonsense comrade! Tea? Caviar? Don't you know there's a civil war on?

My inspiration for a new gaming period can come from many sources. Sometimes its a film, a book, or a new range of figures. In the case of the Russian Civil War it was a set of rules; Red Actions! by The Perfect Captain. That was in 2006. At the time, I knew very little about the RCW, but soon found it has plenty to recommend itself to the wargamer. This is a conflict with WWI era weapons but with none of the trench-bound immobility of the Western Front. Here are troops of frankly dubious quality and even more dubious ideology engaged in sweeping actions from snow-bound Siberia to the Steppes of Central Asia. Here are units of every stripe from Reds and Whites, Nationalists, Makhnovist anarchists, Cossacks, Partisans, Interventionists and Czech legionaries; uniforms from the drab to the colourful; flags and slogans; armoured cars, biplanes, river gunboats, tanks and armoured trains. What's not to like!

When I started collecting miniatures suitable for the RCW the choice in 28mm was fairly limited, Copplestone Castings Back of Beyond range being the obvious choice. I amassed a nice little pile of lead that I have added to occasionally over the years. 

I hesitate to call this lead pile a project, since that would imply a degree of planning and forethought. I'm a bit more organised nowadays,  but back then my collection grew in quite a haphazard way. Some of it even got painted, but never sufficient to complete a single unit. That's something I aim to rectify now. 

My first step is to review and rationalise my collection of miniatures - and to get sufficient miniatures painted to fill the gaps in my part-completed units. That should give me some incentive to move things along. The longer-term aim is to complete sufficient figures to field around four infantry units, MG support, a unit of cavalry and a unit of artillery per side; around 150 figures. 

Okay, comrades. Forward!

Saxon violence

Its not easy being a Thegn. Sure, you get some social status and privileges; maybe some land, better armour and equipment to strut around in and impress the pretty young mægdens. That sort of stuff. But its not all a big basket of rosy apples. Oh no indeed! First you have to suffer the attentions of some scalpel wielding modelling maniac intent on hacking away your fingers and wresting your spear from your grip. And now he's at it again, intent on pricking your pride with pin-sharp arrows. Oh the indignity!

Well, the Thegns are all painted and based, but I felt they needed a bit of battle damage. Not wishing to hack them about again, I thought the best way to represent this was by making them the target of a few arrows. But how to make them?

I wanted something wargames proof that would stand up to handling without snapping. That ruled out plastic rod or stretched sprue. Pins seemed the obvious choice, but I wanted the thinnest I could find to avoid my arrows looking more like scale javelins. After a bit of research, here's what I came up with; Prym super fine 0.4mm glass-headed pins made of flexible spring steel.

"These are really good" said the lady in my local haberdashers as I handed over my cash. No doubt she thought I was going to do a spot of hemming or quilting. I hadn't the heart to tell her I was going to chop them up to make tiny arrows.

It took a few attempts to get the fletchings right. These were made by cutting thin strips of 10 thou' (0.25mm) plasticard styrene sheet, which were then cut into shorter lengths and trimmed to shape. A thin layer of superglue was then applied to the shaft of the pin and each fletching carefully applied using fine tweezers. Once the glue had dried thoroughly, I ran another thin layer of glue along the seams of the fletchings for extra strength. To give each fletching a 'feathered' appearance, I drew a fresh scalpel blade across the edges several times to roughen them a bit.

Here's my first attempt. I found that the pins were long enough to cut in half to make two arrows. I wasn't entirely happy with the fletchings as they looked a bit too angular.

Here are a couple of later attempts, plus a broken arrow shaft, stuck in a blob of blu-tac to make them easier to handle for painting.

Once the arrows were painted, I chose some of the figures and drilled holes in their bases and shields; a task made easier by them being made of plastic rather than metal. After that, it was a simple matter of gluing the arrows in place...

…and here are the rest of the Thegns.

Well that concludes this little project. I'm pleased with the results and more so because it has got me back in to painting after a very long hiatus.

Okay, I'm off for toast and tea. See you next time!

Saxon progress

A very quick post this time. The Saxons have been rather neglected of late as with the arrival of warm weather (finally) the great outdoors has beckoned and hobby related activities have taken a step back. Not that I haven't moved things on, albeit slowly. I've completed painting and basing most of the Saxons, so here are a few photos of a couple of finished figures. I'm quite happy with the end result. 

More coming soon...

A Gripping Saga (or mind your fingers lads!)

It's always a good idea to plan in advance - but that would spoil half the fun.

When I was putting together the plastic Thegns I didn't think much beyond getting them into some reasonable poses. I had noticed that the plastic spears were a bit on the chunky side and thought they'd be better with wire spears. Anyway, I could live with them the way they are - or so I thought. The trouble is, once the idea was formed I couldn't get it out of my head. Those plastic spears just had to go!

This would not have been a simple job even before starting construction. The spears are moulded as an integral part of the arms. Some are connected not only to the hands, but to the forearm with a thick block of plastic bridging the gap between spear and arm. This was going to require major surgery - and I was already well into painting the figures.

Deep breath. Armed with sprue cutters, pin drill and plenty of fresh scalpel blades I set to work. The first job was to clip off the spears neatly either side of the hands. This gave a nice flat surface into which I was able to drill a hole through each  hand. After that, it was simply (ha!) a matter of carefully trimming away the excess plastic around the hands and forearms. Fortunately as the figures are plastic, the clipping, drilling and trimming wasn't too painstaking. There were a few casualties; a severed thumb here, a sliced finger there. No - not mine! This required reconstructive surgery with Milliput to re-sculpt the missing digits and restore proper grip. I'm no sculptor, but I was reasonably happy with the result.

The miracle of Dark Age plastic surgery

The forearms on some of the figures were going to require similar post-op reconstructive treatment, re-priming and painting, but the damage was relatively minimal.

After surgery and re-arming with wire spears it was back to the painting queue for the Thegns...

...where they joined their more sensible (and thus uninjured) comrades who had eschewed spears in favour of swords.

Okay, so now I can stop agonising over the spears. Next time, I'll remember to fix them before construction. Now I come to think of it, I wonder if it was such a good idea to fix the shields on before painting? 

Coming out of the Dark Ages

A while back I picked up a few frames of Gripping Beast plastic Saxon Thegns off eBay. I'm not really sure why as I had no plan to build a Dark Age army. You know how it goes. Impulse purchase. I suppose if I have to justify it, I was a bit curious about plastic figures and their potential for customisation and wanted to find out what all the fuss was about. (Okay, I have a lot of catching up to do). This seemed a cheap way to find out and if I messed up completely it wouldn't hurt too much.

So, the figures arrived and were duly put away in the wargames cupboard where - you guessed it, they remained untouched for many a month.

Fast forward to the past month and I finally got around to putting some of the figures together. I know some wargamers find putting plastic figures together a trial of patience, but I found it rather therapeutic and relaxing. There's something about the smell of liquid polystyrene cement that wafted me right back to my childhood days of Airfix kits. (Serious note - inhaling the fumes isn't recommended. Bad for your health, right). Of course back when I was in short trousers the cement was stringy stuff out of a tube that oozed out of seams and joints, got all over your fingers and always made mess of clear aircraft canopies. We have progressed.  Yes, I could have used Cyanoacrylate 'Superglue' but it just doesn't have the same nostalgia and anyway, experimenting with repositioned heads and limbs is a pain with contact adhesive. And I hate sticking my own fingers together.

So, after a happy hour or so I had put together a dozen or so Thegns. Not the greatest sculpts. The poses are a bit limited, which did reduce my options a bit. Some of the faces tend to be slightly cartoony and detail is a bit soft in places but, hey they're perfectly acceptable for the price.

After basing and priming I got down to painting. Stay tuned. Progress reports to follow.

Mythic Battles Pantheon

On to the games!

Gods, mortals, monsters and heroes clash in the ruins of post-apocalyptic Ancient Greece

Mythic Battles Pantheon is set in a post-apocalyptic Ancient Greece where the gods are still powerful beings, but shadows of their former selves. Fragments of their divine power - known as Omphalos - are scattered about the Earth and are the focus of a new power struggle. Whichever god can collect sufficient Omphalos to regain their former power stands to lead a new Pantheon reshaped in their image. To complicate matters, the cataclysmic events have emptied the Underworld, unleashing Titans, monsters and heroes of Greek legend, all of whom are participants in the new struggle for power.

As my opponent Pete and I were both new to Mythic Battles we chose to play the introductory scenario in the 'Getting Started' book included in the core box set. This covers the basic rules and pits father against son in the form of Zeus vs Ares in a bid to collect and absorb two Omphalos, or destroy their opponent to win the game. Both gods were assisted by a small band of heroes, monsters and troops. Zeus was backed up by a unit of Spartans and the Hydra. Ares was accompanied by a unit of Hoplites and the hero Achilles.

Zeus  - "Spartans? Where are the other 297?"

We played a couple of games and drew at one game each. As they were learning games, we probably messed up a few of the rules but we had a blast all the same. I'll admit that I wasn't sure I'd like this game. I've mentioned before that it was the miniatures that attracted my attention and the boardgame was of secondary importance. A couple of games has changed all that. Although we only just scratched the surface, I can see a lot of tactical options and depth to the game. It doesn't hurt that the game components are well produced and ooze quality too. All in all I'm very happy with Mythic Battles Pantheon and am looking forward to further games (with the hope that I won't have to wait another 12 months for my next game).  

"Why couldn't we just have a cat or a dog like ordinary folks?"

Ares was having another of his infamous temper tantrums...

Wot no paint?

The last time I got to play a game of any description was over 12 months ago. When I checked, I couldn't believe it had been so long. This is not good.

My abstinence is partly due to lack of opponents since my regular gaming pals are all now some distance away (in one case across the Channel) meaning games have to be on-line via Skype.  I'll talk more about gaming via Skype in a later post, but suffice to say it does have its drawbacks.

Fast forward to Sunday 18th March 2018 and by great good fortune three of us managed to get our ducks in a row (should that be penguins? - It was perfect weather for them) and met up at the West Midlands Military Show (WMMS) in Aldersley. Kudos to everyone who managed to get there despite the snow as the atrocious weather had clearly knocked holes in attendance (traders, demo games and punters alike). The show was a bit subdued, but from our little reunion came plans for my first proper game in ages. So, the following Wednesday my mate Pete made the journey over to chez nous for a game of Mythic Battles Pantheon.

                                                                                                                                                                             

I should admit at this point that in my eagerness for a game I've probably committed wargaming heresy by playing with unpainted miniatures. I am unrepentant. Well, Mythic Battles is a miniature boardgame and boardgames don't count, right? I would never contemplate fielding unpainted miniatures on a table-top wargame, but have no qualms about doing so on a boardgame. If that sounds like double-standards I can only say in my defence that I have come to terms with the idea that boardgame miniatures are 'playing pieces', in much the same way as a chess piece is. When I first saw the Kickstarter campaign for Mythic Battles it was the miniatures that attracted me and I had imagined using them in a fantasy table-top wargame setting. I had zero interest in a boardgame. It took some time for me to come around to accepting the whole boardgame package but now I have, I can happily get on with simply enjoying the game.

Of course, I do still want to paint the miniatures and at some future point I will post some pretty pictures of my efforts, but right now having fun playing the game is more important to me. So, if the thought of playing with unpainted miniatures is likely to give you apoplexy, please stop scrolling now and look away before you reach my next post.