Bases and buildings

My oldest has a 24 hr bug that caused him to miss a really important soccer game today so what better way to spend the day than to plug away at the piles of shame.

I also took the youngest to practice as there is a Home Hardware nearby. I needed some larger metal bases 1-1/2” and 2” widths so the casualties, snipers and heavy guns.

So I spent another $5.15 on metal bases. However I had a gift card so I’m debating whether that counts. I’ll count it bringing the 2023 Hobby expenses total to $67.48. 

Anyways I picked up 4x 2” washers and 4x 1-1/2” washers. I got home and quickly realized I probably need another 2-3 of the 1-1/2” size.

I based some of the figures.

I put a bit of plastic down first as there’s some type of chemical reaction that occurs between the glue and washer hole apparently that leaves marks on the table. That was a fun discovery last go around.

Pictured L to R top to bottom are the grenade launcher and 3.7mm TAK anti-tank gun, the casualties, a sniper and the machine gun. I left most of the crew off of the weapons teams for east of painting.

I have 1 sniper, another flamethrower team and an antitank rifle left to base.

I also put together four sprues of Warlord Games’ plastic ruined hamlet I got before Christmas. I had tested out one building so now have the set done.

Shown are two sprues worth. I opted for 6 pieces of ruins to allow for various configurations.

The weather was atrocious this week but it’s finally warming up. Hopefully I can prime these ruins quickly.

Baron’s War Outremer Kickstarter

Back in May 2022, I backed Footsore Miniatures Baron’s War 4 Kickstarter titled Outremer which takes the game to the Crusades setting.

To be honest, gaming the Crusades isn’t something I’m overly interested in. However, I was interested in getting more figures for my Baron’s War forces.

Growing up watching Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, and more recently Robin Hood, I like the idea of English noblemen returning to England during/after the Crusades and finding King John mucking things up.

Today, my pledge arrived.

Now this was paid for in 2022 so it doesn’t affect my 2023 Hobby budget.

I received 12 Cavalry and 20 Infantry figures. I have between 30-40 other Baron’s War figures so this give me 2 larger forces. I think 2 freebie figures are missing so I will have to follow up.

I should also probably track all new figures received vs figures painted to see how the Lead Mountain changes in size.

New figures for 2023:

12 Cavalry

20 Infantry

Blog Review

My plan this year it to post more. Including pictures.

I had several posts way back in 2014 regarding a German FallschirmJager army and the board game Descent. Thought a tiny update would be appreciated. They are gone.

I traded Descent and all the expansions for some figure painting by my friend I want to say around 2019. I know Descent 2.0 is now out but I have no plans to return to that market. It was a good game. Just not enough time.

Also sometime in 2022 (possibly at Hotlead 2022) I sold off my FJ to another friend. I kept all the armour and am building a German Grenadiers force instead. 

I thought it weird to have US 101, British Red Devils and German FJ.

I’ll probably try to hock the Red Devils at some point in the future too.

January update

Here’s a quick update,

Hobby expenses:

$18.43 on 2x 1LB boxes of 5/16 metal washers. 

$43.90 on  50mm x 50mm plastic bases and Jan/Feb issues of Wargames Illustrated (shipped for UK).

Total $62.33

5/16 metal washers are my go to for my 28mm metal figures. They give a nice heft and make the figures harder to knock over. They are about 25mm across. 5/16 is the interior hole size. My individual German infantry are now all based. I need a few larger bases for things like snipers, the machine gun and the anti tank gun.

I also need (sometime this year) 50mm square bases. So I placed an order from Northstar. I also added the two WI issues. February seems extra appealing as it has some RCW articles.

This week I started basing my 30 Oathmark Dwarf heavy infantry and 4 metal characters.

I cover the base in GW Stirland mud and then add static grass. I did the mud stage. I do a heavy-ish coat to hide the integral base of the miniature.

Then I’ll static grass the base and use the geek gaming scenics spray to lock it in.

I also put head on my 30 Oathmark orcs and built 10 of the 30 newly released Goblin slaves.

I have 30 more Oathmark Goblin infantry to build as well. That’s all for now. Hopefully I can find little bits of time to keep plugging away.

Happy New Year 2023

We’ll it’s been quite a year.

I finished only a handful of figures myself, a whopping 9 28mm NPCs for my ongoing RCW project. 

I have another 9 RCW figures in some state of painting. I have 6 pirates about 20 Afghan War and another 20 Barons War figures also with some paint on them.

Pretty disappointing to tell the truth but I found some painting mojo and expect to exceed these numbers this year.

Vehicles wise I primed two MDF airships from Crossover Miniatures, and put paint down on a Sarissa Precision train set (tender and 4 carriages) for the RCW. I also assembled an Ainsty Castings Man o’ war pirate ship and have mostly painted a Firelock Games sloop.

My plan for 2023 is:

RCW project

Finish painting the Sarissa train.

Base the Sarissa train tracks.

Finish painting the NPC characters I have for the RCW

Pirates

Get some paint on the 60+ figures I have.

Finish painting both pirate ships.

Oathmark

Finish building my Oathmark Orcs, Goblin slaves and Goblin boxes and get them commission painted (100ish)

Paint my oathmark wolves for the Goblin wolf riders.

Stargrave

Finish building the rest of the Troopers (20ish) box set.

Paint them (60ish)

Baron’s War

Finish painting the figures I started.

Assemble/paint the 40ish figures I have still in the blister.

Assemble/paint the new kickstarter figures whenever they get delivered.

WWI/WWII

Get my WWI British (90ish figures) and remaining Germans (40ish figures) to the commission painter.

Get my WWII German tanks to the commission painter.

There aren’t any major projects I’d like to start this year so hopefully just some small purchases here and there to finish old projects.

My wife thinks I spend $200/week on figures. I actually spend less that $200/month so I’d like to also document my hobby expenditures. I’ll also include supplies like glue and baseing materials etc.

So far I’m at $0.00 Hahaha.

That’s my plan so far.

Labour Day October Hammer

Today is the holiday Monday of Labour Day. Most things are closed and the kiddos don’t go start school until Wednesday. 

The youngest wanted to play with my red and blue soldiers (Bolsheviks -Trotsky’s train guard and Red sailors).

I had played a convention game of Squad Hammer at Hotlead 2022 and so thoroughly enjoyed it I bought the rules (PDF on Wargamevault.com).

Here’s the basic set up. Bolsheviks on the left. German Freikorps on the right. It’s an attack/defend scenario around the barn. While attackers usually should have a larger force I chose to keep it even as the boys haven’t gotten the grasp of uneven battles yet (“Why do you have more figures” etc).

We each had a leader, 3 rifle squads, an automatic rifle squad, and a machine gun. One platoon had shock troops and the other had cavalry.

Each son had one platoon of Bolsheviks and I had 2 platoons of Friekorps.

We played 8 rounds (6 plus 1D6) and I had failed to capture the barn.

My 1st platoon was wiped out and my 2nd platoon had 1 rifle squad with 6 hit points (1 away from wiped out) and an automatic rifle squad with the leader with no damage ( both in the foreground)

James had 1 rifle squad (in the fenced paddock) and his machine gun (in the barn’s loft)

Charlie had 1 automatic rifle squad (on the other side of the barn in the other fenced paddock), a machine gun (on the back left hill), 1 rifle squad with the leader (on the ground in front of the machine gun) and his cavalry (on the top right, having flanked me).

We all had fun. I think this was the first time we’ve played using an actual rule set (as opposed to home brew rules) and with minimal tantrums when things didn’t go as planned (the boys were good too 😂).

Here’s a couple photos showing the casualties. What can I say, “War is hell.”

Charlie’s two sailor squads (6 dudes per squad) and James’ Leader, 3 squads and shock troops.

Here’s my losses. 6 squads, both machine guns, one leader, my cavalry and shock troops.

I had a great time using a rule set I enjoy and the boys said the same. The game can be fast and bloody.

Here’s a list of everything below from the photos in case anybody is interested.

Until next time.

The figures are:

Russians - Copplestone Castings

Germans - Brigade Games and Great War Miniatures

Barn - Tinned Fruit Buildings (on Facebook)

Outbuilding - Colin Rush commission 

Trees - The Last Valley (on Facebook)

Hills - Miniature Landscape Hobbies

Fences - Pegasus Hobbies

Barricades - Gale Force 9

Mat- Cigar Box Battle

Reinforcements (or I’m going to need a bigger box)

July 2021 was a looong time ago. Lots of hobby stuff has happened, I just haven’t posted ANY of it for no particular reason.

I’ve been into Chain of Command for a while and have  been collecting a 101st Airborne force.

Looks a little cramped in the box so on the tabletop it looks like this:

HQ, bazooka, three squads, and mortar squad.

I also have two additional bazooka teams, three medics, a sniper, a MG and 4 spare infantry I can use to be a 3 man engineer demo team or to bump up the MG team to have 5 crew. Oh and two Sherman’s and a firefly for reasons.

Finally the other pieces have been completed. Another Sherman which gives me a full tank platoon. A Jeep with a mounted MG. An anti-tank gun and another mortar.

I also grabbed 8 crew for the weapons teams as I don’t really like using riflemen for crew. And another 8 riflemen to get the three squads into full compliance with rifles instead of songs or carbines.

Here’s a scale comparison of the troops.

L to R: Bolt Action, Artizan, Bolt Action, Artizan.

So they are basically done. I have decals for shoulder flashes and should put some markings on the Sherman’s but that’s for some other rainy day.