I can't decide what Samurai miniatures scale I like better, either 6mm or 10mm. I bailed on 15mm years ago due to I think cost and rules I thought I'd use. As to 28mm, I just don't have any interest in Samurai skirmish.
Last year I struggled to easily remove 10mm figures from the Wargames Atlantic Samurai and Ashigaru sprues. The weapons were breaking left and right. I initially was using a hobby hobby knife or clippers and quickly gave up. I then tried using a hot hobby knife. There was some success, but too much ended up bending and melting too much of the weapons. I had no solution to smoothly safely remove each set of figures so I shelved by boxes of Samurai and Ashigaru.
Video describing how to use the saw blade:
I have had an interest in Age of Sail battles since playing in a few games with a friend of mine who ran Wooden Ships and Iron Men with 1:1200 ships back in the day. I tried my hand at painting up 1:1200 ships, for War of 1812, from Langton Miniatures, but did not enjoy the rigging. I bailed on this scale and more recently have had success with 1:2400 ships from Tumbling Dice.
Rules wise, I have struggled to find a good set for large battles that move along at a good pace and finish in less than four hours. Below are the rulesets I've tried out.
I was inspired by a blog post on John Bond's Wargaming Stuff blog on how to make your own cornfields for 28mm wargaming. I have been hesitant to spend more on model railroad cornstalks (JTT 2" O scale). They certainly look great but can get pricey for the amount of corn stalks I want to have on the table. I have also not been very successful creating cornfields using other techniques, so I am giving John's technique a go.
I was surprised that John spotted a fake IKEA plant (FEJKA) that can be easily used as corn stalks. I have an IKEA close by, so popped in there, bought the plant and have been trying out John's technique. I tried to follow the process exactly, but ended up changing it up slightly. I explain my process in the video below. I bet there are more improvements other people will come up, but it is pretty easy and fast to go through this process. Basing wise, I'm probably going to try out using rubber floor mat material. I first saw it in action on Black Magic Craft YouTube channel: Link.
My video below on how to make these corn stalks.
I will post an update once I finish a cornfield terrain piece.
Link to John's blog post: John Bond's Wargaming Stuff
I was inspired to run a Boer War scenario from a wargaming friend who had been reading a book about the Boer War. I have not run a Boer War battle in a long time so figured I'd give it a go again. This time using the Bloody Big Battle rules. It turned out the Spion Kop scenario would work out good because I had all the miniatures for the scenario painted up and based already. This would also be my first foray into the Bloody Big Battles rules. I played in a Franco-Prussian War game awhile back, but really couldn't get into the rules as a player.
In all the Bloody Big Battles scenarios, you will notice a lot of terrain. They are not simple throw down a few terrain elements, these can be elaborate winding rivers to expansive hills. I wanted to see if I could come with a way to simply create these features for this game and future games. I don't want to spend a lot of time building fancy terrain when I will only use the setup for a couple sessions and then I'm onto the next battle with a different layout. I also really don't have the room to store the terrain.
I have a lot of future Bloody Big Battles scenario options that I want to do in the future in periods I already have a lot of 15mm miniatures for: Crimean War, 1859 Franco-Austrian War, and Boer War.
The Spion Kop, Boer War scenario by Anton van Dellen is a good one. I would drop the British artillery can not fire at a Boer target if a British unit is within 9", British artillery suffers a left shift because of Boer camouflage, and British artillery suffers low ammo if they roll a 10 or more.
It is certainly a challenge to figure out visibility between units when you have hills in the battle. I need to build a diagram to explain when units can see each other and when they are blocked by contours.
In the playtest and at the club, the British has it hard. I was able to get to a draw in the playtest. The club game we only made it through half the scenario turns and the British were struggling to take any of the objectives.
Can the Battle of Midway be played with miniatures? This was the question I posed to myself three years ago after running the Operation Pedestal Malta Convoy game.
I have since purchased a number of Midway boardgames and looked through the miniature rules I own.
Here are the boardgames related to the Battle of Midway I own:
Recently the Nimitz/Halsey rules by Sam Mustafa was published. There are two rules published together in one PDF. Nimitz is the surface miniature rules and Halsey is the campaign level rules. The Halsey rules is also recommended for the Battle of Midway. There is even a Midway scenario included. I think the Halsey rules have an edge over Task Force: Carrier Battle in the Pacific when it comes to the display/use of miniatures.
Ship Miniatures:
Recently I acquired 15mm Russian Civil War (RCW) painted and based miniatures and have been looking at using them for a game. Before I acquired these miniatures I have had some interest in the RCW and also the Russo-Polish War of 1919-20. Having just read a second book on the Russo-Polish War I was inspired to test out some WWI rules. In the past I used the Big Table Little Men rules for a battle in WWI Palestine, but this time I wanted a different ruleset for the RCW and Russo-Polish War.
Here is the list of rules I have read through or playtested as options for Russo-Polish War:
The scenario I have been testing has Polish infantry and cavalry defending a town against Russian infantry and cavalry. Some field artillery is sprinkled in on both sides. Below you can see what my playtest looks like.
A good book on the history of the Russo-Polish War mainly from the military aspect is Warsaw 1920 by Adam Zamboyski. It is an easy read that gives a good overview of the conflict. There is not a lot of books on the war in English and this is a good addition that I recommend. Do not be fooled by the title of the book, most of the book covers more than just the defense of Warsaw.
To get you in the era of the conflict, here are some good music to listen to:
It may be surprising, but I have never painted a complete infantry unit in acrylics. I have always used Humbrol or Testors enamels, but this time I thought I'd give Vellejo acrylics a go for a 28mm unit of French in the French and Indian War.
Today I learned that someone who was instrumental in my start into the miniature wargaming hobby passed away. His name was Andrew Powter.
My Dad worked with Andrew before he retired. At the time Andrew was a miniature painter himself. He was not a wargamer, but enjoyed painting. As a kid, I was using the old testors paint on plastic model plane kits and Andrew recommended to my Dad to switch to Humbrol paints. When I was 13 I was invited to play a miniatures game with Andrews son who is a little younger than I am. The game was a Sword and the Flame rules Zulu game. We played the game twice each playing both sides. We played with 1:72 plastic figures. I was hooked. I can still remember the games. Soon after I had my own set of the rules and bought and painted up all sorts of Zulu war plastic figures. That day was my entry into the hobby.
I have Andrew to thank for helping with my painting and getting me started into the wargaming hobby. I am sad to hear of his loss to parkinson's disease at the age of 75. In life and our hobby, we lose people close to us. Andrew was someone who was instrumental in my miniature wargaming hobby aspect of my life. Thank you.
link to obituary:
http://ip51.icomos.org/~fleblanc/in-memoriam/powter-andrew/im_powter-andrew.html
When it comes to acquiring 3D printed miniatures, in the past I have purchased just from Shapeways. There are now a lot more options available in the market. You can now print a file yourself or have someone else print it. I have no interest in purchasing a 3D resin printer and do not have a friend who has one. I wanted to research how someone like me did it. I tracked down a post on the subject.
Last weekend our club had our Fall club convention. We had three to five games for each session on Saturday or Sunday. There were about 15 people attending Saturday and close to 40 on Sunday. I thought Saturday was a little disappointing attendance wise, but a lot of people were busy (i.e. attending an old club member memorial service). I ran my Korean War game Saturday morning and it ran very well. Overall I think everyone had a good time. It was good to see everyone at our latest club convention.
Convention photos:
In December 1950, the first Canadian troops arrived in Korea. Further troops arrived in May 1951.
On May 30, 1951, Canadian forces moved into the town of Chail-li, and were quickly attacked by Chinese forces. Due to the large Chinese attack on Chail-li, the Canadians were forced to retreat.
I have put together a Cold War Commander scenario of the battle using 10mm Pendraken miniatures.
Since I am new to painting 6mm and Samurai miniature wargaming, I have been researching various approaches to painting and basing. I thought I'd share my thoughts on these topics in two videos.
The first video focuses on using grey, black or black with grey drybrush as options for priming. I did a test for each and then share which I chose. Typically I just use a grey primer for painting miniatures.
The second video discusses what basing I chose for the two wargame rules I'm going to game with. At the end I go into casualty marker options as well.
I think my next video will be on how I do the sashimono flags and other flags. The sashimono flag is the banner on the backs of the samurai and ashigaru.
