Prussians, World War I, Space Germans, and a Zombie Dancer!

Hi,  

Just an update on aimless painting.  First are some painted plastic Perry Prussian (PPPP) Jaegers, I did up for a small Black Powder unit.  I only finished 8, ending with a tiny unit.   Sadly arms disappeared off four of the half painted models.  The cats, children, and vacuum cleaner all claimed innocence despite intense interrogation and torture.  The thief must be some of my French models, so I going to find my 28mm guillotine and little plastic heads will roll.

The leader has the wrong blade of course, but Kreuz much like his English second cousin Sharpe doesn't let the rules interfere with his choice of weapons.

Yes some of our eyes are painted too large or close together.

I finished up a few more models for m late Great War British Army.  I didn't base the mortar with crew, so that I could switch them out for heavier mortars, without having to paint multiple crews.

The Old Glory sculptor may not have been an expert on ordnance.  The tear drop shape of the mortar appears reversed or the guys are about to drop the mortars down the tube the wrong way.  Either way I can't tell which end is really the fuze or tail boom, nor wether part of it is powder bags or obturating rings.

Five more rifles and an officer, some of which have very flexible necks.  I've read that the OG sculptor purposely modeled them this way as it is a little known fact that British won the war because of the their ability to turn their heads at angles which the Germans simply could not match.

 Here's four of the old Warzone plastic models now sold by Prince August ( I think).

Zombies with lack of coherent basing scheme, left to right: Victory Force, not Barney; Victory Force; Blue Moon; unknown model

Here's a zombie stripper entertaining some undead dance enthusiasts.

And lastly a poorly breaded pooch.

- Baconfat

Black Powder Game, Salamanca Style Scenario

Hi,

If you like poorly worded after action reports and mediocre photography, this post is for you.

Weekend before last I managed to get in a fun game of Black Powder.  It was designed to resemble part of Salamanca.  About 60% of the French brigades started on the table edge with reinforcements coming on later turns.

The British were prepared in line along the road and small village.

Left  French Line, Dragoons, artillery; Center 2 line units; Right 2 line units

The French Dragoons charge some Rifles on the left destroying them.  The French center suffers a little artillery casualties.  Some of them manage to take cover from the artillery behind the trees.  The French right cheesely skirts the right table edge, to avoid fire coming from village; their plan is to round the village and attack the Brits from the side or rear, negating their numerical advantage.

The French Dragoons on the right have been destroy by British Hussars (which quickly got disordered the rest of the game) and the Brits have moved forward and both sides damage each other with brutal musket fire.  The French center doesn't really do anything.  The French right moves slow down as the Brit Guards swing around to prevent the French from rolling up the line.

Close up the French right, crap a cannon is coming.  And the Brits are hiding in the buildings as well.  If you look in the back of the photo, you can see a Brit rifle unit that failed orders the whole game.

 French reinforcements flood the field, the left have Hussars.  The original center units have moved to avoid the Brit horde advancing.  The left acquired a unit of Cuirassiers and another cannon.

 The French left taken from the Brit perspective.  The French Hussars rolled ridiculous order goodness, moved through the woods, charged the disordered Brit Cav and destroyed them.  The opposing line troops stand and bravely massacre each other with muskets.

 On the right the French roll incredibly well, move long distances, shoot well and melee well.  They wipe out the Coldstream guards and an artillery battery.  Another French unit occupies a building to negate the British in theirs.  I believe some barely involved Brits even run away, but not the static 95th Rifles solidly stood out of the action as they did the whole battle.

The battle didn't go as anyone planned and we guessed it was a narrow French Victory.  The Brits had one untouched Brigade, one almost wiped out, and another on the French left mostly shaken.

The French left Brigade was pretty beat up but would have probably finished off the Brit right shortly.  The French right owned alot of Brit real estate and I'd guess the combined French could have encircled the remaining Brits and possibly won if we had fought to a silly bloody last stand.

Black Powders' most endearing quality might be the unpredictability compared to I go, you go rules.  Also is the simple order system and movement of units, not requiring any complicated Algebra or compass.

Baconfat 

Playing Favorites

I've been seeing other miniature blogs posting their favorite influences.  I don't know who started it, but the ones I remember were on the http://theangrylurker.blogspot.com and http://bigleesminipaintingblog.blogspot.com/2012/01/blma-playing-favorites.html.

Wargames Period:  I like them all and have minis for ancients, medieval, Napoleonic, fantasy, sci-fi, modern, and WWI.  But my first and favorite would be Medieval.

Though I'd like to some day run an Anglo-Zanzibar game.  The game turns shouldn't take long as the war only took 40 minutes.  Another fun game might be the Moldovan-Transdniestrian War, when after the battles the opposing officers would meet up and drink the night away.  I wish we still fought like that.


Scale:  25-28mm.  Smaller looks like painting would not be fun.  Larger models and you might not be able to convince the wife you're not just playing with toys.


Rules:  Chainmail Rules for Medieval Miniatures, published by Guidon Games and later TSR.  The rules were simple and fun, despite a few gaps and contradictory areas.  There's even a section at the back for fantasy miniatures which was the father of D&D.

Manufacturer:  Perry Brothers.  Great sculpts, cheap plastics, compatible with many other companies.  


Metal, Plastic, or Resin:  Metal.  Resin is poisonous, metal will last longer than me, and I'm scared all my plastic will decompose before I die.


Club:  Puyallup Wargamers.


Opponent:  Whoever is across the table.


Film:  I really like the Bernard Cornwell tv show based on the Sharpe novels.  My favorite movies though are Kafka, Bladerunner, Where Eagles Dare, and of course the best war film ever made "Kelly's Heroes"


Book:  Really it's books by Bernard Cornwell.  As a kid I loved Tolkien or any Tolkien rip off.


Art:  Some of those ancient Rogue Trader artists, Angus McBride, Perry Brothers.


Web:  I check these three almost daily:  TMP, the Lead Adventure Forum and http://wabcorner.blogspot.com/.

- Baconfat

Dragoons, Zombies, WWWI, Musketeers, Robots, Casualty Fail, etc...

 Hi,

First up are some dismounted Perry French Dragoons.  The tops are chopped off mounted models, with dismounted legs.

Here are some old fantasy sci-fi German models.  They were part of the Warzone Target Games lines, which are now owned by Prince August, which I believe used to be Dunken Models.  They are about the cheapest decent sci-fi 28mm models one can buy.  The smaller based models are old RAFM models, but I don't believe they're still available and I don't know the name of their line.

The robot looking dogs are old "clicky" Battletech models called "Fenrir".  I have no idea what a Fenrir is, but I thought my evil space Germans, might want some robot puppies.  Three of them are repainted in original colors, but one was already painted well enough that I only rebased him.

Here are some WFB Empire models I've been working on.  A volley gun called a Hellblaster and a really big mortar.   The following crew, I was planning on using as mercenary Germans for a WAB army, but they are really just WFB fantasy models.  They're fun to paint, and I have about 40 crew I painted 20 years ago (incredibly poorly), that I plan to repaint shortly.

Lastly are a couple failure Warlord Black Powder casualty marker design failures.  The first on left, kept letting the die fall off when the model was moved.  The second, on the right, was a terrible failure as the base was a Herroclix base.  The clicky base was dissasembled and repainted, but was a failure because it was hard to turn, and really looked crappy.

The best Black Powder bases I've seen are from a superior blog:  http://wabcorner.blogspot.com    Poker chip casualties are the best way to go.

I painted an WWI German Anti-tank rifle soldier, from Great War Games.

Here are some pics of Perry Prussian Musketeers still on their sprues, with pics of the box art involved.

The only problem I could find with the models is where the backpack joins the model at the bedroll.  There's a ugly little spot that will need filler.

Here's a Herrorclix model that I partially repainted to be Dr. Who evil robot leader.

Next time, I hope there are some Perry plastic Prussian Jaegers done.  I hope to include some progress of French Napoleonic artillery crew and Perry Prussian Fusiliers.

love, Baconfat

Drumbeat 2012

Drumbeat 2012 was held in Seattle today.  It was a pretty good show, with over 50 people, 12-15 large multiplayer games, a DBA tournament, and a flea market.  If you didn't go you missed out.

I had my camera set on stupid and almost no photos came out.

Here's a fuzzy recollection of a neat The Sword and the Flame game I saw, one could pretend the haze is do to the burning train.

Here's a picture I snapped as I was falling down in a sand storm.  It was of the aftermath a cool game of Force-on-Force.  I was sad I didn't get a chance to play, but my morning game didn't end in time.

Long morning games pics from a truly terrific Black Powder game put on the the owner of the Panzer Depot (www.thepanzerdepot.com).  This pic is of the almost complete initial setup.  Good brave moral kind hearted God-fearing Austrians are on the left, while the dastardly children-eating Bavarian barbarians and cowardly French swine, can be seen if one would wish to see such a thing, on the right.

Here is a picture of my cavalry taunting the Bavarians that were shooting them to pieces.  The cavalry being worn out by delivering such a taunting taunting, spent the rest of the game behind the cover of some Grenzers.  You can see some of my artillery crew lounging by their guns.  They also were not prone to effective violence.

Tons of reserves showed up and almost swung the battle into the favor of the good guys, but the Napoleon's forces of evil won the day.  Here's some well painted Austrians with really neat flags by someone called the "flag guy" or "flag dude".  I think it's a website that makes flags.

The Brigade Officer I was controlling had a staff rating of 7, but sadly my player rating must have been a 3 or 4.  Despite that, I had tons of fun.  I hope to make it to the Panzer Depot for a game someday.


Here's the only comprehensible pic of the second Black Powder game I managed to play.  It was an English Civil War game, using the "Last Arguments of Kings" supplement, put on by the esteemed Drumbeat founder, Dick.

Mistakenly, my fellow team mates allowed me to control the main battle force and army general.  It was an action packed game that ended in disaster.

Let's just say, that if I had been a Parliamentarian General, Charles I would still have his head.

love,
Baconfat

First Warlord Landwehr Unit...kind of....

Hi,

I've been out of town and not posting, but I have managed to finish painting an unit of Prussian Landwehr, for Black Powder.  I thought so, until I noticed I only painted 20, despite the book telling you to use 24 models for a regular size unit.  I will have to paint four more, which really pooped on my sense of accomplishment.

There are only three poses for the plastic Warlord models.  I varied the trouser and hair colors so no two models are the same and it's harder to tell that there are so few poses.

The flag came out awful.  I got lazy and cut the one off the brochure in the box and while I was molding it the ink came off onto my fingers.  I'm not redoing it, as I don't believe the Landwehr were authorized such frivolities and if they don't like it they can make their own.

Here's the troops looking terrible before "dipping" and touch up.

Here's a close up of the racoon eyes I had to fix, when learned that I shouldn't paint eyes while drinking heavily.

Scary Innsmouth Deep Ones wearing Prussian Uniforms.

I've actually been painting tons of other stuff and hope to post a unit of Jaegers soon.

- Baconfat

Black Powder Game Pics

I played in an enjoyable game of Warlord's Black Powder hosted by one of the best painters in the local area.  (his blog http://wabcorner.blogspot.com/).  The scenario was designed around one in the book, Fighting Retreat from El Perez.  

The initial setup had the British/Spanish on the table.  The British mission was to get half of their forces across the bridge in the upper right corner, before a superior French force comes on to the table and defeats them.  

The British decide to split their force and send half immediately across the bridge and leave the other half  behind to sacrifice themselves and give time for the crossers to cross.

The French had a unit of Voltigeurs near the bridge to slow the crossing. 

About a quarter of the French make it on the table and most just stand around ignoring orders.  A unit of Hussars charge some Highlanders to only be defeated, run away, and leave the table.  The French are doing so bad obeying orders, the British begin to advance in order to acquire the gigantic beer that magically appears on the battlefield.

Meanwhile the British jam up at the bridge and pour lots of ineffective fire into the church where the Voltigeurs are now hiding.

The French can't seem to get their horde on the table.  Those on the field, continue to stand around and slowly lose the battle.  Rockets and lucky rifle fire ruin their morale, while the two units of Highlanders start stomping all over the few French obeying orders.

The French finally decide to do something as almost all their forces fail taking orders and run off the table.  The Heavy cavalry just sit there and take casualties.  

Everyone agrees the British won easily, but technically I believe the French did.  The British generals miscounted and ordered one to few units to cross the bridge.

It's the first game of Black Powder I've played and I hope there are many more.  It was very fun, even for the French generals who need to throw their dice away.