Cancon 2012

Another CANCON come and gone,

On Friday I was running late to set up the trade stand arrived about 9:30, I had the tables and the stock so it was looking very bare!!! This year Matt C  came down from Sunny Queensland and ran the Wartime stand allowing us both to mingle and catch up with a lot of mates and have a look around the trade stalls ourselves along with manning the stall.

A large number of people traveled from all over OZ, New Zealand and the south Pacific to Australia's largest wargames convention. The traders stalls all seemed to be busy and were busting at the seams with stock. I think the convention was a little down on numbers this year due to Australia day not being on the Thursday, not the Friday or Monday.

 A few of the club members were involved with running some fine participation games,

 Gregory ran out his tried and trusted Alamo,

Dave W put on two days of 15mm Might and Reason WAS games

and Mark and John ran the 1812 game

 and Craig ran a Viking Saga  game.

Matt C and I had decided to run a Force on Force participation game with 20mm Wartime miniatures on the Sunday, I built the tables and painted the minis and ran the game while Matt manned the stall. The rest of the pics are on my modern blog.

The Melbourne boys also ran out two huge ECW games using a Black Powder variation apparently due for release soon.

and a very fine Borodino game in 6mm

Next Year the club members are thinking about running a Russian themed participation games, one period of Russian front gaming for each of the three days, planning are in the early stages, so more discussion to be done..........To sum up Cancon was a success as usual, I still would like to see some changes regarding layout of the trade stalls and the quality of the participation games, moving the trade and participation games into the middle hall (air conditioned!) move the card gamer's upstairs and that way more room around each of the competition tables,  the Vice president of the CGS committee  knows my thoughts so I will leave it there.......and see you all next year.

cheers

Matt

More WOTR

Well I have been painting some Crusader and Perry miniatures for Andrew for his FOG/WAB WOTR army and these guys came off the table just after Christmas. I managed to take a selection of pictures of his last four units before I drop them off. I have painted about 120 figures for him in the last two months so I am excited to finish the infantry and get on painting some of my own stuff, although I hear he has some cavalry waiting for me to pick up at Cancon next weekend.

I was very surprised to see that the Crusader WOTR range fit Perry plastics perfectly and are a pleasure to paint, Andrew also used his spare polearms from the perry plastic sets to add to the crusader figures along with some North Star pikes so he has two units of pike and four polearmed units, I am a little disappointed in the Men at Arms figures but added into a mixed plastic and metal Perry unit it will have some more variation.

My favourite sculpts are the unarmoured Pike/polearmed miniatures, as wargamers playing comps etc we really don't represent the majority of troops on the medieval battlefield, the crap armed and unarmoured peasants, something I will add to my next unit for my WOTR army.

cheers

Matt

Leutnant Hans Kirschstein Jasta 6

off the production line this week
Leutnant Hans Kirschstein in his dazzle camo, a lovely Roden DR1 in 1/72nd scale. Hand painted stripes as I couldn't find my masking tape!

cheers

matt

Merry Christmas to all and a Happy New year

Hope you all have a very Merry Christmas to all of my mates and fellow aussie and international  gamers, see you all in the New year! 


Hope you all have your miniature goals fixed for the new year and St Nicolas is good to you!

cheers
matt

Jasta 6 WIP

So I have decided to get my final build in for the year by adding another Jasta to my growing 1/72nd scale WW1 collection. I have decided to do Royal Prussian Jagdstaffel 6 (who flew with Richthofen jasta 11 in Jagdgeschwader 1). The squadron would remain part of the Flying Circus for the rest of the war. In June, July, and August of 1917, the Jasta lost a commanding officer per month to enemy action.  They had been credited with 196 confirmed aerial victories, at the cost of ten pilots KIA, 9 WIA, two killed in flying accidents, four Injured in flying accidents, and two pilots taken POW.

 Commanding Officers

Josef Wulff: 28 August 1916 - 1 May 1917

Leutnant Fritz Otto Bernert: 1 May 1917 - 9 June 1917

Oberleutnant Eduard Ritter von Dostler: 24 June 1917 - KIA 21 August 1917

Leutnant de Reserves Hans Ritter von Adam: 22 August 1917 - KIA 15 November 1917

Oberleutnant Wilhelm Reinhard: 16 November 1917 - 22 April 1918

Leutnant de Reserves Johannes Janzen: 28 April 1918 - POW 9 June 1918

Leutnant de Reserves Hans Kirschstein: 10 June 1918 - KIFA 16 July 1918

Leutnant de Reserves Paul Wenzel (Acting): 19 July 1918 - WIA 11 August 1918

Leutnant de Reserves Richard Wenzl (Acting): 11 August 1918 - 1 September 1918

Leutnant de Reserves Ulrich Neckel: 1 September - 11 November 1918

I will build one Fokker DR1, one DVII and one DVIII for the jasta at this stage, I will be following the images below as a guide!

Leutnant Hans Kirschstein

Leutnant Richard Wenzl

Leutnant Fritz Schliewen

cheers

matt

French Gendarmes d'ordonnance

out of the oven on the weekend some of Eureka's fine Gendarmes, these figures are superb and have a large number of variations due to the plug in weapon arm and plumes a real plus for the peons who like variation in their armies. I tried to tie the unit together primarily using red as the main colour so they look like a unit. Hopefully Joe will use them well in his French Army! 

cheers

matt

Pontic Thorakitai (imitation legionary's)

After Mithridates VI armies battlefield failure against the Romans in the second Mithridatic War, it prompted a radical change in his army. He almost replaced all of his phalangite units with thorakitai. Roman authors thought he was copying the Roman method (as he had a number of Roman advisors), but thorakitai had existed in eastern armies since the 3rd century BC, normally guarding the flanks of the phalangites or operating as heavy skirmishers, fighting with  a large shield, short sword, thrusting spear and javelin. Mithridates' primary reforms increased their numbers and the quality of training. The Pontic thorakitai, while giving a good account in battle, ultimately they were defeated by the legionary's led by Lucullus in the third and final war.


This unit will join my Pontic army and also be suitable for my other earlier Successor Army (Antiochus III the Great) as the thorakitai guard perhaps. As with the rest of my Pontic army I have continued with the Greek mythology for the unit, so this unit has a image of a Calydonian Boar on its shields (VVV decals) and on the banner (hand painted). The figures are from Gripping Beast veteran Carthaginians range, although I have added some roman pilums into the throwing hands (I may possibly go back and replace with just javelins). 

cheers

matt