Victory without Qauter

The guys at the Goulburn Valiant Stormer’s are throwing around some ideas for the big project next year, a few of us think be 30 years war could be a possible front runner, as the warlord plastics lend themselves nicely to the period (still some discussion and dissention in the ranks as to basing conventions though), so with that thought a number of us have started to play test some rule sets. On Sunday Dave and I (we both normally play Warhammer English Civil War) had a game using the Free “Victory without Quarter” rules.

Using my ECW figs we each had a C in C, one cavalry general , two pike and shot blocks, one trotter and one galloper horse unit, one gun and a clubman for the parliament and highlanders for the Irish Royalists.

The game was played over 4 hours, I really liked the rules as I found they could be a little unpredictable and I liked the different factors for troop types and the card idea, although I think that VWQ will be a little slow for those players wanting to get two games in on a club day. VWQ still gave a satisfactory result and possibly would speed up after a few games; however I don’t think they would handle much more troop wise, two more pike blocks possibly and another regiment of horse each would slow it down even more. My ECW army is a mix of different figures, the Irish Montrose army are mostly Eureka, the pike and shot, horse, a mix of Old Glory, Perry and Eureka Highlanders and a Foundry gun and crew, On the parliment side, all Foundry and Perry except for the clubmen who are Warlord metals.

As the boys want to play a more grand tactical game I think VWQ will not be suitable for what we have in mind, although I would happily use VWQ for ECW. The next rule set we will play test is the Baroque set from the guys who wrote impetus.


Cheers
Matt

Germans in the trees

A beautiful winter’s day today in the sunny city of Goulburn, about 13 degrees with no wind, I ventured out of the house and decided to do a re-org of the terrain boxes, after sorting out the buildings and the tree boxes out, I decided to refurbish some of the damaged trees with flock, creating six new poplars and a re-flocking about 15 others, I still need to refurbish about fifty trees, but I need some more rubberised horse hair, so a visit to the local upholstery shops this week is on the cards. I also marked out and cut the base for my manor house and some roman roads which I have been meaning to do, it should be all painted and completed by tomorrow night.








On the painting front I have finished my 28mm First Corps German tribal cavalry, and my last unit of 28mm Fenlon ACW figs Coppen’s Zouaves need flocking. I have also almost finished off my Warlord ECW clubmen, another unit of Foundry pike and shot, some Perry dismounted dragoons and warlord guns and crew, and they should all be on the table this weekend for our ECW club game.








My manor house has been cut out and will be glued down tomorrow, once I have painted the base coat on the base tonight. I have decided to do a fictional house but I have based it on an old Ian Weekly model, but not as big!
Looking forward to the clubs ECW bash this weekend, hopefully I will get some good pictures so I can do an AAR for you all.

Cheers
Matt

English Civil War revisited

Funny how I tend to have little things like TV shows spark my interest in periods again, I was watching "Supersizers" elizabethan food on SBS last night and they had a feast in a magnificent manor house. After the show I thought I would do some cruising on the net and I started looking at ECW sieges of stately homes, well that started it, I vsited TMP and asked if anybody had some ground and floor plans of maor houses and today instead of painting I was planning a ECW manor house with a church, a wall or ditch and perhaps a ravelin for a gun emplacement. I decided to have a look through all of my magazines and books today and managed to find several articles and a whole book I forgot I had on ECW archaeology, with articles on ECW seiges and buildings and lots of suitable structures feeding the fire, many were making there way into my sketch book for planning a suitable building(s). So this weekend I should have a start on some buildings for our club game later this month on the 15th. I also dug out my ECW figs and decided to move some into the production line this week, undercoating occured this afternoon of 20 odd Warlord Games clubmen and 10 more Foundry dragoons both mounted and dismounted. I also discovered that I had not put all of my flags on my built units last year along with one unit of pikes are incomplete, so some pikes to be made and some printing to be done this weekend as my daughter makes my flags for me with her wizz bang graphics program. I will post my sketches tommorrow when my vision is complete! cheers (excited) Matt

ACW ironclads

Well such a beutiful day on Sunday I decided to take some photos after I finished preparing the garden beds for spring planting. I managed to get my ACW 1/1200th Langton ACW ships out and take a few photos so I thought I would share them. A bought a few of these for a river fight game for the ACW weekend, but they never managed to make it onto the table. I enjoyed painting these and after undercoating I think I painted all four in about two hours, a basic colour then a wash in devlan mud, and I am very pleased how they came out, I am thinking about returning and adding stays to the funnels with brush bristles and perhaps flags.

here they are
CSS Albermarle



Uss Cairo


USS Benton


USS Virginia



cheers
Matt