"Can you canoe me down the river..."

My late Nan used to sing old Music Hall numbers to me as a child, and they tend to stick in my head, I must be one of the few people these days who can recite the lyrics to "The Boers have got my Daddy" for example. Another had a chorus that went, "Can you canoe me down the river, can you canoe me down the stream" (they don't write tunes like that anymore!), which brings me to the latest Warlord Games product on my painting table. Two Woodland Indian canoes in resin with metal figures, now undercoated and ready to paint. They are lovely little models and I'm sure will add a touch of period colour making their way along my river sections. A also ordered the Huron Chief model you can see, a as with most Warlord offerings a tad expensive at £3.00, but I guess they are not going to be selling huge quantities of these individual personality figures and it's a fine casting.

Generally this week I have been mostly focused on getting the GMB flags fitted to my command bases, a time consuming task but well worth the effort. This required me to add a couple of extra standard bearer figures that still need base texturing as you can see. The French battalions in the FIW I'm told carried two flags as supplied by GMB, anyway they look most impressive and I wasn't going to waste them!

The French artillery have been bought up to two guns with a light howitzer due to follow.

Yesterday, my Commands & Colors printed battle mat arrived and I quickly opened it up in a state of great anticipation. The print quality is excellent, as is the quality of the fabric upon which it is printed. However, the hexes have been printed the wrong way round, they should run flat to flat along the width of the cloth as per the C&C standard board AND the advertised product on the website, but they don't. This means I can't use it and need to return it for a replacement, I was bitterly disappointed but hopefully it wont take long to supply me with the correct mat. My wife really did not help matters when she said "Oh well, you can always have it made into a pair of trousers" .... yes, very funny darling, they really do not grasp the seriousness of such matters.

A shot along the short edge, wrong way round!

Fabric quality is very good and can be ironed etc,

I really like the print quality.

And the 6" hexes work well with my bases.

I liked this so much ........

..that I simply had to order myself one!

I have spent hours pondering how I could create a 13 x 9 standard Commands & Colors hex board with 6" hexes, but the amount of time and effort that would be involved was too much. Marking out boards with hexes is a slow and demanding task, and I wanted some texture that would involve flocks and glue etc. I had been aware of the growth in printed battle mats, and seen this companys products, but I had not seen this specific C&C mat before. I made an inquiry asking if they could print me one with 6" hexes as my roads and rivers are all 6" or 12" sections and my French Indian War collection are on fairly large bases, and received a reply within a couple of hours and YES they could print me a 6" hex version "no trouble". I had no hesitation in placing my order, the sale of my Bolt Action stuff had left me with a bit of spare hobby cash. As it's a 13 x 9 mat of 6" hexes its going to come up fairly large, taking in the dark edges - I really like that touch, it's just like the board - it will around 7' x 5' but that's a managable size downstairs in the dining room.

The mat is printed on cloth and rubber backed, as you can see it's fully textured and has a very realistic look ....... I really can't wait to get my hands on it! The company are Kent based, the cost of my completed 6" version was £118.00 including delivery, and to be honest, for the time and effort it will save me I consider it worth every penny.

With Richard Borgs 'Tricorne' due to ship in March, I can see myself expanding my FIW collection into the AWI again, this time with metal Front Rank figures.

Pics up once I have the mat, I know hexes are not to everyones taste, but C&C continues to call me back as it's the only rule/game system I have ever totally got to grips with and enjoyed.

Link to the company web site HERE, they also do some amazing non gridded battle mats. Below is their 6 x 4 mat for the Battle of Antietam for example.

Royal Artillery and new Hovel's buildings.

Well that's another week flown by, and we edge closer to Spring and an opportunity to get back out into the garden. This mornings dog walk was very wet, but it is at least quite mild for the time of year.

I'm continuing to work with Sharp Practice, trying to commit as much of the basics at least to memory. The beauty of my individual figure basing system is that they can be adapted for different rule sets so I'm keeping this in mind as I persevere with SP. Reading through the 'Lardy' forum has helped to clarify quite a few things.

Flames of War is on hold until next month when the 4th Edition rules are published. As I said previously Battlefront are giving this edition free to those who purchased V3, you just need the old book or proof of purchase to obtain the updated edition, which seems pretty fair to me. I still have stuff in the pipeline, more late war German infantry (Peter Pigs), a box of StuG assault guns to build and paint and a lovely German HQ model in resin.

I focused this week on getting my two gun 6pdr Royal Artillery battery finished off and based. A lucky find was the two part bases made by 'Charlie Foxtrot Models' as seen below, these match perfectly the bases used for all of my infantry and really help to set off the artillery models I find. I painted up the second crew and painted two new guns in a more typical grey with blackened metal work. I do have a light howitzer and crew to complete this unit, but first I'm finishing off a two gun French battery of 12 pdrs. All figures and guns are by Front Rank.

 

The 20 figure French infantry battalion featured last week are all finished, based and varnished, but I will hold off pictures until the GMB flags arrive as they will be the finishing touch! I have some nice 'character' figures from Front Rank that I intend to use for Deployment Markers for SP, the Lardies have a competition running on the forum and there some wonderfully imaginative Deployment Markers vignettes that have inspired me to have a crack at a couple. I also bought some flag pole tops from Front Rank both British and French versions.

Buildings.
As I'm close to testing SP on the table top I wanted a couple of model buildings to represent settlers farmsteads etc. I know that 4Ground make some beautiful MDF models, but they are so big that they throw the vertical scale out so I looked for some simple single level wooden shacks and found just the thing in the good old Hovels catalogue. I'm going to enjoy painting these resin buildings and as you can see they scale down very well. I must mention their customer service, I placed an order online on Thursday morning, received a Paypal invoice that same afternoon and the buildings arrived on Friday, what more need I say!

More French infantry & how to add 'Ivy' to model buildings!

This weeks painting output has been another 12 French infantry figures, the last 8 figures to complete this unit are underway and I hope to finish them on Sunday morning before the family arrive for lunch. I find my Sunday morning paint sessions to be my favourite, nice and quiet, good coffee and I'll normally watch/listen to a few YouTube videos as I paint. I'm currently working through some 'Sharp Practice 2' videos in order to see if I can get any enthusiasm to try these rules. They do seem to give a lively fun game, and they work in numerous periods, so for example yesterday I watched a 15 minute overview of a game set during the American Civil War in which the Union force had to try and capture a coffin full of rifles! I think there was only about 80 figures per side (28mm), but the players were obviously enjoying themselves. The coffin - a lovely little model on a wagon, escorted by Confederate women - was taken on about turn 6 winning the game. I'm in the middle now of watching a longer demo game set during the Indian Mutiny, and I must say I'm finding that period very tempting. I have no doubt that if I could get into Sharp Practice 2 it would open up a lot of possibilities for me. Some of the mechanics of this 'large skirmish' game that I initially found a bit strange and hard to grasp are becoming more familiar to me the more games I watch, and there are a lot of 'add on' options that you build on as you master the basic game system. The opportunity to play ACW games without having to paint hundreds of figures is also tempting! However, some reviews have not been favourable, and there seems to be many omissions  and a fair bit of errata judging by the pages and pages of FAQ for Sharp Practice 2. I'm put off by the large numbers of dice that need to be thrown to work out a basic melee combat, in one example there was a total of 26 dice - red and blue- that needed to be rolled together! Again, I keep being drawn back to those wonderful Commands & Colors dice rolls, they just work so well at resolving both shooting and close combat as well as morale.

This French battalion for FIW will be the last of the infantry for this period, just a couple more guns per side and I can look to whats next. I'm committed to painting 28mm figures going forward, I just get so much pleasure from painting in this scale. I have placed an order with GMB designs for some very fine FIW flags, not cheap but the quality speaks for itself, just look at the Napoleonic flags HERE. Figures are by Front Rank Figurines.

Ivy tutorial.
I have been asked a couple of times to do a demo on how to achieve the 'climbing ivy' effect on model buildings. The key really is to use the excellent leaf flock produced by Noch, as it's very realistic and quite cheap. Decide where you want your ivy to go and simply use neat PVA glue to paint the pattern, start thicker at the bottom and then separate out into 'fingers' as you work up, it looks good on the sides of buildings and also on wall sections etc, especially effective on MDF buildings that can be quite plain and flat looking otherwise.

15mm MDF buildings by 4Ground, before and after.

WW1 dogfight rules - an update!

Thank you to those who responded to my request for information on the early 1970's set of WW1 air combat rules. I'm pretty sure now that this is the set of rules I used (below), but my guess is that as these are a revised second edition published in 1977 it must have been the first edition as published in one of the wargame magazines around 1973 or so.

The Author was Hugh Walters, and the name was immediately familiar to me. I have managed to track down a set of the revised rules here in the UK, the description made me laugh, they really sell them don't they!

Description:
A 1977 revised edition of a set of rules for a Great War Aviation wargame. It is completely incomprehensible to the lay reader and can serve no other purpose in the 21st century than to provide a jolt of nostalgia. A tight & clean copy of a stapled pamphlet in Fine condition. Bookseller Inventory # 003218

I'm going to grab the copy anyway, even at £15 for the slim booklet of less than 20 pages it will be worth it to satisfy my curiosity! I still would like to track down the original magazine version, as that was what I used to make my flight stands back then, so any further help here from those who collect old wargame mags would be much appreciated. 'Battle' magazine has been suggested as a possibility.

I have discovered that there are other WW1 rules out there, some very similar in concept, featuring somewhat over engineered metal stands that only sit a foot or so above the table, or a board printed up to represent a landscape as viewed from above, these generally use 6mm scale models it seems.

Another set that does use the same style flight stands appears to be 'Triplane', these would appear to be a slightly more advanced version of the old stands, much taller and ........ they are on wheels, how cool is that! Found some images of 'Triplane' in action, you have to hand it to them. I'm sure mine were of a simpler design and the poles were not 6 foot as in this game.

They even have wheels!

FIW The British Army and a request for help!

As I managed to complete the 42nd foot this week including command base I thought I would get my entire British force out for a few pics. I say British, but it includes Colonial allies and also Iroquois who have agreed to fight on the side of the British. This was of course a very uneasy alliance, the six tribes that made up the Iroquois 'Six Nations' -  Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, Seneca and Tuscarora - being reluctant to fight against those supporting the French. Montcalm regarded them as savages who had no understanding of the European way of warfare, giving no quarter and demanding the taking of scalps of fallen enemy.

The force currently consists of 3 units of British Regular Foot, a company each of Grenadiers, light infantry, Virginians, Rogers Rangers, Settlers and a 6 Pdr. Royal Artillery piece. The two bands of Iroquois complete the force. I have two more guns and and crews to paint, another 6pdr and a howitzer. General Braddock and Aide comprise two mounted figures on a single base. I will be adding a second standard bearer figure to the 42nd foot and 1st foot, and also plan better quality flags from GMB for all units.

As forces engaged were small by European standards I tend to think in terms of individual companies operating in largely wooded terrain in a slightly looser order than normal. The figures are mostly by Front Rank but with a smattering of Warlord Games metal figures. The blue coated figures represent the Virginia Regiment, commanded by no less than young George Washington who proved to be a remarkably courageous officer under fire, who narrowly escaped death on more than one occasion. He was however refused a commission in the regular British Army, something he never forgot.

I'll feature the French forces in a subsequent post, they are of similar composition being mostly French regulars with Canadian and Indian allies.

WW1 Air war game - can anyone help?
Recently over on Steve the Wargamers blog he recalled a game that pitched German and British WW1 aircraft - Airfix of course - against each other using tall wooden flight stands. This happened to be a game that also caught my imagination around the same time, and I was lucky enough to be able to construct numerous flight stands in my school woodwork classes. This would have been around 1972 to 1974 and we have been trying to recall where the article would have appeared at that time, I have read back through lists of both Airfix Magazine and Military Modelling from that period but can find no reference to it. Don Featherstone and Mike Spick have been mentioned but I can't find anything with diagrams or photos showing how the game was played. I did find the photo below over on TMP forum, it's very similar in construction with it's altitude marks on the upright dowel and wooden collars that slide up and down, although as I recall my stands were only around 4 feet tall. The aircraft itself fitted on a thin extension dowel and the model could be placed in climb or dive mode etc, very much as seen in the photo. The aircraft had varying move distances and turning circles and machine guns of various types, the aim being of course to shoot down the enemy in a dog fight by inflicting damage points as you manoeuvred your aircraft to gain an advantage. This would make a fantastic 'nostalgia' project for me on the blog, and I would love to put it together again, so if anybody can help with references etc I would be most grateful.

Image from TMP forum showing a very similar game in progress, but it seems to be on a larger scale.