One of my favourite YouTube channels is the Little Wars TV channel. I come home from work, late at night, set the TV to YouTube and tune in to see what is up with the guys this week. The guys re-fight battles, review rules and generally behave and talk like wargamers behave and talk. This week I enjoyed the refight of that well-known battle of Hannibal’s – Trebbia. The Romans were defeated historically in this, Hannibal’s first battle on Italian soil and most ancient wargamers know the Battle of Trebbia so it is hard to get the Romans to walk into the trap that is set there. The Little Wars guys do it well. It is also great looking at the way they have based and used 6mm figures for the game – with all figures based in 40mm square bases. They do give the impression of two armies facing off against each other.
Last weekend I had the time to indulge myself in my fantasy – the painting queue for 2017. I had originally thought it was not that extensive as I had not purchased all that much in the way of new lead in 2016 and besides, I did not have too much left over for painting from 2014 and 2015.
The painting queue follows in not particular order!
World War II Aerial Combat. The aircraft mix in these packets are from Raiden Miniatures and are in 1/285th scale. They are:
Russian
6 x Tupolev SB-3
6 x I-16 ‘Rata’
Finnish
4 x Fiat G.50
4 x Fokker D.XXI
4 x Brewster Buffalo
Russian/Finnish WW2 Aircraft
The rules are Raiden Miniatures Fast Play Aerial Combat Rules. I have version 1.1.
Any of the World War II aerial combat rules could be used. The beauty with the Winter War is that a mix of aircraft seldom seen on the wargames table is possible with the Finns using equipment from Italy, the Netherlands and the USA, among others.
Raiden also make a US WW2 aircraft carrier flight deck, the USS Enterprise, for flight and combat operations. It is a kit in 51 parts and I am not sure if it is made or not currently. See http://www.raidenminiatures.co.uk/4.html for details.
Thunderbolt and Lightning Air Combat Rules
Starmada vessels from Brigade Models. In this case, the PacFed fleet. I have a PacFed Future War Commander Army tucked away up here and this is the off-planet version of those. The PacFed are loosely based around a “Pacific Federation” and contain a lot of vessels with Australian type names.
PacFed Starship Fleet
As an opponent to the PacFed I looked to ONESS – loosely based around German forces. Somewhere at mum’s I have the ground fleet to complement this. This also is from Brigade Models.
The ONESS Starmada Fleet
Baccus 6mm figures make up the rest of my Singapore DBA Project. Armies still to be painted are:
II/9a Syracusan in Sicily 410-210BC
II/8 Campanian, Apulian, Lucanian and Bruttian 420-203BC
11/39a Iberian 240-20BC
II/11 Gallic 400-50BC
II/32a Later Carthaginian 275-202BC
The 6mm Ancients
Speaking of Brigade Models, I acquired a US Aeronef fleet. This was for part of the Peshawar project but with the purchase of Imperial Skies, the project has expanded somewhat (see below for how much). Of course what is illustrated and discussed here does not mention the British, French and Prussian Aeronefs that are already in the collection.
These then are the US Aeronef fleet. Quite a tidy force. I have been trying to think of an alternative paint scheme other that the Great White Fleet colours of, well, white!
US Aeronefs
The perfect opponent for the Americans above – the forces of the Rising Sun. Both Fleets (the US and Japanese) are substantial and would be the two most powerful fleets in the collection.
As with the Americans I am trying to think of a colour scheme that is not the Japanese naval vessels at Tsushima!
Japanese Aeronefs
I wanted a bit of fun so I added a Scandinavian Union fleet. Dumpy vessels certainly but they have a certain attraction as well. These are also from Brigade Models and I am pondering colour schemes for them.
These were never envisaged for the Peshawar Project however they will make a good opponent for the BENELUX forces described below.
Scandinavian Union
For a little South American Aeronef action I picked up some Argentinians. These look sufficiently different to other ‘nefs to keep the interest up.
Rather than a standard grey or Victorian Livery for these I have been toying with the idea of basing a paint scheme around light blue and white – same colour as the shirts of the Pumas. Again, Brigade Models.
Argentinian Aeronefs
And if the Argentinians are light blue and white then the Brazilians should be both hairless and based around green and gold colours. I have an idea for that with an antique style of gold colouring.
Brazilian Aeronefs
An opponent for the Scandinavian Union, and possibly the Italians. The Benelux Aeronef fleet consists of vessels from Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg.
Benelux Aeronefs
The above-mentioned Italian Aeronefs.
Italian Aeronefs
The last of the Aeronefs in this years paint queue, the Russians. They are also one of the protagonists in the Peshawar campaign. For colours on these I am thinking, maybe, something like Port Arthur 1905.
Russian Aeronefs
A couple of years ago I picked up two armies for the Great Pacific War. Here are the Chilean/Peruvian Army and the Bolivian forces. I am planning on using these with the 1859, 1866 or 1870 rules. A project that has been on the back-burner for three years now.
10mm Chilean/Peruvian and Bolivian forces
I have had an interest in both the English Civil War and the 30 Years War for many years and picking up Baccus 6mm‘s English Civil War boxed set seemed like a good way of getting into it. The set gives me two armies, a couple of houses, Polemos rules and 60mm bases.
I am planning on using these with the Baroque Rules from Dadi and Piombo as well.
ECW – Polemos and Baroque
Navwar 1/3000 scale World War I Austrian ships – battleships to destroyers/torpedo boats. I have their main opponent, the Italian fleet, painted and here already. It must be said that during the war, both the Italian Royal Navy and the Austro-Hungarian Navy kept their most modern capital ships inside their bases (Pola and Kotor for the Austrian Fleet, Brindisi and Taranto for the Italian fleet), leaving mostly submarines, destroyers, torpedo boats and scout cruisers to do any fighting.
World War 1 Austrian Fleet
Heroics and Ros figures have been used for my Cold War Poles – an opponent for my Cold War Danes.
Cold War Commander Poles
In addition to all that, there are a few other items on the list including:
Anthony’s 20mm World War II British
Finish off the 1/285 scale World War II Japanese
1/285 scale World War II Hungarians
1/300 scale Cold War Commander Danes to be completed
1/1200 scale Coastal Warfare Ships
The 1/3000 scale Jutland Fleets
Houston Ships Italians and Austrians from the Battle of Lissa
Dystopian Wars fleets, and
Peshawar, 2mm ground forces
So – a painting queue that for 2017 should keep me busy well into 2020!
23 April 2017 – Update: Nothing. Nada. Not done a thing! Maybe I need to motivate myself and buy some more figures.
So I finally collected everything. I have the baseboard (thank you Doug for the idea), paint, materials for terrain, figures to make 7 DBA armies from around the time and area of the Punic Wars as well as pre-cut bases to base on it all.
A can of Tiger beer and a planning session gave me the plan. The project will follow the following order (well, that is the plan at the moment at least).
Paint the base board. The reason for starting with this is that I feel it will be a basically straightforward job, fairly quick and give me something complete to look at to encourage me for the other parts of the project (especially as there is another wargaming project at the back of my brain at the moment as well).
Cut, assemble and make the terrain pieces. again, something reasonably quick and there are a couple of techniques I want to play around with.
Paint and base the army with the least number of figures to deal with. This will be the Numidians. Whilst they are not part of the base set, there are some Numidians present in some of the armies anyway so the extra bases will be painted at the same time. They will give me a head start to some of the forces as well as giving me something pretty to look at.
Start on the main 6 armies. When it gets closer to this time I will decide on the order to take.
OK – ready to start. As I mentioned earlier I’ll be blogging the progress as this will help force me to keep to the plan.
To the left is a close up of some of the figures. The wooden bases you can see are 40mm x 30mm in size and the figures are just over 6mm small.
I mentioned that I was going to build this set using 6mm figures from Baccus 6mm. There are seven armies being prepared over time but I thought, as it was payday last week, to buy all the figures at one time.
Two orders were therefore sent to the nice Mr Berry of Baccus (his shopping cart got overloaded halfway through the order ) and if previous deliveries are anything to go buy, a nice parcel should arrive at the office next week.
The order was for the following:
Quantity
ID
Name
1
AGR8
Unarmoured Hoplites
1
AGR1
Hoplites
1
AGR6
Greek Cavalry
1
AGR11
Greek Bolt Throwers
1
AGR4
Psiloi – Bow
1
AGR3
Psiloi – Javelins
1
AMA9
Theurophoros Infantry
1
AMA15
Tarantine Cavalry
2
AGD1
Greek Decals
2
AIT1
Samnite Infantry
1
ARR1
Hastatii w pilum
1
ARR2
Triarii
1
ARR3
Velites
1
ARR5
Roman Cavalry
1
ACA3
Libyan Cavalry
1
ACA5
Veteran Infantry
3
ACA4
Elephants
2
AIR6
Roman Generals
1
ASP5
Spanish Heavy Cavalry
1
ASP4
Spanish Light Cavalry
1
ASP2
Spanish Caetratii
1
ASP1
Spanish Scutarii
1
ASP3
Balearic Slingers
1
ACE1
Celtic Infantry, stood
1
ACE2
Celtic Heavy Cavalry
1
ACE3
Celtic Javelinmen
1
ACE4
Celtic Slingers
2
ACE5
Celtic Chariots
1
ACE6
Celtic Leaders
1
ACE7
Celtic Infantry, charging
2
AMO1
Moorish Infantry
2
AMO3
Moorish Cavalry
This will be enough figures to make the seven armies with leftovers.
Later I will break up the armies into their contents. In the meantime, the next step is to an email an order to East Riding Miniatures for bases for the figures. I will be using the standard DBA 40mm wide bases for this.
Yesterday I detailed the terrain to be purchased for the project. I mentioned earlier as well that once I started looking at possible armies, one of the campaign sets popped up as an obvious choice. The 2nd Punic War campaign has a good group of armies all of which are fairly competitive and that together will make some interesting combinations for big battle games.
Of course, given the usual wargamer’s megalomania, I could not just leave it at that six but decided to add a seventh, just for interest sake. All these armies will be made with Baccus 6mm figures and based on 15mm sized bases.
The armies:
List Number
Army
II/9
Syracusan
II/32
Later Carthaginian
II/33
Polybian Roman
II/39a
Spain
The Iberian option was selected rather than the Celtiberian or Lusitanian options as the Iberians fought with both the Carthaginians and the Romans
II/11
Gauls
II/8a
Italy
II/40
Numidian
This is the extra one added to the set – purely because it just makes sense for some variety. Interestingly I also have a Numidian army to paint for Polemos Ancient
OK, these then are the armies to be purchased and painted.
) and if previous deliveries are anything to go buy, a nice parcel should arrive at the office next week.