1/1200th

The Postman Cometh

Thomo the LostLeave a comment
The package from Irregular that arrived in my mailbox today
The package from Irregular that arrived in my mailbox today

One of the nice things about the mail box in Singapore is that parcels like this fit in them. The postman open a door and he can place mail in all letterboxes even when those letters or parcels are too big to fit through the slot in the letterbox. Good design really.

I received a parcel from Irregular Miniatures today. I ordered some stuff (unlike Navwar, Irregular accepts orders by electronic means). I ordered on 12 March 2013. On 13 March 2013 Ian Kay of Irregular put my parcel in the post and it arrived in my letterbox here in Singapore today, 21 March 2013. I’m impressed and I do love the service from Irregular – they are one of the best.

I’d ordered some 2mm terrain for the Peshawar project (1/1200th scale aeronefs and Land Ironclads – Victorian Science Fiction). I also ordered some of Irregular’s 15mm ancient figures, in part because I have never painted any. I’ve painted their 2mm and 6mm figures (and I’ll be honest here, the 6mm were not my favourites – I was spoiled early on by first being exposed to Heroics and Ros too many years ago to remember).

The contents of the package from Irregular Miniatures
The contents of the package from Irregular Miniatures

The 15mm figures will make up a Khmer DBA army and I will comment on them further later.

The 2mm terrain was some villages and woods and again I’ll comment on those in a later post. The best was the 2mm train-set. I have painted some of that before in  Oz and they look fine. They will fit in well to then Colonial world that is Peshawar, my Victorian Science Fiction universe.

Now I am just waiting for my copy of Shipwreck which should arrive any day now, and my Indian and Chinese navies. Judging from the past performance of Navwar, my letter should arrive in their shop tomorrow or Monday then 7 to 10 days later a parcel should arrive here.

In the meantime, tomorrow night will be set aside for a serious planning session to work out how to handle the 2mm terrain. Until that post appears here, goodnight!

The Decision is In!

Thomo the Lost3 Comments

OK, after much deep consideration I have settled on the next wargaming project. It is:

All of this is in addition to finishing the American Civil War figures and pondering 20mm World War 2 ((I’m pretty sure that will be 20mm)).

The perfect wargamer’s solution.

Decisions Still Pending

Thomo the Lost12 Comments

Yep – wargamer’s paralysis!

With several kilograms of unpainted lead waiting in the man cave, I am still unable to decide what to do next. I looked further at the modern naval and even prepared an order for a Chinese and an Indian modern fleet along with the addition of a carrier or two for each and some aircraft models. I then duly faxed the order to Navwar only to have the fax machine fail to deliver (Navwar has the  most archaic ordering process and to be honest, the best way to order is to send them a letter ((actually, I am about to post that failed fax – I’ll report on the turnaround time in the future here in the Hole)).

Last night I received another batch of 2mm buildings from Brigade Models to use with the aeronefs and land ironclads. I am still trying to think about how to use them effectively. Mind you, I am fairly sure that I want to do something with them, so sure that I ordered some more 2mm terrain from Irregular Miniatures on Tuesday. Ian Kay of Irregular let me know that they were put in the post yesterday so I expect to see them here in Singapore by the middle of next week.

Whilst considering possible projects, I have been thinking about another 15mm DBMM army or two, especially as I really liked the look of the Khurasan Miniatures I have seen. I even considered some of the earlier American types from his ranges. It then occurred to me that as I was sitting in Asia, why not do an Asian army – say Cham; or Thai; or Vietnamese; or Indonesian; or Malay. Interestingly, I noted that Irregular Miniatures made Cham and as I had never tried painting any of his 15mm figures before, I thought I would give that a go. I therefore calculated a DBA Army for the Cham and ordered the figures off Irregular. They sell their figures individually which was nice – nothing left over from that for the spares box.

I even called up Paradigm Inifitum here the other day to see whether they had sold all the Plastic Soldier Company 15mm boxes that were not moving at the warehouse sale – let’s just say we are negotiating. Anthony has 20mm though so I am still really undecided about scale for World War 2.

Now, I reckon I have about a month or two of basing to finish the Union ACW army, so I guess the ideas are going to change about another dozen times before I finish the bases and can move on to the next project. Someone get me some sunglasses so I can no longer see the new bright shiny wargame figures

What’s Next?

Thomo the Lost2 Comments

I hear you say.

After a stressful week or two where I have not painted (probably adding to my stress), I have, however, in the quieter moments been considering the next wargame project ((other than completing the basing on the ACW and John’s French WW1 fleet – yes John, they are about the painting table now)).

I was thinking about a DBMM army. I really liked the pictures of the Khurasan Miniatures I had seen but he’s taken the website off-air for a few weeks. I was thinking Kushan, or Khurasanian or even something South American. I also considered increasing my Koguryo Koreans to DBMM size. The Alain Touller Figurines are really quite nice. Lastly I have been considering something South-East Asian – Javanese and the like.

I was also thinking about my Peru-Bolivia-Chile project in 10mm. That seems quite an attractive proposition at the moment although I would need to write some rules.

What I finally decided on is Aeronefs. I have ‘nefs and Aerostats to paint. I have 2mm terrain pieces to fly over. I have always wanted a train set and I know where I can get a 2mm train. As for terrain, some A4 size MDF sheets from Art Friend here are going to be just the business as a base to build terrain on.

Yep, decided. A continuation of the Peshawar project.

Aeronefs!

A Matter of Scale

Thomo the LostLeave a comment

DSC01470I recently received my Tumbling Dice UK 1.2400th ships for the Pacific War between Chile and Peru/Bolivia. It was only a couple of months ago that I received the Battle of Lissa fleets in 1/1000th (approximately) from Great Endeavours.

I decided a quick photo comparison. A screw corvette seemed about the only thing I had consistent between the Austrian fleet from Lisa and the Peruvian/Chilean vessels. A screw corvette it was.

The difference in size because of scale is seen quite clearly here in this photo. More from when I get some paint on these.

It’s in the post

Thomo the LostLeave a comment

I received a nice little note in the email today:

Dear Thompson Ian,

Brigade Models Limited sent your package using Royal Mail.

Postage details

Sender:
Royal Mail

Service type:
RM Airmail (Small Packets) (3-5 working days)

Postal status
Sent

Tomorrow I am off on a business trip to Jakarta until the end of the week. That means I will have next weekend to paint and base the 83kg pile of metal I have here to ensure that come next Monday when I get to the office and collect the nice new toys, I will have an empty painting queue and thus be able to paint these little beauties straight off!

Right! Like that’s going to happen!

Anyway, new toys on the way (I so love those little parcels from the UK). What’s coming? Some Victorian Science Fiction from Brigade Models in the form of Aeronefs – particularly:

Japanese Carrier Pack
Japanese Fleet Pack #1

vs

US Fleet Pack #1
US Fleet Pack #2

Item numbers are VANFP-602, VANFP-601, VANFP-201 and VANFP-202 for the curious. That gives me a particularly nice late 19th Century Pacific Air feel with a mix of vessels from carriers and battlewagons to patrol type ‘nefs. Pondering colours even as I type.

Too Many Figures

Thomo the Lost13 Comments

If it was September I’d put it down to Spring cleaning. However, it’s January. I’m madly rebasing figures to get ready for Cancon 2011 so I guess what just happened here is a product of a cup of coffee along with my desire to procrastinate on the rebasing.

I thought, “I must have a look and decide whether I will try and paint a new DBA army for Cancon 2011 or shall I just make one from my existing painted figures”.

I remembered that I had some figures in the other room but could not remember exactly which DBA armies they were. I recall writing something up in my blog several years about the armies that I had but I also knew that I had purchased the odd figure or two since then. I decided to have a quick look.

I started looking in the stock figures box where I have unpainted armies neatly stored in plastic, Tupperware like containers. I grabbed one box of DBA figures then opened a second box to see if there was any DBA figures in there. The figures there were for the Hittite Empire and were a DBM army I had forgotten I had to paint. I decided then that I needed a survey of my painting queue.

My goodness, this is what I found (and remember, this is just what I have here, it doesn’t count the figures I have at my Mum’s still to paint as well – those are mostly fantasy and American Civil War).

DBMM Armies (were for DBM originally)

I had collected many DBM armies when I was living in the UK – being paid in pounds made the purchases relatively inexpensive compared to buying them from Oz. Of course, the plan was to settle in to painting them all but so far I’ve not managed it yet. The figures are from Museum Miniatures, Chariot (now Magister Militum) and Essex Miniatures.

  • I/18 Minoan and Early Mycenaean 1600-1250 BCE
  • I/24 Hittite Empire 1380-1180 BCE
  • I/29 Philistine 1166-600 BCE
  • II/19 Seleucid 320-69 BCE
  • II/20 Ptolemaic 320-30 BCE
  • II/32 Later Carthaginian 275-146 BCE
  • II/33 Polybian Roman 275-105 BCE
  • II/36 Graeco-Bactrian 250-130 BCE

Now, all this may appear a little Book 1 and Book 2 heavy, however, painted I do have a few armies from other DBMM Army List books:

  • I/1 Early Sumerian 3000-2334 BCE and circa 2250 BCE
  • II/67 Greuthingi or Early Ostrogothic, Herul, Sciri or Taifali 200-493 CE
  • II/78 Late Imperial Roman 307-425 CE
  • II/83 Later Visigothic 419-720 CE
  • III/4 Early Byzantine 493-578 CE
  • III/28 Carolingian Frankish 639-888 CE

So far I have avoided book IV armies in DBMM.

DBA Armies

Of course, I can make DBA armies from the all of the above as well. I addition, I have the following armies. These are made up of a mixture of figures, from Xyston Miniatures, Essex Miniatures, Donnington Miniatures, Gladiator Miniatures, Falcon Figures and Alain Touiller Figurines. I think that is all the suppliers I am using. All of these are currently unpainted and therefore on the painting queue. The list numbers in brackets refer to the :

  • I/2b Early Egyptian 1639-1543 BCE
  • I/3 Nubian 3000-1480 BCE
  • I/6 Early Bedouin 1499-1000 BCE
  • I/17b Hyksos 1590-1537 BCE
  • I/59 Tullian Roman 578-400 BCE
  • II/5e Aitolian or Akarnanian (from the Later Hoplite Greek 450-275 BCE list)
  • II/45c Spartacus 74-71 BCE
  • II/76 Koguryo Korean 300-668 CE
  • III/10c Rajputs 747-1300 CE
  • III/20a Sui 581-623 CE
  • III/20b T’ang 618-755 CE
  • III/44 Tribal Mongol 840-1218 CE
  • III/62 (III/63) Early Polish
  • IV/01a Komnenan Byzantine 1071-1149 CE
  • IV/15 Qura-Khitan 1124-1211 CE
  • IV/17 Later Crusader 1128-1303 CE
  • IV/18 Lithuanian or Samogitian 1132-1435 CE
  • IV/22 Serbian Empire 1180-1459 CE
  • IV/28 Prussian 1200-1283 CE
  • IV/30 Teutonic Orders 1201-1522 CE (was list 151 in version 1)
  • IV/35 Mongol Conquest 1206-1266 CE
  • IV/43c Later Hungarian 1397-1526 CE
  • IV/56a Order of St John 1291-1522 CE (Cyprus)
  • IV/66 Later Polish 1335-1510 CE
  • IV/75 Timurid 1360-1506 CE
  • One other collection of figures I can’t identify

Other Items on the Queue

Of course, apart from all the stuff mentioned above, there are also many other items left to paint here including:

  • a number of 1/2400th sailing vessels for the Great Lakes war in 1812
  • a German Aeronef fleet in 1/1200th
  • British and German Land Ironclads and infantry in 2mm scale
  • 6mm Cold War Commander SciFi army (ONESS – from Brigade Models)
  • two 1/3000 space fleets for Full Thrust, also from Brigade Models
  • two 6mm Warmaster Ancients armies (Sassanian and Parthian)
  • three 6mm Napoleonic Armies for Polemos Rules (Late Prussian, Confederation of the Rhine and Polish – figures from Heroics and Ros, Adler Miniatures and Baccus)
  • 1/300th WWII Italians (North Africa) again, Heroics and Ros
  • 1/285th WWII Russians (I also need to get more vehicles for this). These are a mix of GHQ, CinC and Adler Miniatures
  • Bucket loads of 1/3000 ships including those needed for the Battle of Matapan and the Philippine Seas (WWII) and Jutland (WWI) along with then Austrian WWI fleet and some miscellaneous WWII British and German vessels
  • and the French WWI Navy in 1/6000th scale for John in the US.

With the exception of the WWII Russians and the 15mm Campaign DBA sets I’ve started building, I think I will call a hiatus on figure purchases this year, at least until I get to reduce the painting queue a little.

So, too many figures to paint? Nah, you can never have enough.

Painting and Wargaming Update

Thomo the Lost2 Comments

There has been a bit of a hiatus with this recently as the real world invaded and took up more time in the other world than I would have liked. As a result, I’ve really not managed any painting or gaming in the last couple of weeks. I have, however, managed to spend the odd minute planning and today (or rather yesterday by the time this posts), I did manage to work on John’s Austrian World War 1 fleet. They are almost complete now, just requiring labelling and varnishing. I’ll have those in the post to the US by the end of the week (and my PayPal account will feel a little happier).

With regards to my ancient purchases recently, today I started to paint a test Warmaster unit for the Parthians – undercoating a unit of archers.

I also managed to finish reading Simon Scarrow’s “The Gladiator”, the last published adventures of Macro and Cato. Of course, this then got me thinking about the Servile Wars and Slave Revolts so some time was spent today planning a Warmaster Ancients Army list for those wars. I will publish that list here when I finish it.

There are currently prepared and undercoated, a bazillion Prussians also requiring paint, as is the remaining World War 2 Italians. There are also two fleets of Aeronefs, three armies of Land Ironclads as well as a harbour full of 1/2400th ships to paint.

The good news, however, is that the paint was flowing today and will continue to flow this week. Finish the ships, finish four battalions of Prussian Landwehr, one unit of Parthian skirmishers and then finish the World War 2 Italians – well, that’s a plan!

Danish Napoleonic Vessels – Update

Thomo the LostLeave a comment

I had painted the first Napoleonic Danish ship in 1/2400th scale. I covered the painting of these in two previous posts here, Danish Napoleonic Ships – the First 74 – part 1 and Danish Napoleonic Ships – the First 74 – part 2. These described the assembly and painting of a single vessel – my prototype.

Previous to the painting though, I started to lay out my thoughts in Danish Napoleonic Naval Questions. I had decided on the Danes as they were a little different to the run of the mill British/French/Spaniards and besides, I had just finished phase one of my modern NATO Danes.

In that last mentioned blog post I did note

If anyone has the answers to these burning questions:

  1. Statistics to use for Danish vessels in the Trafalgar Naval Wargame Rules
  2. Colours of the strakes especially and vessels generally for vessels in the Danish fleet – were they uniform or varied as well
  3. Names and rate of the vessels that made up the Danish fleet of the time

Please feel free to comment here with answers. As and when I find answers to these questions I will post them here to the Hole as well.

Well, I didn’t get any answers but I have been searching myself for the information.

On a point by point basis,

  1. I don’t have statistics for the Danish vessels in the Trafalgar Naval Wargames Rules format yet … still. However, this may be academic as I purchased a copy of Langton Miniatures fast play naval rules, Signal Close Action – Fast Play. I also purchased a copy of the regular Signal Close Action Rules as well.
  2. With regards to the colours of the strakes and such, I searched the Internet and even sent emails to a couple of Danish Naval Museums (the Aalborg Søfarts- og Marinemuseum in particular) but could not find anything out. In the end, I wrote to Rod Langton of Langton Miniatures and asked him. Langton has some information on his website and its been there since 2001 celebrating the 200th anniversary of the Battle of Copenhagen. This information was not easy for me to find on the site so Rod patiently explained where the link was. The link is under Napoleonic Ships, look for the Danish hulls. However, Rod kindly gave me the following information:
    • The Orlogsmuseet (Royal Danish Maritime Museum) noted that the Nelson colour schemes were not adopted until after the war, in part due to the expense of the paint.
    • Danish vessels were therefore left in unpainted wood. Some areas were painted such as the gunports, parts of the superstructure (bulwarks?) and the decoration
    • The colours most often used for decoration were green, blue and red. Langton suggests using a buff or basic wood colour for the sides of vessels. I am taking this to assume that the cross spars were also plain wood.
  3. The names of the vessels and their rate have been fairly easy to determine. There is a good list of the vessels in involved in the Wikipedia article on the Battle of Copenhagen. Worthy of a view as well is the Danish Military History website.

image OK, so, where does that leave me now. I could argue that I have a perfectly good English 64 painted up (although I will need to change the ensign flying from the mizzen). In any case, I shall now be able to ensure that future vessels as they are painted are closer to the way they appear to have been historically. Naturally, I will photograph them and place them here in the Hole in the future.

I would also like to thank Rod Langton for sharing the information. Langton makes absolutely the best, bar none, 1/1200th scale sailing vessels. Have a look at some of the eye candy at Langton Miniatures. I know I will be using Langton’s 1/1200 Mediterranean galleys when I get around to building my Renaissance naval collection.

1/1200th Scale Triremes

Thomo the LostLeave a comment

triremes I mentioned in Triremes (or Trieres) that I had started painting some 1/1200th scale ships. I have and I’ve done the first four – all Triremes. I finally decided to paint them without masts and sales and I have not based them yet as I am still trying to decide between using Salamis ad Actium or Naumachia for the rules for playing with these vessels. The paint job is a fairly basic wargamers style. The next galleys on the line for painting are Quadriremes.