Excited

Just as I thought I was almost over my 'oooh shiny!' addiction. This looks like the most important wargaming item in my 2018 calendar! More here.

And while I'm at it, I figured I might as well share another couple of recent things that have been completed since getting over my illness.

First of all - I completed my collection of Practical Wargamer magazine. The last four missing issues from my collection were filled in by Caliver Books. I loved this magazine when it was going, and I still love it today. An endless source of inspiration.

I was going to lay them all out, but they wouldn't fit on the table, so here is the stack.

And from the side, which gives a better idea of how many there are.

A few extra units for the Great Paraguayan War have fresh new coats of paint:

Brazilian regular 2nd infantry unit

Brazilian Voluntarios.

Argentine National Guard battalion.

These guys are all from the Freikorps 15mm American Civil War range. The Confederates in gum blankets make great volunteers in ponchos for the Brazilians.

As I am about to receive my 15mm Seven Year War Russian army from Old Glory 15s, I thought I would buy a few bits and pieces to finish them off. Now I needed some Cossacks, Horse Grenadiers and generals, and only 1 gun each for the Prussians and Austrians, but by the time you factor in postage and the extras that I didn't really need from the US (no point buying a pack of 6 guns when you only need 1), I couldn't really go with OG15s again. So I thought I would try some Eureka minis. These duly arrived nad they are beautiful sculpts, but...

My Old Glory general next to a Eureka general.

Old Glory dragoons next to a Eureka Horse Grenadier

And another shot from the front.

 The Eureka horses are HUGE! Now I could justify that the Horse Grenadiers are heavy cavalry mounted on big horses, but I still think that it would bother me. And the argument doesn't work for the Cossacks riding ponies that tower over the other cavalry. The generals won't necessarily be on the table right next to other horses, but I just can't bring myself to have them on the table with the difference in size. It offends my OCD.

Old Glory artillery on left side, Eureka (not finished yet) on right.

On the other hand the foot figures are a perfect match, the Eureka figures being maybe a little thinner.
So I've now ordered the same mounted figures from Irregular Miniatures - generals, horse grenadiers and cossacks. They may be a tad smaller than the OG15s, but if their 7 Years War figures are the same size as their Great Northern War figures that I have, they should actually fit together very well. I've also ordered limbers for the Russians from Irregular as well, and was always going to, so I should have just done this in the first place.
Let me know if you'd like the Eureka mounted figures - free to a good home.

Nate

New Rules Pages

I've just created new pages on the blog that contain various rules variants. The first five of them are adaptations of One Hour Wargames for the Great Northern War, Crimean War, War of the Triple Alliance, Franco-Prussian War and Napoleonic Wars. All of them contain my simple command variation and base removal. There are little bits inserted here and there designed to reflect the different aspects of warfare in the various conflicts, hopefully without unbalancing the system too far.

A French Revolutionary game - all units based as in the rules.

Action in the Crimea

The sides line up in Livonia - GNW action from last year

Prepared for battle - the FPW is a project in progress

As is the War of the triple Alliance

The other ruleset is Eagle Rampant for the Gallic Wars. This was the final variant of Lion Rampant I settled on for Caesar in Gaul, before writing a variant of the Punic Wars for Wargames, Soldiers and Strategy.

One of the things about any rules that I write or adapt is that they invariably reflect the figures collection that I have to hand. They don't aim to encompass all possibilities for any period - as they are for my amusement, they really don't need to. My brief for games that I like to play is pretty straight forward. They can't be too complicated - I want to play the game not the rules. I don't want them to drag on - 1 to 2 hours is my favoured resolution time. They have to give a challenging game on a smallish scale - my pocket projects are all about a dozen units or less per side. One Hour Wargames fits the bill for all three criteria, although there are aspects that I have to add in - command and base removal for instance - because they fit with my 'idea' of a wargame.

When I have accumulated the figures and playtested the rules, I'll put the FoW variant for the Indo-Pakistani War up here. I can't imagine Battlefront will be too interested in such an obscure period despite having all of the vehicles and figures necessary.

All of the rules are intended to be 'live'. I will put any amendments I make as a I play into them so that they are up to date with what I am playing. Please feel free to use them, link to them and add and delete things as you see fit. If they are your cup of tea, I hope you enjoy them. If not, maybe you'll get some ideas from them.

Nate

January painting

Before the break away I had managed to pretty much clear the painting tray - they just needed a bit of work on the bases, which I did today:

The first of Craig's Fallshirmjager were finished off.

The anti-tank chaps.

A machine gun section.

The boss and a chap with an automatic falshirmgewehr

The first Paraguayan militia battalion

The second battalion. 

The painting tray now has another 16 Fallshirmjager and one test figure for the 1588 project.

One of the wonderful things about being away is that when you return a bunch of goodies are waiting for you. I received three Ospreys - The Irish Rebellion, Centurion vs Patton and the En Garde rules - some Jordanian anti-tank nests, infantry and jeeps with recoiless rifles to use for my Pakistanis (yes, that project is on again); and the Foundry swashbucklers to round out my forces for 1588.

I've decided to go back to the India-Pakistan project. The Indians will be built up so that they have enough options that they can be used for Burma 1945 as well. I also found some cheap Battlefront M48s and Geoff has some Centurions that he has offered me, so the whole thing is coming together very quickly.

Nate

Viva el Paraguay!

As the American Civil War rolled towards its conclusion at Appomattox in early 1865 another war had broken out far to the south. The second bloodiest conflict in the history of the Americas involved Paraguay taking on the Empire of Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay. This slightly lopsided affair was the brain-child of Paraguayan President Francisco Solano Lopez and would see the population of his country reduced from somewhere around half a million people to 160,000. Losing 60-70% of your population is a pretty impressive record of incompetence even by 20th Century dictator standards.
The conflict has always intrigued me, and earlier this year I bought some figures from Freikorps to game the period. Her is the first painted unit, some Paraguayan militia:

Tough Guarani peasants who don't need trousers!

The Paraguayans quickly ran out of proper uniforms - loincloths and chiripa kilts replacing trousers in many cases.

A close up of some of the spear armed soldiers making up numbers.

The Paraguayan troops were incredibly brave, but often ill-equipped. They relied on their cavalry to break the enemy with a charge at the beginning of the battle, something that it continually failed to do. The infantry fought resolutely and suffered horrendously. Their victories tended to come from prepared positions, echoing the way that warfare was evolving around the world.

Figures are Freikorps 15s from QRF.

Nate

Armies of the War of the Triple Alliance 1864-70

The mailman had a very pleasant surprise for me today. The newly released Osprey Men at Arms on the Great Paraguayan War. If you have managed to keep up with my anarchic list of projects in the last month you may have spotted that this is well-advanced on my to do list. I have accumulated a good 90% of the figures that I need, and hope to have acquired the rest in the next couple of months.

The appeal of this conflict is hard to explain. It starts while the North American Civil War is raging, but that conflict leaves me a bit cold for some reason I can't explain. It reaches its height in 1866, the year of Koniggratz - a campaign I have much more interest in but which is a huge conflict of massed armies. It sputters out with the death of the dictator Solano in 1870 - the year that the Franco-Prussian War breaks out - another of the conflicts that I find of particular interest. Yet this little known dust up in South America is the one that has captured my imagination. Why?

I studied a paper in Latin American history at University, and I think it was here that I first read a snippet about this war. The 70% death rate amongst the Paraguayan population was probably the first thing that caught my attention. Following on from that Military History Magazine had an article on the Battle of Tuyuti. For some reason I was hooked. Add into the mix the gauchos from the Empire of Brazil (yes, it used to be ruled by an Emperor), the 'mad' dictator of Paraguay, Solano Lopez, and the stoic Paraguayan infantryman in his kilt, and the mix is there for an enthralling period in history.

There isn't a huge amount of information on this war out there in English. I have Terry Hooker's book produced by Foundry which is very good, but I was really looking forward to it getting the Osprey treatment. I'm pleased to say that I'm not disappointed.

Gabriele Esposito has written an excellent introduction to the war. It is in the style of my favourite MAA books, where the war as a whole is given coverage and then details of the armies are gone into. There is an introdution, an outline of the road to war and then a chronology of the war. A little more depth is given for the campaigns of the war year by year with some good maps and an order of battle for First Tuyuti. This is followed by information on the organisation of the Paraguayan, Brazilian, Argentinian and Uruguayan armies. As an introduction to the war it does its job well, however details of uniforms are left to the plate commentaries and is quite thin. I wish that the book had been an Elite rather than a Men at Arms, as I think that the additional space could easily have been filled up with additional information on uniforms in particular. Having said that, there are black and white line drawings throughout the book with descriptions of uniform colours that supplement the plates.

On the subject of the plates I have to say that I am really impressed. I'm one of those that hasn't always found Giuseppe Rava's art easy on the eye, particularly in regards to ancient subjects. I think he has excelled himself in this book, the plates are absolutely stunning.

On balance I'd say that this book is a must if you have even a passing interest in the era or you just want to find out a little more about something you know nothing about. I think there are missed opportunities by making it a Men at Arms rather than a larger Elite title, but that doesn't mean that what is there is not worth purchasing. It is certainly making me contemplate bringing forward my 15mm War of the Triple Alliance project.

Nate

Where did January go?

I can't believe we are almost in the second month of the year! I went back to work 2 and a half weeks ago, but took the last Thursday and Friday of the holidays off to head back to the beach. This week saw the students back in at school and next week we'll be back into it like the holidays had never happened.
Despite January's unreasonable swiftness, progress has been made on a number of wargames fronts. For a start, I now have all the figures for my Great Northern War and Samurai projects, and the majority of the figures for the Great Paraguayan War. I thought I'd do a review of some of these figures.

Mounted Samurai from Outpost Wargames Services. Very nicely detailed with separate swords to be glued on.

Foot Samurai from the same range. I think that the raised detail will make the otherwise daunting Samurai armour much easier to paint.

Overall, I'm really impressed with the Outpost Wargame Services figures. Nicely detailed but not overly so. The plan is that the DBA Samurai will be next on the painting tray.

Russian dragoon in kartuz hat for the Great Northern War. The Irregular figures are good solid wargames figures with a minimum of detail but clear areas to paint. 

A Swedish Dragoon officer in karpus.

A Swedish infantryman. There is very little definition to the face - this will have to be hinted at with the brushwork. Given that I plan to paint these with black line as I did the Crimean War project, it should be simple enough to create an impressionistic face.

Swedish infantry officer. Again, everything is there that needs to be there.

A Swedish pikeman.

I'm quite pleased with the Irregular Miniatures figures for the Great Northern War. After painting up the Crimean War figures that I had which were minimal in detail but were clearly defined, I quite enjoyed the effect of the massed armies using the black-lining technique. I am looking at doing the same with this project, although as there is a variation of quite bright colours I may use two tones here and there. The figures were generally quite easy to clean up, but every now and then there was a howler which was more flash than figure. To my relief I found it very easy to clean, and once removed the figure was fine - none of that problem where the two halves of the mold haven't aligned and your figure looks like Two Face from Batman.

I sold off my Napoleonics - yes that is now 8 times I have bought a Napoleonic army/armies and sold them without painting them, but who is counting - and reinvested the money into Paraguayan figures from QRF's Freikorps 15 range. Having done that I was left contemplating the $200 dollars I'd have to find to put together the Brazilians. Then I remembered that Paul at our club had a whole pile of unpainted Freikorps ACW figures. I went around to visit him, prepared to exchange some 28mm WWII for some 15mm figures if they were suitable. Well, they most certainly were. Amongst the figures he had a pile of infantry in gum blanket:

A photo of the infantry in gum blanket from the QRF website.

I took one look and shouted 'ponchos'! I mixed them in with other figures in slouch hats for 5 battalions worth of Brazilians and also constructed 3 battalions of kepi-wearing infantry, 4 regiments of cavalry and 4 guns. Now all I need are command figures, artillery crew and a unit of gauchos - about $40, which will be much easier to find. To top it all off Paul said that I didn't need to swap - I could have them! Best priced project ever! Are they perfectly accurate? No, but at 15mm the inaccuracies will pretty much disappear beneath the brightly coloured ponchos!

I finished my fortified camp and today added a chevaux de frise from Irregular miniatures. Hopefully I'll finish that off this weekend.

I'll be using this in just about every period.

On other fronts, I have joined the Continental Wars Society and ordered the CD of back issues of the Foreign Correspondent newsletter from 1 through to 69. As I make my way through them I am consistently inspired to want to try new periods - like the Portuguese Civil War or Garibaldi in Naples, or the Hungarian uprising. The price is incredibly cheap - it cost me the princely sum of 25 NZ pesos to join for a year and order the CD. The expensive part is the constant 'ohhh shiny' moments I am now having. If you have an interest in the area I thoroughly recommend you email Ralph Weaver and join!

Marvel have the rights to the Star Wars universe again, and a new Star Wars series is available. The first issue was really good, and I feel it is worth continuing with. In order to subscribe I had to find the monthly money from somewhere, so I have sacrificed my subscription to Miniature Wargames with Battlegames. I've been contemplating this for sometime as I haven't been finding this magazine of much interest. There is maybe one, or in a good month two articles that I am eager to read, but all too often I find myself skipping through to the end and thinking 'is that it?' I used to love Miniature Wargames because it was the kind of magazine that seemed aimed at the ordinary wargamer (and I always enjoyed Gary Mitchell's columns), and I loved Battlegames because it had some very thoughtful articles (Dan Mersey's DBA campaign system from issue 2 is still a real highlight). But since the merger it feels like it has lost what was special about both.  I'm a bit sad about this, because Henry is a genuinely nice bloke (not that I've met him, apart from on a few forums) and because I would like to support the wargames press. In the end though, choices have to be made with the cash available, so MWwBG has joined Wargames Illustrated in the group of discarded subscriptions. This just leaves Wargames, Soldiers and Strategy which is, without doubt, my favourite magazine and delivers just what I want. The only downside being that it only delivers every two months!

Speaking of hard choices, I've been faced with the decision of whether or not to put my hand up to help out with Peter Jackson's Gallipoli diorama. My first impression on hearing the news was one of excitement, but then I thought about it realistically. How could I commit to paint forty 54mm figures in two months? And the painting guides use GW or Tamiya - but I'm strictly Vallejo. I have painting commission work for Geoff and I have my endless array of projects to work through. Oh yes, and I work and have a family. So in the end I haven't volunteered. I'm sure they will get plenty of other people willing to help out, but for me it just isn't practicable.

Maybe February will be a bit slower...

Nate