Painting update

 Only 4 weeks between posts, not too bad I guess.I have at least been busy with the brushes.

I've worked on a couple of projects in his period. First up....

My DBA project has now taken form. Not a big leap in the end and the choice is 10mm figures on 25mm bases. I have however largely tossed out the suggested number of figures on the bases for "what ever will fit". My interests have always been the 15th century, Romans or hoplites have never really captured my interest. However I did not see the point in replicating my 15th century western european armies.

Back in the day I painted up a Later Muslm Indian army and had some succes with it in competitions (even winning NICON DBR one year using them as Rajputs). I still can't remember why I picked it but it might have been the elephants. I then started painting more Persian horse armour to expand my armies (as the base cavalry all looked alike) untill I had had enough to never touch another 15mm figure. So, having sworn never to paint middle eastern cavalry the army I picked first was Ottomans. There was some method in my madness as the Ottomans had 24 different opponents. 

The figures came from the Pendraken Renaissance Ottoman range (I brought some horse archers from the TB range but the horses were obviously too large so I couldn't mix them)

Spahi's. I managed to get 11 on a base with a mix of barded and unbarded horses wi some horse archers at the back.

Genneral element. I must do some flags for the second rank.

The horde

Jannissaries. Historically recorded as wearing blue, green or red, I've just stuck to one colour. Maybe if I paint the rest of the pack.

Azabs. The horse archers are on order.

I must admit that I have enjoyed painting these and that 10mm is a better choice for DBA than 6mm for this base size. I've ordered the figures for an opponent which I'll discuss when I have painted them.

Friday night

 A request from a friend during the week inspires this post, and apparently I owe him for making my dice look good last weekend (and he really outdid himself).

During the week I've had the 1:600 aircraft painting bench out. Among the pile I picked out the F4 Phantoms. Once described as proof that with large enough engines you could fly a brick, The F4 served untill the late 1990's with the US and some are still operational over 60 years after the prototype flew.

Surprisingly few NATO nations used the F4, prefering something cheaper like the F5 so I was somewhat limited in options for the paintschemes. So what did we get? (and sorry its so dark,I'm seldom home in daylight in winter)

Left to right we have the Luftwaffe splinter camoflage, At the back the Euro one (also called the lizard scheme), the front is the South East Asia scheme worn in Vietnam and then in US based F4 units untill the late 1980's (and hence a possiblity in Europe) which is also my favorite. Finaly on the right is the RAF verson.

Its been quuite fun painting a varity of schemes on the same aircraft. Not overly easy on aircraft from the 1980's.

Update: heres a couple of slightly better photo's.

Luftwaffe and RAF

USAF

The most normal of times

 Over the weekend I participated in the rarest of pastimes in these times.

They even washed...

 An honest to god in person wargaming convention, the Warlords Call to Arms in Wellington.

So, the day started at 6, out the door at 6:45. Had to defrost the car, and the groundfog in places was down to 30m. Sunrise around Paekakariki and it wasn't till Porirua that someone tried to kill me on the road

The game was Spearhead and the scenario was the German counter attack at Kurstin in 1945 outside of Berlin. The Russians had bounced the Oder in a last gasp seizing jumping off points for the final attack on Berlin. The Germans assembled every tank left on the eastern front (well, its what it seemed like) to throw back the invaders.

So whats holding the rest of the front.

The Russian defence was based around 2 villages. The railway line was a visual break. 

The Germans sweped forward and made short work of the Russian defence, aided by some spectacularly bad dice rolling. Several times we even checked the dice to see if there were numbers higher than a 2.

The Russians then organised an armoured counter attack. 

On my flank IS-2's and Su100's. They were faced off by a collection of dross which did have teath.

On the other flank and covered from the Tiger II's by the railway embankment was a thined down armoured regiment with T34/85's.

Once again the Russians took a beating but this time managed to hold the line.

The Armoured regiment traded blows with the germans but eventually broke

The Germans claimed a victory, the Russians called it a draw and said they would be back tomorrow with fresh troops and where were the Germans going to find those? A sacrifice was selected to go and talk to Stalin and the rest of the commanders vowed not to discuss the day again.

A great day out (if somewhat long annd I was driving on autopilot by the time I got home).

A game or two

 A novelty for the blog as I played a couple of games at the weekend.

Paul and Peter came up from Wellington for the day and we got in acouple of games of big battle  DBA.

This was the first time I have had a chance to play Version 3 and I was looking froward to seeing what had changed. Paul brought up his 10mm armies c.1415.

The first game line up. Closer side is 100 year war English on each flank and Low Countries in the middle.On the far side are 2 medieval French commands with Burgudians on the far flank

Battle is joined in the center. Theres one plan with pike and thats go forward and try to cover the flanks with the rest of the army. The Low countries command had a single Psiloi element which was the lone light troop on the table, making them king of any bad going (which there was a bit of a lack of).

This was a high tide mark for my army as it died in a hail of 1's (which for those of you not conversant in DBX is a bad thing to roll in an opposed die combat system).

A quick-ish fryup for lunc and then a second game where we swapped sides with Peter playing the bad guys and Paul and I taking the French/Burgundians.

This possibly went worse than the first game as at one point all 3 of our commands were one stand off breaking and we had killed 1 stand of English. 

So having played 2 games of DBA 3 I'm quite comfortable with the changes that have been made in combat factors and results.

I'm now pondering starting a DBA project but I'm not sure what form it will take. I do like the look of 6mm troops on 25mm bases (having a knights of St John army done for 20 years and a pile of lead for the Ottomans). I did consider the possibility of rebasing my 15mm onto 25mm bases (which woud give a similar look to 10mm figures on 15mm bases). This quickly ran into an issue of not having enough figures to do even 1-2 armies well and the price of 15mm figures (Essex now 8 foot for 4 quid). 

More thinking required I think.....

Another week down

 It's surprising how much you can do when you are avoiding other jobs.

So this weeks "avoiding the Landwher" project is the Prussian artillery. The castings are Bacus 1st generation with separate wheels. After doing 16 pieces I believe that the devil has reserved a specially warm spot for Mr Berry downstairs.

Seven battalions of foot artillery. Six line and one for the guards for which I will have to come up with a visual difference

Two batterys of Horse artillery.

 So thats all the artillery done

And just to suprise you all I have made a start on the Landwher infantry. Its a bit grinding painting 288 of each bit but te jobs slowly getting done.

Prussian cavalry done

 After a solid bout of painting over the last couple of weeks, I've now finished painting and basing all the 1813 Prussian cavalry lead in the current lead pile. It`s amazing what you can do when trying to avoid painting 12 battalions of Landwehr.

2 Brigades of Dragoons and a mixed Dragoon/Uhlan brigade. I think the coat blue might be a bit bright buts it was was the closest thing I had in the paint collection.

2 Brigades of Hussars, again with a mixed Hussar/Uhlan brigade.

Finally a couple of brigades of Landwehr cavalry (not as organised as the regular troops above). on the left is a brigade of Cuirassiers with the Guard du Corps in white coats at the frone and 2 other regiments behind in blus coats.

Maybe I'll look at some artillery next.....

Biweekly update

Back to fullish steam on the painting table with the delivery of an order of bases from Dopey dog. Good service (and not particularly good in the base counting department, but in my favour so not a huge issue).

So tonight the painting table looks like this.

Reserve infantry at the back to be flocked. cavalry at the front with Dragoons on the right, Hussars in the middle and the 2 bases on the left waiting for me to finish the Ulans for the front rank.

The unpainted mass on the left is the Landwehr infantry and cavalry (with some commanders and Kurrasiers). Only ~300 figures in that particularly pile. I have not yet looked at the artilley or the guard infantry which are still in the bags.