1864

 

I've finally got round to reading this, having really enjoyed the TV series that came out a few months ago and having also had a very enjoyable trip to Denmark last year. The Second Schleswig War has been an interest for a while, mainly the naval side of the conflict, but I am vaguely pondering the a low level skirmish sort of thing in 28mm, now that the Northstar range has been expanded to include the Danes for 1864.
 

 

This wouldn't be anything big, perhaps a dozen figures a side, but could kill two birds with one stone as the wintery terrain could double up for the Siegfried Line or Ardennes in 1944. Just a thought, so in the meantime I'll just carry on with the book until I get carried away and order some more gratuitous lead for the pile.

Fistful of Lead: Reloaded Kickstarter

The Kickstarter for Fistful of Lead: Reloaded is now up and running with some pretty good stretch goals and some very inexpensive entry level options, should you just want the rules and a few extras. I've backed it and it's doing pretty well so far, with nearly half the target pledged already, so I'm sure it will be a great success. If you want to try out the rules, we're running a participation game at Warfare this weekend, so why not drop by for a closer look?

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/592450292/fistful-of-lead-reloaded

A Fistful of Lead [41]

 

 

28mm on the left and 15mm on the right

 

Here's the finished gold mine headframe ready for the Warfare show next weekend. I've added a bit of clutter but have left off the chain winding gear as I couldn't make it dangle effectively, which is the same old story. Anyway, enough of the double entendre and on to the final phase of building construction, the big and very scary Sarissa Precision bank kit, which I may or may not get finished by the end of the week. Arrrgh!

A Fistful of Lead [40]

I was hoping to wrap up this project in forty posts but it looks like I'll have a few more to add before it's over. Here are four more sections of railroad track, this time slightly shorter than the other four sections, based on 7'' laser-cut mdf bases from ERM. They are designed to alternate with the longer 7 1/2'' sections so that the sleepers remain a consistent distance apart, as you can see in the picture.

  

This will give me a total track length of 58'' plus an extra 3'' of buffer stop section if required, which is enough to span a normal 4' wide table. If I can find another train set with this track for a decent price, I'll add another four sections so that I can reach either end of a 6' table. I've also added a third passenger carriage, a flatbed wagon and a second tender to the train, leaving the original tender to be painted up in Chinese markings for the Back of Beyond, which is where it can also be used.

Ronin [7]

 

 

The figures for my revived Ronin project arrived from Perry Miniatures yesterday and I've wasted no time unpacking them and sorting them into buntai. This is the first buntai and consists of seven katana armed martial artists of a Koryu or martial arts school. The seventh figure with the slotta base tab is actually an EM4 samurai that I already had and is a perfect match for the beautiful Perry samurai in everyday clothing. There's another unarmoured figure of a ronin in the EM4 range so I'm going to order one to add to the existing buntai to make the numbers up to a round eight. These are stunning models and way better than the Northstar official figure range so I only hope my painting will do them justice!

A Fistful of Lead [39]

I decided to stuff the work this evening and instead got on with the railroad tracks for the Warfare game. I've only based up and painted another three sections as I realised that, to avoid gaps in the track between them, I'd need to make four long and four short sections in total. I've ordered some 7' laser cut bases from Tony at ERM to use for this, alongside the four 7 1/2'' sections that I already have based up.

I also made a scratch built buffer stop from a section of curved rail cut down to size and some strip wood, which seemed like a good idea if the overall track length isn't long enough to span the table from edge to edge. I may also make a blown up section of track using the same method, as it may be useful for scenarios. The Goldlok toy train gauge is a bit too wide for the track but you don't really notice unless you look closely. I have another carriage and a flat wagon to paint up as well.

I also have the bogies and locomotives from the original toy train sets that the track came from, so I may well use them as the basis of an armoured train for the Back of Beyond at some point in the future. I've built one of these before and quite fancy making another one, complete with a rail gun for a Chinese Warlord or Bolshevik Commissar to terrorize the locals with. I'm sure it would be a great addition to my Back of Beyond arsenal?

Fistful of Lead Reloaded Cards

These arrived in the post today and they are absolutely first class! The author of Fistful of Lead Reloaded, Jaye Wiley, sent them over from the USA just for the club participation game at Warfare, which was extremely generous of him and very much appreciated. The cards themselves are beautifully illustrated and include the Special characteristics, thus making it easy to remember when you can deloy them in the game. They really are splendid and, along with the custom tokens included in the parcel, will be making an debut appearance the club playtest game next Tuesday. Thanks once again to Jaye!

Eighth Air Force

I found a hardback copy of this in the Oxfam bookshop on Saturday. It's a hefty book but very readable, at least from an initial dip into the contents, so I may well put it on the reading list over the next few weeks. It reminds me that I have a set of the latest Wings At War rules, A Mighty Fortress, that cover daylight raids over Germany and include some really nice Tumbling Dice B17's that would look great as a large formation. I have plenty of other things to do, however, but I might get round to it in 2016 (although I really should get the other 1/600 scale projects finished first!)

Ronin / Black Ops Project

This is what sparked it off!

I've been really pleased with my output over the last couple of months, especially as the first half of the year was a bit of a slow burner and didn't really get anywhere. The Fistful of Lead Reloaded inspiration appeared as if by magic and gave me a real drive to get some decent terrain completed for a change, rather than another 'ooh shiny' attempt to paint some little lead people. The end result is a stack of Old West buildings, together with trees, hills and railway tracks that will also double up for games in the Back of Beyond. On top of that, I've enjoyed several games of FFOLR both at the club and at home, with the Warfare participation game to look forward to as the big finale to the project.

Now that the Old West stuff is nearly complete, for the moment at least, my thoughts have been turning to what to do in the next six weeks or so in the run up to Christmas. This isn't a lot of time and I'll have a lot of work to do, so it will have to be a very limited project with a minimum of figure painting involved. I also really enjoyed making the mdf laser cut buildings for the Old West project, so the opportunity to make some more for a different genre would be a big plus. Ideally, I'd also like to be able to re-use whatever terrain I make for more than one period or set of rules. This narrows things down a bit and has given me a clear direction in which to head.

The big idea is to double up my existing but stalled project for Ronin with the latest new set of rules Black Ops, combining the terrain but painting separate parallel forces of figures, the former from the Perry Miniatures Samurai range and the latter from the Copplestone and EM4 Future Wars range. I have all of the figures I need for Black Ops but have decided to use the Perry figures for Ronin, as the Northstar and Foundry figures that I originally collected don't really have the all important inspirational oomph. The terrain will utilise the Sarrissa Precision Japanese building kits that I gathered together for Ronin last year, together with some other more modern stuff from Timeline Miniatures and elsewhere.

This is all a bit nebulous at the moment but I have put in an order for some sohei warrior monks, Ikko Ikki, ninja and samurai in everyday clothing from Perry Miniatures today. This will be enough for two decent sized buntai already, one a Koryu martial arts school and another a community of sohei warrior monks, with the ninja as Swords for Hire or a stand alone assassination unit. There's plenty of scope to build on this basic framework, so some bandits or samurai may well be added to the set up later on, along with some peasants and civilians. In the meantime, I'll start on the figures for Black Ops, with two rival teams of intelligence agents or criminal gangs and a SWAT team of special force operatives as the first units to get cleaned up and based...

...it's also a good excuse to watch lots of Luc Besson and Akira Kurasawa films!

A Fistful of Lead [38]

I haven't achieved a lot today as it's been a typical busy end to the weekend but I have completed a section of railway track to see if it looks good enough for the Warfare game. This was cut down from a length of interlocking plastic toy track then glued down to a pre-textured and painted mdf base. I was planning to add some ballast but time is short so I'll just go with some basic weathering and an occasional sprig of grass tuft. They can be used for the Back of Beyond as well as the Old West, so a really useful addition to the terrain collection.

I have seven more of these track sections to do and a set of buffers, so they need to be completed as quickly as possible, hence the no mucking about approach. I've also added some texturing and rocks to the base of the gold mine head frame but this needs to dry out before I can start on the painting. If I can wrap up the whole project by this time next week I'll be ready for the play testing next Tuesday....if not, it might all be a bit last minute?