Rel-Axe Time

I'll admit it.

I've been stalled out on painting.

I've yet to finish my IV/5c Sicilians, despite the campaign has been going for months now and they've rewarded me with two victories over Cory's Western Sudanese. Those 2 elements of 6Kn remain a bit of block. Sure they've been block painted and partially flocked, but the final touch eludes me.

So I do what I do when I stall. I switch course and do something different. For myself. Not for any army or project. Just something to remind me that painting is fun and worth doing for its own sake.

Case in point. Curious about HaT's entry into the 28mm plastic figure category I picked up their El Cid Spanish Heavy Infantry. Again...Spain. I was wondering if they'd be useful for 28mm Hordes of the Things as bulk out units for a fantasy army and as perhaps something the pre-Teen Visigoth could cut his teeth on, as he's getting pretty good at this painting thing.

I've painted lots of the HaT 20mm soft plastics in the past. 20mm is a favourite scale of mine and I've painted lots of HaT figs, their best and their stinkiest. I'm no 'metal uber-alles' hobbyist and am pretty pleased to see plastic coming into its own.

So on to the project. Here's what you get out of the box:

Interesting, if not truly inspiring. But as I have ranted about in the past, miniatures are raw materials. It's the hobbyist who makes the magic, not the miniature itself. Lets see if I can live up my philosophy.

I pick the axe guy for my first project. I like the two-handed axe. Nothing says to the enemy 'I'm going to whack your bloody noggin off and nothing is going to stop me, even you poking with your puny spear'. It's the weapon for people with a dedicated approach to person combat. So this guy is first.

Here's the finished product.

I really liked painting this guy. It was quick easy paint and really therapeutic.

The paint goes on easy. The figure has fairly deep cuts and flat surfaces. This is an artifact of the medium. The chain mail is not little holes, rather a raises textured surface. Finished it with a wash of black ink. for paint geeks, I used mostly all the Privateer P3 line, which are my new happy paints. Also the newer GW washes worked really fine.

I was happy with the results.

Axe-guy is pretty happy here as well. Been fighting dragons since I pulled him off the cork.

He's also taking care of my Elf infestation. But also useful for a scale comparison. He's pretty close to the LotR figures. A little slender and short next to the freakish mesomorphic lugs that inhabit contemporary 28mm figures.

Lots of fun. I look forward to the Almoravids.

http://www.hat.com/Curr28/Bx28007ALH/Bx28007ALHb.html

Thanks for reading.

(edited for spellling, yikes)

Songs for the Barricades!

Aside from the DBA, I do muddy my fingers in other games and periods...

For example:

The Charming and Very Evil Mark I. is continually trying to entice me into Napoleonics. Particularly the Pennisular Campaign. I have almost buckled. Something about Spain.

But my Spanish thing right now is the Civil War of '36-'39. (I got over the Second Punic War fever back in '07, still working through the Reconquista and Visigothic Spain.)

There is interest and momentum in our circle of comrades right now for some SCW action.

Don Don, another Calgary Camp Follower with some Iberian fever instigated the mess and it revealed a great deal of percolating interest in many of our group.

One of our prime movers Neldoreth has just done up some Anarchists

http://www.hourofwolves.org/?view=armies&which=scw&pic=4

Those of you who are familiar with his work should not be surprised. Those who are not should stop wasting their time on this blog until they have gone through his most masterful site top to bottom...Good, back now?

My contribution will be some scruffy Irish Internationlists. Maybe some Republican Regulars as well. (There is no truth to the rumour that I used to claim to have ancestors who fought with the Irish volunteers and the Mac-Paps in order to get free pints from sympathetic ears)

The whole period is full of myths, stories and legends that somehow transcend the truly violent period it was. Like many 'young punks' I was introduced to the period and particularly the Republican cause by the Clash's 'Spanish Bombs' from the London Calling LP. It suddenly made my upcoming book report of 'For Whom the Bell Tolls' make a lot more sense. I really haven't looked back.

I was charged to find these guys from Spain keeping the faith. Play loud. ;)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tL9vAqQC1ys&feature=related

Those of who do not share the expressions of solidarity and resistance displayed in such a song with such vigor, I present a fascist baby-soldier paper doll for you.

Have fun at the barricade of your choice!

Next up some battle reports, painting and why Charlemagne was such a tool.

-Sean

I Was A Teenage Ashigaru

No new stuff to report.

Have Samurai and the like on my mind. Working on my next Early Samurai force which will have a fairly substantial warrior monk presence. Why? I have lots of figures and I think they are cool. More on Early Samurai, later.

I came across this link whilst dredging through the vasty deeps of youtube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iv-8vY3iCc4&feature=related

This is the movie 'Heaven and Earth' or 'Ten To Chi' in which I was employed for the summer as an extra. The film was shot on the Stoney First Nations Reserve which lies between Calgary and the mountains to the west. It's the story we all know and love, Battle of Kawanakajima, Uesugi Kenshin, and Takeda Shingen.

For the summer I stood around in red plastic armour baking in the sun and dust. Occasionally we'd run around or engage in mock fights. But mostly we just stood around.

This does not make me a re-enactor as some people have told me. Extras get paid to run around in costumes. Re-enactors pay money to run around in costumes.

This does make me foremost authority of on Samurai warfare on my block, quite possibly neighborhood.

Have fun and watch. It's quite fun, and you can see me! I'm one of the guys in red running away from Kenshin's 70 Kilo-Mifunes* cavalry charge through the red Takeda ashigaru ranks.

Made today it would have countless herky-jerky CGI puppets fighting it out with extra choppy editing. I feel like I was in one of the last of the 'cast of a thousand' epics.

DBA wise all I'm pointing out is how cool the singular massed colours of the uniforms look. Maybe not historically accurate, but dramatic for sure. I'm doing another Post-Mongol Samurai force this spring and black and white are the colours of the season for sure!

Until then, keep your ashigaru away from the cavalry in the open.

-Sean

* You may or may not be aware that the 'Mifune' is the scientifically agreed unit of measurement of cinematic samurai badassadry. One Mifune (MF) is a single eyebrow raise by the actor Toshiro Mifune in 'Yojimbo'. Kikuchiyo's death scene in 'Seven Samurai ranks as 1.6 Mega-Mifunes. The dune sequence in 'Shogun Assassin' starts to red-line the meter at 7.2 Mega-MF's.

Battle of Magna Dolmadnia

Thanks all for encouragement and swell comments. I've yet to really figure out where I'm going with this project, so thanks for bearing with me.

A quick surprise battle report for you today.

The Pre-Teen Visigoth and I held a impromptu scrap Sunday morning while The Hippy slept in.

The Pre-Teen Visigoth's been playing DBA for three years now and has learned quite a bit. He tells me it's quite like Pokemon, which makes sense to me. Squirtle is good against Charmander, but not against Bulbasaur. If ya get my drift, it applies to DBA mechanics quite well.

Currently he's taken with Greek armies. Which is gratifying. Better than those Roman jerks.

Here's the Archon of Souvlakia with his Greek Cavalry and Hoplites.

Allegedly he was playing Later Hoplite Greek Athens (II/5b) but had slipped in a Cavalry General and a second Psiloi in place of the Auxilia. Whatever. I'm sure the Gamer Police have be notified.

Defending the Colony of Magna Dolmadnia in North Africa he faced down the wily Great Chief Fel-al-Fal and his Early Libyans I/7b.

Why Great Chief? Cool chariot and great smile of course!

Given the suicidal aggression of the Early Libyans I was the unsurprising attacker.

Great Chief Fel-al-Fal had serious plans for the Greek turf he was over-running.

"We'll put the pool table here."

I coached the Archon into deploying in columns in order to move out of the rough on his deployment side and spread out his battleline once he cleared it. Of course he was hampered by low pips and my solid advice was questioned.

He did at least leave a reserve.

I set the Libyans up in a fairly straight forward line formation. Warband in the centre, Psiloi on the right flank, Bows and the General attacking on the left.

The Archon of Souvlakia was continually hampered by low pips and it took forever for him to get his beloved hoplites into a decent line. I grew restless and decided to attack his lightly defended flank with my horde of pantless killers.

This attack was somewhat successful. I killed one of his stands before he was able to deploy his spear and disperse my psiloi. This ended with my psiloi fled and disorganized on the hill.

Only one stand remained to hold the flank. and they were not too confident.

"C'mon we got them on the run!"

Feeling luckier (or was it desperation?) I threw my warband at his spear line.

Results were one stand lost, one recoiled and one stand walloping those uppity Lakedaemonians on the left side of the picture. The observant of you have noticed that the stands of Libyans are at least a couple cm's smaller in the frontage than the Greeks. Alas, I used some sketchy bases that I didn't measure before using. Don't let this happen to you citizen! Now I need to rebase or at least just glue the existing bases onto the correct frontages.

For the next few turns we fought indecisive scraps. Until he killed my second warband unit. Soon we stood 3-2.

Desperate my last warband unit swung onto his flank forcing him to face me.

Warband vs Spear. I just have to beat him...

And I did.

My naked guys with pointed sticks beat up his fancy pants hoplites with their mighty bronze shields, multi colored linen armour and big plumes. Hah! This is what I love about DBA. It doesn't drift off into some equipment nerds statistical cluster-funk about spears that are 10cm's longer getting a +1 on the attack dice in relation to the armour co-efficient of the attacking unit divided by the distance traveled to arrive at the proper impetuous impact matrix. It just stuffs it all into a sausage and calls it 'Spears vs Warband'. (Which I understand is the very reason why some people hate this game).

_________________________________

To quote one of my favourite cartoons of the '90's

'You don't need pants for the victory dance'.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5dEB_sztjaA&NR=1 (if you didn't know or forgot.)

__________________________________

Well, apparently somebody (who was not me) remembered the rules and reminded me that only one stand died. Gah. At this point I stopped the game to make another pot of French Press Dark Roast. We were now 3-3. Tension was high and we were out of pineapple juice as well.

I returned to the game to resolve the melee and found...

...revenge was indeed served cold, with a side of 'ha ha ha ha'.

And that was game.

There was much celebration on the Greek side.

"Buddy, point that thing someplace else, will ya?"

Later Hoplite Greece II/5b over Early Libyan I/7b 4-3

Army Notes

The Early Libyans are Old Glory 15's. A few years back we had smashing contest here in Magna Calgaria called King of the Hoggar Massif. I put together about 6 army packs and we had a great time with Libyan on Libyan violence. My army was composed of the left overs, which is why it's a rebel alliance of Temehu. Weshwesh and Tenehu.

I really like this army, but I won't go so far as to say it's essential to your collection. You may not be wily, brave and masochistic enough to handle these guys. (wink)

One awesome occasion I actually beat Mike J's New Kingdom Egyptians with a headlong banzai charge in the open. Things like that don't happen all that often.

The Hoplites are from Minifigs through GFI in the States. I embarked on a full-on morph project and can field any Hoplite army with the exception of the Thessalians. Still need more LH and Cav elements. The Minifigs Greek and Persian Wars line is getting pretty long in the tooth and has some missing or indifferently realized figures. That said, they're the some of the best hoplites around and I like my Minifigs. The shields are the right size (eg: BIG) and poses are very business-like. I want uniformity and bloodymindedness from my hoppies. YMMV.

The camps were constructed by Pattus Magnus, maker of camps to the stars (and me.) Masterful stuff. They will be available for sale in kit form soon.

During the battle we listened to Holst: 'The Planets', They Might Be Giants 'Here Comes Science' and some goofy '80's compilation. Two pots of rather strong coffee, several cups of pineapple juice and a small stack of peanut butter toast was consumed.

-Sean

Back from the dead.

I'm sure you thought I was gone.

Computer issues have as of late forced a certain level of 'inactivity'.

But Teenage Visigoth is back online with more DBA related ramblings. I'll be back with some recap and reflections of the event at FallCon (only how many months late?).

Then as I have resolved the somewhat elementary issues of camera/computer interfaces I will be indulging in that most indulgent activity of miniature gamer fun, pictures of all my armies.

First a teaser and prophecy. Pictured above is the Lord of Clan Saketumi from my Early Samurai III/54. This is a Bow General. I like him. He's vapourized many Emishii light horse barbarians and been utterly hammered by Blade bushi. I think the army itself is 5 wins - 7 losses.

I'll document more when I finish posting pictures the rest of the force.

There has been some good discussion of the interplay of the Blade vs Bow option on Fanaticus

(http://www.fanaticus.org/discussion/showthread.php?t=9078) in the Early Samurai army. I really enjoy this army. It's fast with 3-4 Cavalry elements and the 5 Auxilia. The Bow or the Blade debate however makes the army either bound for honour or a bulk supplier of severed heads.

Prophecy wise: come FallCon 2010, my intent is to run 'Samurai Night Fever II: The Wrath of the Khans'. Yep.

Mongols. Samurai. Koreans. Chinese.

Party time on Hakata Beach!

And yes, Clan Saketumi is fictional. Watch Austin Powers for the etymology of the name.

-Sean

Hordes of Rampagin' Visigoths

Well it appears the Saxons will make the fight after all. Their long ship pulled in last night. Thanks to Mike and Roj.

It's gonna suck to be Roman on Friday....

And speaking of last night, I pulled a late one and finished off the Visigoths in one push.* Guess that makes me a Busygoth. Not bad results from revisiting 'the dip'. I will be doing a dip-fu series after all this tournament madness is over. I have had startling revelations regarding this technique and the ways of the cosmos. I will share these.

I was hoping to have pics, but life is sort of busy right now and given that I'm trying to take this weekend off for gaming there too many things to do now.

Also, have revised the scoring/prize concept. Will have things written up for Friday. More cool things.

One last note, bring your own dice!!! FallCon complimentary dice are as fickle as Gallia Placidia on a bad-regent day.

-Sean

*thanks go out to the nice folks from Darjeeling who picked my tea and Baba for playing me tasty songs on CKUA.

Loot for looting!

Prize Announcement!

Winner of 'I Was a Teenage Visigoth' tourney will receive a Bag o' Burgundi! (tm)

Yep, a bag on unruly bad ass Burgundians (II/70a) hand picked by yours truly from Old Glory 15's nifty collections of Franks, Germans , Goths and Whatevers.

Why Burgundians? Cause they're bad ass. Like these guys.

'blah blah blah! fear our barbaricness!'

Read:

this site is gem;

http://www.germantribes.org/tribes/Burgundes/burgundes.htm

for a deeper appreciation of Burgundiology;

http://theburgundian.blogspot.com/

See you soon!

Loaner armies

Friday night DBA sessions are traditionally a relaxed warm-up for the carnage that will transpire during the rest of the week.

Also, it's a great time for novice players ( I hate the term n00bs) to try their generalship. As such I always try to make the theme fairly inclusive and 'mainstreamish'. We won't be doing the Wars of Kappadokian Succession anytime soon.

I also try to have a goodly number of loaner armies on hand. Whether I paint them myself or they are volunteered by the very generous members of the CCF we will have armies on hand so your interest cannot be curtailed by not having the proper army.

I have just finished up the Gepids and will be moving onto the Later Visigoths tonight. We also have a couple Patrician Roman forces for loan as well. And we also have the Early Saxons, not a popular choice given their somewhat dismal record.

I suggest you show up on time...

-Sean