Fin de Siecle Alzheim Project

You may have guessed from the last few posts that I am working away at the Fin de Siecle Alzheim Project.

I'm trying to get a little synergy from a current painting challenge to boost things along and so far we are not doing too badly - 18 Alzheimer and 11 Prussian infantry painted. Additionally, I've painted up a couple of siege pieces, part of a Renedra Pontoon bridge and a prototype river barge to use in a river crossing scenario.

I've another 10 Prussians on the painting bench ready for their first serious encounter with the paintbrush, another 10 or so waiting on cleanup and assembly and another 20 or so in the post!

On top of that I ordered a unit of 12 Spencer Smith "Classic" Uhlans, one of the Willie ones (because I hear they are lovely!) and another 20 Bavarian infantry. I'm hoping this will give me a bit of momentum/motivation to move the painting along.

So then, by the end of this particular process, I'm hoping to have three units of infantry, a unit of cavalry and a battery of guns per side ready to go by the end of April.

A nice little force, I think.

Preparations for War?

Whilst en-route to a sojourn spent taking the waters at Augusts-Bad, your correspondant had the singular good fortune to fall in with a young Alzheim officer of infantry at the great fortress city of Prenzlau on the River Mur. He was taking a spell of leave and was likewise headed to take the waters. I was delighted to share a berth in the little steamer, one of the many which plies the river, with this most charming young man.

I soon appreciated that he had just terminated a most trying assignment across the border in the Germanies where he had been attempting to ascertain the purpose of recent military manouvers in the region of her northern borders.

Street Scene - whilst on manouvers

One of the new Krupp Siege Mortars

One might readily appreciate Alzheimer wariness. 

After all, Bismarck says Alzheim was ever a feminine city - a natural bride for masculine Berlin. His opposition to Austrian influnce has ever been well-known. He once said that a marriage with Vienna would be a perversion of everything that was natural.

Scene outside a Tabac in the Quartier Francaise

The La Rosee Regiment march to The Old Armoury to have their Standard issued

As may have been remarked here and there at varying times, there is nothing quite like a painting challenge to get the old juices flowing.

Keen observers of Alzheim history will note a La Rosee Regiment fighting in the wars of the 1740s and -50s. This is to be expected of one of Alzheims' oldest Regiments, first raised in 1681 for the Turkish Wars.

Granbretan Warriors

Warriors of the Order of the Wolf

Sorry for the delay - life just gets in the way of play sometimes.

The Order of the Badger, Miners and Engineers of Granbretan

 They really do put me in mind of that "80s Citadel" style of figure. Surely some Warrior of Chaos could stand in for the Warrior in Jet and Gold?

Flana Mikosevaar, cousin to the wizened immortal, Huon, the King-Emperor

 Flame Lances are on their way.

Warriors of the Mercenary Legion of the Vulture

Don't forget, Kamagian Guardians on Flamingos! And Ornithopters.

I'll start to paint some of these up next week. I might start with the Vultures.

Hawkmoon Figures from Eureka Miniatures

A little bird tells me that Eureka Miniatures have permission from Michael Moorcock to do a "Hawkmoon" figures range.

I have seen some test shot casts and a few of the upcoming character greens.

They seem very exciting, representing so far Granbretanian troops - Soldiers of the Wolf, Vulture and Badger Orders as well as Flana Mikosevaar.

As I understand it there are plans to release others of the various orders, many of the main characters (yes, I've seen a green of Dorian Hawkmoon, and he's fantastic) and - wait for it - ornithopters!

The Kamargian Guardians will be there with both the giant Flamingo and horned Horse mounts. It's all there, people!

The sculpting style looks very much like "80s Citadel Homage", but with really nice movement through the figure. Certainly these will not be the rather two-dimensional figures of the old "Eternal Champion" range Citadel originally put out.

Very exciting times. I will put up some pictures of the samples I have, both plain inked and later on (when I've had the time) painted.

Doodling

Trying to break the painting doldrums in a creative way, I put together and painted this Houston le Creusot "Long Tom" I bought a while back from TVAG.

I thought it might make a nice piece for the Saxon Siege Train as much as for the Boers, so I built a platform for it, although I do not think I will attach the gun to it as I'd like to display it "on the move" as it were.

Gray seemed a reasonable compromise colour to paint the carriage, so off I went!

Painting Doldrums

Oh, they come around once, twice, maybe thrice a year. You know them, and so do I. The dreaded painting doldrums.

Can't be bothered. feel too lazy to put the effort in. Current painting is a chore rather than something you're reluctant to be seperated from.

Sigh.

Time to break out the standard cureswhich are:

1. Take some time off painting. Read a book. Play with the kids. Get some more sleep.

1.1 Read something to re-invigorate your desire to paint.

2. Paint something you want to paint. At the moment, I am grinding away at a unit of Bengal Lancers for the big CanCon event next weekend. It will be a tight finish and I am not enjoying the miniatures. I think I need to paint something for myself.

Enough complaining - I now return you to your regular programming.

Breaking Free

I was interested to read Jon Sutherlands article in Battlegames #32. Whilst the whole was more about unit activation with initiative cards, it was the first few paragraps of the article that really caught my attention.

He describes a game where in addition to the main action, there are a lot os little tables scattered about the periphery. These contain goodies of the nature of marching columns of troops and various operational objectives - bridges, supply dumps, rear base areas and whatnot.

These are all marked down on a master map.

If flank movements are needed, extra tables are added to facilitate this. As the action ebbs and flows on the main table, other empty tables may be brought in to make that happen too. Indeed, as the action moves forward, the original table may be broken up and moved forward. Those march columns? As they come off their tables onto the main one, their original tables may be recycled.

Every table may be mobile throughout the course of the game.

The obvious benefit of this is that there are no table edges anymore, the toe-to-toe slugfest is gone and maneuver becomes possible.

I know of some who've tried something along these lines - I think Jim and Bill's games often use a "back table" for reserves, the gap between it and the main table does not exist in the reality of the game. I have always been happy to condsider small seperate tables in the Khartoum game to allow the representation of Fort omdurman across the other side of the river. Of course, I've alweays been rather enamoured of the notion of little steamers on tea trolleys chugging their way up the gap between the tables. But these notions are a little static.

The obvious downsides are the amount of physical space and terrain that might be needed, to say nothing of the number of tables!

Still, it seems worth exploring to me in the context at least of the convention game where floor space and table numbers are not so much of a problem.

Fin de Siecle Alzheim

Some of you may have noticed a new page on this blog over the past couple of days called "Fin de Siecle Alzheim". I wrote it primarily because I want to collect some more of the Spencer Smith "Classic" Franco-Prussian war figures and I needed a framework (and some limits) for my spending. I also wanted to explore what might have happened to Alzheim in the period of the first period of German unification.

Please take the time, if you can spare it, to read what I've put together, it's probably going to occupy about a third of my modelling time this year, so you're going to see rather a lot of of it! I'm open to any and all suggestions, comments and criticisms.

Rules? Keep 'em simple. I'm reading Ross's With McDuff to the Frontier with interest.

How much is Enough?

The Artillery

 Today was a nice sunny morning, not too hot and with a nice breeze blowing. It was time to undertake part one of a review of my Spencer Smith plastic armies for the Empire and the Duchy of Alzheim.

The Light Brigade

 Pictured here are the forces that I currently have in hand for the Empire. However, there are others on the way from the UK for both the Empire and Alzheim.

de los Rios leads off

 It looks like the Empire has something in the order of nine and a half line infantry units, two light infantry units, a heavy and a medium cavalry unit as well as a pair of light cavalry units. In addition, there are two gun batteries at the Emperors' disposal.

Salm Salm Salm to the fore

 Alzheim disposes ten-and-a-half infantry units, four units of dragoons, three batteries of artillery and a single light infantry unit.

The new boys - awaiting an identity!

 Now, as far as I can recall this would be about right to handle almost any of the Grant family scenarios (although I might on occasion come up a bit short for cavalry) and anything at all from "Charge!". I think Mollwitz, Lobositz, Fontenoy and anything else are at least within reach.

The Heavy Brigade

The only thing that concerns me is the cramped confines of my gaming table. As you can see here, somewhat less than all of the Empire army comes pretty close to filling one of my table-halves.

I'm starting to think that it's time to stop building and to start gaming.

OK, I need to base everything consistently, but that's another post.

Terrain - Mahdist Fort

One of the 'gun ports'

 Over the weekend I finished off the first of my Mahdist forts. I see this sort of position as an artillery fort mounting a single gun and only a relatively small number of riflemen.

Something of the entrance and the decoration of the building

Construction of the small building that has been incorporated in the earthwork is foammcore. The earthwork itself is polystyrene cut with a hot wire cutter then surformed wioth a sanding block. The surface was sealed and textured with gap-filler and fine sand.

New Look, New Layout

I thought the old blog could do with a freshen-up and general decluttering.

Too late for a New Years' Resolution?

Ah well, too bad if it is.

I pledge this year to spend less time in front of the PC. Indeed, I pledge to spend less time gazing into screens of all shapes and sizes.

I pledge to spend less on eBay!!!

I will read less, but digest more of what I do read.

I will paint less and play more games. Solo if need be.

I will fritter my efforts away to a far lesser extent. No promises, but I'll limit my efforts to three main projects this year and three minor ones.

To wit:

• The Sudan
• Ancients
• The Duchy of Alzheim

These are all pretty self-explanatory, really. I'd go so far as to say that The Sudan project is at about 40% done (more or less, depending on how far I feel like taking it...) while the Alzheim project is pretty well complete as faras a warganing project ever is. I mean, I can still tinker, but the core is pretty well there. I see myself adding another few infantry (and a couple of mixed legions in the fullness of time - oh, and some more cavalry...) units over time, but this collection now needs to be gamed with.

As for the Ancients, although it's been all Macedonians so far, some hoplites have crept onto the painting table and I'm starting to toy with Marathon as an interim goal whilst keeping an eye on the Pelopponesian Wars in the longer term. I have a feeling Kagan's History might be on the birthday list. I just read his short volume of Historiography on Thucydides and was pretty well blown away by his brevity and clarity.

Keeping an eye on the Marathon goal I'm leaning heavily toward the idea of buying 2nd-hand pre-painted minis as a way of speeding the process along. So if anyone is thinking of moving their collections on, drop me a line.

And for the minor projects:

• WW2 Italians
• Not Quite the Dambusters
• FPW?

I really enjoyed painting my WW2 Italians this year and have it mind to keep going. I have quite a little stash of kits and minis which I aim to finish before I buy anything more, though - I rather overspent on the hobby in 2012, and I feel I need to rein in a bit. How far I can go without an opponent is an issue.

Me and another fellow are looking at doing a Dambusters game this year. Quite acheiveable, I think. We have plenty of research material and are thinking of basing the game on an old WW2 boardgame - don't ask me which, I can't remember just now! More after we next meet over the Australia day long weekend to thrash it out. Short version is 2 waves of three Airfix Lancasters assail the dam attacked by three pair of Me 109s, Me110s and Ju88s. Pretty acheivable as a game I think.

I was pretty fond of my Spencer Smith FPW French and would like to add to them. Perhaps some Bavarians too. Just a brigade of each. They could fill in for all sorts of Ruritanias and I expect the Bavarians would do as Alzheimers whilst the Wurrtemburgers or Prussians might do for Mirenburgers. One just needs a troop of cavalry and a battery of galloping guns in support. What a fine little war game one might then have!

I am bravely resisting Spencer Smiths "Little Britons" 42mm (oh, maybe just a couple of dozen) or getting into the Boer War with Willie 30mm (oh, just a few then): wish me luck with that.

Oh, and I need to lose 8-10 kilos.

New Years' Eve

And here we are, the end of another year.

Shall we look back and forward?

Strangely, and despite the heroic amounts of painting I have managed over the past year, I still find myself curiously in much the same place!

January - There was a big boom in Spencer Smith painting.
February - Stokes and I began the refight of Sittangbad and I had a bit of a fiddle-faddle about with the Franco-Prussian War. I did manage to paint up some British infantry as French for the big "55 Days at Peking" game.
March - A little terrain making - a marsh and a collection of ponds.
April - A Painting Challenge sort of completed and a sudden interest in Little Wars poked it's head up unexpectedly. Amy made me a very nice infantry flag for my FPW French.
May - Spencer Smith Normans? Duly purchased, painted and put away. Crusades itch scratched - for now. The 1565 project gives one last spastic kick in the form of a large Ravelin.
June - The smaller test-run of the "55 Days" game in Canberra. A smashing success.
July - My shameful failure to paint more Spencer Smith miniatures for a painting Challenge and instead producing a nice little force of Mirliton Italians, a few DAK and some unaccountable Myceneans.
August - The opera bouffe of Bergonzoli's caravan. If you don't remember, well, shame on you. Well-hung libyans and Italian Heavy Artillery, too!
September - Back to the Sudan. Many Egyptians painted, the Glen Moray on the stocks, Hussars, Highlanders. Single Malt. Will it last?
October - Allahu ackbar! Mahdists! Scores of 'em!!
November - Sudan Terrain, Gordon on his last legs... What's that? I have to construct four small and one large building complex by when? OK! And while i'm at it - ancients!
December - Hey, look at these Macedonians!

I managed to get the buildings done and handed them over you'll be relieved to note.

Looking forward then.

Now the demands of terrain building are off me, I can return to the Sudan. Still going strong there and the next 20 Mahdists have been clipped from the frame. if we are going to demo a Sudan game next year, I'll continue to build heaps of them, otherwise I will taper off in March and concentrate on my own campaign.

There you go, a sort of pledge for next year.

Another - The Alzheim and Imperial armies are now at very fightable strengths in terms of the "Grantian" sized armies I had envisaged. I will be fighting battles with them next year. I will. Just a touch of basing to be done and we ought to be right to go.

I want to keep on with my WW2 Italians. Before I go to much further, i either need to find someone locally who'll provide an opponent or build British forces of my own to solo against.

That ought to keep me.

Happy New Year!

From the Back of the Cupboard

 Almost literally true in this case.

 Ii was having a clean-up today and re-discovered 60-off painted Eureka Macedonian Phalanx which I purchased and painted in a mad frenzy of enthusiasm when they first became available. Then I carefully read Arrian and decided Alexander was not really to my taste after all and that I didn't really like the figures and... well... just abandoned them.

Of course, now I think they'll go splendidly with a Successor army and am relieved I never eBayed them off. They are closer to true 25s which fits well my current concept for an ancients army, are not too badly painted and just need to be dusted and based.

I also found some Elite Republican Romans. Now I'm thinking of Pydna. Or Pyrrhus* of Epirus. Naturally I'll have to replace the Elites with Mirliton as they'll scale better together.

See how my mind works?

*Now, there was a man who lacked focus!

Ancients - the Bits that I Like

That could have been more gracefully phrased. Nonetheless - there is stands. The current state of play on my ongoing struggle with wargaming butterflies:

I'm still really like the look of the various Garrison ranges. Looking around on Ross's blog it seems to me that they are all broadly compatible. With one eye closed and with a following wind. Garrison service (ie, delivery time, unexpected extras, friendly comms and so on) is very good indeed. I note that the 20mm Ancient Phrygians I have are actually about 23-4mm to the eye, yet they still seem not out of place next to the 30mm (nominally) Rose "Heritage" Greeks that I now have 24 of.

I could easily go down the Greeks/Achaemenid Persian/Macedonian road.

I also rather like the RAFM Hellenistic ranges. There is also plenty you could pull in from the Ral Partha range. Quite pricey at $2.50 per figure, but there are bargains to be had on eBay. I would put the Macedonian/Successor period as my number one preference at the moment as you can pull in so much other cool stuff. Again, the Garrison Successors are cool with plenty of variety.

I've been having a seried of "ooo, pretty" moments this week at the Mirliton website. Especially after noting you can get 10% off your order if you buy 100 figures. Their Republican Romans, Etruscans , Apulians and others are very, very attractive. Especially after just reading in Charles Grants Ancient Scenarios book that he thought you could do a reasonable job at a legion with 60 figures.

Did I mention also the stash of Xyston1:600 galleys I found in my desk drawer a couple of days back> Probably not. And that's another tangent in itself.

The trick is how to do all these things (and, let's face it, buy at least 1500 wargames figures. At least.) and somehow tie them altogether.

Desert Island Blogs

Imagine...

A hot dry wind blows...

A post-apocalyptic wasteland...

All the whiskey is gone and the beer and wine are running low...

Cheesy biscuits are in short supply...

Your laptop battery has been saying 15% for the past 2 months now, however long you have it on charge...

All the blogs in the world have been wiped out...


Excepting the half a dozen you managed to save...

I'm thinking:

http://gatheringofhosts.blogspot.com.au/
http://parumpugna.blogspot.com.au/
http://vintagewargaming.blogspot.com.au/
http://unfashionablyshiny.blogspot.com.au/
http://steve-the-wargamer-teasers.blogspot.com.au/
 and

http://flanderkin.blogspot.com.au/

If only Google Chrome would stop eating Mr P's posts.

Says more about where my fickle head is at rather than the absence of anyone on the list. Stokes, I am looking directly at you! Stop daydreaming about that pair of brogues you're peeping at on eBay.

When butterflies attack

I should stay away from the internet.

This:
http://gatheringofhosts.blogspot.com.au/
plus this:
http://parumpugna.blogspot.com.au/
Equals this:
http://www.garrisonminiatures.com/
and:
http://www.rafm.com/

Hopefully this will serve as a small butterfly smackdown kind of arrangement.

Aba Island 1881

The first battle of the Mahdiyyah was fought on Aba Island in 1881.

200 Egyptian troops disembarked from the steamer Ismailiya with an artillery piece in tow early in the morning of 11th August. The two officers in charge had been told that he who took the Muhammed Ahmad would win a promotion. Their two groups of troops formed up then blundered their way inland.

The Mahdi's followers, some 300 Ansar were armed with melee weapons only, yet as they broke upon the Egyptians in the dimness of the dawn, only a dozen fell to the ill-aimed scatter of Remington shots.

One hundred and twenty of the Egyptian troops failed to scramble back aboard the steamer.

Aba Island is a long, thin body, some 14 km long and about one wide, on the White Nile. It lies about 200 km to the South of Khartoum. At the time it was heavily wooded and was indeed a centre of boat-building activity.

That's all I have! Now to turn it into a war-game.

First the rules - the Sword and the Flame will suffice.

Second the Order of Battle.

I think two units of Egyptians (40 figures) and three of Ansar (60) will do.

The terrain will be heavily wooded. There will be a village some way back from the shore. There will be a landing stage. The river banks are very steep - no gently-shelving beach.

Painting Challenges in the Soodan

Another fine mess you got me into Maleesh!

 What better way of keeping oneself motivated to paint, and paint and paint other than to engage with a few far-flung chums in a painting competition.

I decided to kick off with a bang and go for the top with the Willie Chinese Gordon. Clearly drawn from the famous painting and a quick and easy job. I made sure his hair was white as the stress of events has clearly taken it's toll of him.

Grass roof detail scribed with a fork into gap filler.

 Next out were some lavatory paper roll and cereal packet cone native huts. I drew my inspiration for these from the Hovels offering. The patterning is purely made up, but does add a little interest. It's my intention to write an inscription into the little ochre cartouche on the left-hand hut.

Onward! Peter Gilder made me!

Next, an experiment with basing. A 40mm disc from Renedra with a Perry Standard Bearer and a Conoisseur Emir. A bit of a tight fit, so back to the drawing board there.

Not Charlton Heston.

 WIP - another Gordon because I had to.

Jihadiyya Rifles.

 Another experiment with the Renedra bases which I think works for the riflemen. 40mm for the pairs and 20mm for the singletons.

 

Ack! Here they come Maleesh!

Yet another experiment with basing. I am thinking of using the bigger bases to hold 7-8 figures (representing 10) with a mounted leader and bannerman on every third - a unit would be three bases with a scattering of singles for the look of it. This layout above is 25 figures plus one mounted representing 30. Looks good to my eye, but now I need to make it work against singly mounted opponents for Fire and Melee purposes in a convention setting! 

Current painting challenge total - 38 figures and three buildings.