Further Naval Thoughts

While thinking about the logical execution of my plans about upgrading my 1/500ish scale sailing warships, I came to some conclusions. This is entertaining for me in an odd way, because a real-world 17th to 18th century naval power would be scraping for resources much the same way as I do now, I believe. So, although there are projections to buy new hulls into the fleet, there is much to do to re-work and re-rig old ones.

In the Navy - a larger scale

If you browse the posts under the 'Naval' label you'll see that I have got a large collection of small, wooden toy ships. My recent thinking has been about producing something bigger and more accurate - and since a while I really liked pre-dreadnoughts.

Those wooden toys are supposed to be something like that anyway, but I looked at some blueprints and decided that, while keeping things simple (so all ships will be the same length and have similar designs), something new, and larger, is needed.

These are the pixelated plans of a bunch of ships. Based on proportions of a digital Russian battleship blueprint, I made a 1:1 rough plan of the first model on paper to see the real dimensions of the thing: with the average battleship being about (and usually slightly longer than) 100m, a model would be 18cm long and roughly 3-4cm wide, so the scale is closest to 1/600. A cruiser, then, would be about 14cm long. This larger scale spares me some of the more fiddly work I would have to do with 1/1200 or similar sized vessels.

The hull will be made of balsa wood along with most other props like the bridge and probably the main turrets. To my understanding balsa is easy to work with and if all else fails I can still use it for something else. Most hulls have very distinct features including upper and lower decks, and a 6mm & 8mm thick piece will be used: as can be seen on the picture, the two switch their relative places on the two battleship types of both navies. I did not bother much with historical accuracy in the end.
The main guns and masts will be made of wooden sticks and other gun barrels and whatnot from wire. I have some trouble with the ventillation funnels, they are a very distinct feature on these ships but I believe they can be made out of bent plastic sprues in the appropriate size. For the smokestacks I'm planning on using plastic tubes 6mm wide.
I still need to get some fine sanding sticks besides materials for the project, but these will be acquired soon enough.

The fleet will be Jackewlinese and their opponents will be those of the Veuden Confederacy. The setting is similar to the Fleet Grey - Fleet Green setting, with submarines and airships available. On first try I'll make a pair of both Jackewlinese and Veuden ships (plus probably some cuirsers) and run a test battle, likely on a large area in the house, considering the scale.

Other news:
I'm receiving a large amount of traffic from China on the blog, must be the bots again. Further proof is that it is mostly on older posts.
And only one exam remanining in this term after an extremely lucky chain of them and then two weeks of freedom and painting mayhem :)

Inter Arma Supplementary

for the wars of the Polish Commonwealth.

I. Generic rules

All as in the Main book & Campaign supplementary.

Thoughts on OPF (One Page Fleets)

This little rule set is made for space combat with the aim of being simple and fun, both of which it manages to achieve. There are a few observations though which I'd like to share, had anyone got the idea to use them.

Here's a link to the rules in PDF. Written down they really take only one page. 

Dice beating highest. When rolling an obviously higher die (example: 7 on d8 against a d6), it saves some time to apply the damage directly instead of triggering an opposed roll.

Flanking speed& Aft shields critical save. When a unit's die is d4 on DV and is shot in the rear 90° of its perimeter or performed a flanking move (and according to the situation it would be interpreted as d0 - a single hit, no matter what the defensive roll is, would destroy these units, which is really unfair), no attack die is rolled, but the unit being attacked rolls 1d4 and remains on the table if scores a 4.

Above, a photo of the first test game with various ships engaging each other.

While I am used to play with an I go, you go mechanism (where one player is the agressor and by winning initiative is able to move all his troops at once, and the other player may only react to these) the movement sequence used by OPF is alternating movement between single units or fighter squadrons of each player which sort of defines the whole gameplay and requires more situational awareness (as it really matters which unit a player chooses and where that unit is moved on the table). It also, surprisingly, doesn't give such a good flow of events as the games in which one entire army is moved then the other one follows. Combat is more fragmented.

Here's a shoutout to two new readers, Geordie an Exiled Fog (blog here) and j.d. (blog here). Welcome aboard guys!

March wishlist

March seems prosperous and here is a list of what I should acquire:

Late new year resolutions:

• Stop thinking in projects. Will buy what I like as for most of the part, I still need hundreds of minis to complete one. Most of these 'projects' are sorry excuses anyway, to buy more.
• Rewrite the Risk rules for naval/space combat. Sounds fun? It sure does. As unit bases have a strength value and are quite free to maneuver, just a little re-writing needs to be made.
• Finish that damn translation (about the siege of Szabács, to English).
• Finish the damn translation of the Inter Arma rules to Hungarian.
• Finish reading Caesar's commentary on the Gallic wars and find some inspiration for possible skirmish scenarios. Already have some ideas.
• Do not ignore studies and go out to partay. There'll be pirates.

Painting. What is certain:

• Alban 28mm 95th Rifles with the Sharpe personality pack. 
• Some Frenchies to counter them. Still haven't got around playing SDS but determined. HäT or Victrix 28mms.
• More Revell quality paints, these are always lacking and I need to stock up on them. No, I won't go near GW to buy their stuff. At least that's what I tell myself.
• This also means a ton of varnish. The varnish issues continue, I may commit heresy: use glossy+black for quickshading, then apply a matte coat with spray. Also search for new techniques (or more likely, improve the ones already learnt) to become independent of quickshading. Not sure it would work with the quantity of figs I'm planning to order.
• More brushes. Most of mine are expensive but lame quality (whew, here we go, I said it) and they bend and lose hair all the time, there are a few though that hold nicely.
• The sculpting practices continue. 

Further options:

• The 15mm TYW pack increased.
  As I am unexplainably fed up with cavalry (more exactly: horses... no explanation as once I start painting them I am done in a few hours, no problems at all), this would mean a footmen order, probably command+halberds and some musket up to 15-20 quids.

• 15mm plastics from PSC, a good starter for any WW2 project + A ton of Zvezda vehicles for them.
  A bit more pricey with the Russian and German infantry boxes being around 25-30$ each, however, for that money I'd get more than a hundred figs, and if I don't use them all there still is the chance to paint and sell them.

• GB 28mm Vikings and Saxons, the two plastic boxes for Inter Arma gaming. Good price value and would prolly cost the same as the 15s.

• 1/72 Romans and friends: civilians, barbarian enemies, tools of siege warfare and everything necessary. Early Imperial.
  Have been hesitating between this and 15mm (from Essex) but plastics are more widely available (by which I mean there is a chance I can buy them in Budapest and don't have to order them from the other side of the world) and have a better price. For a good variety I would need about 5 or 6 boxes:
  1. Roman infantry, auxiliaries, cavalry, maybe 2 of each or half of them painted different colors to do some civil war too - it's Zvezda all the way;
  2. Barbarian friends with axes, any sort, there is a great variety of sets. Germans or Gauls are preferred;
  3. Civil life sets from Linear-B either as camp followers or tabletop decoration (or something the uneducated, stinky half-naked barbarians would slaughter).

• 1/72 Zvezda Saxon cuirassiers converted to tricorne ones. For the other part, the transplantation subject GNW Swedes will have heads with funny helmets and nothing goes to waste.

• More Risk to complete my armies. Ebay or second-hand.

As I am lacking the will to decide I will put a poll above the search bar in the right side menu. Time for you to help me decide. The poll will be up for two weeks; the two options with the highest votes will get a chance. Call your parents, friends, pets, friends' parents and parents' pets, and pets' parents and tell them to help me sort this out.

WIPs and more rules

I've decided to paint up the Zvezda HYW French foot in two batches (PSR link for pics), both for the World in Chaos setting. The crossbowmen  along with the guys with warhammers (marked as 'Italian mercenaries' on the box) and picks will be mercenaries and would be hired by parties or governments for good money. The rest of the set will make a more uniform lot, the City Guard of Nolisium, with purple/white tabards. These are mostly halberdiers and lancers plus the very nice command sprue. As most of the Italeri HYW knights feature fleur de lis and these halberdiers have them on their shields too, I deliberately made it the symbol of the Golden Prince of Nolisium. This 'good guy' will be represented by one of the Frenchie figs both on foot and mounted.
I'm also painting the remaining 8 mounted knights from the Zvezda English set and they will hopefully be finished this weekend.

Rules: I've uploaded a third appendix for the skirmish ruleset Inter Arma on Pastebin and it is available on the Rules page in the header and on this link.

November wishlist

Where to start? This month is getting a bit busier. Got some more assignments and tests to do and I'm also sick as crap. If I want to make everything in order I should also focus more on studies so they would cause no trouble in Dec and Jan. On the hobby side of life:

Choices.
1. Finish one of the JCW/JWI contingents (either yellows or the Fricklander as these lack the least)
Pros: a lot to paint, but generally cheap.
Cons: a lot to paint.

2. Buy more medievals for skirmish gaming.
Pros: a few sets could make a reasonable army.
Cons: those sets (talking about the Zvezda HYW French and the Caesar Adventurers) are expensive and/or only available from ebay or stores abroad.

3. Steampunk/ACW. Or a blend of both. Reading Miéville's Iron Council and then Keegan's The American Civil War had put this in my mind and now I can't get rid of it. Maybe, just maybe some local stores would have the Italeri ACW sets around. Should throw some steam tanks together.
Pros: fun!
Cons: don't know where to start.

4. (aka The Almost Completely Impossible) Continue on with the Landsknechts theme
What I can see to this is buying some figs from Pro Gloria Miniatures (which look real beautiful) but not any more than that!
Pros: more practice in 28mm.
Cons: Money!

These were the random brainstorming thingies. What must be done:

• Replenish the acrylics with Revell/Vallejo ones. Revell acrylics are cheaper but don't know how well they mix and this is very important.
• Buy more varnish. There are always varnish issues and haven't found the perfect solution yet. I'll stick to water-based regards basing, flocking etc. but I'll still need a matte one for the figs themselves.
• Finally getting into sculpting. Thought of something relatively simple first then advancing on some more complex levels (earth golems for the fantasy skirmish game or Daleks, just for fun?)

What else:

• WW2 aircraft from the Zvezda Art of Tactic range, these are cheap and neat little models.
• More brushes, there's never enough. 
• Some extra scenery would come handy too.

So, in mind, I've already spent twice as much as I should IRL. 

Here are the occasional welcomes to a bunch of a good folk who've joined my blog in the weekend: Chuck Cathcart or Colonel Scipio from Palladian Guard; Ni. Tchirititch from Nowhere to Lead Soldiers; and my pal Attila whom I've just told to sign up :)

Coming this week: some medieval archers and a huge batrep with loads of pictures.

Projects getting realized

Sorry for the lack of posts ladies and gents, no photographing material available. Guess this also means the blog won't break the magic barrier of 10.000 hits soon!

This weekend + Mon and Tue (national holiday again)

• Finish the Risk Fricklander foot (16) done
• Finish the Revell Königtiger w/ Porsche turret - almost done, lacks varnish and base
• Finish the Italeri Highlanders (25) basecoated, waiting their turn
• (Quick-)Paint the recently bought Zvezda GNW dragoons as Jackewlinese Yellow dragoons (18)- in progress, need corrections, assembly, shading, basing
• Get some work done on the Green Guard Grenadiers (18)
• Start another 4 or 5 Risk units (30-40)
• Start the rest of the Italeri Revwar French as Dorroseani militia (quick mode) (~30)

Take photos, organize posts, leave more comments around.

Already set up a battle plan for the weekend using the Strategy Game rules (see the Rules page above), I'll need to write a non-player enemy reaction by dice as not sure if I could find an opponent. Know what, I'll start writing it right now.

Not forget about home assignments and tests due the week after the holiday.

How to improve photoshooting

Little bit of thinking here.

• Increase distance. At least by a foot. I tend to misjudge how big my figs would look like from the preview on the camera and only face the problem when I've already posted the images. Lately I've found too often that my pictures do not justify the figs. 
• Avoid super macros. With the current resolution the pictures would become huge and see the other half of the problem above.
• Better lighting. With days becoming shorter and shorter I'll have even lesser natural light so I would need a stronger light source anyway.
• Edit every each image. A bit of fiddling with brightness/contrast etc. might help a lot.

What's happening around: the Artizan figs are slowly marching through Europe and hope the Eastern European quality of postal service won't just make them disappear. I've bought a Zvezda 1/100 T-34/76 which I've just assembled (it has a cute plastic flag attached to its rear, priceless) and a pack of Zvezda GNW Swedish dragoons, also brushes and varnish along with white enamel paint to start the winter camo Königtiger. This week started with a fog and now it's raining furiously. One of my teachers has become ill so one less class to attend today. Still haven't found pics of the con. I'm going to be more active on the Schultze-Böhnstadt thingie until I paint something up.

Choosing the right men

I hinted earlier that I'd like to start something in 28mm, painting up a few metal figs really brought my attention to these, and as I've always been fascinated by the attire of Landsknechts my choice was to start a little group of them as a first journey to the world of this scale.

The figures in no particular order:

Artizan Doppelsöldners attacking

Pro Gloria Renaissance Command

Lead Adventure Landsknecht Captain 1, this last one more out of curiosity (the rest of the range looks good too but I see no way to mix them with any others)

This altogether would mean a dozen figs and a lot of working hours until they're finished. If anyone has experience how these look next to each other (browsing TMP in the meantime, I might find something useful) please share the info. This is just some hectic change in the ever-growing pile of 1/72 plastics and don't know if I would let the number of figs grow. 

Inter Arma additions

I published my Ancient/Medieval skirmish rules named Inter Arma a few weeks ago on pastebin. Now I've written a special appendix to it including fantasy rules, and another including campaign rules. These can be found on the links below, as well as added to the 'Rules' page on the blog and are free to use. Any criticism - something I should add? Something I should exclude? I repeat some words too often? -  is welcome.

Appendix I - Fantasy

Appendix II - Campaign

In the meantime, a shameless advertisement: I'm selling my composite (recurve) bow for roughly 66$ / 52€, link here. It's a Hungarian craft with wooden and plastic materials, hardly ever used and worn only at the grip where the arrows were shot. Honestly: it's not pretty in green fake leather, but it does the job. A piece of my heart would be happy if I couldn't sell it, but at the moment I'd have a use for some extra money, so drop me a mail or comment if you're interested. I can send more pictures as well.

Projects - Autumn 2012

Long time passed since the last 'text only' post, partly to my relief as I've always had enough pictures to keep on. This one, however, goes to myself as well - trying to sort out different aspects of my life and planning how to spend money in the future.

General
I could do nothing without setting goals. This has been already told by one of my teachers but I've just found my way, to set up game-like achievements with real life objects. This fills my free time with actual thinking - when I'm not doing anything, I'm thinking about how I'll do things later on and on. This is why I've chosen to read 30 classics (for most of which I haven't had the time during high school although they were mandatory reads such as Homer or Goethe), books on warfare (Clausewitz, Sun-tze, Machiavelli, Guderian, Zrínyi [compatriot and military genius]) and 50 Osprey books and write commentaries about them, or to leave 500 comments on other blogs (keep an eye out you guys! -it is intentionally a huge challenge to keep me going). There are various goals from losing weight to faring better in regular studies or writing stories and poems for competitions.

Here's a welcome to 'Encourage One Another', an inspirational blog with an army of followers, wow!

First birthday! - A summary and a Parade!

The blog has its first birthday today - let's celebrate! In the first part of this post, I'll summarize up what happened here in the last year as well as some glimpses of my everyday life, and in the second - well, you'll see for yourselves!

I can't offer much to my readers besides my gratefulness; I don't feel myself skilled enough to paint something for you. Next year, maybe ~ or I'll hold a one and a half year anniversary in winter.

Before continuing, welcome to Uncle Brian from A fist full of plastic, thanks for following!

A quick roundup & welcomes

All I've got is two more cans of paint to finish the Swedes, maybe some basecoating business on the Zvezda 30YW figs for the rest of the week... Came back to hostel but going home as I couldn't really get anything done besides that one-day job... Now I'm here with two offers, one with a crappy schedule (12 hours a day, 2 days work 2 days not, 3 days work 3 days not) and a crappy payment but it's a hundred percent sure; the other one pays better, a long term job with a 4hr/day schedule but it's completely uncertain... Problem is I've got to know what the situation is by Thursday as there is a contract signing for the short-term one on Friday. What would you gentlemen advise, risk for the better one or go for the sure?

And here's a welcome to Phil and Ubique, thanks for following.

30YW Imagi-Nations and army list

Another long-term project besides the usual Dorfainen and friends stuff, this time an alternate universe in a Thirty Years War era setting. Excuse me for the Hungarian text on the map.

Alemann electorates

(Central Germany)

Revell 30YW sets (Swedish infantry and cavalry, Imperial infantry and artillery)

Bourbon-Frankland and –Iberia

(North of the Iberian Peninsula and south-west of France)
Some of the available Musketeer sets

British Lordprotectorate

(the British Islands including Ireland)

A Call to Arms ECW boxes; Revell Swedish infantry&cavalry (generic); Mars Scots mercenaries, Strelets Jacobites (out of period but still a band of broadsword-wielding charging Scots!)

A return and a ruleset

The weekend had passed without internet again (service is messing up things), but here I am. Obviously, without any internets I had to do something else so there's a bunch of things finished/started in the usual hectic way, these will be posted throughout the next week. I had passed the second exam and now I'm looking for a job for summer.

Last week I've wanted to play some Romans vs. Barbarians and tried a little set of rules found somewhere on the internet (between the downloads, don't ask) but this was sturdy and ended in a mass slaughter, beginning with a 22-men army on each side only one archer stayed alive at the end, so I've sort of 'upgraded' the thing, modified distances, transferred the measures to metric etc., here it is now:

Inter Arma - skirmish rules in the ancient and medieval ages

It's open for viewing and criticism. Some parts aren't yet scripted (this is still an alpha version).

Welcome to Mad Padre, thanks for following and apologies I couldn't say it earlier!

5000 hits, horses and some Blogger problems

The blog has just reached five thousand hits, now this is just great and hope I'll be able to keep up the pace! Also thanks to Rosbif for following.

Since failing my exam (but with honor!) I came home and started painting a little batch of 44 horses (26 from the Revell 30YW Swedes and 18 from Italeri Scot Greys), a tough job but has to be done! Also busy writing stuff to competitions around, not hoping to win any cash but teach those brats how to write things properly (sorry, that was a bit harsh).

And to add some content (diary post is coming soon but first I'll work a bit on the grenadiers too), here are some troubles which happen here and there while posting/messing around with Blogger's interface:
-Following: The 'Follow this blog' option on the header disappeared for a while now, the solution is to go to the followers list and click on 'Join with Google FriendConnect' instead if you have a public profile. G+ links all these stuff together anyways.
-Adding pics -> funny effects in the text: it already occurred to me that if sometimes I upload a picture it modifies the text around it, adds a specific color or background and makes it non-visible. The solution is to check the 'Preview' option on the post editing UI before publishing. If one block of text is being modified, go back to the editing interface, open the HTML-view and search for the problematic part with Ctrl+F (or you could check it manually but it takes a lot longer especially when writing much) and remove the precious bit of code from the start of the block.
-Error 503s: it's the host that messes things up and usually a few refreshes help. If that doesn't work, panic.

Last(?) exam is coming

Tomorrow's my -preferably- last exam in term unless I fail (which is at the moment has a high chance - one can't be prepared enough for Roman Law) and then I'll be free - until I find a job for summer. I hope I'll increase my activity here anyway - couldn't get much stuff done, not even worth of a post lately, apologies for that.

The second reason I'm posting is to welcome Kukuruza and Lonewolf as a reader, thanks for following and hopefully you'll find enough interesting stuff here to keep an eye on my posts.

How to improve my painting

Here are a couple of things I was thinking of while not studying. Comments are also more than welcome on the subject - I still count myself as a 'newbie', although I realized I'm not doing things completely wrong.

• Switching to acrylics - not GW/Vallejo but some noname bought from an art shop, there's plenty of supplies and not out of reach considering the price. As I said earlier I'm keeping a few enamels as they apply to the plastic better (and for the sake of finishes/dips). Thinner can do a lot of damage to brushes as well - not even mentioning the fumes of the paint.
• More time spent on each fig. Finishing the figs in a week usually means 5-8 working hours on a batch of 30-40 including preps, basecoat and finish (in any other cases I'm simply lazy and don't do things in time). The later ones, especially those I finished in singles are much higher quality - this means at least 2 hours per fig. I'll strip my Zvezda Russian grenadiers this weekend and see if a few more layers - especially highlights with a lighter shade - would do more justice.
• More AFVs and planes - I'd lie if I said I have no interest in these and they mean some variety. Zvezda's Art of Tactic range is a good target.
• Historicals - I sometimes feel ashamed that I only care about my Imagi-Nations. Any new subject equals versatility and I feel like I need to switch and try something more.
• Another scale? 15mm seems inviting as well but honestly I'd rather try something bigger to see how I can deal with larger areas and textures.

I like the fact that some people are actually interested in my ramblings and hope I could keep their interest. I've just joined TMP - not submitting yet though - and will consider going to Benno's Figures Forum more frequently (might share the oncoming 17th century stuff) but I'm afraid it would take too much time.
Of time: well, this blog was my choice and is a good choice I think. The last months also proved that with less free time I'm still able to do something. I can keep on.

Sabaton - Carolus Rex

Sabaton is a Swedish epic/heavy metal band and they mostly make 20th century/WW2 themed songs, but their new album is focusing on Charles XII (with a few, but still Swedish-themed exceptions) and I'd say this definitely worth a listening, unless one really has something against metal.



Besides a few sentences about Narva and Poltava as somewhat 'decisive' battles, there was nothing about the Great Northern War in my high school history books (the sort of 'Yes, there was this Peter the Great guy and he did things'). I started gathering info after reading an article on a Hungarian blog about military history and these two (e. g. Peter and Charles) both amaze me as personalities and leaders. Zvezda makes great sets for the period, covering the major components of the armies.
Now here's a totally off-topic idea: what if I start painting the figs provided for the board game 'Risk' as Swedes and Russians? Something to be considered; there are too many ideas in my head right now.
Also, bad news: no more posts for a while as I'll need to purchase some paints and whatnot. The next weekend is going to be spent with painting again, the weekdays are for studies now!