More mucking about with my Bambu Mini; Sharpe's Rifles now serve the Imperium?

 

it even sort of looks like Sean Bean

       The other day J&R told me that he had gotten STLs for a 40K Guardsman unit styled after the 95th Rifles, yes those 95th Rifles of Sharpe's Rifles fame. He doesn't have a 3D printer right now and doesn't want to deal with the chemicals and odors of the resin printer that is the recommended manner of printing the files. I told him that I had been having excellent results with my Bambu Mini (after a few tweaks). I suggested that we try printing a few of the files just to see how they would look coming from an FDM machine.

         I confess that I wasn't thrilled to see that the mini was broken down into several parts as tiny bits are a bother to handle while removing supports. After some fiddling with the orientation to reduce supports to a minimum we gave it a try. You see the result above. the shoulder joints need to be cleaned up a bit for a tighter fit but, that aside, it came out very well. At a cost of roughly three cents per mini I can afford to make adjustments to get the very best print possible.

Warlord Epic Scale Zulus

 

 

I don't know how they intend for you to organize these minis for Blackpowder rules, but there are enough different sized groups to either make dense masses of men or more open skirmish lines 

       This frame came on the cover of my latest  issue of Wargames Illustrated. I was interested in the presentation; unlike the earlier releases in this series the figures were highly animated and not bunched together. I am impressed by the quality of the sculpts and the precision of the casting work. Honestly, if I didn't already have hundreds of painted Zulus in 25/28mm these would be simply irresistible. The scale compresses the battlefield space needed for a game. You could easily present a game with hundred (nay, thousands) of minis moving across a rolling countryside without that sense of undue compression so often felt when modern rifles make an appearance on the table. 

28mm Sepoys from Wargames Atlantic

       Wargames Atlantic returns to the era of colonial conquest with this issue. But these are no "Tommy Atkins" soldiers, these are the E.I.C. Sepoys; the locally recruited Indian troops that did most of the heavy-lifting for the British Empire. Through years of poor treatment and a widening gap between officers and soldiers they ended up repudiating their oaths to the Queen Victoria and fought to free India of British rule. Unfortunately for them internal divisions and a weak logistical base spelled failure for their movement. These figures can be used for the years prior to the Great Mutiny, and in many cases to represent the troops that were raised afterwards as well.

       The models come in the usual gray plastic, twenty-four minis in eight different poses. As is to be expected from Wargames Atlantic there is no flash and few mold-lines with a bevy of crisp details to make painting these models a pleasant task. The models are in the standard torso-and-legs with separate arms and heads. Of course there are a superabundance of heads and a good selection of weapons to make customizing these miniatures a simple task.  

Behold the the might of Mycenae

       By dint of Herculean effort I have gotten the Mycenaean army finished, there are four more chariots but they are allied. troops so I'm declaring this project completed. It only took two decades plus a bit to go from box to tabletop but here they are at last. 

 

 

the army in total, roughly 600 points of troops under Midgard without generals,

 and I have ten individual minis for generals

Wargames Atlantic 28mm Late Romans in Lorica Squamata

 

 

excellent artwork and beautifully painted mins, this should be industry standard 

       A counter-point to the Late Romans in Lorica Hamata Wargames Atlantic has provided us with Late Roman Legionaries in Lorica Squamata. These will be another distraction but at least I can pair them with the earlier set and have a host of Late Roman infantry. The upside is there is nearly a limitless supply of opponents (including other Romans) in this period. 

        The minis are beautifully cast in gray plastic with no flash and only the barest of mold-lines visible. With six different body poses you can build a unit with twenty-four unique individuals. Not to worry however; there aren't any crouching or balancing on one foot poses, just nice grounded poses. A good supply of weapons are provided including spears, swords and the dreaded weighted throwing dart, the plumbata. The shields provided have the plumbata cast onto the inside, a nice touch that Wargames Atlantic could have skipped as they will be nearly invisible once the mini is assembled. I for one do appreciate such attentions to detail.

The Trojan Wars Project, The Great Sorting

        Having been beavering away painting the Trojan Wars minis it never occurred to me just how they would be organized into units. As I was now approaching the end off the project I decided to sit down and organize the units for basing. I only have eight archers and eight chariots left to paint so I figured that I could sort the rest into units and start basing the minis. I dug out all the painted minis and laid them out on the game table, I was mildly surprised at how many I have actually painted. I began grouping the spearmen into units of eight. I placed them on a base and decided that they looked awfully sparse so I re-organized them into tens. This gave a satisfyingly dense-looking unit. Then I sorted officers, musicians and standard bearers into the formations.

 

my high-tech method of organizing minis, 

lay bases on the table and pile the minis on the bases,

 not the sort of thing a proper quartermaster would approve of but it works for me. 

 

 

 

the additional archers will be incorporated into the spear units, 

the unpainted chariots will form four more units (when I finally get them assembled and painted)

        I interpreted the descriptions of some of the units differently from the units listed in the Midgard rules book. Research shows that archers were often incorporated into the spear units so I added a few in the back row of the bases, that way I can treat the units as Heavy Infantry Warriors or Heavy Infantry with Missiles under the rules. I also decided that I would treat the Myrmidons as loose order troops (Peltasts under our modification of the rules)  that were Drilled, Fearsome and Brutal to reflect Homer's depiction of their impact on the fighting.

        While basing the minis I left a gap in the middle of the back rank so the when a general joins the unit the miniatures can be placed on the base. I'm not sure if I am going to dedicate chariots models to generals, they take up a huge amount of space on the tabletop not to mention the cost of the models!

Walk like an Egyptian, putting paint on Wargames Atlantic's 28mm Egyptian Infantry

        Having finished painting a batch of 1/600 boats for a friend I still didn't have the energy to tackle the pile of chariots necessary to finish my Trojan Wars project. I cast about looking for an excuse not to confront my chariot dilemma and spotted the box of Egyptian infantry from Wargames Atlantic. "I'll just build one of each to see how well they go together", I thought to myself......then this happened.

 

 

yep, I painted the whole box, there were four spares of each type,

 they will have to wait for the second box to be painted before they get based

Ship Happens, Part X 1/600 Warrior and some ACW ironclads

        On occasion I will undertake to assemble/paint items for friends of mine. In this case I was painting some ship models for Drew. I was interested mainly because they were mostly Thoroughbred Models ACW ironclads; a product line cast with such precision that they are simply a joy to build (as far as painting goes I just have to figure out how many shades of black I can come up with). The one standout was a resin print of the HMS Warrior, a ship that pre-dated our Civil War and which was built from the ground up as an iron-hulled and armored warship by the worlds preeminent naval; power Great Britain.  As such she was a very different vessel, cleaner and more graceful than the practical American ships.

 

the resin masts were frightfully weak so I added some standing rigging to give them a chance 

 

 

then (because self-control is foreign to me) I added some running rigging, just enough to hint at it 

 

then I got back to actual fighting ships and whipped up some ACW ironclads 

 

       After this little side track I have to get back to my Trojan Wars project, having failed to complete that by the end of Summer as I had promised myself. Ten more chariots....just the thought of it makes me sad!

Cheap flexible river

       The Housemartin came to me needing a five-foot long river for a game he wished to present at Pro or Con. I dug around in my terrain pile looking for a suitable river model. Finding nothing to match the need, and not having done a terrain item in a while, I decided to make one. I based my model on a section of Eco Rug as it is cheap, strong and doesn't fray or tear. I needed a flexible material to build up the riverbank and create texture for both the shore and the river. My answer is cheap water-soluble latex caulk. It is flexible, paint-able and easy to to work with. I cut a length of Eco-Rug about eight inches wide with an irregular edge, I then marked the center and laid out a 4 inch wide river that wandered along the length of the piece. You can follow the step-by-step below.

 

 

I got mine at Lowe's for three bucks a tube,

 you can source yours as you like 

 

Ship Happens, Part IX 1/600 USS Susquehanna; or making the Bambu earn its keep Part II

 

        A little while ago R.U.P. brought his ACW naval rules over for a test-run. We used my 1/600 models and had a most enjoyable evening. This, of course, got me thinking about adding to my collection of ACW ships. Checking online for the prices of metal models nearly caused an aneurysm.  I retreated into the idea of scratchbuilding some models when the thought occurred to me that I own a 3d printer and there might be some STLs floating about on the internet that I could put to use.

        Lo and behold! There are more than a few. One particularly generous fellow that goes by the moniker R_A_T_ offers sets of Union or Confederate ships free of charge. I downloaded several of his designs and set to work printing them in 1/600 scale. In about six hours I had more models than I can paint this week but I decided to give the Susquehanna a try. I replaced the bowsprit with a bit of wire but all the rest is 3d printed. I rather like the result.

 

 

28mm Egyptian Infantry from Wargames Atlantic

 

Midgard and The Problem of Peltasts

       Having played well over a hundred games of Midgard in the past eighteen months our group has run into a number of questions that cannot be properly addressed within the letter of the rulebook. Primarily the way that the rules group troops into only two types of order; close order and skirmish order. Either packed shoulder-to-shoulder or scattered in a free-flowing cloud. The sort of dispersed order that many historical formations employed to move rapidly, or cope with rugged terrain, can't be properly modeled. Thracians, Celts, Spaniards and the specifically organized peltasts from the Greek military tradition cannot be reflected within the rules. After trying various tweaks we gave up and decided to step outside the letter of the rules and concoct a new troop type. 

        To try to make a unit that behaves the way that the historical prototypes did with the attendant abilities and limitations. They should be terrain insensitive, but still have the ability to fight close-formed troops with some hope of success. To model the lower number of troops in the space their stamina would have to be lower. We struggled to make as few changes to the rules, and to use existing rules as much as possible to model the abilities of these troops. After play-testing we decided to modify the points as well. In the end we came up with the following.

       First reduce the points cost by two. Then reduce the stamina to three. Last endow them with the Agile trait, but only in the forward movement aspect (see sketch below). You can enter this as a trait in the  Midgard Force Builder software by using the Settings and  entering the Custom Unit Traits with the Trait of Peltasts a point reduction of two and the entering the Description of "Gain Agile, lose one Stamina".  Please note that you will have to manually modify the printout of your list because there is no facility in the Force Builder to reduce the Stamina to three. Each troop type keeps all its available Traits such as armor upgrades or characteristics like Brutal or Drilled

  

       These troops use the Agile trait when moving to the side or forward, any movement behind the rear of the base is restricted and use the 1/2 Spear-throw move stick. They DO NOT have the ability to Evade and cannot pass through formed units. They shoot at the end of the turn with the other formed troops.

 

      We have found that these changes effectively model the behavior of the historical troops without any major overhaul of the rules. The unit can maneuver over terrain, still posses significant fighting power and lack the staying power of denser formations. Observations and feedback are welcome.