A great chance to lend a helping hand; 45th National Veterans Wheelchair Games, July 9-14

       Anybody in the Detroit Metro area feel like lending a hand to wheelchair bound vets? Here is your chance, this coming weekend the National Veterans Wheelchair Games will be taking place at several venues around Detroit. There is a need for volunteers to lend a helping hand to our injured veterans, they gave so much, they deserve a little payback from "we he people" that they were serving. No experience necessary! Just a willingness to give up a little of your time for those who lost the ability to walk protecting us. 

       You can follow this link to the volunteer page 

To far-off Ilium we shall travel

        Another batch of Foundry Trojan Wars light troops, this time javelinmen. These were a bit of as bother to paint as they were mostly, or completely, naked. Skin tones are a pain and I tried to hurry things along by using a wash, this which settled rather unevenly. After a quick touch-up I pressed on and got them completed and based.

 

aside from the skin tone issue painting the boars tooth helmet was a bit tiresome

This is a hill I am willing to die on !

 

 

 

       Some time ago Rich Uncle Pat decided to dive into the American Revolutionary War via the Warlord Epic Scale minis. He has spent the last many months laboriously painting the forces for the Battle of Bunker Hill (what better way to start a new period than with the very first real battle of the conflict). As he is approaching completion of that job I offered to build the terrain that he might need. I am currently painting the buildings that came with the minis but, if we are to refight the Battle of Bunker hill, it seemed incumbent upon us to have a hill (I was actually warming up to build the whole peninsular but that idea got shot down). To my dismay I found out that R.U.P. intended to place the hills underneath the game mat. That left only the redoubt thrown up by the Patriot forces on Breed's Hill. This I was allowed to build.

       For a small battle that was so well documented there is a bewildering assortment of maps of the fight. Precious few agree on the size, shape or exact placement of the significant terrain features, Happily they do agree on shape and approximate size of the simple earthwork that crowned Breed's Hill on the fateful day.

       Some fiddling had to be dome to accommodate the Warlord bases but in the end R.U.P. was able to provide a plan of the work. I rubbed my hands with glee and dusted off my trusted friend, Proxxie. The earthworks could be easily made with blueboard, but where am I to find a supply of logs for the inner face of the fort? Spaghetti noodles are thin round and straight!

Troy, at last

 

       It seems many centuries ago that Foundry began issuing their Trojan Wars range. They were delightful figures; well proportioned, active and accurately detailed. I bought them as they arrived in dribs and drabs at my local brick and mortar, fully intending to field an army for the (then current) WRG Ancients rules. Things being what they are my gnat-like attention span meant that something new and shiny came along and I was distracted. The Trojans were shuffled off into a box and packed into the Mountain of Shame under the "Someday" heading. Soon they were forgotten and dust covered. That is until recently; finding my box of soldiers still patiently waiting after all these decades rekindled my interest and I resolved that this would be their summer to get painted and be committed to battle!

 

scarcely a host of warriors, but it's a start!

two bases of Light Infantry with bows, 12 points each under Midgard rules 

 

Biblical Diversions

 

 

looks like a used war-cart lot, somewhere in the Tigris valley 2300BC 

 

       The Housemartin has been acquiring minis through Ebay for some time now. Recently he got some Early Bronze Age minis that included a single example of a war-cart and some strange saddle-wagon. He was unable to find sources to supply additional figures so he turned to me.  He has known me for far too long and knows that I am susceptible to a scratch-building challenge so he asked if I could knock together some additional vehicles for him. Of course I fell victim to the idea. Through the magic of 3-d printing I was saved the tedium of making over a dozen wheels and I was able to find some STLs of donkeys and zebras to provide a method of locomotion for the needed carts. That being done the carts were a simple thing to make and I got them squared away in an afternoon.

 

horse too small to ride?

asses to mean to try riding?

put a saddle on a log and make the contentious beasts drag you around! 

 

the fresh coat of Modge-Podge makes it a bit difficult to see

sorry about that 

 

 

then there is the fleet of war-carts 

I would never have managed to get a dozen wheels the same size without a printer

those wheels in the back of two of them are just to balance the model,

without them the wire harness tips the model nose-down 

 

angry, mean and barely domesticated,

 the asses were probably the most dangerous part of the ensemble! 

Horsing Around

 

why? where? how?

        In the process of the "Great Relocation" (wherein the library is moving upstairs and the painted minis are moving into the space that the books are evacuating) a great many boxes of "stuff" are being moved, opened, and examined. 

       Today I made this stunning discovery, a box weighing roughly twenty five pounds that is completely filled with 25mm horses of every imaginable type. I have absolutely no recollection of how they came into my possession or why they were stashed with the 7.62x54R ammo but there they are. I will be bringing these to Stellacon, so if you need horses, I have them at a very reasonable price!

Sniper Priests with a touch of paint

 

        You have seen these lads before when I reviewed them a while back. I was asked if I would try my hand at painting them as well (always a dangerous proposition because sometimes the Painting Muse doesn't visit for months) which I readily agreed to as they are simply delightful models.

The First Annual Sprue Swap at Stellacon 2026

        If you are like me you have been getting those free sprues on the cover of the British wargames magazines, plus a bunch of leftovers from various projects. They sit in a box looking to valuable/useful to throw away, making me feel guilty for not putting to use. Well here is your chance to be freed of that guilt, bring them to Michigan Toy Soldier on the 27th of June for the swap-meet. 

        Stellacon is the annual swap-meet hosted by Michigan Toy Soldier Co., you can also round up spare or unwanted minis, models, books and other hobby supplies and sell/trade them with fellow gamers. It is a great chance to find that unique item that you have been searching for or get rid of last years "new thing" that didn't work out.

        

The Bambu-Mini Free Company is ready to take the field!

 

the forces of the Bambu Free Company as it stands today

just under 100 points in Midgard terms

 

       Well, not entirely free, there is the matter of 1.3 cents per mini for the filament, and doubtless some electricity costs as well. I am willing to absorb such costs and still feel as if they were free. Some of the minis came out rather well, a few look a bit awkward (they get to stand in the middle rear row of the formation) but on the whole I am quite satisfied with the results. 

 

Making the Bambu Mini pay for itself UPDATED

       One of the things that always bothered me about plastic minis was the huge number of spare bits that were left over after a build; dozens of heads, arms etc that were heading toward the recycling bin. I held onto the sprues, swearing that they were too useful to cast aside, and for once I was right. I stumbled across a free STL of Middle Ages warriors. by a fine fellow by the moniker of Illhadiel on Cults 3-d. Among the many files were several basic bodies with legs but no heads or arms. In an instant I knew I could use all those spare plastic parts and make my Bambu Mini a fiscally sound decision (retrospectively at least). With each mini using about two grams of FDM and a spool of FDM costing about $13US the price per body was just pennies. 

 

it took a little work to get them the right size

 but after that it was off to the races! 

Amidst the digging I found a chest of treasure

        One of the few advantages of sorting through and relocating one's lifetime collections of hobbies is that you find all those things that had gone walkabout on you. Lost items, or in this case, whole collections of projects scarcely remembered that once were burning flames. One such flame was Wargames Foundry's Trojan War series released ages ago. The models were lovely, the subject evocative and the price horrifying. My kids going off to college meant that I didn't have funds for such pursuits at the time so I stashed the collection and promised myself that I would return to it later. No doubt you will be shocked to discover that was a promise that I failed to keep (putting five kids through college took forever and my interests wandered). 

 

when I found this tucked behind a stack of ammo-cans I wondered what it held... 

 

 

to my great joy it was the long-lost Trojans

with the group now playing Midgard instead of WRG 6th I no longer need 20 plus chariot models

suddenly fielding a Mycenaean Period army becomes a reality 

 

 

now "all" I have to do is assemble and paint them

I guess my Summer project has been decided upon! 

Trench Crusade, Trench Missionaries

        In the constantly expanding world of Trench Crusade Wargames Atlantic is offering us Trench Missionaries, the Mormon crusaders, right down to the white shirt and black ties (I almost expected to find a set of bicycles in the box). All kidding aside this is an excellent set that adds a new dimension to the game, I look forward to some expanded lore regarding this faction.

       As far as the models go they are cast in the usual gray plastic with no flash and just the faintest of mold-lines. The detail on all surfaces is sharp. As with most Wargames Atlantic kits there are plenty of posing options and weapon choices and the suit of "Power Armor" captures the Steam/Diesel Punk ethos perfectly. The figures are reasonably proportioned (no enormous heads or hands) and the clothing fits well over the models with the details sharply cast and the flowing capes deeply molded, both of which will make painting a breeze. I do like that the models are all solidly standing on both feet with no "athletic" running poses teetering on one foot or oddly posed crouching figures, but that may just be my rather pedestrian tastes showing.

 

 

box front, some interesting painting ideas on offer