Doing it Different, Warlords Epic Ancients for DBA

 

 

part way through the painting process

 

       My buddy, Joe, is in Texas serving with the US Army . He is trying to get some of the guys in his unit to forsake Warhammer 40K and play historical games. They seem little interested in board-games so little progress has been made. When I got the Warlord Epic scale Carthaginians with my latest Wargames Illustrated magazine I had an idea; I would collect a few more frames and paint them up to use with DBA! This would make for a light, easily transported and space-conscious  historical army that, paired with easy to learn rules, would act as an entry-point to historical wargaming. 

       I finally managed to collect six sprues which is enough to built a half-dozen different armies. The size of the Warlord infantry blocks fits nicely on DBA 25mm  bases so there is no complicated conversion process. I got busy painting right away and it took me just one afternoon to remember why I had given away all of my unpainted 15mm figures! Good Heavens these are tiny! But I persisted and managed to get half of the minis painted and based. I am currently painting the second batch after which I will knock together some basic terrain and make a table mat to play on. Visual will be important in trying to draw the eye of folks that are used to the spectacle that is 40K.

 

 

I can't say that I'm happy with the bases being just green, 

I will have to find some ultra-fine turf

First Taste of Combat, The Newly painted Swiss in battle

        Well, they needed their baptism of fire and they certainly got it! My newly minted Swiss faced off against my Prussians. The scenarios was that the Swiss were defending their position on Napoleon's northern flank prior to the battle for Leipzig. While they fought well they were rather soundly defeated. Brad The Unlucky (BTU henceforth) and Trunkmonkey commanded the Swiss while R.U.P., J&R and myself ran the Prussians. The rules were our longstanding Napoleonic home-brew that I will someday type up and publish.

 

early in the fight, BTU's French cavalry has frozen the Prussian left in squares where they are lashed with fire, RUP's Prussian cavalry are doing the same to the Swiss center and the strong Prussian rightnder J&R is rapidly closing in on Trunkmonkey's Swiss left

Straight off the painting table and into the fire, The Swiss face the test of battle!

 

looking east, the Prussians on the right, the Swiss face them on the left

      After holding a review and parade this morning for my newly-minted Swiss I decided to set up a game to test their mettle in battle. The scenario is "somewhere in Germany in 1813". The reconstituted Swiss face the Prussians. Assembled as a strong Division the Swiss are confronted by two of the large "brigades" (a division in anyone else's army) and must cover Napoleon's northern flank. I found my old unit of Chassuers a Cheval and gave them to the Swiss, just so they have some sort of cavalry. The Prussians have three small units of dragoons. This will be largely an infantryman's fight.

 

from the Prussian side, looking south

 

the Swiss array calmly faces the onrushing Germanic hordes

The Swiss Get The Rest Of Their Guns, plus a parade of the entire force

        I managed to get enough free time to complete the three remaining artillery companies for my Swiss contingent. This completes the artillery and also the entire project. Ten battalions and four (under-strength) artillery companies, I only wish there were some cavalry to round out the force balance. 

        I keep being tempted to print out three more battalions and another battery to round out the Swiss forces for Merle's Division for the 1812 campaign in Russia (although, to complete Merle's Division, that would also require another French regiment and some provisional Croatian troops, a total of six more battalions). I resist this temptation, for the moment.

 

each regiment get one model gun to represent the two cannons that were attached

Neufchatel Battalion gets it's gun

        I painted the artillery for the Neufchatel Battalion first mainly due to the fact that it was the only one that I had any hard info on. There is a painting showing them with yellow facings and blue coats and breeches. Not a lot to work with but better than the rest. For the remaining three artillery companies I am going to dig a little but, failing further info, I will have to resort to painting them like French artillerymen. The other regiments have to make-do with just one company of two guns (reduced to one for my purposes to scale with the units)

All ten battalions, and two days ahead of schedule! 28mm Swiss

 

         It seems that I work better under pressure. A little extra free time allowed me to sit down and grind away at the pile and thus I have finished my self-imposed task of getting all ten battalions of Swiss done within a fortnight. Not that this a ground-shaking achievement as they mins are painted in the manner of toy soldiers with no suggestion of shading or highlighting. But they do look pretty good en-masse from a couple of feet away.

1st Battalion, 1st Swiss ....only two left to go!

        I got up this morning in the mood to splash some paint around. To this end I sat down and got these guys knocked out in record time, just over three hours. This leaves just the second and third battalions to go (there is a little voice saying that I should paint all four regiments, you know, just for the sake of completeness....I have successfully ignored the idea so far). I'm still trying to locate an STL file so that I can print out the ten guns and forty gunners that I need to finish this project properly. 

3rd Battalion, 4th Swiss .....That only leaves three more to finish!

         After a week of alarums and excursions I managed to sit down and grind out my seventh battalion of Swiss troopers. I would feel bad except that the great Napoleon himself had trouble with recruitment and I am moving faster than he did! Currently I have three battalions remaining and five more days to get them painted, so I'm still on track with my deadline. So, with no further ado I present the Third Battalion of the Fourth Swiss Regiment.

The Swiss now number six

 

 

2nd Battalion, 4th Swiss joins the ranks

       A day full of distractions barely allowed this to be finished on time. I had no luck getting started on the 3rd Battalion so tomorrow will be another crowded day. Still, I'm slightly ahead of schedule so everything is OK as far as getting done within the fortnight.

 

 the simplicity of the minis, joined with the crudity of the paint job greatly speeds things along 

 

 

but they look pretty good from two feet away

Anybody interested in a road trip?

 

        Last year OldSarge and I had planned on a road trip to Old Fort Wayne (unsurprisingly located in Fort Wayne Indiana) but one thing led to another and we never went. I intend on going this year and have three open seats. My schedule is very flexible (being retired) so if anybody wants to tag along I can work with your schedule. I intend on doing my usual complete walk-around so wear comfortable shoes. You can check out the schedule of events here. One caveat, I will be leaving very early in the morning to get there ahead of the crowds.

1st Battalion 4th Swiss joins the ranks

 

       Back at the grind and trying to make up for lost time. I got these guys finished today and started on the 2nd battalion before other things demanded my time. With any luck I can get the 2nd finished and a fair start on the 3rd tomorrow.

Then there were four, more Swiss

        A family function and the recent attempt on Trump's life (I am a politics/news junkie) cost me a couple of days but I got back in the saddle today and knocked out another battalion of Swiss. This will be the last of the 3rd Regiment; tomorrow I move on to the fourth, they have nice blue facings and blue/gray pants which will be a pleasant change of pace. I'm still looking for a free STL of French artillery in 28mm so that I can get started printing the guns.

 

 

Another battalion joins the march to victory!

 

        I am finally getting a system for painting these little guys. I managed to grind out this batch in about 3.6 hours, much better than the 4+ hours yesterday. The unit is another battalion of the 3rd Swiss so nothing much new to see. I have to hunt up a 25/28mm artillery STL, it seems that each regiment had a two-gun battery to call it's own.

Epic Scale Ancients, a quick look at the new Warlord offerings

 

 

 

      An old fart like me isn't apt to be jumping ship to pick these up and build armies (I have 40,000+ minis in 15mm and 28mm), but if I were coming into the hobby new I would be on this like white on rice! Warlord has, once again, managed to make tiny figures that capture the look of the historic soldiers. The models are crisply cast and well detailed and rank up to look like historical formations. I plan on building DBA armies with them because why not? Let's take a look at some of the sprues.

Further Toy Soldiers Join The Fray!!!

 

3rd Battalion, 3rd Swiss regiment joins their brothers from Neufchatel 

       It took about four hours to get these lads sorted out, a bit of a slog even with the "toy soldier" standard paint job. I am going to try to paint a battalion a day and get these finished within the fortnight. Not very impressive up close, but at two feet they look just fine.

Toy Soldiers on Parade

 

Berthier's "Canaries", the Swiss Neufchatel Battalion

       Having foolishly printed out nine battalions worth of minis I found myself having to paint them. Unable to endure that much blue paint I decided instead to paint the Swiss troops that fought under Napoleon. These were dressed largely in red coats but one bold stand-out was the troops from the Principality of Neufchatel (of which Napoleon had made Marshall Berthier the Prince). Yellow coats with bright red facings, cuffs and turnbacks was a delightfully long way away from dark blue and red cuffs so that was an instant choice.

       The minis are, well, rather simplistic. Rather than try to fight this with complex shading and highlights I have opted for a "toy soldier" approach; solid blocks of bold colors. this seems to fit the minis fairly well and greatly speeds painting! I will have to finish these and see how well I like them, but I have to say, they are giving me happy memories of playing with toy soldiers as a child.

Why Wasn't I Warned??????

 

 

what have I gotten myself into?

        So, I downloaded some STL files of Napoleonic infantry to give it a try on my 3-d printer. The figure that I printed was no award-winner but it cost less that a couple of pennies. Just for grins I populated the entire print-bed with the file and told my printer to get to work. It was humming away quite purposefully when I went to bed. This morning I awoke to a small army of minis that I now must paint. Not wanting to endure the endless blue of French units I have decided to make this the Swiss contingent; coat colors like red or yellow are much more interesting! I just need to round up an STL for foot artillery and I will be all set!

Trenches for the Quar: Part XI, Crates

        With all of the terrain built, painted etc. all that remained was to make safe storage and transportation crates. This was a simple process because from the beginning I intended to use the bases as part of the crating system. Essentially I place two terrain boards face-to-face and then add sides just tall enough to hold them apart so that the boards don't come into contact with each other. This is easier to demonstrate than describe so off to the photos.

 

way back in the beginning I built the panels that the terrain was to be mounted on,

the sturdy wooden framework holds the panels flat and provides the basis for the crating system

Gaming Update; FRIDAY 12 July 24, 7pm

 I have family plans on Saturday so the game has been bumped to Friday, July 12th at 7pm, my place as usual. As yet no plans have been made regarding the subject, so if  you have ideas. pass them along!

Trenches for the Quar: Part X, Barbed wire entanglements

        No trench warfare game would be complete without  barbed wire entanglements, and as everything else except crating was done, they moved to the top of the project list. From the artwork available the Quar take a far less energetic approach to setting wire entanglements than was usually seen on the Western front of the Great War. Often the wire is depicted as a single strand strung along a line of posts, or concertina wire laid out without benefit of posts. This didn't sit right with me so I decided to lay out the sections of wire as concertina wire emplaced with posts to secure it. These would be painted and textured to match as closely as possible the terrain boards.

 

I cut shapes from 8" sections of Eco-Rug and hot-glued posts to the sections,

these were then given a heavy coat of the dark ground-color house paint

Happy Birthday USA!!!!

 

 

 

248 years old and still going strong!!!!

Greatest country on the planet

I hope everyone has a happy 4th of July!

 

       And just keep in mind that if it weren't for some seditious young hot-heads with guns you would still be bowing down to this thing;

Gaming Update; My place at 7pm Saturday July 6th

     Not sure what we are playing just yet but we are gaming at 7pm this Saturday.

Be there, or we will talk about you as is you were!

Taking a Break From the Trenches: Building Wargames Atlantic 28mm Great War Russians

        And of course I couldn't just build them "straight out of the box".  I decided to build them as two twelve-man squads and an eleven-man squad and to pose them in as different as possible ways to make them easy to tell apart (I have no idea how well this will work out when I start in on the second box). There is one squad that is pretty much all-out assaulting at a run, one squad that is a firing-line and the last one is a grenadier squad that is all decked-out for close action in a trench. By wholesale stealing bits from the earlier boxes of minis I have built from WA it was possible to generate some very distinctive poses (never, ever throw away old bits, ever!)

 

the "running squad", of course there is a member of the minor nobility 

waving a sword and shouting just as if was the Napoleonic wars