Monday, February 27, 2012

Skirmish Rules for the Campaign

With the upcoming campaign, I wanted to make sure we had skirmish rules available that would be quick, appropriately resolved, and meshed with the period. I was going to bastardize Necromunda and Mordheim, as they are both good games, but doing so would require a lot of work on my part to make them mesh.

Then I came acrosd Smooth And Rifled from http://smooth-and-rifled.blogspot.com/ which has saved me many hours of work. I had looked at the offerings from Too Fat Lardies, but their rules just didn't hit all the things I was looking for with the campaign. Don't get me wrong, the Lardies do great work, but what I was looking for in a ruleset just was not what they covered.

A good thing about S&R is that once purchased, all future versions and supplements are free of charge. Designed by the same chap who did Impetus, these are nice rules, well organized, with color photos. My only gripe, and it is small, is that the examples were written out, but do not include pictures or photos. However, with the simplicity of the rules, these streamlined examples may be enough for most experienced wargamers.

Since the rules were written in Italian and then translated, the English is a little stilted, at least to my English Writing Tutor eyes. Also, whether it be translation error author error, there are some grammatical errors in the text. In other areas, the phrasing muddles the clarity of the rules, for example, Rule 6.2 Fire. The text of the rule seems to indicate that a model can be facing in one direction, but then fire at a target behind it, without turning around, but there are movement rules for turning (turning costs action points). I think the intent is to not give free movement, but rather focus a models attention to what is in front of it, even during the move phase, if threatened from that direction.

Since this is not a review, per se, I will refrain from giving a full critique, but suffice to say, I will be using these when appropriate in the campaign. I will need to make some slight adjustments, for example with wound severity (50/50 chance of either shaken or dead), plug bayonets, and grenades. The rules are meant to cover actions from 1700 to 1900, but as there are several supplements for various periods, i would guess that the WSS still require an official supplement release to provide these rules....and since they do not yet exist, I have to make them up.

Overall, I do recommend them to wargamers who like skirmish games. I may well put on some games of this for my local club.


Thursday, February 23, 2012

Ebor Miniatures: Me likey!

I bought a small sample of WSS officers from Ebor Miniatures to see if they went with my WF WSS infantry. Due to my budget (that of an unemployed full-time graduate student/teaching credential student) I am building my WSS/imagi-nation army out of plastic. However, I want a little more character in each of my battalions, so I have purchased models from Front Rank and now Ebor.

While Front Rank look, well, amazing, they are far too "beefy" to look proper when mixed within a unit of my plastic soldiers. They work perfectly as generals, but not when based within a unit.

On the other hand, the Ebor models pictured above and below are...for the lack of a better word, perfect! They are actually ever so slightly smaller than the WF figures, but withing a unit, they look fine. The only gripe I have is that their range is rather small at the moment, especially for officer models. Happily, they are releasing a few more models that are officers, in the near future, and a few more later in the year, after they do Spanish WSS figures. At just about $2 each, before shipping, they are comparable in price to Front Rank.

Now, for the bad news. As they came from the UK, I expected a modest amount of dents, dings, and bends. Unfortunately, the way one of the officers is molded, the one waving his hat, his scabbard is on the verge of snapping off. The model itself is just too thin there, the scabbard that is. In places, it is thinner than the sword. It also looks like there was a bit of flashing still there after casting, as someone has obviously taken a file to it before shipping it to me. Also, on the standard bearer officers, where the lace should be raised along the front buttons and back trim, it is actually indented. This means my new, as yet unused, can of Strong Tone from Army Painter will flow into where the lace is supposed to be.

Sigh... glad I noticed before I applied paint to it.

However, I am pleased with these models and will be ordering the new poses of officers as they are released. I am hopeful that the Spanish line have some models I can use as well.

Now, they need to release pikemen and my world will be complete.

The Wargames Factory model is shown for size comparison purposes. Otherwise, being a commoner, the officers would not venture to even be seen in his company.

Wargames Factory: WSS Cavalry Review


Due to my computer hardware problems, I was not able to post this four months or so ago. I finally got some time to assemble these figures over the long weekend, this past weekend, and I decided to go ahead and post a review.

The sprue is not as well laid out as the infantry sprues, in my view. There is plenty of space between the three arms with pistols, to the front right, and also next to the three dragoon muskets on the front left. Additionally, there is space next to one of the leg pairs, just above the arms with pistols. This is unfortunate, because I really feel there are some missing bits that would have been very helpful for this box, namely more arms with open hands, floppy hat heads, and a torso with breastplate only.

There is only a single open handed right arm on a sprue, which limits the number of poses you can have in a unit, beyond a trumpeter and standard bearer. Of course, we can convert models easily in plastic, especially if we have a number of infantry sprues handy (which I do!). However, I feel it is very short sighted to have just the one arm to cover the command crew and dragoons holding muskets.

During the WSS, and before, floppy hats were the norm. It was during the WSS that the brim of the hat was folded up into a tricorn style. This means one MUST have the infantry sprue in order to use the single floppy hat head found there, which does not have a field sign. I hope WF eventually (as in SOON!) does an artillery box. If they do, I hope to be able to request floppy hats on the crew sprue.

As wearing armor was going out of style during this period, it seems reasonable for there to have been a torso with just the breastplate.

These are really the only quibbles I have with this box.


Well, that is not true. I am also disappointed in how the legs of the horses do not have 3 points of contact, or even two solid ones, for all the reasonable variations a single box can produce. One horse, if assembled this way, is rearing on its hind legs OR with tilted to a more horizontal position, can be said to be jumping an obstacle.

Again, If the artillery box cones out, I would like to have caisson and crew, with the gun. This should include a pair or quad of horses. If so, they need to go to the expense of doing another set of different poses for the horses.

Okay, now my quibbles are exposed.



I do like the box, very much. The price point is something that makes my wallet happy. The actual box construction is far sturdier than the previous boxes, with a top and bottom instead of side openings. This means I can now store pieces, completed models, or even fully painted and based units in the box they came in. Much much much better than before!

For making 12 cavalry models, there are a great many options one can choose from. There are 3 back and breast torsos, with 3 lobster helm heads, per trooper sprue, eight tricorne heads, and six felt hat heads (2 different hat styles - maisson du roi is one). Since the infantry sprue heads easily swap with these bodies, you can actually do a lot more with these, including having horse grenadiers!

If you are building an army for an imagi-nation, then this box set really gives you options, which increase exponentially when added to the infantry box. In fact, one can do infantry with lobster helps and armor, which could be used for engineers. If only the infantry had gaitered legs, then one could do dragoons properly (by having a stand of foot dragoons for when the unit dismounts).

Improvements to this box over the infantry box include the corrected sword (hilt now faces the proper way), pistols, extra extra muskets, and a trumpet. Where it falls down a little is the lack of a standard pole (but I can use the extras remaining from an infantry box, or wire).

Since I am building units of dragoons for my own imagi-nation (also blogged on through Blogger)at three to a base, I made a drummer instead of a trumpeter. Both he and the standard bearer have muskets slung and the rest of the dragoons are using both hands on the reins, with muskets slung. Meanwhile, my horse are armed with swords and only two to a base as my bases are 50mm square. This gives me one squadron of dragoons and 1.5 squadrons of horse, per box; three squadrons of horse per box is the alternative. My imagi-nation cannot recruit cuirassiers locally, so they will have to try to acquire allied units of those heavy horse troopers. Thus, one or two boxes will sort that for me, completely.

The assembly of the horses is straightforward and simple. Using a little plastic glue, and things go well. There is little in the way of mold lines; nothing a sharp hobby knife cannot handle. As for gaps, there is a slight gap around the base of some of the horse heads. This may be due to the heads going to specific pairs of legs, but maybe not. Anyhow, the gap is not large and can be filled with the plastic glue or a tiny tiny amount of putty. One thing I do suggest is to drag a sharp knife across the rump and saddle of the assembled horses, to knock down any flash (there wasn't any on my 36 horses) and to even out the two sides of legs.

The trooper's legs come in two parts, one for each leg and thigh. This can be slight fiddly as the tab allows some "wiggle" at the join in the middle, so I suggest you have a horse assembled and then fit the assembled legs to it, before the glue dries, to make sure of a proper fit. Just take the legs back off before they get glued to the saddle.

There is a larger gap between the top of the legs, where the upper torso is glued to the waist. This can also be a problem if the torso is aligned off center from the front facing of the model. This being the case, your arms will be in the wrong position and you may have to remove the torso and re-glue it. As far as the gap between upper and lower portions of the trooper, it is not very noticeable once they are in the saddle and the bag and blanket/coat are glued behind the saddle frame.

It does look like one of the tricorne heads was taken straight from the infantry sprue, which means it has bugged out eyes. The newly sculpted heads do not have this problem. So, if this look is something you want to avoid, pay attention to which head you are using.

My only other wish for this box would be to have a sword scabbard sans sword. When gluing the sword scabbard to the model, if the model has a sword in its right hand, then you have to cut the hilt from the scabbard piece. Otherwise, it will look...wrong-ish. Again, a sharp hobby knife sorts this. Oh, another thing, the sash bow piece is the same from the infantry sprue, but it flows the wrong way for movement. It is not a deal breaker, but it is a detail that sticks in my mind...because it just does.

Overall, I do recommend this box for purchase, especially to those collecting for imagi-nations armies.

Saturday, February 18, 2012

WIP Sepia Map with Political Borders

Since Ray from Don't Throw a 1 liked the sepia version below, I wanted to find a way to clearly show the borders. Here is the result.



Of course, I still need to add the text and location of population centers, but this appears to be useable, even with the hex grid.

As each hex = 5 miles, once the maps are zoomed in, quite a lot of detail can be added, especially map topography that would be useful information for tabletop battle terrain.

I am off to a Motorcycle Safety course, so I will be having fun for the next 7 hours or so,

Friday, February 17, 2012

WIP Map new versions

I have been working on variants of the campaign map, just to see what looks better, but also is useful for the campaign. Here are two samples, a sepia and a more NATO-esque version. I removed the hex grid from both as it cluttered the map horribly and made it difficult to see the changes.

 Getting the elevations to have a distinct visual appearance was the easy part, getting the woods to look right...well, I went through nearly all of the available line fills and this is what looked best from the options...but I am not satisfied with it. I will have to play with the various mechanisms that allow me to tweak the appearance of the outline for the woods, to see if there are any other ways to make them stand out, but in an appealing way.
The national borders are also off, but that is because the colors were difficult to see on the sepia version and I switched them all to black, not realizing that none of the borders would show up when I did that because there was no longer a visual difference between them. I will have to go back to an earlier map version and make the same changes, for the borders to show up again.

I could not use a texture on the sepia version, the sepia overlay doesn't see the texture, so it just shows as white. I like the NATO type version, probably because I am used to that style.

Wednesday, February 15, 2012

Coughing fit

Well, I am working on a couple of variations of the campaign map. I received my copy of the U.S. Army Atlas of military operations in Western Europe earlier in the week and it has caused me to work up some minimalist versions of the map. I need a texture for the forests, and then I will be set.
I also need responses to the emails I have sent out to my club members as I need to know which nations they wish to control. As they are able to name the nation and principle cities, I cannot finish off the map without the feedback.
As I was very ill this past weekend, a bug I picked up for my students, I did no work on miniatures. However, I am feeling much better and will be able to work on them this weekend, in the evenings.
With the rising prices of gasoline, petrol to my friends in the UK, I am very happy that I have a scooter. Yet, it is still not running, but is in the shop. It is likely an issue with the valves, so an affordable adjustment, I should have it for next week.
I have a night class tonight, so I will get nothing done except a bit of sleep, unfortunately. I have thirteen more hours to go before that...

Saturday, February 11, 2012

Campaign Map WIP...almost...almost

Here is the most recent version of my WIP campaign map. I need to add population centres, roads, and maybe some farmland and marshes. This map was designed for functionality over aesthetics due to the needs of the campaign. Otherwise, I would have used a completely different style and textures.

I spent a large portion of my break, today, fleshing out details for the campaign rules, specifically how the individual character attributes interact with the various campaign mechanics. Once this map is complete, I will post a very lengthy post containing all of the rules.

You will notice for this map that I have included much of the neighboring area surrounding the Spanish Netherlands. I figure this will come in handy for the time, should it arrive, that France and the German States become involved, again, the affairs of these new nations.

For any other nation that is off this map, like Denmark, I will simply add a hexagon map version, with an abstraction of the route between the countries. I have it clearly in my mind, but it is difficult to explain. I will post an example at another time.

Thursday, February 9, 2012

Comments Wanted! : WIP Campaign Map

Here is a sample viewing of the WIP map that I am finishing up for my imagi-nation campaign. I need to add forests, the French border, the smallish border states, and another border for a province in the north. I already have placeholders for many of the larger cities, which are not shown, but I am looking for symbols or textures that will work with this style of map, and have yet to find something I can use. I would love to find Vauban style fortress symbols, but I will probably end up going to some old, very detailed, maps of France that show the fortresses, and then copy those and create my own symbols...we'll see.

I am not certain I will even attempt to add the canals and just assume they exist, but are too small to show up at this scale. The same may apply to all the small rivers that are, in reality, present.

I do not know how I feel about the abrupt shift from a smooth grassland texture to the blurred stark color change for the mountains, but none of the textures I found for mountains could be reasonably used in this type of map.

I expect that I will treat the forests in a similar way that I did the mountains, and thus not add a texture, maybe that will help balance things out.

In the meantime, I have been writing down notes on my ipad for the actual campaign rules. These include national characteristics, character stats, the tactical rules modifications, the modifications to the campaign rules that I recently purchased, and modifications to a skirmish rule set that I am extracting and converting from Games Workshop's Mordheim rules. I am also working on modifying Kenzer & Co's, Hackmaster rules for detailed character backgrounds, so that each major character can have a common rules foundation.

My order of Army Painter spray cans and Quickshade arrived this week and I will need to go get a cheap lamp to use for my painting table. I plan on getting a few units painted in the next week or two (I have three extra days off due to holidays and a furlough day).

Unfortunately, my scooter still is not starting and while I am hoping it is merely the spark plug, with my abysmal luck, it will be something that is no longer made or will cost far more than I can afford. Even finding someone local who is willing to work on the scooter has been a problem.


Wednesday, February 8, 2012

Murphy's Law: Well enforced.

Within my family, we are all too familiar with Mr.Murphy and his unfortunate law. We are also very familiar with the proverb "when it rains, it pours." Often, we are on the receiving end of both at the same time.
In my case, I have had two yearn of dreadfully bad luck with all things electronic and mechanical. I had a motor scooter kill itself one day after the warranty expired. Two months later, the nice, just out of warranty, video card that cost me over $300 died. Five months later, my laptop keyboard went screwy and I could not type Os or Ls.
Fortunately, the laptop was under warranty, so they replaced the keyboard, with a keyboard that has a problem with all the keys on the left side...they "stick" and do not pop back up as they should. So, I need to send it off again.
Last night, after three hours of diligent work on my campaign map in CC3, the program crashed and closed, before I could save the mountain contours I had just finished. I went back to open the auto saved map, but the autosave had somehow turned it self off...I hadn't turned it off, but it was off, so I lost all the work I had done and that meant the map that I would have posted today, as a completed map, must be reworked again.
My new motor scooter choose not to start up today, no matter what I did.
My pen leaked all over my hand and then was almost immediately stolen by one of my students when my back was turned...hope it leaks in their bag or pocket.
And my friggin Internet connection on campus intermittently decides that while I have already logged in and have been typing, while on break, that I need to log I again...and again...and again..but each time, the log in and password that I always use are not recognized as valid and so I must log in again...and again...and again.
Some days, it is not worth the bother of getting out of bed...

Saturday, February 4, 2012

Imagi-Nation WIP: The Map

I have been grinding my way through learning various aspects of Campaign Cartographer 3. It apparently is fairly easy to work with, once you learn how to tap into its potential.  In the past, I have spent time with it, but never enough to become proficient or properly learn it.

Now, however, I have a real need for it as I am working on my pending imagi-nation campaign. I never realized just how bloody hard it is to find a decent map...of anything! I am trying to find a free (because I am poor) relief map of Belgium, Luxembourg, and parts of France and the Netherlands. Sure, I can look at free maps from the period at an amazing 1:50000 scale or even smaller, but getting one at 1:3000000 is a huge search for the proverbial needle in a haystack.

Luckily, only last night I came across a free online map, which I then used as a background in CC3 while I traced it. This morning, following some spiffy tutorials that I found online, I divided modern Belgium into some alternate reality political entities that fit with my imagi-nation timeline and history. Now, I just need a good map that shows me elevations, contours, or a relief map of the same region...and another map that shows me the rivers and canals.
 This is the map I found.

And this is what I have turned it into. The colored areas are just that. They show which small countries exist in my universe. However, when the map is done, the only coloring here that will be left is just the border outlines as I want to show off the terrain.

I still have a bit of work to do on the political boundaries as in my version of history, France has given up a bit of territory that it won during the 17th century, giving me some border territories to the SW that must be fleshed out. The red area is my own nation, and the large black area are various "German States" that I expect to detail later on.

I have a significant amount of work to do on that map as it is. I must do several hours, if not days, of work just to get the contours drawn and the rivers placed. Once I have done that, I can then add the wooded areas, population centers, and farms.

Aside from the real world maps for mountains and rivers, I need to find good symbols representing Vauban fortifications for those areas that were built up by him by 1702.

Once the map is done, I will write up the campaign rules, themselves.