New projects and Wofun thoughts

For the first time in my gaming life, (and much to my surprise) I’ve found myself with several projects “on the go” and even a bonafide lead pile!

The greatly anticipated Wofun order arrived 2 weeks or so ago but I had a huge bout of buyers remorse over the cost and ignored them for a couple of days until I could get over myself. Purchasing the biggest set they do (for the ECW) I’d gone out on a limb and blown £220.00 for the set - only to find I’d been hit with an additional £50 import tax charge before they could be delivered. Ouch. To some that might not be an issue but for those of us retired folk doing a bit of minimum wage labour to fund our gaming hobby that’s a lot of hours on cheese corner I can tell you.

Anywhoo...since their unboxing I’ve been methodically punching them out of their Perspex backing, painting the shiny edges with Vallejo sepia ink and rebasing them on flocked / gravelled edge painted stands. The number of units contained in the set means that this has become a fairly lengthy (and still unfinished) process.

About a third of the force done so far!

The Wofun minis / flats seem to come in two main “styles” one of which is that illustrated by Peter Denis. His images are muted and the tones accurately reflect the general uniform hue’s of the period. They look sharp enough in 28mm (from what I’ve seen) but in 18mm a lot of the detail gets lost in the general “muddieness” of the periods predominant greys and browns - especially so I think when the clear edges (that allow a little light in behind the figure?) are removed as I’ve done. Perhaps we have become too fixated on making our smaller scale mini’s “pop” when viewed from tabletop distance, I don’t know.

Slightly “muddy” mounted dragoon’s

So, are they good value for money? The answer depends on your requirements really. In a traumatic clearing out the barn exercise a few years ago, my mostly complete 15mm Peter Pig ECW army was mistakenly thrown away by well meaning helpers (I’ll be back in therapy for a few weeks again, having just recalled it) so for me the Wofun flats were an instant, just add water, sort of replacement. I also have a grandson who I hope to involve in the hobby and who needs figures he can handle without Grampa having a stroke over broken pikes etc.

Wiser heads like Peter over at a grid based gaming went for the paper flats by the same illustrator which can of course be scaled up and down with a photocopier and an army of any size produced from just the one book purchase. In any weighing up of worth it’s clear to see that £10.99 for the paperboys re sizeable unlimited production potential is hard to match against my £270.00 one off purchase.

I think it’s important at this juncture to point out that contrary to the marketing blurb this is not a cheap introduction into a period you might otherwise not have considered gaming and though I like the flats themselves they don’t look right to me when added as a supplement to an existing 3D force. 

On the plus side the Andy Callan rules that came with the set were really nice. Simple in execution where needed (which I like) but covering all of the nuances like volley fire, pike stands, limited pistol ammo for horse, blown nags etc etc. I’m not sure if they are totally new since Mr Callan has a fairly extensive back catalogue, but they would certainly stand separate publishing in my view. I was so impressed that I shall be using them for the tactical battles in my forthcoming ECW campaign.

The need to get my Wofun bods finished and thus kick off the aforementioned campaign has meant that two other projects have temporarily been put on the back burner.

One is the early Tudor naval campaign against France and Scotland, which has recently suffered from model availability and negative scale creep...

My proxy for the 1512 “Cordeliere” accompanied by a couple of galeasses, and caravels. 18mm pike lads are for size comparison. TD 1:2400

...and the other is project “X” which will scratch an itch of mine but be uniformly loathed by regular readers.

Project “X”

Tararr a bit for now.