Here’s one I made earlier

My grandson came over to stop for a bit in the Summer and after inspecting the first batch of WOTR troops I was painting he idly asked how long they took to do. 

To my surprise I had no real idea. Too long was my initial thought of course, but the lad had asked and I felt duty bound to give him an answer. 

Now until I get around to the detail heavy knights on horseback the massed ranks of archers seem to be the units requiring the most of my labour so I stuck five pre primed boys on a coffee stirrer, set up my iPad timer, and had at it.

I went through the process familiar to all of us of blocking in, a bit of shading, some highlights, tidying up mistakes and then varnishing. Bit of music on (The Levellers and then Muse if you must know) and time seemed to fly by. Finally happy with the result I consulted the stopwatch - and blanched. Erm...no way. Apparently it had taken me  31 minutes per figure, prior to basing. Aaaaaaargh!

Given that I’m a 105 miniatures in so far, that’s... bloody hell... 54 hours!

Of course quite apart from the miniatures there’s silly things like in game markers, which for my home brew WOTR rules means three ammo markers per ward with archers. 

I initially went with these chaps, cos I like them...

But then I defaulted to these arrow bundles from Donnigton because I’ve got short arms and deep pockets, lol.

Also, while on a (tight arse) do it yourself trip, I knocked out a couple of staked defences to place in front of my archers, lovingly crafted from some little nails and good old miliput. Needs must when the devil drives eh!

Since I may be called in for some emergency cheese making at the dairy this week (man it’s tough being a key worker...lol) this could end up as my last post before Christmas. 

I’ll close by wishing you all a merry Christmas, Festivus, Yule, Kwanzaa, whatever, and hope that all your lead piles are little ones!

JBM

It’s hardly Vauban...

...but I likes it!

I’ve spent a few quid on hexon stuff lately, flocked these days since my allergy to the static grass has apparently faded with time.

Anywhoo, my eye was caught by some of their trench stuff for WW1 and though it’s meant for their 10mm miniatures, my 6mm boys look okay in this prepared defence position that looks something like a star fort (if you squint at it, in the dark, from 10ft away). 

I’m going to justify its use on the grounds that both sides in the ECW conflict employed foreign experts to design defences for them, and whoever is in possession of this one has employed a right idiot.

I’m sure it’ll be making an appearance at some point in a forthcoming follow on (from my first one) ECW campaign that I’m provisionally entitling “Return of the King”. 

Thankfully hexed terrain means I can use Msr Foys excellent C&C ECW rules derivative again, which remain my “go to” set for the ECW.

The photos below show Sir William Pennyman’s Regt of Foot marching in to these new defences to support some artillery bods.

12 hours on cheese corner

I’m going slowly deaf. I suppose it shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise given my family history - but the process of ageing and its effects still catch me off guard when they start to manifest themselves.

One of the changes to my semi retired lifestyle, post France, has been the opportunity to take up a bit of casual work in order to pay for the little luxuries in life...like food. 

Given The Current Mrs Brooms compulsion to keep ordering “essentials” off Amazon I’d not been in the People’s Republic of West Wales for long before I signed myself up with a job agency to see what was out there. Not a lot as it transpired. In fact I’d almost given up on the whole thing when I received a phone call from the agency offering me a very interesting, apparently once in a lifetime, opportunity. 

Now in my defence and in light of the first paragraph I did take the call in a very noisy environment, on a mobile phone that I still haven’t really got to grips with.

The nice lady from the agency wanted to know if I’d be prepared to work in a “G String factory”? My mind was instantly abuzz. I mean, at the very worst I’d be manufacturing parts for guitars, but at the best, well the best had to mean exotic ladies underwear, surely?

In a state of high excitement I attended the address I’d been given the very next week, where confusion and attendant disappointment quickly set in. It was apparent at 5:30 in the morning, even to my jaded eyes, that the site was not designed for the production of exotic underwear, or indeed musical instrument parts, for it was very plainly a massive dairy.

So then, not actually G Strings at all, no what they wanted me for was Cheese Strings... Doh.

The facility specialises in what I’d loosely term, mozzarella, and I’ve been working 12 hour shifts there off and on since January last. In the cruellest twist of fate I’ve gone from top flight accountant at the Trinity Mirror group in Canary Wharf, a sort of big cheese if you will, to a bloke that merely moves boxes of cheese. I laugh to myself at the irony of the situation regularly. The night shift gives you plenty of opportunity to reflect on your life choices I can tell you. 12 hours alone on cheese corner (an area of the factory) has been known to break a man.

Anywhoo it was on one of my half hour rests there, during a night shift, that I got a garbled voice mail from the missus about a cat she’d been looking to buy. Given that the old hearings on the wane I strained to make out the message and had to repeat it several times. Something, something, Persian Birman cross, something. Bit of a weight, something something 750 pounds. Could we have too....something.

Bloody hell I thought 750 Ib was one hell of a big cat, she was right about the weight issue. The cat flap was going to need to be bigger than the ruddy door. Very tired but ever the supportive husband I sent her a message back telling her to do what she felt was right but that she should try to clarify the size of the beast.

Mmm. 

Turns out the message actually was that she’d found a Persian Birman cross cat that was only 750 pounds but that we’d have to wait a while to collect it. Then it got worse because “could we have too...” actually was meant to be, “could we have two?”

She’d sent the breeder the money on the back of my apparent approval!

So, several months on from this little CAT astrophe, and in an effort to shore up the contention that there are more pictures of cats on the internet than porn, here are our two new potential miniature mangling fiends. Hope you like them. Margot is the ginger and Elton the white. A steal at only £1500 quid the pair.

Just as a bye the bye, it’s just occurred to me that this time last year I was attempting to put out a fire on the brakes of the lorry that  I was using to bring back all our worldly goods from France. 800 miles using only the gears and  handbrake to slow down an overloaded vehicle is not to be recommended I can assure you. How time flies eh when you’re having fun!

Yo ho ho

I was up in the attic a few days ago when I came across a box I knew contained my Peter Pig pirate ships. It had literally been chucked up there during the final chaotic days of Operation Dynamo, our very stressful evacuation from France. The box rattled alarmingly when I picked it up and a quick peek inside confirmed there’d been a lot of damage done to the contents during the move. 

The two Chinese junks I’d scratch built were write offs, but a little super glue and a few dabs of paint returned the majority of those that were left to at least “playable” status.

Now I had a lot of fun with my East Indies pirate campaign last year, using the Galleys and Galleons rule set, but I was never entirely happy with my method of battle generation. It was very much put to sea, meet a randomly determined number of ships, hopefully win a battle, then automatically come back to port with someone else’s valuables.

Perhaps mulling over opportunities missed I was idly painting more WOTR billmen the other evening when I suddenly recalled Peter over at Grid Based Gaming - but not always had experimented with using a snakes and ladders format for a campaign engine. 

A little light bulb icon appeared above my head. I got my pencil out and began scribbling.

After a few alterations I came up with the JBM Pirate Campaign Generator GLX as shown below (the GLX bit was just put in to make it sound a bit sexier).

A player (or players), starts the campaign in the anchor square and rolls 1D6 to leave. With multiple players a 6 is required to actually leave port, followed by a roll to determine the number of squares travelled. I shall be digitally moving a counter to reflect progress but ship markers would be needed if this was ever printed out.

After leaving port the player taking their turn must declare if they intend to move forward or backwards on the track before rolling 1D6 and moving that number of spaces. Note the exact number is needed in order to land on the squares at either end of the ladder. E.g. a vessel 2 squares from port that threw a 6 would move 2 squares onto the anchor icon then 4 squares back out to sea.

Before I describe the other icons I must point out the mutiny and the grog o’ meter that are tucked away within the track. 

The grog meter is a generalised overview of the victuals carried by a players vessel. It naturally bears no resemblance to reality. For every turn out at sea (on the game track) one box is ticked as the crew consumes a portion of their rations. If you’ve run out of boxes and not made it back to port it will not do much for general morale, which brings me to the mutiny meter. (By the way the tiny ship icon indicates the grog carrying capacity for ships of less that 60 points in the Galleys and Galleons rules).

Every turn you are out at sea and do not capture something of value (ship or cargo) you tick off one of the boxes on the mutiny meter. When you run out of boxes the crew will mutiny and you must roll on the Galleys and Galleons mutiny table. In addition to this countdown a further box must be ticked off on the mutiny meter for every turn that the crew is without Grog. The “takeaway” from this is don’t stay at sea too long and don’t be unsuccessful for any length of time or you’ll wind up on your tod in an open boat with nowt but a leaky bucket and a few ships biscuits. 

It is important to note that any success in battle or arrival at an island resets the grog and mutiny meters to their pre cruise departure levels.

Now to other icons.

The galleon. This a square where a players vessel encounters opposing ships and an actual game is played to determine the outcome. I have several ship data cards for each vessel I’ve made (with different names and capabilities for each hull). The player  landing on the galleon icon chooses 1, 2 or 3 of these ship data cards at random, not knowing if he will get merchants, regular navy or pirates in his selection.

Note if two or more players end up on the same square at the end of the turn the game becomes an encounter battle between their vessels wherever they are on the game track.

Furled sails. Becalmed! The owner of a vessel that ends its turn on this square is stuck in the doldrums without a breath of wind. The player rolls 1D6 and has to remain in that square, counting down on his grog and mutiny meters for every turn spent there.

The island. A square where grog levels are returned to their pre cruise heights. It’s also a square where a captain may choose to bank (bury) any valuables secured on the cruise. If his ship is sunk in a later encounter this buried treasure is still available. Not sure of the effects on overall gameplay but it might be a spot where accumulated ship damage could be fixed as well.

The kraken. An encounter with a hideous monster from the depths - and an excuse to play a game of ship v creature. If a player escapes its clutches, or even kills it, the mutiny meter is returned to its pre cruise level.

Blowin’ a gale.  A player rolls 1D6 and moves this number of squares back down the track.

Storm. Vessel suffers 1 point of damage. Exchanging 1 white activation dice for 1 red activation dice as per the G&G rule book. (Each ship only has three activation dice and if all three are red it is crippled).

Ships wheel. The affected vessel becomes hopelessly lost. Roll 1D6. If the result is an odd number move this number of squares backwards, if even move this number of squares forward.

The barrel. Oh bugger the grog barrels are leaking. A ship landing on this square uses up three of its grog ration in addition to the usual turn depletion.

The treasure map. A copy of Black Pete’s treasure map falls into the players hands. Unfortunately it has also been acquired by other interested parties. Treat as the treasure island scenario in Galleys and Galleons with 3 other randomly selected ships from the ship data card pile as competition.

I’ll be doing a little more testing of this set up over the coming weeks and I’ll post up any issues I encounter. I shall also elaborate how I converted Galleys and Galleons to hexes and show a few examples of my ship data cards for anyone that wants to use them.

Right then... back to those billmen.

 

A new broom sweeps clean

Once more unto the breach then it seems!

My previous blog, 1642 and all that, was initially conceived as a one off way to cover a  counterfactual ECW campaign, a fitting means to document the culmination of a years worth of intensive (for me) miniatures painting. There would be no “filling” posts or amusing anecdotes, no step by step updates on new army builds just documented battles within a campaign framework. 

Well that was the theory anyway. 

Having committed myself to a randomly generated narrative, the whole shebang came to a slightly premature (though hopefully satisfactory) end, far sooner than I’d expected. 

Encouraged to continue the blog by some very well meaning folks I pressed on with ventures new, gradually realising that I was putting myself under pressure to provide content when time and resources no longer really allowed. It wasn’t long before anecdotes and all those filler posts I’d sworn never to produce began to appear!

With my trusty old Mac on its last legs, “feeding the beast“ gradually became a chore, and, coupled with the struggle to provide new and diverting content I sensed it was time to think again.

Hopefully this new blog will remedy matters since I am resolved to only post as and when I feel I’ve something of value to add. 

I’m still hoping to revisit the ECW campaign that I ran in 6mm but for the last few months I’ve been working towards something similar for the War of the Roses in glorious “15mmOvision”.The bigger scale means more detail and therefore (for me) longer painting times - but the Peter Pig figures I’ve been working with are lovely and definitely worth the effort.

I’ve spent a fair few quid on rule sets and books covering the period but have settled (like most war gamers) on writing my own - provisionally titled Mud Blood and Steel. The pictures below show units on my standard 6cm x 3cm bases.