Argh! Rebasing SYW for Imagi-nations...

*Sigh!*

I hate rebasing but there are times when I just knuckle down and do it. In this case at least I'm more than a little motivated by the fun Evan and I are having with our new imagi-nations project over at Die Kriege des Zobelshuts. We've been accepted into the amazing fratenity of Emeperor vs. Elector and we're loving the diplomactic side and the friendliness of it all.

The figs below are my old Front Rank 28mm SYW Austrians, now pressed into service as the loyal men of the Grand Duchy of Saxe-Coburn und Buchholz. Originally they were in units of 16 so I've had to mix them together, paint odd new figs and over paint the occasional facing to get them into an arrangement that works for Maurice. I was tempted to stick with 16s but needing 50mm square bases for cavalry meant the infantry looked a bit lost. 24s seems a lot more convincing from a mass effect point of view. These are coming along very nicely though and by the end of the week I should have four units of line infantry and one unit of grenzers all done.

I've gone with a slightly odd arrangement of figs on bases, partly because I didn't want to split the flags across multiple bases, but also just for the sheer hell of it as it's imaginary stuff all the way so nothing is "wrong" as there's mo "right". My own DIY flags here and here will really set them off too.

Ironically, I very nearly sold these off twice but my mate who sells my stuff on never got back to me so he's missed out. I'm rather flipping happy that happened as I'm not starting from scratch with my army in this case. I'm lucky that the techniques I used to paint first time round can be brought up to my current standard with a minimum of work. I can also replicate the style easily and merge new with old without issues.

On the workbench I've got a fourth unit with the grenadier company already painted (requiring only a retouch and facing change) plus the remainder of the fusilier companies. There's also some artillery crew that are finished but won't be based until the guns are ready - these are still very Austrian-looking and I'll probably just have them in as mercenaries for now.

In the background are the last of the ECW figs I've been painting recently. This will give me four units of 40 figs, a nice tidy force for decent sized games.

That's about all for now.

Cheers,
Millsy

50 followers and 26K+ page views

Wow, 50 followers and 26K+ page views! I never imagined we'd get that far. Thanks to Vladdd309 who is number 50 and to everyone else who has popped by, commented, offered suggestions or just wandered in and chilled out. Hopefully you've enjoyed what you found and won't be shy in coming back.

Cheers,
Millsy

Are you a proper Wargamer?

In answer to a quiz from Phil B's blog...

To genuinely call yourself a Wargamer, then you must have done most or all of the following;

* Spent at least £500 on figures / tanks - and you get extra kudos for every £500 you've spent
Absolutely. I try not to count. See my last post.

* Pricked your finger or thumb on a pike block - several times
Hell yes. I lost count of how times many painting the pike blocks for Cory's 40th alone...

160 nasty little spikes...

* Tried at least 10 different rule sets and vowed never to play half of them ever again
Yep. Five sets of rules for Napoleonics alone at last count.

* Bought an army off EBay
Yep. See my previous post ;-).

* Sold an army on EBay
Yep. Several in fact.

* spent months painting an army - then used it in anger once
Yep. I have a couple that have never even been played once. I really must do something about that.

* tried several different periods and genres
Yep, all the way from ancients to moderns with barely a gap.

* dropped a box of figures on the floor from a great height
No, thankfully. When Cory did I fairly thought someone had died when he phoned up.

* lost a battle on the last throw of the dice
Yep. Won it that way too.

* made at least one enemy for life
No. If that ever happens I'll give it all away. It's a GAME.

* had a proper, stand up argument over a wargamers table
I've come close. ;-)

* thrown a dice across a room
Yep, and set fire to one too. That little blighter has never let me down again.

* rebased an army for a different rule set
Absolutely. My ECW are on their third basing scheme for starters.

* inflicted a whopping defeat on an opponent
Yep.

* suffered an embarrassing defeat due to a stupid tactical decision
All the time. Once even when the supid decision was by the opposition.

* joined a wargamers club
Yep.

* bought a ton of lead that remains unpainted
Haha. See my previous post ;-).

* been to a wargamers show
Yep.

* have more dice than is logical or necessary to own - and have used most of them
Logic doesn't come into it. When you play French you need red/white/blue. Same for Yanks. For Russians you need red. For Germans you need....

* have taken boxes of troops down to a club just to show them off to your mates
Does making there come to my house count?

I think I qualify.

Cheers,
Millsy

The Cupboard of Shame

Wandering about on my Sunday morning blog read I came across a couple of post regards various other gamer's lead piles / cupboards of shame - one from the Big Red Bat and another from Legatus Hedlius.

In the firm belief that the first step to dealing with a problem is actually admitting you have a problem, I'm baring my own compulsive collector's soul. I should point out at this point my post title is a little misleading. It should have been plural cupboards. Umm.... VERY plural. So here we go...

First up is the actual, original, Cupboard of Shame. In here we have a good 10kg or so of lead, resin and plastic at a very rough guess. Some of the box bottoms are actually giving way due to weight. All the plastic containers are pretty much brim full with the exception of the ECW which has taken a good pounding on the painting table of late (thankfully!). Once this was where all shame lurked, but like my blogging brothers mine seems to have escaped into the wild.

ECW, SYW, Flames of War, Conquistadors, Medievals, Ancients, Naps, Dystopian, Necro and others...

Sliding sideways we find another two cupboards (which to be fair contains almost entirely painted armies) BUT even then we manage to find two full boxes of Perry metal Catachans and metal 40K Space Wolves.

Over 100 Perry brothers metal Catachans

And a good pile of metal 40K Space Wolves as well...

Next up is the evil twin of the original Cupboard of Shame. Not so much in here as I recently had to evict most stuff to make room for painted stuff. More Flames of War and umm... I don't actually know what else. Maybe 15mm sci-fi? I can't find them right now so that's a good guess.

More Flames of War and... I have no idea...

Dropping down to the shelves below we find the clear plastic containers that supposedly encourage me to paint the contents as they glare accusingly back at me from their transparent prisons. Men such as myself, hardened by years of accumulation and denial are unfazed by this. Ha I say! Ha!

WFB Savage Orcs, Elves, Lizzies plus Perry WotR, pulp, more pulp, 1:1200 naval terrain, LotR and more...

Sliding right again we uncover a bit of plastic in the form of more Perry WotR, 1/72 WWII and WFB. I had to actually look in the brown box to find a good 50+ VBCW metal figs and some 28mm Naps. It's like Chrimbo come early in there!

I have no idea how this got here. I don't even remember moving it.

And lastly the 20 litre Storage Container of Shame plus a couple of boxes of GW stuff... Roughly 4,000pts of WFB Dogs of War including a large proportion of the rare and hard to find stuff (a real weighty sucker that one), another TWO complete Space Marine chapters plus 4,000pts of Warmaster Empire. Also a stack of Void (didn't really need em but they were cheap so what the hell and they'll make great mates for the Catachans), more Flames of War, and more stuff I can't remember.

Doggies, Space Marines, Warmaster Empire and more...

And that's it, I think. It probably isn't but I have no idea what might be lurking elsewhere right now. That was actually better than I thought to begin with. I'd best order something else...

PS. This is what happens when you have too much on the go. Spiders attack...

Arrrgggghh! Get this off me!

Fess up lads. We know the rest of you are just as bad. Except my best mate Cory but he's just plain weird. ;-)

Cheers,
Millsy