September 23rd Games day Photo report

Hi All,

As you can easily imagine, I am not as good as Robert to write battle reports, so my will be a photo report of the games we played on the last Games Day.

We played 3 games starting from the morning.

The first one was a Samurai skirmish game using Donald Featherstone's Skirmish Wargaming. It was our first try with the rules and we didn't think about taking pictures, but it looks like other members of the club got interested in the period and rules, so we will probably see more games using this ruleset.

The second game that is now becoming the tradition at our club was the Napoleonic war game using the Black powder rules from Warlord games. Please enjoy the pictures.

The third and last was a game of Warhammer Fantasy Battles that is becoming quite popular at the club, thanks to Brian efforts to attract more gamers. The game involved Highelves and Beastmen.

That's all for now, I hope you will enjoy the pictures.

Cheers

Giovanni

Terrain on the horizon

Hi All,

after last weekend game, I spend most of the week working on terrain, especially that horrible pre-painted river from Battle Front miniatures and some terrain for my far in the future Darkest Africa games.

Luckily enough the beginning of the week was characterized by good weather, I then pulled out the camping table and a chair and I repainted all 15 sections of the river. I then painted the banks, gave them some highlights and a bit of green flock and there you go a new river!

For the club I did purchase 5 sets of 3 river section each, I had never seen them before, so I went for 15 pieces hoping them to be enough, well we ended up with the Amazon! Anyway it was worth the hassle as we can use it now in our games.

The Amazon in all its extension!

The amazon from the air.

I also worked on my jungle plants, tonight I will add the sand on the bases and probably give them a spray paint highlight of brown. I am still undecided on what colour to use for the ground, but the sand need to be applied first, so more to think in bed.

The plants drying with the futons.

Today Robert came over and we looked at the last bunch of Bavarians I had, and he helped me organize a battalion, there fore I will most likely start working on those as well.

Cheers

Giovanni

A few pictures....

Hi All,

Today we had the monthly games day and it was a lot of fun as usual! I planned to take pictures to show on the blog, but after 4 photos, the batteries went off! Fortunately Darren had his camera and between me and him we managed to take a few shots that I will post as soon as he sends them to me.

So far I managed only to take a few shots as the preparations for battle were taking place, I concentrated on my 2 regiments that fought really well at their debut game of today.

The Newly raised battalions ready to face their opponents on the filed of glory! 

The Bavarians next to Rod's British troops

The Pomeranian Regiment from Prince August

Sada's Line of attack! 

Last night I tried hard to finish those command figures, and I only managed to finish the general on horse using a mix of traditional and dipping methods. Here you can see him in a poor photo, I will upgrade the quality in the next picture I take when I finish the stand.

General Von Wuster

Looking forward to post more pictures!

Regards





Giovanni

Before Sunday!

Hi All!

Well, as usual for this period of holiday the painting has been very very prolific, even though I have been drafted for many chores, cleaning and even a trip to Ikea. It was worth the hassle since now I have extra space to store my figures and books.

Last week I finished the Prussian regiment made of Prince August figures kindly provided by my Oz mate Matt.  I am impressed by the result they are for me the perfect kind of miniature to tackle the Napoleonic period. They are very simple with little detail, which is great as if the detail is not there you don't need to paint it. Once on the table they will look as good as the rest.

The 1st Silesian regiment with jagers

I also managed to finish an army that I was supposed to have finished 4 years ago before my daughter was born, but things didn't go as planned and I had to stop painting the Tartars. Here they are in all their colour and beauty. From the bright colour choice you can tell they are  persian influenced Tartars. They are a mix of Essex, Legio Heroica and Venexia miniatures. Awesome models!

60 heavy tartar cavalry.

I have been painting a few Samurai figures, as we are planning to play a skirmish game using Donald Featherstone's Skirmish Wargaming.  In the pipeline, to be finished before Sunday I still have one ashigaru from Citadel and 2 ninjas from the Perry brothers.

The 2 Perry Ninjas and Bow armed Ashigaru from Citadel

Awaiting the plaster on the bases, from left to right: Ral Partha, Ral Partha, Dixon, Ral Partha and Citadel

I also received through Robert, these 2 commander figures to use with my Napoleonics regiments, but I guess I won't be able to finish them by Sunday. I still keep my finger crossed and try to carve some free time to keep going on painting.

The General and the aide from Front Rank Miniatures

As this coming Sunday we have another Games Day I hope to see some of you, and have a laugh together.


Giovanni

News and progress

Hi All,

Yesterday I went to pay the room for  November (I will confirm the date as I am writing without having checked) and we discovered that from January 2013 the Tama City town hall has decided to rise the  prices for the rental of the rooms, that means that we are passing from our 2000 yen  to 3300 yen per day.

We have just the minimum number of gamers to allow us paying the room, so if anybody ever decide that they are going back to their country we go back to square 1! We need to recruit new members!!!

In the mean time I have been painting like mad, and I have a lot of projects going on at the same time.

Starting with some terrain, I have finished basing some trees on CDRs. I managed to make 4, it was fairly easy so I might do some more as time goes by, but having 4 it's good enough to start with.

Based with plaster and dry brushed, They still need flock but I do not know which to use.

I have been painting the dreaded Gale Force Nine pre-painted (crap!) river. The molding is good so if repainted it should look OK. I started base coating it with some Citadel Skull White spray. I decided to make the river brown/sand following our terrain expert Pete advise. I wanted a lasting paint coat so I bought some Lacca paint from Gunze Sangyo.
It was the first time for me to try Lacca paints, and I found it really strange to work with. They are considerably thicker than the regular Tamiya paint and they do not dilute easily with paint thinner.
The result is that if you get the right amount of thinner you can easily spray them with your air brush, but if you mess the balance between thinner and paint, the mix is so think that it won't go through the nozzle easily. I am still puzzled, but the final result is a very tough coat of paint which is exactly what I was looking for as these terrain pieces will be carried back and forth to the gaming days.

Just sprayed!

I have also bought some aquarium plants to use as African tall grass for my far in the future project of Darkest Africa games.

Plastic plants based and lightly sprayed with brown can become great terrain pieces.

Last but not least I started applying the base colours to my Prussian battalion of Prince August miniatures. I am really pleased with the miniatures themselves as they have a very old schools Charles Grant feel, but they have enough details to make them fun to paint. I am just starting so we will see what comes out  of them.

So far they all have a blue jacket, 4 of them have it green and almost all of them have grey trousers.