The current status of indexed magazines:
- Battlegames 1-34 (complete, all issues indexed)
- Miniature Wargames with Battlegames 361-392 (complete, all issues indexed)
- Wargames Illustrated 1-163
Sunday, 22 November 2015
MWBG 392 added to the database
Miniature Wargames with Battlegames, issue 392, has been added to my growing index of miniature wargaming magazines.
The current status of indexed magazines:
The current status of indexed magazines:
Wednesday, 18 November 2015
Then and now - 17 years of painting
I'm currently painting a bunch of 20mm British Paras and thought it fun to contrast my current painting style with my style from 17 years ago. I found two of the same figure pose, one of which I painted yesterday, the other in 1998. Here's them side by side:
The figure on the left is the recently painted one. You can see there has been quite an evolution in my painting style.
The most obvious difference is in the colours of course. Back then I used a combination of Tamiya and Games Workshop paints, nowadays I use Foundry triads (well, diads, as I only use two layers per colour).
Other differences are more subtle, but one other obvious one you can see is that the recent figure is painted in a much bolder style with stark colour contrasts and sharp delineations of colour areas, whereas the one on the right is (except for the face) much more 'natural'.
One other difference which is not obvious from the photo is that the figure on the left took only a quarter of the time to paint than that on the right. And that is of course the reason behind this evolution of painting style: get many painted figures on the table, designed to look good on the table but not necessarily in close up.
The figure on the left is the recently painted one. You can see there has been quite an evolution in my painting style.
The most obvious difference is in the colours of course. Back then I used a combination of Tamiya and Games Workshop paints, nowadays I use Foundry triads (well, diads, as I only use two layers per colour).
Other differences are more subtle, but one other obvious one you can see is that the recent figure is painted in a much bolder style with stark colour contrasts and sharp delineations of colour areas, whereas the one on the right is (except for the face) much more 'natural'.
One other difference which is not obvious from the photo is that the figure on the left took only a quarter of the time to paint than that on the right. And that is of course the reason behind this evolution of painting style: get many painted figures on the table, designed to look good on the table but not necessarily in close up.
Sunday, 15 November 2015
Simple scifi buildings (3)
A quick followup to my previous post.
The cardboard contraptions that will serve as scifi buildings are now spraypainted brown. I also added some grey and yellow spraypainted spots, such that they now look a little bit more weathered. The colours are not terribly realistic for let's say a concrete building, but for scifi, that adds to the "weird" visuals.
Next is to paint in the details, add some markers etc.
The cardboard contraptions that will serve as scifi buildings are now spraypainted brown. I also added some grey and yellow spraypainted spots, such that they now look a little bit more weathered. The colours are not terribly realistic for let's say a concrete building, but for scifi, that adds to the "weird" visuals.
Next is to paint in the details, add some markers etc.
Simple scifi buildings (2)
I wrote before that I started constructing some simple scifi buildings, probably for use in our Antares campaign.
Due to the Crisis 2015 preparations, I couldn't work on them any further, but yesterday I had a dozen minutes to kill so I "pimped" them with some simple plastic parts I had lying around in my bit's box (actually, some of them are parts from disassembled computer mice, a clock radio, etc.)
Next phase is to spraypaint them, after which I might add some more painted-on details such as markings etc. I tend not to put too much effort in projects like these, because most likely they will be one-use only.
The nice thing of compiling a complete magazine index of my wargamining magazine collection is that I can quickly locate a similar modeling project that was published in issue #30 of Battlegames magazine. Although the project in that article made some colonial-looking buildings, it was still useful to take a quick look and see how Diane Sutherland had done it.
Due to the Crisis 2015 preparations, I couldn't work on them any further, but yesterday I had a dozen minutes to kill so I "pimped" them with some simple plastic parts I had lying around in my bit's box (actually, some of them are parts from disassembled computer mice, a clock radio, etc.)
Next phase is to spraypaint them, after which I might add some more painted-on details such as markings etc. I tend not to put too much effort in projects like these, because most likely they will be one-use only.
The nice thing of compiling a complete magazine index of my wargamining magazine collection is that I can quickly locate a similar modeling project that was published in issue #30 of Battlegames magazine. Although the project in that article made some colonial-looking buildings, it was still useful to take a quick look and see how Diane Sutherland had done it.
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| Modeling project in issue #30 in Battlegames magazine |
Wednesday, 11 November 2015
And another video overview of CRISIS 2015
And here's yet another one, provided by Wargames, Soldiers & Strategy:
Video of Crisis 2015
A very nice video overview of Crisis 2015 was posted on Youtube by HansVGinkel.
It gives an excellent overview of the show, and as always, I now get to see all the games I didn't see during the show itself.
Our game - Marche ou Crève - has a few seconds at 6:52.
It gives an excellent overview of the show, and as always, I now get to see all the games I didn't see during the show itself.
Our game - Marche ou Crève - has a few seconds at 6:52.
Sunday, 8 November 2015
Marche ou crève
Our Crisis 2015 game featured the famous Fench Foreign Legion against the Arab tribes in the North African desert, using our flat Woodens figures.
I will make a full post later on about our game and its mechanics, but here are some of the raw photographs, taken with my smartphone (so quality is not that high).
I will make a full post later on about our game and its mechanics, but here are some of the raw photographs, taken with my smartphone (so quality is not that high).
Two new recruits
Since Ann and I do not have children ourselves, we regularly have nephews over for a couple of days. Since they know that I have all these cool toys in my wargaming room, they invariably ask for a battle to be set up and play a game.
My approach to this is always very relaxed:
- Let them choose what armies they want to play. Anything goes. If they want to fight Romans vs World War 2 Germans, that would be fine with me. But as can be expected, they always flock to fantasy.
- They can set up the battlefield anyway they want: trees, rivers, hills, scenery items ... whatever they like from my collection. The only thing I tell them they should keep it fair because they will have to roll for table sides.
- I let them set up any type of figures they want, but tell them things like "10 groups of 5 guys each, 1 monster, 1 general, take some archers as well ...". But they can choose any miniatures they want to play with.
- I usually have some quick rules up my sleeve, such as units activate on a 7+, movement is 2 or 3 hexes depending on troop type, you score hits on 5,6; armour saves on 5,6. Something like that. Quick and dirty. Nothing more complicated, because I want the game to be fun and fast.
- During the game, I usually throw in some random monsters, wizards, spell effects, etc. Special abilities and such are easily added.
So, Nov 2 and 3, I had my brother's kids over, and they choose Orcs and Skaven as their armies. A tough battle was fought!
My approach to this is always very relaxed:
- Let them choose what armies they want to play. Anything goes. If they want to fight Romans vs World War 2 Germans, that would be fine with me. But as can be expected, they always flock to fantasy.
- They can set up the battlefield anyway they want: trees, rivers, hills, scenery items ... whatever they like from my collection. The only thing I tell them they should keep it fair because they will have to roll for table sides.
- I let them set up any type of figures they want, but tell them things like "10 groups of 5 guys each, 1 monster, 1 general, take some archers as well ...". But they can choose any miniatures they want to play with.
- I usually have some quick rules up my sleeve, such as units activate on a 7+, movement is 2 or 3 hexes depending on troop type, you score hits on 5,6; armour saves on 5,6. Something like that. Quick and dirty. Nothing more complicated, because I want the game to be fun and fast.
- During the game, I usually throw in some random monsters, wizards, spell effects, etc. Special abilities and such are easily added.
So, Nov 2 and 3, I had my brother's kids over, and they choose Orcs and Skaven as their armies. A tough battle was fought!
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| Explaining some of the rules. |
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| Contemplating strategy. |
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| A skaven wizard is hiding in the ruins. |
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| Orcs are ready for battle. |
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| Moves and countermoves |
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| Excited dice-rolling across the battlefield. |
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| Going in for the kill! |
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| Victory! |
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