Partially sparked by [Phil's post](http://www.nirya.be/snv/ttm/archives/000136.html), there's an interesting discussion over at a few of the [Napnuts](http://www.napnuts.com) [blogs](http://wargamescorr.blogspot.com/). The other blog is [here](http://wargamer.blogspot.com/).
Some posts to get you started:
* [Historicity in Wargames](http://wargamer.blogspot.com/2005/08/historicity-in-wargames.html)
* [More wargame theory](http://wargamescorr.blogspot.com/2005/08/more-wargame-theory.html)
* The three posts before the previous one on [Wargames Correspondence](http://wargamescorr.blogspot.com/)
* [How historical is your wargaming](http://www.nirya.be/snv/ttm/archives/000136.html) -- Phil's post
Go check it out, it's interesting stuff!
Technorati tags: miniatures wargaming
Saturday, 20 August 2005
Friday, 19 August 2005
WEC - Eastern Messa overrun by Celts
Earlier this week, my Celtic forces met an army of Han Chinese, disguised as Romano-Britons, in battle for round 2 of our [WEC campaign](http://www.nirya.be/snv/sections/WEC). The armies were 750 points each (see [my Celtic army](http://www.nirya.be/snv/sections/WEC/celts_750.html) on the other side of the link), and we fought lengthwise on a 5'x3' table. A single piece of rough going (difficult going in WAB terms) dominated the centre of the table, with a small stream (the Zenna river) running from the Celtic baseline in a long arc to exit the table halfway down the right flank.
The following missive by the Chinese general was intercepted by Celtic outriders after the battle (given the nature of the missive, the messenger was allowed to continue on his journey unharmed):
As can be inferred from the missive above, the battle was a resounding Celtic victory. My plan in this battle was slightly more cautious than the one in [round one](http://www.nirya.be/snv/ttm/archives/000127.html). Given the fact that the "Chinese" had a sizeable cavalry unit (well, 8 horsemen anyway), and that the Chinese general got first move, I thought it prudent to keep the warband slightly more controlled than 'charge straight forward'.
I deployed one warband to the right of the river, hoping to appear inconspicuous and causing the Chinese to expose a flank, the second warband, led by Gremlix (who pushed the army list into slight illegalness, which was OK'd by my opponent) was on the other side of the stream, the skirmishers deployed below the rough ground and the chariots were in a column to the left of them. Bartolomix and his standard bearer took up their customary position between the two warbands.
The Chinese were deployed, their right to their left, with a unit of archers screening 20 spearmen, another unit of 20 spearmen and a unit of 8 cavalry. The general was between the spearmen and the cavalry. They opened with a general advance, with the cavalry wheeling to its right aiming for my central warband. In response, I sent the skirmishers into the rough going, advanced the warband full speed forward and sent the chariots to the left of the rough going streaking towards the enemy skirmishers.
The next turn saw the Chinese archers take out one chariot with bowfire. Unfortunately for them, the chariots were undaunted by the loss of a quarter of their number, charged the pesky skirmishers and ran them down mercilessly (the skirmishers elected to fire and flee, did not cause any casualties and fled just not far enough to avoid being run down). The cries of joy by the charioteers died quickly however when they noticed the fresh spearman unit now unmasked by the destruction of the skirmishers. Next turn would see these spearmen charging the chariots, who mangaged to escape with a flee charge reaction.
Meantime, in the center of the battlefield, the Chinese cavalry accompanied by their general charged Gremlix' warband. I had anticipated this and was not really worried -- a feeling justified by events. Javelin fire by the warband prior to contact (stand and shoot charge reaction) managed to knock off two cavalrymen but did not stop the charge. I thus had 6 cavalrymen (of whom only 4 were in contact) and one general (WS 6 and 3 attacks -- ouch) versus 24 Celtic warriors (one WS5 character and 23 warriors, 5 of which were in contact) -- this was my smaller warband. In the ensuing melee, the general managed to cause one wound to Gremlix, but the cavarlymen were ineffective. The Celts did two wounds and easily won the round of melee (+3 rank bonus). In the resulting panic test, the cavalrymen and general fled, only to be caught by the fleet footed Celts in pursuit. Scratch one spearmen unit and one general.
That was pretty much the end of the battle. The second spearmen unit of the Chinese held its ground after the rest of the army ran away, only to be charged in the flank by Gremlix' warband and getting caught in pursuit as well. No more Chinese, for the loss of only one chariot and one wound to Gremlix.
This battle confirmed that WAB can be very bloody -- the main reason the Chinese lost was probably my lucky dice in pursuit rolls, even managing to catch cavalry fleeing with pursuing infantry. The charge by the Chinese cavarly against my warband had me not very worried (a 24 man character led unit with the general next door for panic tests is fairly resilient) but I had definitely not expected them to win so swiftly.
I think both players had good fun in this game -- on to round three!
Technorati tags: miniatures wargaming WAB
The following missive by the Chinese general was intercepted by Celtic outriders after the battle (given the nature of the missive, the messenger was allowed to continue on his journey unharmed):
Friends, Senators, Countrymen,History they say is written by the victors, but to my great shame I come
before you today to report on the loss of Eastern Messa to the Celtic
Hordes.The Host of Han, or rather a detachment consisting of two units of spearmen,
some skirmishing archers and the general's guard of 8 cavalry, set out to
secure a bridge over the Zenna stream.
Looking, to the untrained eye, suspiciously like Post-Roman Britons, these
forces approached the crossing, only to find the enemy already firmly
established on the near side of the stream with his chariots, skirmishers
and one warband, only the second warband which brought up the rear having
yet to cross. The banner of Bartolomix fluttered over the assembled horde.Undaunted, our warriors advanced as one, and drew first blood when the
skirmishers dispatched one of the Celts' chariots that were coming up to our
right flank. The three remaining teams pressed on however, and ran the
skirmishers to ground before fleeing in their turn from the spearmen which
these had been screening.In the centre meanwhile, the barbarian warband quickly advanced, shouting
and screaming as is their wont, and I took my guard to intercept them. To my
dismay the troopers failed to cause a single wound, and though I succeeded
in wounding the enemy chieftain, that was not enough to break their wild
spirit. They broke my men, and pursued with such ferocity that they were
able to catch even fleeing horsemen! The carnage caused the spears of the
left wing to break in turn. Swept along in the flight, I was lucky to escape
capture, and could only watch from afar as my brave spearmen on the right
made an honourable attempt to hold the the barbarian tide crashing into
their flank, but were ultimately swept away and pursued by the returning
chariots.Retreating with the remnants of my troops, I have meditated upon the
precepts of Master Sun as they apply to this battle, and resolved to
increase the crossbow training of my footsoldiers: Though moving on foot,
these Celtic hordes surge forward like the barbarian horsemen from the
plains, and our answer must be similar to the practice by which we secure
our northern borders.I hope to bring you better tidings soon, and remain
yours faithfully
- General Ho Ping -
(for better luck next time)
As can be inferred from the missive above, the battle was a resounding Celtic victory. My plan in this battle was slightly more cautious than the one in [round one](http://www.nirya.be/snv/ttm/archives/000127.html). Given the fact that the "Chinese" had a sizeable cavalry unit (well, 8 horsemen anyway), and that the Chinese general got first move, I thought it prudent to keep the warband slightly more controlled than 'charge straight forward'.
I deployed one warband to the right of the river, hoping to appear inconspicuous and causing the Chinese to expose a flank, the second warband, led by Gremlix (who pushed the army list into slight illegalness, which was OK'd by my opponent) was on the other side of the stream, the skirmishers deployed below the rough ground and the chariots were in a column to the left of them. Bartolomix and his standard bearer took up their customary position between the two warbands.
The Chinese were deployed, their right to their left, with a unit of archers screening 20 spearmen, another unit of 20 spearmen and a unit of 8 cavalry. The general was between the spearmen and the cavalry. They opened with a general advance, with the cavalry wheeling to its right aiming for my central warband. In response, I sent the skirmishers into the rough going, advanced the warband full speed forward and sent the chariots to the left of the rough going streaking towards the enemy skirmishers.
The next turn saw the Chinese archers take out one chariot with bowfire. Unfortunately for them, the chariots were undaunted by the loss of a quarter of their number, charged the pesky skirmishers and ran them down mercilessly (the skirmishers elected to fire and flee, did not cause any casualties and fled just not far enough to avoid being run down). The cries of joy by the charioteers died quickly however when they noticed the fresh spearman unit now unmasked by the destruction of the skirmishers. Next turn would see these spearmen charging the chariots, who mangaged to escape with a flee charge reaction.
Meantime, in the center of the battlefield, the Chinese cavalry accompanied by their general charged Gremlix' warband. I had anticipated this and was not really worried -- a feeling justified by events. Javelin fire by the warband prior to contact (stand and shoot charge reaction) managed to knock off two cavalrymen but did not stop the charge. I thus had 6 cavalrymen (of whom only 4 were in contact) and one general (WS 6 and 3 attacks -- ouch) versus 24 Celtic warriors (one WS5 character and 23 warriors, 5 of which were in contact) -- this was my smaller warband. In the ensuing melee, the general managed to cause one wound to Gremlix, but the cavarlymen were ineffective. The Celts did two wounds and easily won the round of melee (+3 rank bonus). In the resulting panic test, the cavalrymen and general fled, only to be caught by the fleet footed Celts in pursuit. Scratch one spearmen unit and one general.
That was pretty much the end of the battle. The second spearmen unit of the Chinese held its ground after the rest of the army ran away, only to be charged in the flank by Gremlix' warband and getting caught in pursuit as well. No more Chinese, for the loss of only one chariot and one wound to Gremlix.
This battle confirmed that WAB can be very bloody -- the main reason the Chinese lost was probably my lucky dice in pursuit rolls, even managing to catch cavalry fleeing with pursuing infantry. The charge by the Chinese cavarly against my warband had me not very worried (a 24 man character led unit with the general next door for panic tests is fairly resilient) but I had definitely not expected them to win so swiftly.
I think both players had good fun in this game -- on to round three!
Technorati tags: miniatures wargaming WAB
Sunday, 14 August 2005
Amazing Magnets indeed
It's been a bit quiet around here because I've been occupied laying floorboards in the new house (in the parts that did not have floor tiles). That's all done now and I haven't chopped of any fingers or other appendices, so I'm back in business miniatures wise.
During this episode, I received a package from [Amazing Magnets](http://www.amazingmagnets.com), which I ordered some time before. Amazing Magnets sells magnets, amazingly, but not just any old magnet. They sell [neodymium magnets](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neodymium_magnet) targeted at the craft market. Neodymium magnets can hold a very strong magnetic field in relation to their mass, so a small magnet can hold a strong magnetic field.
I ordered their [smallest size square](http://amazingmagnets.com/products.asp?ID=01401) magnets, with the idea of using them on the bottom of slottabases instead of glueing magnetic tape to the bottom, which has its problems. The order arrived impeccably packed and included a little bag of samples in different sizes -- great service.
As seen from the pictures above, I glued two of the little magnets to the bottom of a slottabase. This gives me a magnetic field that is strong enough to suspend the figure upside down from a metal box without any problems, yet still easy enough to break the magnetic force to move the figure when necessary. One magnet did not result in a strong enough magnetic field.
This is a great product -- instead of spending a considerable amount of time glueing magnetic tape to the bottom of the bases, there is now just the one step: glue two tiny magnets to base (I use ordinary superglue) and you're done!
I shall certainly be ordering more of these magnets (possibly in a larger size to just have to glue one magnet to the base), as they are quite affordable (100 of these tiny magnets set me back $9.00, while postage and packing from the States to Belgium was less than that) and work beautifully.
Highly recommended.
During this episode, I received a package from [Amazing Magnets](http://www.amazingmagnets.com), which I ordered some time before. Amazing Magnets sells magnets, amazingly, but not just any old magnet. They sell [neodymium magnets](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neodymium_magnet) targeted at the craft market. Neodymium magnets can hold a very strong magnetic field in relation to their mass, so a small magnet can hold a strong magnetic field.
I ordered their [smallest size square](http://amazingmagnets.com/products.asp?ID=01401) magnets, with the idea of using them on the bottom of slottabases instead of glueing magnetic tape to the bottom, which has its problems. The order arrived impeccably packed and included a little bag of samples in different sizes -- great service.
As seen from the pictures above, I glued two of the little magnets to the bottom of a slottabase. This gives me a magnetic field that is strong enough to suspend the figure upside down from a metal box without any problems, yet still easy enough to break the magnetic force to move the figure when necessary. One magnet did not result in a strong enough magnetic field.
This is a great product -- instead of spending a considerable amount of time glueing magnetic tape to the bottom of the bases, there is now just the one step: glue two tiny magnets to base (I use ordinary superglue) and you're done!
I shall certainly be ordering more of these magnets (possibly in a larger size to just have to glue one magnet to the base), as they are quite affordable (100 of these tiny magnets set me back $9.00, while postage and packing from the States to Belgium was less than that) and work beautifully.
Highly recommended.
Monday, 1 August 2005
How historical is your wargaming?
There's an interesting letter in the latest issue of Wargames Illustrated. It's titled "Dude, Where's my Hobby", and is written under the nom-de-plume D.I.S.Gusted. At first, I thought this was going to be another rant about the state-of-the-hobby, and how back in 1971 one could go to a convention, "buy 300 25mm figures, 10 pots of paint, some new rules, have a few drinks in the bar, and still have change left from a 5-Pound note" (this last quote from another letter in WI some years ago :-)). However, this letter touches upon another aspect: the lack of history in historical miniature wargaming.
The author claims that history and historical research is dissappearing out of historical wargaming, and that much more emphasis is being put in setting up games which might be visual attractive, but have little to do with historical wargaming as such. One example he mentions is the popularity of Victorian SF / Lost World / Adventuring in the 30s type of games. Although these games might be fun and pretty to look at, they have little or no relation to historical wargaming, and belong more to the type of wargaming advocated by Games Workshop.
The letter makes a plea to spend some more time on research, and try to design games and rules that model some part of military history, rather than design rules that work well as a game, but might have no relation whatsoever to the 'history' of the period one is trying to model. The letter ends with a short evaluation of various rulesystem in this light, although this last section is very short.
This letter got me thinking again about what defines 'historical miniature wargaming', specifically in relation to other forms of miniature gaming. It is somewhat pointless to discuss classifications ("Is Victorian SF historical?", "Is a DBA fight between Romans and Aztecs historical?"), but I think it is more useful to discuss whether good historical research should be present in wargame design. In other words, when designing a specific ruleset, should one try to simulate certain historical events, or should one write rules with a focus on gameplay, and then try to fit them to perceived history? The problem with the latter approach is that one uses maybe one source or even a movie as a basis, while historical research requires that you consult many different sources to get things right.
E.g. suppose one wants to design a game about tank vs. tank combat in WW2. Historical research would assume that you look towards % of casualties, likelyhood of damage after a succesful hit etc. The second approach assumes you design with the game in mind: a game might last 10 turns, and we want each tank to have a 50% probablity to survive the game, so that means a specific %chance of knocking out a tank with one shot etc... Note that this is an othogonal design issue w.r.t. simple or complicated rules. You can have elegant and overly-complicated rules using both approaches.
I have to admit that for all the rulesets I've written so far, most of them were designed using the second approach: maximum emphasis on gameplay, and only a small focus on getting things right from a historical point-of-view. So, am I still an historical wargamer?
The author claims that history and historical research is dissappearing out of historical wargaming, and that much more emphasis is being put in setting up games which might be visual attractive, but have little to do with historical wargaming as such. One example he mentions is the popularity of Victorian SF / Lost World / Adventuring in the 30s type of games. Although these games might be fun and pretty to look at, they have little or no relation to historical wargaming, and belong more to the type of wargaming advocated by Games Workshop.
The letter makes a plea to spend some more time on research, and try to design games and rules that model some part of military history, rather than design rules that work well as a game, but might have no relation whatsoever to the 'history' of the period one is trying to model. The letter ends with a short evaluation of various rulesystem in this light, although this last section is very short.
This letter got me thinking again about what defines 'historical miniature wargaming', specifically in relation to other forms of miniature gaming. It is somewhat pointless to discuss classifications ("Is Victorian SF historical?", "Is a DBA fight between Romans and Aztecs historical?"), but I think it is more useful to discuss whether good historical research should be present in wargame design. In other words, when designing a specific ruleset, should one try to simulate certain historical events, or should one write rules with a focus on gameplay, and then try to fit them to perceived history? The problem with the latter approach is that one uses maybe one source or even a movie as a basis, while historical research requires that you consult many different sources to get things right.
E.g. suppose one wants to design a game about tank vs. tank combat in WW2. Historical research would assume that you look towards % of casualties, likelyhood of damage after a succesful hit etc. The second approach assumes you design with the game in mind: a game might last 10 turns, and we want each tank to have a 50% probablity to survive the game, so that means a specific %chance of knocking out a tank with one shot etc... Note that this is an othogonal design issue w.r.t. simple or complicated rules. You can have elegant and overly-complicated rules using both approaches.
I have to admit that for all the rulesets I've written so far, most of them were designed using the second approach: maximum emphasis on gameplay, and only a small focus on getting things right from a historical point-of-view. So, am I still an historical wargamer?
Sunday, 31 July 2005
HIPPIE project part 2 - conversion
Quite some time ago, before our move, I started the HIPPIE project with [this post](http://www.nirya.be/snv/ttm/archives/000047.html). The idea is that I paint up a figure and report on the progress of said figure with pictures. I'm now finally continuing with this process.
Today's installment is about the cleaning up and conversions (very little, actually) done to the figure. As evident from the picture in [part 1](http://www.nirya.be/snv/ttm/archives/000047.html), there was quite a bit of flash on the figure, which was easy to remove (in most cases I did not even have to use any tools, I could just pinch off the flash with my figures). The flash in question results from vent channels in the mold of the figure BTW, which facilitate air removal from the cavity and are an important part of the production process of miniatures. Other than the flash present, not much cleanup was necessary -- this was a clean figure.
On to the conversions, as seen in the picture on the right, which remained very basic. I replaced his cast standard with a florist's wire one, by snipping off the standard and drilling out the hand. I left a bit of the original standard staff attached to be painted up as a cloth 'handle'. The florist's wire staff was topped with a duck sculpted from green stuff (trust me, it will look better when painted up -- this is one of my very first free form sculpts). Finally, I added a shield slung across the figure's back. The shield is attached with a blob of green stuff, and a belt sling was sculpted from green stuff (pretty easy -- take some green stuff, flatten it between two plastic sheets, cut out belt). The green stuff that was left over after the duck, shield and belt was used on the base to hide the figure's cast on base and hide the slot in the plastic slottabase.
That's it for now -- next installment will be priming the figure for painting.
Other parts of the HIPPIE series:
* [Part 1 - Introduction](http://www.nirya.be/snv/ttm/archives/000047.html)
* [Part 2 - Cleaning and Conversion](http://www.nirya.be/snv/ttm/archives/000135.html) -- You are here
* [Part 3 - Priming](http://www.nirya.be/snv/ttm/archives/000142.html)
Today's installment is about the cleaning up and conversions (very little, actually) done to the figure. As evident from the picture in [part 1](http://www.nirya.be/snv/ttm/archives/000047.html), there was quite a bit of flash on the figure, which was easy to remove (in most cases I did not even have to use any tools, I could just pinch off the flash with my figures). The flash in question results from vent channels in the mold of the figure BTW, which facilitate air removal from the cavity and are an important part of the production process of miniatures. Other than the flash present, not much cleanup was necessary -- this was a clean figure.
On to the conversions, as seen in the picture on the right, which remained very basic. I replaced his cast standard with a florist's wire one, by snipping off the standard and drilling out the hand. I left a bit of the original standard staff attached to be painted up as a cloth 'handle'. The florist's wire staff was topped with a duck sculpted from green stuff (trust me, it will look better when painted up -- this is one of my very first free form sculpts). Finally, I added a shield slung across the figure's back. The shield is attached with a blob of green stuff, and a belt sling was sculpted from green stuff (pretty easy -- take some green stuff, flatten it between two plastic sheets, cut out belt). The green stuff that was left over after the duck, shield and belt was used on the base to hide the figure's cast on base and hide the slot in the plastic slottabase.
That's it for now -- next installment will be priming the figure for painting.
Other parts of the HIPPIE series:
* [Part 1 - Introduction](http://www.nirya.be/snv/ttm/archives/000047.html)
* [Part 2 - Cleaning and Conversion](http://www.nirya.be/snv/ttm/archives/000135.html) -- You are here
* [Part 3 - Priming](http://www.nirya.be/snv/ttm/archives/000142.html)
Technorati tags: miniatures painting
Tuesday, 26 July 2005
Painting competitions at conventions
It is going to be difficult to avoid this entry coming over as me snivelling and bemoaning the fact that I don't win as consistently anymore as before on the Crisis painting competition, and there is certainly an element of that involved (though not, by far, the only reason for this), so I'm stating this upfront. You have been warned.
The idea for this post has been sparked by a [thread on TMP](http://theminiaturespage.com/boards/msg.mv?id=49123), and more specifically this bit in a post halfway down the thread:
I couldn't agree more. Not so much about the why have a competition bit, but I can understand the poster when he says that this particular painting competition (or more generally, the ones he comes in contact with) seems to have changed character from a gamer oriented comp to a painter oriented competition. I have seen what I think is the same evolution in the painting competition at the Crisis convention over the years.
First, a small bit of exposition on miniature painting: there are those, such as myself, who are miniature wargamers that want to paint their figures to a good standard, but still game with said figures and thus do not spend a lot of time per figure painting it, in order to get an army on table in a non geological time frame. A second class of miniature painters are the ones the poster above refers to as 'professionals' (a slightly inaccurate term, but adequate for the purpose of this entry) whose hobby is painting miniatures, not gaming with them. For these painters, the painting itself is the hobby and they don't mind spending the extra (tens or even hundreds of) hours to do a really smasing paint job.
As said, I'm a painting gamer, not a miniature painter. I have been entering figures in the Crisis painting competition since 1997 and have won at least one medal or prize each year. However, the competition has stiffened enormously over the last few years. From what was once (I feel) a painting gamer dominated competition, the Crisis painting comp has become more or less miniature painter dominated. The influx of the German contingent the last two years (extraordinary painters like [Dirk Stiller](http://www.theminiaturegallery.de/), [Stefanie Arndt](http://www.ambers-nightsky.de/) and [Holger Schmidt](http://www.fantasy-miniatures.de/) ) is proof of this point. That makes it harder for painting gamers to win at the Crisis painting competition.
Is this a good thing or a bad thing? Neither, I'd say. This is just the way this particular painting competition has evolved, whether intentionally or not, and that's really all there is to it. I might no longer enter anything anymore (it is getting to the point where it would take too much time to paint something that has a chance of winning), but that should not bother anyone. And it does mean that the Crisis painting comp will become, more than ever, a place to go and look at exquisitely painted miniatures. But they'll be painted by 'professionals' not by gamers.
What's the opinion of the readers on this?
__Update__: added link to Stefanie Arndt's site
Technorati tag: miniatures
The idea for this post has been sparked by a [thread on TMP](http://theminiaturespage.com/boards/msg.mv?id=49123), and more specifically this bit in a post halfway down the thread:
Let's face it, Joe Gamer who painted up a nice general for his army isn't going to win against some pro painted masterpeice which was never meant to see the gaming table and is probably too fragile to survive the battle anyway. If only the professionals can win, why bother having a comptetion open to the public?
I couldn't agree more. Not so much about the why have a competition bit, but I can understand the poster when he says that this particular painting competition (or more generally, the ones he comes in contact with) seems to have changed character from a gamer oriented comp to a painter oriented competition. I have seen what I think is the same evolution in the painting competition at the Crisis convention over the years.
First, a small bit of exposition on miniature painting: there are those, such as myself, who are miniature wargamers that want to paint their figures to a good standard, but still game with said figures and thus do not spend a lot of time per figure painting it, in order to get an army on table in a non geological time frame. A second class of miniature painters are the ones the poster above refers to as 'professionals' (a slightly inaccurate term, but adequate for the purpose of this entry) whose hobby is painting miniatures, not gaming with them. For these painters, the painting itself is the hobby and they don't mind spending the extra (tens or even hundreds of) hours to do a really smasing paint job.
As said, I'm a painting gamer, not a miniature painter. I have been entering figures in the Crisis painting competition since 1997 and have won at least one medal or prize each year. However, the competition has stiffened enormously over the last few years. From what was once (I feel) a painting gamer dominated competition, the Crisis painting comp has become more or less miniature painter dominated. The influx of the German contingent the last two years (extraordinary painters like [Dirk Stiller](http://www.theminiaturegallery.de/), [Stefanie Arndt](http://www.ambers-nightsky.de/) and [Holger Schmidt](http://www.fantasy-miniatures.de/) ) is proof of this point. That makes it harder for painting gamers to win at the Crisis painting competition.
Is this a good thing or a bad thing? Neither, I'd say. This is just the way this particular painting competition has evolved, whether intentionally or not, and that's really all there is to it. I might no longer enter anything anymore (it is getting to the point where it would take too much time to paint something that has a chance of winning), but that should not bother anyone. And it does mean that the Crisis painting comp will become, more than ever, a place to go and look at exquisitely painted miniatures. But they'll be painted by 'professionals' not by gamers.
What's the opinion of the readers on this?
__Update__: added link to Stefanie Arndt's site
Technorati tag: miniatures
Sunday, 24 July 2005
A terrain experiment with a doubtful result
In the spirit of further [terrain experimentation](http://www.nirya.be/snv/ttm/archives/000050.html), I decided to spruce up part of my basic terrain setup the other day. While I do have a suitable set of modular terrain tiles (which have featured in pictures troughout TTM and its [mother site](/snv), and won a few prizes at wargames shows), there are occasions where I, be it for ease of transport or out of sheer laziness, use a simple green cloth (nicked off of my friend Alan, I might add) as the basic terrain for my games.
I a fit of madness, I tried doing something that [I wrote about years ago](/snv/tbase.html) -- attacking the cloth with a variety of spray paints and flock. The idea is to break up the golf course look of endless expanses of green nothingness by spraying on various oddly shaped patches of green, greenish brown, brownish green and brown. You get the idea.
This is what it turned out as:
I used a number of differently coloured spray paints that I had lying around, plus some general flock that I glued onto the cloth with spray glue. I thought the end result was pretty nice, especially considering the fact that the cloth is meant as a base surface, with lots of other terrain items on top.
Then again, when my wife saw the thing, her first reaction was 'this looks like our cat threw up on it'. So I guess different people have different esthetic sensibilities. Any comments?
Technorati tag: miniatures
I a fit of madness, I tried doing something that [I wrote about years ago](/snv/tbase.html) -- attacking the cloth with a variety of spray paints and flock. The idea is to break up the golf course look of endless expanses of green nothingness by spraying on various oddly shaped patches of green, greenish brown, brownish green and brown. You get the idea.
This is what it turned out as:
I used a number of differently coloured spray paints that I had lying around, plus some general flock that I glued onto the cloth with spray glue. I thought the end result was pretty nice, especially considering the fact that the cloth is meant as a base surface, with lots of other terrain items on top.
Then again, when my wife saw the thing, her first reaction was 'this looks like our cat threw up on it'. So I guess different people have different esthetic sensibilities. Any comments?
Technorati tag: miniatures
Friday, 22 July 2005
Miniature Photography part 4 - stage setup
As an addition to the earlier [series](http://www.nirya.be/snv/ttm/archives/000035.html) on [miniature](http://www.nirya.be/snv/ttm/archives/000038.html) [photography](http://www.nirya.be/snv/ttm/archives/000054.html), here's a quick look at the current 'stage' setup I use when photographing miniatures:
As you can see from this photo, I use a sheet of white paper as the 'stage' itself. The paper is propped up against a suitable object (in my case, the water jars) so that it curves smoothly, with about 1/3rd of the paper horizontal (flat on the desk) and the other two thirds vertical.
Lighting is provided by two lamps -- the standing one almost directly above the miniature is fitted with a daylight bulb and provides the main illumination, while the smaller clip on fluorescent lamp provides some filler light to help even out the highlights on the figure. This lighting setup works for me in so far as that I rarely have to correct the photo in an editing program anymore. I'm still thinking of building a [light tent](http://www.nirya.be/snv/ttm/archives/000071.html) though.
Finally, the camera itself (not visible in this shot because it was taking the shot. Ahem) rests on the small blocks of wood in front of the miniature to take the shot. It usually ends up with the front of the lens 3 to 4 cms away from the miniature, resulting in a frame filling shot of the figure.
All articles in the miniature photography series:
* [Part 1 - Lighting](http://www.nirya.be/snv/ttm/archives/000035.html)
* [Part 2 - Camera settings](http://www.nirya.be/snv/ttm/archives/000038.html)
* [Part 3 - Post processing](http://www.nirya.be/snv/ttm/archives/000054.html)
* [Part 4 - Stage setup](http://www.nirya.be/snv/ttm/archives/000132.html) - You are here
Technorati tags: miniatures, photography
As you can see from this photo, I use a sheet of white paper as the 'stage' itself. The paper is propped up against a suitable object (in my case, the water jars) so that it curves smoothly, with about 1/3rd of the paper horizontal (flat on the desk) and the other two thirds vertical.
Lighting is provided by two lamps -- the standing one almost directly above the miniature is fitted with a daylight bulb and provides the main illumination, while the smaller clip on fluorescent lamp provides some filler light to help even out the highlights on the figure. This lighting setup works for me in so far as that I rarely have to correct the photo in an editing program anymore. I'm still thinking of building a [light tent](http://www.nirya.be/snv/ttm/archives/000071.html) though.
Finally, the camera itself (not visible in this shot because it was taking the shot. Ahem) rests on the small blocks of wood in front of the miniature to take the shot. It usually ends up with the front of the lens 3 to 4 cms away from the miniature, resulting in a frame filling shot of the figure.
All articles in the miniature photography series:
* [Part 1 - Lighting](http://www.nirya.be/snv/ttm/archives/000035.html)
* [Part 2 - Camera settings](http://www.nirya.be/snv/ttm/archives/000038.html)
* [Part 3 - Post processing](http://www.nirya.be/snv/ttm/archives/000054.html)
* [Part 4 - Stage setup](http://www.nirya.be/snv/ttm/archives/000132.html) - You are here
Technorati tags: miniatures, photography
Wednesday, 20 July 2005
Building a forest
As [mentioned before](http://www.nirya.be/snv/ttm/archives/000094.html), we're going to do an Arnhem game for this year's [Crisis](http://www.tsoa.be) convention. The basic distribution of tasks is that Alan does the miniatures and I do the terrain.
I'm going to do a series of articles on the terrain building in the future, but I want to focus now on an important part of it: trees. You see, a lot of the action in the Arnhem battle was focused not in Arnhem itself, but several miles to the west of it, in the vicinity of Oosterbeek, Wolfheze and Heelsum, and that general area is quite heavily wooded. Hence, the terrain features *a lot* of woods, and I need *a lot* of trees.
After some experimenting, I've gone the [Woodlands Scenics](http://www.woodlandscenics.com) route. Woodlands Scenics is a producer of excellent (albeit a bit on the expensive side) of terrain materials, aimed at the upscale model train enthousiast, but that does not stop one using their stuff in miniatures tables, of course. I'm using their tree kits, ordered from [EC Scenics](http://www.ecscenics.co.uk) in the UK (which I can recommend). The kits consist of a bunch of plastic tree armatures and several bags of 'clumpy foliage', a kind of clumpy foam flock, which serves admirably as leaves for trees.
The process is simple: take an armature (I got the ones that range in size from just under an inch with two measly brances to 3" big ones with a multitude of main and side brances), twist the brances in a convincing treeish shape (anything will do, really), liberally apply glue (preferably one that does not dry too quickly and needs only to be applied on one of the two surfaces to be glued, and not white glue -- I use [Pattex Contact Glue](http://www.pattex.be/ned/transparent.php), although that does need to be applied to both tree armature and foliage, which is awkward -- ["Krachtlijm"](http://www.pattex.be/ned/krachtlijm.php) would be better) and stick foliage on. Finished. The tree armatures come with tiny bases, which I don't use -- I stick the trees directly into the terrain board (polyurethane isolation board).
To get a rough idea of what this looks like, here's a shot of my first trial setup:
Note that this is just some trial trees, the forest in question has now been enlarged significantly (I'll try to post pictures later). These specific trees are also ready made from Woodlands Scenics. I bought a few packs of these to see what the trees should look like, but they're not really worth the expense -- the ones you make yourself from the basic materials are just as good if not better.
In case you're wondering -- that's a part of the forest between the landing zone for 1st Airlanding Brigade northwest of Wolfheze and Ginkel Heath, the drop zone for 4th Parachute Brigade. The road is Amsterdamse weg, one of the three main routes used by the British on the way to Arnhem.
More to follow.
Technorati tag: miniatures
I'm going to do a series of articles on the terrain building in the future, but I want to focus now on an important part of it: trees. You see, a lot of the action in the Arnhem battle was focused not in Arnhem itself, but several miles to the west of it, in the vicinity of Oosterbeek, Wolfheze and Heelsum, and that general area is quite heavily wooded. Hence, the terrain features *a lot* of woods, and I need *a lot* of trees.
After some experimenting, I've gone the [Woodlands Scenics](http://www.woodlandscenics.com) route. Woodlands Scenics is a producer of excellent (albeit a bit on the expensive side) of terrain materials, aimed at the upscale model train enthousiast, but that does not stop one using their stuff in miniatures tables, of course. I'm using their tree kits, ordered from [EC Scenics](http://www.ecscenics.co.uk) in the UK (which I can recommend). The kits consist of a bunch of plastic tree armatures and several bags of 'clumpy foliage', a kind of clumpy foam flock, which serves admirably as leaves for trees.
The process is simple: take an armature (I got the ones that range in size from just under an inch with two measly brances to 3" big ones with a multitude of main and side brances), twist the brances in a convincing treeish shape (anything will do, really), liberally apply glue (preferably one that does not dry too quickly and needs only to be applied on one of the two surfaces to be glued, and not white glue -- I use [Pattex Contact Glue](http://www.pattex.be/ned/transparent.php), although that does need to be applied to both tree armature and foliage, which is awkward -- ["Krachtlijm"](http://www.pattex.be/ned/krachtlijm.php) would be better) and stick foliage on. Finished. The tree armatures come with tiny bases, which I don't use -- I stick the trees directly into the terrain board (polyurethane isolation board).
To get a rough idea of what this looks like, here's a shot of my first trial setup:
Note that this is just some trial trees, the forest in question has now been enlarged significantly (I'll try to post pictures later). These specific trees are also ready made from Woodlands Scenics. I bought a few packs of these to see what the trees should look like, but they're not really worth the expense -- the ones you make yourself from the basic materials are just as good if not better.
In case you're wondering -- that's a part of the forest between the landing zone for 1st Airlanding Brigade northwest of Wolfheze and Ginkel Heath, the drop zone for 4th Parachute Brigade. The road is Amsterdamse weg, one of the three main routes used by the British on the way to Arnhem.
More to follow.
Technorati tag: miniatures
Wednesday, 13 July 2005
Good thread on WWII miniature scales
I'm just back from the Black Forest, a land of no connectivity and no miniatures (unless you count our daughter and my brother in law's two children), so TTM kicks into life again.
Just a quickie now: there's a [great discussion thread](http://www.wargamesdirectory.com/html/bkc/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=1060) on WWII scales over at the [Blitzkrieg Commander](http://www.wargamesdirectory.com/html/bkc/default.asp) [forum](http://www.wargamesdirectory.com/html/bkc/forum/) (free registration required). The initial author is new to WWII miniature wargaming and has taken the rich pragmatist approach to selecting a scale to play in: he has bought samples in various scales (6, 10/12 and 15mm) and is regularly reporting on his progress and findings.
Dynamite stuff!
Technorati tag: miniatures
Just a quickie now: there's a [great discussion thread](http://www.wargamesdirectory.com/html/bkc/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=1060) on WWII scales over at the [Blitzkrieg Commander](http://www.wargamesdirectory.com/html/bkc/default.asp) [forum](http://www.wargamesdirectory.com/html/bkc/forum/) (free registration required). The initial author is new to WWII miniature wargaming and has taken the rich pragmatist approach to selecting a scale to play in: he has bought samples in various scales (6, 10/12 and 15mm) and is regularly reporting on his progress and findings.
Dynamite stuff!
Technorati tag: miniatures
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