Filling the Square

Last August I showed you this square of 15mm British Colonial figures and hordes of Mahdists. Well I've finally gotten the middle of the square finished up. I almost had these guys done at the end of February as well, but as mentioned earlier, I didn't pick up my paint brushes all of March and into early April.

Here are some 15mm Essex baggage camels, some beef cattle of unknown manufacture, a trio of Essex senior officers and more artillery from Peter Pig.

I used a Minwax wash to pick out the fine details and then highlighted some things like the sailor hats afterwards.

Screw gun

Naval Brigade Nordenfelt MG

British command

And here's a shot of my busy and messy painting area with what's still on it:

The Victorian chaps in front are a birthday present for a friend, which I should have done before his next birthday. I'll show them off better once they're done. The masses of Samurai are finally assembled and you will be hearing more about them as well, I'm sure.

First Chain of Command Platoon

Just finished my first platoon for Chain of Command. Actually they have been almost done for over a month now, but March was a wash out for painting.

Instant platoon! Just add LMGs.

Over a year ago, I decided to remove the 5th figure from all my Flames of War style stands of German infantry, to make the sections 8 figures strong. Most of my Lardy scenarios involved reduced 8 figure sections and it confused people to have 2x 5 figure stands representing only 8 men. Letting them run with 10 figures per section put them at a distinct advantage over my Canadians, too. I thought the spares could be used for making change when the sections take casualties and rebased them on small squares in ones and twos.

Well back in December or January, when I was prepping my Canadian and FJ platoons for CoC I realized that with 3 platoons, each of 4 sections, I had enough spare German riflemen to make another platoon for CoC! I had to attack some of the 3 figure FoW style command stands (which I've never actually used) for a couple more riflemen and some leaders. These were all put together back when I used epoxy to glue the troops to the bases! Gads, what a battle to get those off. Some I gave up on.

Basic landsers got glued to 4Ground 15mm round bases. Big Men got glued to 20mm washers.

Played as a Grenadier section

All I needed were some MG42 teams. Fortunately I had a half dozen prone teams squirreled away. They're Old Glory figures, not sure where I got them from, probably in a trade with someone. I used the now cleared off small FoW stands (why waste them?) to base them on and had them primed and black undercoated by the end of February.

Where they sat until this weekend.

Played as a Pz Grenadier section

Got them painted up in about an hour before going to Mass on Good Friday. With the extra MG42 teams the unit can be played as a run of the mill Grenadier platoon with 7 riflemen, one MG42 team and a leader per section or as a Panzer Grenadier platoon with 5 riflemen, 2 MG42 teams and a leader per section.

Spare MG42 team from Resistant Roosters

I also had a couple of sample figures I got many years ago from Resistant Roosters who had been knocking about looking for a home. So they are a 7th MG42 team, just in case I need them. Because you never know.

I should attack those FoW command stands again and free up some fellows with AT mines to give them a tank hunter team.

The Canadians won't take long to paint up, they actually got their base khaki on before the painting hiatus, but the FJ and their camo will be longer.

Trying to Figure Things Out

Eventually, of course, I would like to build up to army level games with the Samurai. But of course, the deployment of Samurai armies is fraught with puzzles, like these:

painted screen

the army of Takeda Shingen

It all looks terribly complex. There are interesting deployments like "Birds in Flight" and "The Crane". There's a lot of depth. A lot of thin lines of different troops. There's a lot of flags!

I think 'traditional' wargame units of 2 or 3 ranks would not be correct and not give the frontage required.

Fortunately, a clever fellow on the internet, who goes by the nom du net of Evalerio, has done an in depth study of things and has posted handy interpretations for us, complete with nice graphics:

Takeda Army Deployment

You can see his full break down of the command structure and organization on this forum.

He's also done a very detailed study of Samurai heraldry, and you can view some of his work on this other forum. Again complete with lovely graphics like this:

I can only hope Evalerio puts out a book on all this.

But from what I can sort out; it seems the mon, or badge of the Daimyo (great lord) is the unifying element. All ashigaru and lesser samurai would wear his mon. Different colours could be used to designate different divisions. Horizontal and diagonal stripes on the nobori and sashimono could be used to designate units within a division. Higher ranking samurai, commanding divisions under the daimyo, would be allowed to display their own device on their uma-jirushi.

Of course, I could be wrong. But it's a start.

I'll need more flags. A lot more flags.

First Troops Arrive

A nice little box of fun was waiting for me, when I got home last night:

Yay!

I used my Bring and Buy income to order the first contingent of Perry figures. A mix of teppo, yumi, and yari armed ashigaru and mounted and dismounted samurai. Enough to make a couple of buntai for Ronin. I also got some civilians because I like to have them on the table top. Plus, peasants carrying burdens will be a start on the rear echelon for my Samurai army.

Another picture from Hotlead

This picture pretty much sums up why I like this hobby. Chris on the right is my oldest friend. We've known each other since we were about 8. He's my brother-from-another-mother so to speak. Don on the left I met at Cadet camp when we were 16. Scott in the baseball cap I've known since I was about 26 and he was a young lad of 16. Konrad, the guy with his arms crossed is a friend of a friend and now my friend, and Matthew, the fellow with the beer is the friend of the friend's friend... get it?

I think this is the main reason why I run Hotlead every year. It's a big organized play date...

I also like the way how everyone is so focused on what Chris is rolling.

Still Hot After 20 Years, Hotlead 2014

Our 20th Hotlead has come and gone. Mrs. Rabbitman is still counting money and crunching numbers but my Mk. I eyeball tells me it was dazzlingly successful. More games on Friday night than ever before, with all of them running, so I think more gamers too. Sunday morning was also quite full and busy with 6 or 7 games and lots of people playing in them, plus the DBA tournament. This tells me more folks came and stayed for the full weekend, unlike the last couple of years when economic conditions caused fewer full weekend passes. Previous years, Sunday has been pretty quiet; sometimes with just the VSF game and folks making last purchases and saying their good byes. This year it was pretty busy, and J&M Miniatures was making sales right up to the boxes being taken out to Martin's van!

The Bring and Buy also broke some records, raising $1800 for charity, which means the team did an astounding $18000 dollars in sales in 8 hours! Usually we only bring in a thousand, plus or minus a hundred or two (last year it was down with only $830 raised). They certainly earned their beer that evening. I even sold a gratifying amount of stuff to finance my Samurai project. Plus none of the left over stuff (there are always abandoned B&B items that the owner doesn't want to take home) came back with me like in previous years. Steve just got folks to make him a deal and even gave some of it away.

But on to the pictures. Friday night:

Setting up the J&M booth Friday night.

Dan's "Mongols with Mausers" '30s Pulp skirmish game.

Which requires silly hats, bad accents and lots of laughs

close up of "Mongols with Mausers"

"Flames of War" Grosbeek Heights Sept. 1944, which ran in three time slots

"Dux Britannarium" which proved quite popular all weekend.

Monsters and giant robots trash a city. Also popular all weekend.

First of many Napoleonic games.

First of many 28mm WW2 skirmish games too.

First action in a "Wings of War" campaign that went on until Saturday night.

On Saturday I met an Italian gamer who is at a local university for some graduate studies. He thought we were larger and nicer than the Milan game convention. So we're an international hit now, I guess. Plus we hooked him up with some gamers in the area he is residing in so he can do some gaming while he's in Canada. Hotlead, the friendly convention.

More pictures:

New volunteers at the Bring & Buy

Saturday morning crowd starts to swell

15mm Fort Erie in the War of 1812

15mm gunboat for the War of 1812

A 20mm WW2 game gets going

Battle of Liebertwolkwitz in 28mm, yes masses of 28mm cavalry thundering around

More Lieberywolkwitz

Another 28mm Napoleonic battle, 

The Battle of Magnesia in 28mm

Dreadnoughts in the water

Dreadnoughts in the air, "Leviathans" had players all day.

1/72 scale Baltic Crusades

Air war over the Pacific

More Dux

"Blackwater Gulch" a later version had zombies and demons running around too...

"Malifaux"

28mm French Indochina

This looks like more of the Battle of Magnesia

A glimpse of the scrum around the Bring and Buy. Red shirts hard at work (or creaming off the good stuff first?)

A rather pretty 20mm Canadian Recce Sqdn

This year we had some "Axis & Allies" minis games. One session each of air, naval and land. They seemed popular.

A quite pretty 28mm D-Day game using "Bolt Action". We talked the GMs into running it a third time after dinner and filled it with Hotlead staffers, who got very loud....

Big German bunker. The brass ring represents smoke...

View from the Landing craft

The rather nicely done town of Liebertwolkwitz

More Liebertwolkwitz in the afternoon

The British storm Fort Erie

"Axis & Allies" in the air

1/72nd scale American War of Independance

Another view of the AWI game

15mm Battle of Ipsos using DBM. Look at all the elephants!

more of Ipsos

6mm WW2 Normandy game "Advance to Falaise"

More monsters and giant robots

ACW naval. The Battle of Mobile.

Another 28mm Napoleonic battle. Kulm.

Another view of the Battle of Kulm

War of 1812, Battle of Blandensburg

Saturday night crowd, still pretty busy...

Yet more "Dux"

Zombies

Unwinding with the gang over some beers and Bolt Action. Told you we got loud...

I'm not sure what they're celebrating, maybe getting off the landing craft?

28mm War of 1812, Battle of Longwoods with "Black Powder"

1/72nd scale Biblicals

Allies get off the beach

An unscheduled 28mm ECW assault on a fort.

Nice fort

Space naval from the 'Honor Harrington' universe

15mm Napoleonics. Battle of Montereau 1814

6mm SF, OGRE minis

Also in the basement we had some smaller meeting rooms with 5 tables running "Warhammer" and "Warhammer 40K" pick up games and a another table where they could get some painting and modelling coaching. This was an unexpected expansion arranged by the fellow who co-ordinates the local "Warhammer" crowd, but it seems to have worked well.

Sunday morning, seven games and good crowd for a Sunday:

The crowd Sunday morning, still pretty good

VSF Bring and Battle, it's become a hit with the kids

The "Pinkilicious" takes down a Martian flier

Flashpoint Krplakistan

More "Bolt Action" action

An unscheduled game of "X-Wing"

An unscheduled game of "Bolt Action"

Some "Full Thrust"

The J&M booth, the piles are smaller now...

But if I've added things up right we had the 5 DBA tournaments, the GW pick up game son Saturday and 77 open participation games throughout the weekend! Last year we only had a few over 50. So that's what, a 50% increase?

I didn't buy much. I picked up a Battlefront Centurion tank from their Vietnam range for $5.00 because I have a fondness for the venerable Centurion.

Less stress this year. Although there was a comedy of errors involving my car keys Sat morning which caused me some panic for a bit. Delegating the program and sign up sheets was a huge load off. The guys (and gals now) are doing a stellar job with the Bring and Buy. Mrs. Rabbitman and I thought for next year we'd get them a printing calculator to help with the cash out, when everyone's eyes are spinning and simple addition isn't so simple any more. I'll need help with the event coordinating next year too, as March 2015 threatens to be rather busy for Lt. Rabbitman as he attempts to get his Training Officers Course done (4th time I hope will be the charm...).

Others have posted more pics to the Hotlead Facebook page and AARs are starting to appear on blogs too.

I've set the date for next year: 27-29 March 2015. Mark your calendars now.