This Old Black House

At Hotlead I bought a box of lovely poured resin Hudson & Allen early and high medieval buildings from an estate sale. 

As purchased there's a couple of smaller buildings not pictured 

The three stone "dark ages/highland" buildings were what I really wanted because I've always fancied doing some Picts to fight my 3rd century Romans, especially now that there are a couple of plastic options to build a Pictish warband with. The Medieval buildings were a nice extra and worth paying a few more dollarbucks for the lot.

As you can see my friend had painted them rather unimaginatively without much in the way of shading or depth or highlights. As you can see above, the roofs on two of the Pictish houses were a solid dark green, the same green he painted the grassy bits on the integral bases with. And the third with the sand roof is just well.... ummm. Let's just leave it at that.

So everything got a nice coat of burnt umber ink and then I started drybrushing. Couple of shades of grey on the stone. Couple of shades of green on the sod roofs and the grassy bits of the bases.

After fretting over how to paint the sod roofs I said "Sod it!" and decided to just use the same flock that I would put on the ground.

 This took a couple of nights to accomplish. And then after shaking off the excess I went over the bare patches, which were sculpted to look like old roof in need of refurbishment, with watered down burnt umber.

With out any Picts yet, some of my Romans are checking the village out.

And the Quar like them too. I think these will be nice for any Quar living in the rugged mountainous regions of Alwyd.

Gunkan Kōshinkyoku

The Gunkan (Warship) March

IJN Surface Action Group conducting high speed sea trials

The first 1:1800 scale units for the Imperial Japanese Navy are painted and undergoing sea trials until they get their labels. 2x Takao class heavy cruisers, 2x Tenyru class light cruisers, 6x Fubuki class DDs and 6x Kagero class DDs. 

Japanese heavy cruisers were very much the same in profile, so this one stl will do for many of them.

Takao Class CAs

Most Japanese CLs were intended as Destroyer Division Leaders, and they also looked much the same. At least the early war ones used around the Solomons up until 1943. Although the Sendai class had a different arrangement of more guns and torpedoes. But for game purposes their profiles aren't much different.

Tenyru Class CLs

IJN paint schemes are very simple: dark grey hulls, linoleum brown decks for anything smaller than a battleships. Tamiya helpfully makes IJN ship colours.

There are different shades of grey depending upon the shipyard, but I'm not getting into the weeds that deeply! I used the darkest grey for the hull and the lighter shade to dry brush the upper works. Successively lighter greys are used to drybrush the upper works some more and paint the boats.

Fubuki class DDs

The big difference in the IJN destroyers is with the torpedo load out. The Fubukis have 3x triple torpedo launchers, the Kageros have 2x quadruple launchers.

Kagero class DDs

Like the USN I have some other types of destroyers getting printed. Once they arrive I'll print everyone's labels.

These models caused some problems. Some supports from the turrets were stuck to the deck and I caused some damage trying to clean them up. These prints also had quite noticeable curving at the bows. I applied liquid putty to try and remedy both issues. I don't think anyone will notice mid-game.

Note odd little bits sticking out from torpedo launchers and turrets, and the big ding in the fo'castle

Operation Getting To Know You

At Hotlead we've always thought of ourselves as the friendly convention. I gladly make the effort to help people connect after each show. So last Hotlead, a fellow approached me. He's moving to Stratford when he retires after working in the US for 30-plus years. He's coming up to visit family in June and could we get together? He'd like to meet some of the local gaming scene since he'll have to rebuild a hobby life when he moves.

We email back and forth, compare calendars, and settle on Sunday afternoon to get together for a little bit of dice rolling and meeting some of the guys. I send out an invite and gather some of the gang. Don't want it too big, but not too small either. A happy throng would be welcoming. Fortunately Sunday was cold and rainy anyway, so a good day to spend the afternoon inside wargaming.

Two brand new heros in combat? Oh dear, this will be interesting.

Then I'm overthinking; what to put on? Snorkers? Midgard? Something else? There's a time limit so it can't be too involved. Fantasy or historical? How does Ed feel about fantasy? Of course I didn't know if two of the guys were available until the day before which affected the chosen game as well.

I eventually settled on Midgard and sorted out my 3rd century Romans. Over lunch I learn that Ed is a big Roman history nerd. (Yay!) I also learn that he's a big Tolkien fan and has all the expansion sets for the War of the Ring boardgame that I've played a couple of times with the Mad Padre. (More Yay!)

So we had a furiously bloody and swift game. I helped Ed, and our Gothic feoderati overthrew the cavalry of Cohortes IX Britannarium. Who really have never done very well. I must think about how they are used and maybe buff up their leadership.

Big Pat on our other flank was meanwhile hammering the opposing infantry. My Gothic foot warriors had a big opening in front of us and wheeled to start taking the Roman infantry in the flank.

Big hole where the Roman cavalry used to be

Duplicitous leading his cohorts to crash into the enemy line.

Duplicitous won 6-0 this, my eighteenth game of the year, so his march on Rome continues.

Big fun was had. Dice were rolled. Some beers were drunk. Chins were wagged. Freindships were begun. 

Yay! New friends! 

Anchors Away!

I've been listening a lot to the "Unauthorized History of the Pacific War" on YouTube, which does some very detailed examinations of several of the many surface actions around the Solomon Islands in late 1942 to '43. One of the hosts being a retired naval officer really gives some good insights into why things happened the way they did sometimes. So as a break from the Mediterranean Theater I decided to get some Pacific Theater models ready. A lot of these battles would be quite well sized for Snorkers! (Good Oh!). Because the narrow waters around the islands limited the maneuvering of larger units, the actions were mostly destroyer and light cruiser affairs.

Perfect.

My 1:2400 fleets were pretty unimaginiative in grey, which is basically "Measure 1". Dark grey or dark blue decks make it "Measure 3." So I decided to try and delve into USN naval camouflage for the war.

Old 1:2400 and new 1:1800

I think the new basing gives more action, and going bigger isn't taking up much more sea room.

Boy, howdy!

There were TWENTY-FIVE different camouflage schemes used by the USN at one time or another during the war. Several all at the same time or overlapping significantly.

 

So, you've got to figure out when they were used, where they were used, and which were just for submarines or landing craft etc. Or only used by one or two ships as an experiment.

The Wikipedia article World War II Ship Camouflage Measures of the United States Navy was very helpful. Complete with useful colour swatches to try and compare my existing paints to, instead of working on guesses from photographs or buying a specialty paint set.

Two squadrons of Fletcher class destroyers 

Despite my best efforts, 2 ships were crooked on their bases, so I painted their wakes to make them look like they were maneuvering at speed.

Trying to strike a balance between accuracy, easy to paint, and pleasing to the eye, I settled on "Measure 12" as the most likely livery worn by USN ships during the battles of the Solomon Islands campaign.

I hope. Maybe it's "Measure 14?" 

For the "Ocean Grey" hulls I used French Grey Blue. The "Haze Grey" upperworks were dry brushed with Light French Blue. The "Deck Blue" for the decks I used Admiral Blue. Which might not be exact but it's the same colour I use for the bases. 

Atlanta class 5" CLs in front

Brooklyn class 6" CLs in front

But here's a nice Task Force of 2x Brooklyn class CLs, 2x Atlanta class CLs, and 8x Fletcher class DDs. Although I need two more 6" gun CLs to make a complete Cruiser Division for an action like Empress Augusta Bay.

I've got two Northampton class CAs and two battleships to paint until some Porter, Sims, and Bagley class destroyers arrive from Don's printer farm. I'll hold off printing labels until I can do them all at once.