Mounds of Joy

I was hoping to have the grape mounds done a month ago, but alas, life got in the way! It took much longer to get the Woodland Scenics Clump Foliage than expected, which involved a road trip to London with Mikey.

I decided against super glue as too expensive. Regular white glue however proved too runny, sliding off the sides of the grape mounds. Plus I buy it in a big jug, decant and brush on, adding to the complexity.

However, Mrs. Rabbitman came to my rescue, telling me of a craft glue called Aleene's Tacky Glue. It is what it says on the bottle. White glue but thicker and stickier.

Fortunately there is a craft store not too far away. So I bought glue and Mrs. Rabbitman bought yarn. After much delay I could finally settle down to several hours of Netflix and get stuck in!

It probably took me about 6 to 8 hours of gluing over about three days.

Here's some of them in front of a grape hut with the new Taliban for effect.

As you can see there's quite a few, and I still have half the bag of clump foliage left.

These should make the battlefield more complex.

Saturday Painting Table

It's taken a while, but with Remembrance Day over, cadets are slowing down now and I can get some more hobby time.

The Taliban reinforcements I got at the beginning of October are nearing completion. 6 fire teams each with an RPG, a LMG and two or three riflemen. This will be a 120% increase in insurgent strength. Plus another sniper, who was part of the Wartime support pack.

The additions to the ISAF forces also got some paint too.

I think I'm going to like the special ops teams. But as you can see, I'm still mulling over how to base up the Afghan merchant and his wares.

Some of the gang went to Fall-In last weekend. Mikey saw these resin terrain pieces and thought I'd like them.

Very nice. Allied troops did encounter some industrial areas in Normandy. Although some brick warehouses or work shops would be a good addition.

Hopefully there will be more gaming through the winter to report on!

Farewell to Eagles

I sold my 15mm ancient armies last spring.
Walter said he'd give me "serious money" and I wanted to finance other projects (Afghanistan). He really just wanted my Goths, but he took the late Romans and Sassanids too. Then came back for my Republican Romans and Spanish.
I hadn't been happy with my ancient games anyway. They weren't very satisfying. Maybe because I had to do too much of the heavy lifting. Or maybe I have not been able to resolve a good game with my interpretation of history. Big Battles don't give much variety in scenario. They tended to be pretty straightforward and once deployed did the commanders have much influence?
Last week's Ronin game was on the other extreme and again unsatisfactory. It is I feel, too gritty. Perhaps excellent for two or three characters fighting in a tea house, but not any bigger. And I do want bigger.
But how big?
So what do I want from an ancient game?
I want the Big Men to have some effect. Rallying troops with a stirring speach or wading into a melee with their famous sword to turn the tide. But I still want units and manoeuvre and tactics.  So too big and the characters get lost or just give  a plus 1. Too small and its D&D.
Hmmm... :-\

Bashing with the Bushi Some More

Had Pete, Patrick and Mikey over Friday night. Thought we'd give Ronin another go with smaller forces.

Pete and I paired up with the Lord of Tea's red and black force. Mikey brought some partially finished blue ashigaru and Patrick used my small yellow and red buntai.

Things went a little better except Pete and I both found our samurai to be armed with pool noodles and we were giving too much armour to the defender when shooting the teppo.

Mikey and I clash in the village

Pete and Patrick flail at each other among the trees

Teppo man bottom of picture spent the whole game trying to line up a shot on Mike!

So still on the learning curve. I'm thinking any more than half a dozen figures on a side is too many though. My 4Ground fences are also unbalanced and kept falling over, so I'll need to rebase them to improve stability. On the plus side Mikey did sell me a pack of Perry ikko-ikki with teppo for a good price.

Remembrance Season Reading

Every year around this time I find a book on Canadian military history to read and help me reflect. This year I got Christie Blatchford's Fifteen Days. It did not disappoint. Blatchford spent a few months embedded in ROTO 1 and 2 in 2006.

Each chapter is a different day that she found significant, usually a death. But she goes forward and backward, from Canada to Afghanistan to set each soldier's death in context. The reader gets to know them, their platoon mates and their families all much better than a dry recitation of the event would allow. During the course of this narrative she paints a better picture of the mission in Kandahar and what our soldiers were succeeding at, something that the press was always slow to report at the time.

Many chapters were very moving but she saved the best for last as she describes the veterans of Task Force Orion being sent across the country  in the fall of 2006 to Remembrance Day ceremonies in all the communities their fallen are buried in, allowing them to grieve some more and meet with the families to help both heal.

Every wargame project I start, I always try to read some social background too in order to give some life to my metal figures. This book didn't disappoint in that regard, as well as filling in some other details, like TF Orion's fighting in Helmand province and the use of Bisons as ambulances (no red cross, it would attract RPG fire).

Her writing is very good and you can feel her emotional connection in every line. Highly recommended.

Village Wells

Every village needs a well or two. In Afghanistan they are also good places to hide weapons caches.

Patrick gave me this children's building toy. He got them cheap at a discount store and had used a set to build a tower house for his Scottish boarder game.

The bricks are enormous for 20mm figures, so I used a needle file to inscribe more stone lines into the faces. Although when it came to painting I hadn't gone deep enough and had to be careful not to paint the cracks out.

So four bricks for each well, inscribed with a rough brick pattern, glued to a base and painted. I then used some dry static grass to soften the bottom edge.

I also got the IEDs painted up today too.

Easy IEDs

After my inaugural game I realised that I needed some way to indicate possible IED threats. Both S&S Models and Elheim Figures make ready cast IED markers, but my cheapness came to the fore. Plus you need a lot of the buggers!

I started by covering the holes in 20mm washers with masking tape. Into the holes I then added bits of wire, squares cut from resin stowage sprues, a box and a few rounded sprue ends, thinking that they might look mine like.

With more glue and fine sand I then partially buried the suspicious objects.

Then it's just a matter of paint and an ID number.

I've knocked these up this weekend. I'd do more but I ran out of washers.