Alan K is running a 28mm Napoleonic game at the Open Day using Two Fat Lardies’ Sharp Practice rules.
Spain 1809
The French have seized the village of Valdelacastro and its bridge. They have an artillery battery emplaned on the nearby heights covering the bridge and its approaches. Can Lieutenant Blunte, his Rifles and the men of the North Essex neutralise the battery, seize and hold the bridge?
28mm Napoleonic derring-do in the Peninsular using Sharp Practice.
John Lambert previews his Open Day racing spectacular
Play the game that’s taking the Gaming world by storm!
Event 1 Death Race – Pick a team for a race to the finish. Crashes,explosions and low tactics guaranteed featuring Crowd favourite – Swampy with new gunner Tex.
Event 2 Arena of Death – Newly installed machine gun turrets kindly provided by the one and only MR Grant Rutherford. No one gets out of here alive, unless you are the last Driver standing of course!
Event 3 Try and Evade the Monster Truck – Squash, Crunch, Splat!
Free chrome spray available for all participants!
Featuring
BARRACUDA
This mean machine enters the arena to the strains of Motorhead’s “Ace of Spades”. Is that a Machine gun or a minigun, “Well ask yourself Punk. Do you feel lucky!”
ROACH
A 5 litre engine in a cut down Beetle with Nitro booster and hot start, what more could you want. See you in my mirror!
THE JUDGE
Well Judge, Jury and Executioner really! With Nitro Ram and Hot start the Judge is set to batter his way through the field
EL DIABLO!
A Monster truck from the Mexico City Penitentiary. Only very rich convicted Drug Barons get to drive this Monster for the Monster truck smash.
RAID ROVER
Grant Rutherford has surplus stock of this model and what better way to showcase its capabilities than a live race day!
Open Day update from Stephen
With barely a week to go until the Open Day I thought I would introduce my Lion Rampant game and some of the levies who will be fighting it out.
The game is set in 1370AD. The background to the game is real but the actual encounter is fictional. Flanders had remained neutral during the early part of the Hundred Years War, with a preference to the English. But in 1369 the Count of Flanders, who had no male heir, married his daughter, Margaret, off to the Duke of Burgundy which meant that Flanders fell under French control.
So the game is a hypothetical raid by the English on the Flemish town of Sluys, where a great naval battle had been fought in 1340AD at the outbreak of the war.
The game will have the English raiding the town on several missions with the French trying to stop them.
Here are some of the retinues that will taking part.
First up we have a band of brigands in the pay of the French. They are led by Sir Leopold Von Starkenberg, a disgraced ex-Teutonic knight, who now scours the Low Countries looking for a fight and someone to pay them. They call themselves ‘God’s Bloody Hooks’ and go into battle with the war cry ‘Gadzooks!’
Next is a contingent of Irish from Cork in the pay of the English. They are from the O’Driscoll clan and we can see that Niall O’Driscoll himself is leading his kerns on this raid.
No English army would be complete without longbowmen! These are two companies of archers from the East Riding Levy. These are experienced men – good yeoman from the shires and the backbone of the English forces.
The French garrison is made up of a lot of continental troops and this next lot are no different. They call themselves the Compagnia di Santa Maria and hail from Genoa. These are also grizzled veterans who have spent good time fighting in various battles.
This last retinue of English have a bit of a funny history. Sir Anthony D’Archer of Ambridge received his summons from King Edward but with harvest troubles on his estate he decided he had to stay and instead paid for his son, Thomas, to answer the King’s call. So Sir Thomas D’Archer is now in charge of the English forces.
To see how these retinues fair, plus many more beside, come along to the Open Day and join in the fun.
Another update from Andy … he has been busy !
To give myself some variety in my French Forces for the Maximillian Adventure (1861 – 1867) I have painted up some Artillery crew and Officers.
These are from Wargames Foundry’s Franco Prussian War (1870 – 1871) range; Foundry don’t do Maximillian specific artillery crew, but the FPW figures are close enough and preferable (to me) to the Crimean War (1854-1856) alternative.
Two of the Officers were painted up in Artillery uniform, these together with the six crewmen will give me the option of having two, four man gun crew in my French forces. The other two were painted as Infantry / Foreign Legion officers.
I used Games Workshop’s Chaos Black spray undercoat, followed by Vallejo acrylics. The flesh was base coated with Brown Sand, followed by Medium Flesh Tone.
The Artillery uniform is predominantly blue (Vallejo Dark Blue) jacket and trousers, with red trim (Vallejo Flat Red). Belts and gaiters are white, boots, cartridge box and scabbards are black.
Some of the artillery crew have slung carbines, these had Beige Brown woodwork with Gunmetal Grey barrels and metalwork.
The Infantry officers differed mainly in that the trousers were white, not blue.
Once the painting was done the blue coats and trousers were given an Army Painter Quick Shade Blue Wash, and the hands and faces a Flesh Wash.
The figure bases were done in the same way as the Mexican Peons in my last blog post and varnished with Humbrol Spray Matt Varnish.
I’ve previously painted a couple of artillery pieces for this game, but these are large field pieces. I also wanted a lighter piece, so bought a small mountain gun from Gringo 40. This had a very simple paint job. Black undercoat, Beige Brown carriage and Gunmetal Grey barrel.
That’s it for the French in Mexico for now, next on the painting table are some Viking Huscarls, but the French will get some Hussars before too long, they are in the pipeline.
Update from Andy on his French in Mexico project
I’ve just completed a small addition to the Mexican Juarista forces, eight peons mostly armed with machetes, apart from three with assorted firearms. These will form part of a “Tribal Infantry” unit for The Men who would be Kings rules.
These are from Wargames Foundry’s Old West range, and were painted in my usual simplistic style.
I used Games Workshop’s Chaos Black spray undercoat, followed by Vallejo acrylics. The flesh was base coated with Brown Sand, followed by Dark Flesh. Most of the clothing is plain white, apart from one figure in a bold red (Flat Red) shirt with green sash (Flat Green), and a couple with Beige or Deck Tan shirts. Sombreros were painted various brown shades, with an Army Painter Soft Tone Quick Shade applied once dry.
Firearms had Beige Brown woodwork with Gunmetal Grey barrels and metalwork. Sandals were painted Black or German Camouflage Black Brown.
Flesh was then washed with Army Painter Flesh Wash Quick Shade. The Red shirt and Green sash had similar washes in the respective colours, again Army Painter Quick Shade. The white clothing was left unwashed.
Bases were painted with Army Painter Banshee Brown, after a bit of a search I found this to be the closest match to the original emulsion paint I used for my Maximillian troops bases when we used them for the club’s show Game “Non Son Hombres Son Demonios!” in 2007 / 2008. Patched of flock were then applied using PVA glue.
Once dried they were varnished with Humbrol Spray Matt Varnish.
An Open Day update from Tony F
Following on from my progress in March painting Lord of the Rings figures for my Ramas Echor Open Day game, I had a fallow April (the demands of Salute took up all my time that month). However, I was back in the saddle (literally) in May, with over a dozen figures on the painting table.
I’ve had a box of Swan Knights of Dol Amroth which I’ve wanted to paint for a while, and this game was the ideal chance to get them on the table. There are six altogether, which I’ve assembled as a captain, standard bearer, musician and three knights. I kept the horses and riders separate during painting to make things easier. I started by spraying the riders a dull silver and airbrushing the horses in Vallejo French Blue (I also masked off and airbrushed the riders’ flags and pennants in the same colour). The horse coats were then washed and highlighted with Citadel paints and the horses themselves painted in various shades of brown. The Knights were washed with Citadel Nuln Oil (black) and drybrushed again in a brighter silver, and details picked out. The barrel on the base of the catapult is a very old Peter Pig casting.
I’ve also finally assembled my Avenger Catapult, a resin Finecast model – this will be very handy against the Trolls and other large creatures from Mordor. Gondor warriors are all fairly monochromatic – most of the figures are covered in silver armour, and the bits that aren’t silver are mostly black. I painted the armour the same way as the Knights (Army Painter Platemail spray basecoat, Nuln Oil wash, Citadel Necron Silver drybrush), then painted any exposed cloth black with dark grey highlights, along with the shield. Other than that, their faces (the tiny bit you can see) were painted flesh and washed with a dark flesh wash, and I picked out a few straps and spear shafts brown and added a few gold details.
I also painted up three more plastic warriors of Minas Tirith and a metal standard bearer – these were already assembled and undercoated so it made sense to finish them at the same time as the catapult crew.
With just over three weeks to go, I have ten more figures to finish, which shouldn’t be a problem – however, there’s still the minor matter of the Ramas Echor itself. The first photo below shows the rough layout of the piece of wall I’m building – the centre section will have a gateway, and behind it is a small wall fort with a couple of buildings as accomodation for the garrison. The other two wall sections will have a bastion for archers or the Avenger Catapult.
This is a nearly-finished section of wall with the battlements in place. These are based on the Minas Tirith city wall design, which I’ve cast up in sections in resin before gluing them in place (the resin just happens to be exactly the same colour as the insulation foam that the body of the wall is made from).
Finally, I finished two half-painted figures which aren’t needed for the Open Day game. On the left is the Mouth of Sauron, who is a man (probably a Black Numenorean) in the service of Sauron. He’s been 3/4 finished for ages, so I didn’t need to do much other than finish a few details and paint his base. On the right is a Captain of Rohan, the mounted equivalent to the figure I finished a couple of months ago.
Open Day update from Stephen:
For my Open Day game I am going to need a lot of buildings because the game is set in a medieval town. Fortunately, I already have plenty, but a few more wouldn’t do any harm because I want it to be crammed to give the idea of an enclosed town with narrow streets..
So this post is about how I go about making buildings.
To be honest, I don’t start with a clear plan and impression of what it’s going to look like. I know how big I will want it and I know what size footprint it must have (after all, I’ve got to store it) but I don’t start the building process with some end image in mind. I think that’s how it should be for a medieval building – make it up as you go. That way you stand more chance of recreating that higgledy-piggledy medieval look.
For this building I did know I wanted it to be made of stone with a tile roof. So I got some Wills Scenic embossed styrene sheets and made some boxes. I decided I wanted some different elevations as well. So one tall box and one not so tall box.
The windows were previous castings I had made. I had enough spare so I didn’t have to cast any more. You can check a previous article about how I make windows for buildings.
You will notice I decided to have a second floor doorway. This means I can add a wooden stairway and platform so there will be a different surface and texture which also adds to the medieval look. Likewise I decided to include a wattle and daub lean to – again, this will provide another texture. The wooden beams on the roof ends and lean to are simply card strips. Then the area in between the beams is given a coating of PVA glue and sand is sprinkled on.
At this point it gets left over night for everything to dry. Where the styrene cladding meets on the corners there are often gaps. This is remedied with a bead of milliput. Since that could obscure some of the stone pattern I then go back with a cocktail stick to scribe it back in and take it to the edges to make the stone work look continuous. Now to tile the roof – I make tiles from heavy paper/card. The stuff used by water-colourists is good because it is textured. I cut strips of card then snip it almost to the edge to make the tiles rather than cut individual tiles. You then stick the tiles on in strips, starting at the bottom, and making sure they overlap. You can cut out the odd individual tile and stick it on a bit wonky to make it look like a slipped tile. When the glue has dried you just trim the edges.
Once construction is complete I give the model a spray of a single flat colour. This helps tie it all together and you can see if anything is needed. What I forgot to do on this model is add a chimney! I usually add the chimney before the tiles but on this occasion I had to add the chimney afterwards. The pot is made from the end of an old felt tip pen.
Whilst that was all drying I made the stairs. Nothing special about this, just out with the balsa. Originally I was going to keep the area under the stairs open and put a barrel or log pile under it. But it didn’t look right and so I decided to enclose the stairs in the final model. Again, I think this suits this particular building better.
With construction complete it’s time to slap some paint on it. I’m not a fan of stark black/grey for stone. It just looks wrong. Very few stones are actually grey. Limestone was a popular building material in the middle ages and limestone is not grey. I kept the grey undercoat and then added a dark brown wash (I actually used GW Agrax Earthshade). When that had dried I gave it a heavy dry brush with khaki. I then gave it three of four lighter dry brushes using a mix of khaki, light grey, and finally a barely off white. The tiles were done using a terracotta/rust colour. The wooden stairs and gantry were given a basic coat of khaki and then washed with the Agrax Earthshade. It is then dry brushed with khaki and succeeding dry brushed coats have a bit of grey (but not as much as the stone work) added.
Weathering is done using a dark green (I used Tamiya XF5). Pay attention to the base, where it could be mold and damp rising, and to areas that could be sheltered and stay wet (under the eaves, in crevices, etc). I then also gave it some more weathering and shading using the Agrax Earthshade just to reinforce corners. And that’s about it, really, apart from basing using a mix of various model railway ballasts and a bit of static grass.
The club is holding its annual Open Day on Saturday June 23rd (11am to 4pm). This when we put on many games and open our doors for all to come and visit and get a much wider idea of what we do and the games we play. We try to put on a good variety of games across all the popular periods and scales, all of which are open to visitors to join in. We offer a special discounted membership rate for anyone who joins the club on the day. There’s also a prize draw sponsored by local manufacturer Brigade Models for all visitors.
This year there are seven games, including one put on by Milton Hundred Wargames Club, our nearby friends and neighbours. The six club games are as follows:
The Fall of the Ramas Echor – a 28mm Lord of the Rings game set just before the Battle of Pelennor Fields, TA3019.
The Second Battle Of Sluys AD1370 – 28mm Medieval action using Lion Rampant rules.
Fields of Glory – a 15mm ancients game using the FoG ruleset.
Sharp Practice – 28mm Napoleonic skirmish action in the Spanish Peninsula.
WW2 Naval – early war action between the French and Italian navies in the Mediterranean.
Gaslands – post-apocalyptic car racing.
Directions to the club’s venue in Linton, near Maidstone, can be found on our website.
From Stephen:
My Open Day game will be a game of Lion Rampant set during the Hundred Years War, with the English raiding a French (or it might Dutch) coastal town.
The table will be a medieval port, with a harbour at one end and at the other will be the keep.
The keep was scratch built using a variety of bits and pieces.
From Seán:
India 1756-63
The sturdy British & their noble Indian allies contend with the wily French and their perfidious Indians in the Seven Years War (the First world war) for the prize of a sub-continent. We could do with 6-8 Nabobs on a roughly 9ft x 5ft table. I will umpire this 15mm game to keep it flowing. It will be my third colonial Principles of War battle after the Mahdists and the Zulus. The Moghuls are splendid troops and the favourite of all my armies. They offer you elephants, camel rocket batteries, massive ox-driven mobile artillery platforms, camel artillery magnificent hordes of colourful noble cavalry, flighty horse archers, loads of unwieldy guns, Afghan fanatics with sniping jezails and legions of cowardly matchlock men, archers and spearmen all looking to overwhelm one or other of the pushy imperial rivals – the British East India Company or the French Compagnie des Indes Orientales. An empire is at stake! Release your inner Eyre Coote!
Let me know if you would like a command : British or French, the British Indian allied commander Mir Jafir or the French Suraj ud Dauhla (of The Black Hole of Calcutta infamy) or one of their allied native rulers. They all have big forces but very unwieldy and varied in ability. Interestingly tricky commands.
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