Modus Reg Magni Momenti

In the works...

2012-01-29T13:16:00.000+01:00

Hoi,

There has been a lot of Dystopian Wars madness over here lately and while I understand that most of you people are more historically inclined, I like that game a lot. Fantasy and Sci-Fi have always been a big part of my gaming hobby ever since I started it. Now this does not mean that there are no historical projects in the works. Therefore I thought I'd tell you here what's going on over at the workbench.

* first up is another bunch of French Marines for the Crush the Kaiser project. When those are finished I will have 2/3rds of the work done.
* next are two Austrian artillery limbers and an unit of Austrian Cuirassiers for the 7YW.
* then I am building some jungle terrain, both for colonial and pirate games
* the last project I'm actually working on at this point is the Freebooters Fate starter set for the Imperial Armada.

You see I'm not yet lost to all things Dystopian War and still going strong in other erea's of the hobby.

Cheers Sander

Listening to: "Tragic Kingdom" by No Doubt

Dystopian Wars Battle Part I

2012-01-24T20:53:00.000+01:00

Hoi,

Yesterday Pijlie (JW) and I played 2 games of Dystopian Wars and now I'm well and truly hooked!
Not only because I won both games, but mainly because the gameplay is easygoing, far easier than the rulebook implies. These games were a first timer in many ways, they were the first games of 2012, they were my first DW games, they were also the first games little Arthur enjoyed ;-) and they were my first naval games.
JW used the Covenant of Antartica and was commodore of the Kingdom of Britannia.The terrain is all JW's home-made brew.
I won't bother you with the step by step report but go straight on to the pictures

These pictures are all of the first game, and all mine I do not have JW's pics yet and will post them together with pictures of the second game at a later date.

Cheers Sander

Watching: The Big Bang Theory

Avast me mates!

2012-01-22T09:33:00.000+01:00

Hoi,

And just when you think my birthday is well and truly over, it isn't! I'm a bit late with this post but it has been mighty busy here, but last weekend I received a large package from my good ole mate AM. What did the box contain? I here you cry! Well just about everything you need to play Freebooters Fate. Yeah you heard that right everything! Let's make a list:
- the rulebook of course.
- a pack of cards needed to play (these are used instead of dice...yep I had to get used to that too)
- a Pirate crew starter box
- an Imperial crew starter box
Now there's two things I don't wanna think about: for starters the amount of money this present must have cost... as I said I'm not gonna think about it (whoops just did, didn't I?) and second the fact that I have carefully steered away from this game for sooo long because it was going to cost me if I got involved. I used to buy a Freebooter miniature at every DUZI and Crisis convention I'd attend since these are just amazing sculpts and I actually have two or three Freebooter's Fate mini's here but entering in the game was just too much temptation... now the die errm card is cast and there's no way out!And oh boy: they've just announced a gang of Amazons...I hate you AM!

A second present I ordered myself: I had got two coupons for the www.bol.com site. This site is a sort of European Amazon.com site and as such I mostly use it to order books and the like, but it also sells LEGO... now there's a new TIE-figther out and so I ordered that and now I can say it's brilliant and far better than the earlier incarnation.

Well then, later today JW (Pijlie) is coming over for a game of Dystopian Wars.

Dystopian Wars update

2012-01-15T15:05:00.000+01:00

Hoi,

Today I bring you an update of some scenery, a bomber and some ships for my KoB armies.
Some dwellings:

A factory

A finished bomber

Below some WIP shots of some cruisers and a battleship.

Cheers Sander

Les grenouilles bleu! Part II

2012-01-12T11:26:00.000+01:00

Hoi,

Here's the second batch of French Marines for the Crush the Kaiser project:

Cheers Sander

Listening to: "To Mega-Therion" by Therion

Birthday!

2012-01-08T15:32:00.000+01:00

Hoi,

Well next to Saint Nick and Santa, my birthday has brought me even more Dystopian Wars stuff! I got:
- a dreadnought
- submarines
- another landship
- more buildings
* civilian buildings
* military buildings
* weapons platform
* factory buildings

oh and I also got the beginnings of my Prussian army:
- land fleet
- blimps

What I also like very much is that I got Simon Scarrows "Praetorian" and some Terry Pratchett audiobooks, guess what I'm listening?

greets Sander

Polish Grenadiers

2012-01-06T20:00:00.000+01:00

Hoi,

Here are the final pictures taken of Uwe's white metal Polish Napoleonics.I'm so sorry the pictures are overexposed but so be it...

Cheers Sander

Listening to: "Ghostboy" by Gabriel Rios

Down at the Docks...

2012-01-04T17:27:00.000+01:00

Hoi,

As you might have read earlier, Saint Nick and Santa (well actually they are one and the same guy) provided me with some Dystopian Wars scenery. I decided to combine the Amera docks with some of the stuff from the Spartan Games scenery sets and this resulted in the dock-scene you see below.

I provided an underground for the docks in order to add some gravel to the sides of the walls. I then used two of the warehouses and the cranes from the Factory Terrain set and two watchtowers of the Military Terrain set to liven up the place. Then I moved on to two of the small islands I've got. These I intend to use as hills featuring a mansion estate and a fortress for DW. The trees are plastic toothpicks, a tip I got from Pijlie. I am now waiting for my local hobby-shop to get some GW roughcoat spray in store to prime the lot.

Can't wait to get cracking on these!

Cheers Sander

Listening to: "Sing Loud Sing Proud" by the Dropkick Murphy's

Thanks Santa!

2012-01-03T07:00:00.000+01:00

Hoi,

As I said earlier; a bit late but: "Thanks Santa"! I've been spoiled this year. Santa brought me a load of nice Amera Plastics stuff to try out and use for gaming. The selection included:

- The Campaign tents pack
- A tent set
- 3 Nissen Huts
- The Trench Battlefield, now this one is not for wargaming, I'll probably be wanting to do my own modular boards for that. But rather for use in class to show how Trench Warfare worked..
- The Island Harbour set.
- The Island Starter Set these can also be used as mountains or hills in regular games, brilliant stuff! The last two sets are mainly for use with my Dystopian War games.
- For the latter I also got a Kingdom of Britannia Avenger Class Fleet Carrier

Am I spoiled or what? And my B-day is coming up, yay!

Cheers Sander

Listening to: "Best of CCR" by CCR

The year's ending...

2011-12-31T12:45:00.000+01:00

Hoi,

It's December 31st over here and traditionally that's a time for retrospection and evaluation. Loads of other blogs have similar posts so why shouldn't I do the same?

Let's look at 2011 on two levels, the personal- and the hobby-side of life. As far as the former is concerned the major event happening this year must be the birth of our son Arthur. He's a true delight in all his babyness, I know think I understand other parents lots better and am now convinced there are things you only ever truly understand when you're a parent yourself, I hate Mell Gibson's Historical films but he's right in the Patriot when telling his eldest son to shut up and that he'll understand when he has a family of his own.

Hobby wise there are several things of note to mention. Where I tended to do armies for all kind of periods and conflicts before, 2011 brought me some structure in the historical part of my hobby. I am now grounded firmly in the period of the Redcoat and The Great War. This is also true for the conflicts I am already entranced with: for the Colonial period I will mainly do a British army nothing else. Napoleonic-wise I've discontinued the idea of ever doing Austrians, Swedes, Spanish and Late War Russians, instead I'll be focussing on the Peninsular War, the Waterloo Campaign and Wellington's Indian Campaign.Yes I'll be making short trips into the El Cid and Ancient age but these are limited to the figures I really like. I have played some great games this year with some great chaps all round, thanks for that lads!

In the Sci-Fi and Fantasy ranges I have started a WFB Gobbo army which is just for fun and all models are bought on discount or reduced prices, so as not to fatten GW any more then is strictly necessary. The army is still too small to really play a game with but is nearing it's completion. As you have been able to read in this blog and will be in the future I have been drawn into Dystopian Wars and this is really a very grand game as far as mini's and rules are concerned. I can't wait to get my army done and get it into action in 2012.
I guess I made the decision to definitely scrap my Cygnar army for Warmachine, as far as I still think they are great miniatures worth collecting, but I won't be playing with them any time soon. In the same line of thought I also scrapped the idea of ever really getting into 28mm gaming apart from my Greeks who are now on the back-burner for some time. The one game I really neglected and shouldn't have is Classic Battletech, I've still read the novels this year because they are great stuff, but have played too few games and painted even less mini's. That's one resolution I have for 2012: remedy the latter situation!

Enough ramblings for now! Let's just wish you all you wish me for 2012 only double!

Cheers Chaps,

Sander

Listening to "Dream" by the Cranberries

Les grenouilles bleu! Part I

2011-12-29T11:51:00.000+01:00

Hoi,

The Christmas Holidays are gone and past, and boy did Santa bring me lots of nice stuff! More on that in a later post first up and long overdue is a post on my latest project. While I am in the process of finishing the Napoleonic Polish Grenadiers for Uwe, I came to an agreement with Paul and Ian from Crush The Kaiser games. They blew me away with their demo game at the Crisis in Antwerp last November. It was a huge West-front table peopled with 20mm plastics and some metals. They fitted right in amongst all the 28mm mainstream "big boys" and in my honest opinion looked far better then most... Now for their next project, of which I am not going to tell too much here, they'll be needing a 60 odd French Marines or Naval Infantry. Since I did a conversion way back when the Early War French Infantry from HäT was released we decided I'd have a go at these. Here's part one of the WIP of these figures.

Below are the regular privates with green stuff bonnets, quite a lot of work to be honest...

To get a bit more diversity I converted most of the command figures, I used weapon arms from other HäT sets (WW1 American Infantry and Colonial Indians) and so head-swaps with WW1 Airfix Brits.

Finally up are two painted test figures. If you take a look at my original conversion (see link above) you'll notice I used a darker blue for the uniforms this time and also did the equipment in the regulation black leather as featured in The French Army 1914 by André Juneau.

I do hope Paul and Ian are content with these!

The Crush the Kaiser project is very much a project born of love for the hobby not a commercial firm as such. Therefore progress on website and rules might be a bit more slow then you'd be used from a professional firm but all the same very much worth your while!

Cheers Sander

Listening to: "Everybody Else Is Doing It" by the Cranberries

Happy Holidays!

2011-12-24T12:19:00.000+01:00

Hoi,

To you all: the very best wishes for 2012!

Cheers Sander

Scotland over the top!

2011-12-19T19:58:00.000+01:00

Hoi,

Finally, I've finished the Great War Scottish Highlanders. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves:

Cheers Sander

Listening to: "Far far from Ypres" songs from the Great War

50 Followers!

2011-12-16T21:16:00.000+01:00

Hoi,

Well what do you know? I reached the sacred benchmark of 50 people kind enough to show interest in my ramblings. Thanks mister Sutton for being number 50!

Cheers Sander

Vistula Legion En Avant!

2011-12-15T22:49:00.000+01:00

Hoi,

Here a picture of some white metal Polish troops for the Napoleonic Wars I got these from good friend Uwe and painted them up as Vistula Legion infantry. These represent the line and voltigeurs. Some grenadiers are still on the table awaiting new kit.

The faces are a mixed assortment some are great some are Strelets-like, which I hate. The bayonets and plumes are fairly brittle and I lost quite a lot of them due to breakage.

The road was made by Pijlie from pond-foil!

Cheers Sander

Listening to the Soundtrack of Tron Legacy by Daft Punk

Saint Nicks!

2011-12-13T16:06:00.000+01:00

Hoi,

In the Netherlands (and Belgium and Germany) many families celebrate the birthday of Saint Nicolas to give each other presents like you do with Christmas. I forgot to post about the pressies I got earlier on so here goes:

I got two excellent Great War books, The German Army at Ypres and Pillboxes on the Western Front. I got another LEGO SW box featuring the Hoth Wampa cave and 3 Dystopian Wars scenery packs, these latter are great for other wargames too!

Thanks Saint Nick!

Cheers Sander

Kilties Waheeee!

2011-12-11T12:37:00.000+01:00

Hoi,

Some time ago I mentioned having gotten some of HäT's Great War Scottish and Indian Infantry, well here are the first WIP pictures.

First up is a picture of the Scots WIP, I have added some scenics to almost all their bases varying from barbed wire up to German backpacks.

Next are tow conversions to add to the mentioned WW1 sets: an Indian officer made by head-swapping with a Colonial Officer and a a guy playing the bagpipes made from a Colonial piper.

Watch this space for more news!

Cheers Sander

Listening to: "Shenanigans" by Green Day

Dystopian Wars

2011-11-17T20:39:00.000+01:00

Hoi,

Yes yes it happened to me again: I caved for a new rule-set/ game: Dystopian Wars. It was really all Pijlie's fault you know! He started this with this topic in his blog. Oh well, in the end I bough the rulebook and a box set of the Naval- and land battle group from the Kingdom of Britannia faction of the game. I have done up some test figures. Not all are finished yet, the ships in particular need the finer details done and perhaps some decals added.

All the same here are some pictures to get your curiosity sated:

Hope you like 'em!

Cheers Sander

Listening to: "Youthanasia" by Megadeth

BANG!

2011-11-14T16:43:00.000+01:00

Hoi,

And here, as promised, are the pictures of the finished craters from Pegasus I bought at the Crisis.

Cheers Sander

Listening to: "October Rust" by Type O Negative

Lest we forget...

2011-11-13T11:51:00.000+01:00

hoi

A bit late, due to family matters, but still: let's never forget the sacrifices made...

The Great War Galore!

2011-11-10T16:31:00.000+01:00

Hoi,

At the Crisis I bought a set of Pegasus bomb craters uncharacteristically I've managed to pretty much painted them already. Well I say pretty much since I just had to complicate the things again of course by adding scatter and broken barbed wire on some of them. Here are the un-painted examples.

In the last batch of HäT releases I got some WW1 Highlanders, I based 18 odd of them and added scenery pieces on some of the bases. Meanwhile I spoke to Paul B. from Crush The Kaiser at the crisis and he mentioned that Highlanders in action had aprons all round their kilts and therefore these figures with their plaited hind quarters need some attention with a craft-knife. These were already based and primed so they will be painted as such.

Be sure to check up this site soon for the painted examples.

Cheers Sander

Watching: "The Game Of Thrones" Miniseries by HBO

Crisis 2011 Part II

2011-11-07T20:17:00.000+01:00

Hoi,

Saturday's Crisis was in many ways the best I've visited in about 4 years mostly due to the nice company I had and also due to the huge amount of nice stuff on show. So here are some more pictures. These pictures were made by my brother on his I-phone so hence the quality of some isn't up to par. I should also mention that some of them are rotated the wrong way and even though I have changed this in the Picture Manager and in Photobucket itself they still appear wrong here for which I apologise. I also apologise for not getting the names and handouts for most of the tables, I have to go about it more methodically next time...

Too Fat Lardies Demo by Sidney and friends

WW1 Game:

28mm Roman Game:

Pardulon demo:

Vietnam game:

ACW Game:

The famous Italian Invasion of Abyssinia-game:

Napoleonics game, this game was great to watch in progress since it featured a HUGE French marching column passing a pontoon-bridge, each time we passed the table the French had moved on a bit further on the field of battle!

"Crush the Kaiser" Great War demo, the craters are indeed filled with liquid!

I really should have taken some overview shots of the venue as well but hey you can't have it all right?

Cheers Sander

Listening to: "Wheels on Fire" by Wheels on Fire

Crisis 2011- Part I

2011-11-06T11:21:00.002+01:00

Hoi,

Yesterday I had the privilege to visit the Crisis 2011 in Antwerp together with my Brother and Mark. I think I can talk for all of us when I say we had a blast! Attendance seemed to be even more then last year and the guys from TSOA were telling us all they will have to move to a larger venue next time. Now that's saying something about how big this event has become and for me it's the best show on the continent at this moment in time. Well I'm being a bit narrow-minded here since I have only visited two others (DUZI and Action) but it's pretty great anyway! Crisis is probably also very much the only event I will be visiting any time soon due to the birth of our son...

In this post I'll give you the more boring info first and I'll update an all picture extravaganza later this week. The first thing I'd like to mention here is that pretty much all of my regular gaming buddies were present at this event here in Antwerp; Koen and Michiel came with a group of friends, Jan-Willem (Pijlie) and his lovely wife Emmy were present and I also met up with others like Tom and Bert who I have seen last time at Crisis.As well as Johan, Toby and his lovely wife Baukje, about all the in-crowd was there :-)

Pretty much every time I visit an event like this I bring a shopping list along, this is just about the first time that I actually got most that was on the list and did not buy much more then intended. Even so I was able to blast most of my budget in one go.

So what did I buy?

Since Pijlie published his Dystopian Wars stuff on his blog I knew I was going to get hooked as well since who else to play these games with rather then him? So I got myself the core rulebook, a Britanian Naval- and Land battle group. Let's see when I get time to get cracking on them. I bought some Pegasus craters for my TGW games, for €15,- they are great value for money as opposed to GW craters. I also got the following:

- an Early War Miniatures WW1 AAgun on truck
- a set of armylists by "Crush the Kaiser"
- a box of GW Goblin Wolf Riders
- a Wargames Illustrated Special featuring all kinds of great eye candy.
- 2 casualty counters with numbers on a turntable.
- From Tom's own produced line some Roman dancers and a winged Amazonian figure

Well that's p[retty much all I got but it will get me going the next few months.

For now I'll just mention two more things about yesterday's event:
1) there were some great games the gents (and lady) from "Crush The Kaiser" did a humongous and well build 20mm plastic Great War demo and I got to talk to them at length about their rules, mini's and terrain/ vehicles which was great.

I have rotated this image in my photobucket and own harddisk folder I swear it, but it won't come up right here, it's not my fault (as Han and Lando would say).

nother demo table was entirely build up of 20mm plastics. It was a game showing a battle of the South American Wars of Independence

ARGH! This one I rotated as well!

2) the second remark I'd like to make is that at the Crisis, Belgians, Dutch, French, German and people of the British Isles come together to re-fight the wars of their forebears against each other, in the most companionable way possible, politicians all over the world should take note of this! And those people telling us figure enthusiasts are warmongers should come and see for themsleves!

cheers Sander

E20 is here!

2011-11-01T20:07:00.000+01:00

Hoi,

Today my order of HäT E20 releases came in and I am quite happy with them. What did I get? Well I'll tell you. First off are a box of these two sets:
8191 Zulu Warriors and 8271 Dervish Warrior, I have no intentions of building huge armies for them but I do have Colonial British troops and would like to use these for skirmish games in the jungles or desert.

To top this of I got two sets each of 8235 WWI Highlanders and the 8236 WWI Indian Infantry.

Now let's analyse these sets. The Zulu Warriors and Dervishes are both part of an ongoing series, there are Dervish camel-riders and NNC troops to accompany them. Therefore it's no problem to me that both these sets only include 8 poses. They'll suffice for my purposes. The Zulu's are armed pretty much as expected with assegai's and clubs coupled with shields. The Dervishes present a decent mix of rifle armed and close-combat armed individuals including Kiplings famous "Fuzzy-Wuzzies". I can supplement them with ESCI command figures and so create a little warband to attack my British skirmish patrols. A set of British Colonial infantry is in the works so we'll be having heaps of fun in Darkest Africa in time.

The Great War sets are a great bunch too. Both sets feature subjects unseen before in the hobby. The Indian troops can be used for a nigh uncountable amount of theatres of war and are thus very useful. The Highlanders are dressed in mid war Western Font gear and while I have enough chaps for an elite company in the Great War game now, I'll probably end up doing an entire battalion in the end. Some conversions are needed though, both sets lack officers so I'm going to have to create those from other sets. Some head-swaps will probably be enough. But the helmets of the Scots I would like to feature pompoms and covering so that'll mean I have to get out the green stuff...

I'll keep you posted on any developments...

Cheers Sander,

Listening to: "Passchendaele" by Iron Maiden

Avatar

2011-10-30T08:36:00.000+01:00

Hoi,

When Arthur was born the nice chaps at HäT provided me with an all-new avatar for their forum:

I really like this one, as it seems it's rather hard to get hold of... Anyway it fits in nicely with all the avatars down below on my blog. It would actually be a great idea to turn them into sew-on patches for my HäT gear but it's simply too expensive...

Cheers Sander

Listening to: "The Black Album by Metallica

'Ello short stuff!

2011-10-28T08:43:00.000+02:00

Hoi,

A few months ago I ordered some much needed Dwarf characters for my WFB Dwarf army from Scibor Miniatures. I finished painting these long before the birth of our son but never came around to photographing them and posting them here, so here they are:

A Dwarf Lord

Thane

Female Thane

These very nice resin figures come complete with weapons options and a resin scenic base. The latter I omitted since the dress of the figures would obscure most of the detail and therefore the bases are of better use with figures of a different stature.

Cheers Sander

Listening to: "To Mega Therion" by Therion

Dutch Blue Guards

2011-10-25T10:29:00.000+02:00

Hoi,

As said elsewhere in this blog I received a parcel of white metal samples a while ago. Part of these were some 1680's figures. Uwe left me free to decide how to paint them so inspired by Ray's Dutch Blue Guards I came up with these:

Cheers Sander

Listening to: Far Far From Ypres Songs of the Great War

Anamites

2011-10-24T13:49:00.000+02:00

Hoi

A while ago my dear friend Uwe send me some sample figure of some of his new 20mm white metal figures. Since I caught some painting time yesterday I managed to paint a series of his Anamites (don't ask something to do with the French in Indo-China) and some 1688 Dutch Blue Guards. The latter will feature in a later update, for now the Anamites will have to sate your thirst for miniatures.

Cheers Sander

Listening to "Over the Hills and Far Away" the Sharpe Series Soundtrack

Excellent service!

2011-10-22T11:45:00.000+02:00

Hoi,

Today I'd like to bring you news of two companies who provide excellent service. First off is Wargames Illustrated.

I love the fact that I get a glossy magazine filled to the brim with wargames and related stuff. The only problem was that for several months on row the magazine failed to arrive at my home address. After an email from me to WI subscriptions officer Robert Townsend I got the missing issues resent each time, but the mags kept on disappearing, I really started to suspect someone at the postal distributions-centre here t-in the Netherlands of nicking my stuff (other parcels failed to arrive as well) I rang the Dutch postal services and they blew me off. So in the end Robert suggested sending the latest missing issues in the most secure way possible and to a different address which worked out fine. It took us an enormous amount of e-mails and quite some time but just last week the mag arrivd here fine at my home address so I hope the trouble is now behind us...

Another excellent company is Avatars of War in Spain. From them I ordered a box of plastic Dwarf Slayers and some characters amongst which is their newest Vermin Lord for my gaming buddy Mark! The last batch of figures I ordered (including Mark's birthday prezzie) was overdue and I was stressing whether the stuff was going to get here in time to be gift-wrapped and handed to the birthday-boy. I mailed Johanna of AoW and she told me she had been in hospital and recovering over the last month and would sent the order asap, 3 days later it arrived on my doorstep! Great Service that!

Well just wanted to share this with you all and assure you I am still active on the hobby-front be it a bit less then usual...

Cheers Sander

Listening to: still the Baby-monitor I'm afraid...

Enter the BIG guys

2011-10-15T13:48:00.002+02:00

Hoi,

Believe it or not, but our son permitted me some painting time last weekend. I managed to finish some of HäT's 28 mm French Voltigeurs. Mini's I started with on the day of Arthur's birth. The pictures are a bit overexposed so the real miniatures are a tat darker.

I am not really into 28mm historics, heck if the GW (or other sci-fi/ fantasy ) mini's where in smaller scale I'd take them rather then the bigger ones, but these where really nice to paint.

Hope you like them!

Cheers Sander

Listening to: the Baby-monitor...

May the Brick be with you...

2011-10-15T13:37:00.001+02:00

Hoi,

Since a newborn child is a huge drain on hobby time, I do not have any hobby related update to show you today but I have permitted myself an addition for one of my many other addictions: Star Wars Lego. As it happens I have been a SW-fan since first seeing the Original Trilogy way back as a kid. Back then the SW action figures were too pricey for my allowance or for my parents pocketbook so I never got any. When I got my own income the stuff had risen to collectors status and the prices went along accordingly. Therefore the release of the Star Wars Lego series was the absolute fun solution. I simply love Lego (but am not an AFOL as such) and the way they done up the SW minifigures is just about a dream come true. At this moment I have an healthy, or rather unhealthy, collection of OT series sets. Last week, overcome with the impressions of being a father, I ordered a Scouttrooper key-chain, the new Characters Guide and an Advent Calendar. I am now trying to keep the latter closed till the first of December, will I manage this or will I succumb earlier?

Anyway Cheers Sander

Huzzah!

2011-10-09T09:18:00.000+02:00

Hoi,

You might have noticed that I have been out for a while. Well that's due to the fact that Saturday the first of October our Son Arthur was born.

Mother and son are doing fine! Dad's a little frayed along the edges for sleep deprivation and worry, but I guess that's normal!

Cheers Sander

En avant mes amis!

2011-09-21T16:07:00.000+02:00

Hoi,

When I posted my last Black Powder BatRep, I told you all I was doing something about my lack of French Line Infantry, well here the fruits of that labour. An all fresh Line Regiment. Since I was doing loads of white uniforms for Austrians anyway I decided to paint some of these garçons in their white uniforms and mix them with Bardin regulation blues in order to make an unit in transition-uniforms.

The officer is a metal Art Miniaturen mini the grenadiers and voltigeurs are http://www.hat.com/Curr2/Bx8219FCm/Bx8219FCm.html the fusiliers are http://www.hat.com/Curr/Test8041.html .

Cheers Sander

Listening to: "Vintage Whine" by Skyclad

Goblins Galore!

2011-09-20T09:37:00.000+02:00

Hoi,

Well so far I am surprising myself with this Goblin Army of mine. This might actually be the first army for which I am able to paint the mini's within weeks of buying them and only have a backlog of just 1 or 2 mini's left unpainted... As I have developed a distinct dislike of GW policies as told here many times before, I will not buy their products at regular prices. I have been asking the mini's for birthdays or buying them at reduced prices at conventions and so I am now the proud owner of:

- horde of 40 Night Gobbo's with spears and shields
- 20 Night Gobbo archers
- 20 Goblin Spearmen
- 2 Shaman
- 3 Squighoppers
- a blister of Squig herd
- about 7 or 8 fanatics
- a Doomdiver catapult.

All painted, at the moment.

The archers were the last to be finished with the Doomdiver awaiting basing. Here are some pictures.

To be honest, and I think I've said this before as well; these are not my best work ever. I just want to build up a force of these little critters ASAP to be able to fight friend Mark's Skaven in a "Who turns tail first?!" battle. Mark's Skaven have a motto saying: "We won't fight any enemy armed with more then a kitchen knife" so I must be able to win some time with them Gobbo's, I'd guess.

Cheers Sander

Listening to some cd by Tool.

Regiment Oranje Nassau

2011-09-17T15:13:00.002+02:00

Hoi,

Since I had some HäT Nassau Napoleonics left over I thought I'd turn them into the regiment Oranje Nassau. A regiment raised from the German mini-State of Oranje home seat of the Dutch Royal House of Orange-Nassau (Oranje-Nassau), which was part of the Allied army facing Napoleon in the 1815 campaign.

I am not entirely sure whether this regiment carried Nassau standards, but I am very sure that Dutch and Belgian regiments carried NO standards so I thought I'd give them a Nassau ensign just to err on the right side ;-)

Cheers Sander

Listening to: "Goodbye Saigon"a collection of 60 and 70's songs

La Garde Meurt...

2011-09-14T17:12:00.000+02:00

Hoi,

Today I received a message from friend Uwe http://historyin172.blogspot.com/ featuring picturs of the latest release of Schilling Miniatures. They have now launched a series of 29 poses of French Guard Grenadiers for the Waterloo Campaign. Some pictures were included:

Cheers Sander

Listening to: "To the Faithfull Departed" by the Cranberries

Württemberg Update

2011-09-10T09:04:00.000+02:00

Hoi,

In the last Black Powder Battle report I posted I mentioned I had to use a Württemberg detachment to supplement my French forces.I am actually building a brigade sized force for them of 3 line infantry regiments, each with a stand of grenadiers, and a separate light infantry regiment. The latter is the last to be done since yesterday I finished the last Line Regiment featured here.

Enjoy:

What's great is that you can make this 4 regiment brigade from just ONE box of HÄT Württemberg infantry for about €11,- beat that! ;-)

Cheers Sander

Listening to: :"The Best of John Foggerty"

Feuer! Part II

2011-09-04T09:44:00.002+02:00

Hoi,

Today's update brings you an Austrian 7YW infantry regiment. While researching uniforms for the Austrian army I stumbled along the site of www.kronoskaf.com/ which I have mentioned here before. There you can find about any uniform used by most of the major, and even some minor, nations involved in the conflict. There I found out that several regiments were raised in the part of the Austrian Empire called the "Austrian Netherlands" that's most of present day Belgium and the Dutch province of Limburg where I have been born and raised and live now. So logically I am going for some regiments from this detachment.

So I hereby present the Sachsen-Gotha Regiment:

About almost everything on these uniforms is WHITE, I hate painting white... oh well, I guess they turned out pretty well enough. While reading up on the 7YW, quite a lot of comparing with the Napoleonic wars is unavoidable. I was amazed just how large a part of the armies of those days consisted of cavalry, being used to Peninsular British amounts of cavalry. Also tactics seem indeed to have been pretty straight forward. Anyway I am looking forward to the release of the new HäT Prussians in order to paint them as British- and Hanoverian units. Until that time I can just make do with all the Austrians still awaiting paint.

Cheers Sander

Listening to: "Immersion" by Pendulum

Feuer!

2011-08-31T07:07:00.000+02:00

Hoi,

Let's talk a bit of painting and collecting psychology today. When I started collecting figures I was pretty much solely interested in the history of the British Redcoat in the period roughly from 1700 up to 1900. Specially with Napoleonics I was mainly delighted to paint redcoats and neglect all the other nations. I absolutely hated painting all the French infantry units being uniformed exactly alike without even the slightest variation to distinguish between the line regiments. Couple this with an inability to paint white uniforms and a hatred of painting French troops was born.This only changed with the release of HäT's 8095; 1808-1812 French Infantry big box. I painted some testshots http://www.hat.com/Othr6/Sander04.html and had to do some more research to get them modestly right and so I was struck by the many ways you could paint them, specially when using campaign dress, and tried some of these with black basecoat and so black-lined shadows for the first time. Now I have 3 and a half showcases of figures of which 1 is entirely dedicated to French Napoleonics and their Allies.

The same is now pretty much happening to me regarding the 7YW Austrians. I still hate doing white uniforms but the Revell 7YW Austrian, all 3 sets of them are just so darn good, that a simple paint job will get the best out of them. I only ever started to collect them to convert them to Brits and use them as enemies for the Brits, but now I like painting them just for the fun of it. Some time ago I showed you my combined regiment of grenadiers and now here are my first 3 bases of artillery. Judge for yourselves!

When observing these chaps closely you'll notice that there are red-faced- and blue-faced uniforms. The red ones depict the actual artillery crew members and the blue ones are train personnel oft pressed to help serve the guns to replace casualties or to supply the guns with ammo from the caissons. Two of the guns are the Revell supplied field-guns and one is a HäT Austrian Napoleonic howitzer. I intend to make some limbers and caissons for them as well.

Hope you like them as much as I do.

Cheers Sander

Listening to: "Garage Inc" by Metallica

La Haye Sainte Revisited, Part I

2011-08-29T22:09:00.001+02:00

Hoi,

Holiday is over, sadly, but I still have found some hobby-time. A long time ago I had a version of the famous Airfix La Haye Sainte farm building. I put it together, rather inexpertly, and used it in early wargames and mucking around with toy soldiers. At some point along the way it got wrecked and I had to throw it away. Last year I was really getting into building scenery for the gaming table en got a put-together La Haye from Martin from www.miniatuurwereld.com. I decided to revamp it and get some decent detail on it to make it look better then the original kit. While researching the real building I found out that the kit doesn't resemble the actual building by a long shot. So in the end I decided to still revise the building but use it as a more "all-purpose" farm rather then the La Haye Sainte pur sang.

Here are the first pictures of this project.

First up the building as I got it from Martin:

The main farm house revised by me, mind you it's still pretty much a work in progress so not finished by far:

To be honest, I guess it well take me ages to complete the total structure but I do believe the end-result will look pretty nice.

Cheers Sander

Listening to: "Vive L'Empereur" military marches from the Premier Empire

Army Showcase Part IV: WW1 Early War German Army

2011-08-26T17:14:00.000+02:00

Hoi,

The 4th army for my showcase series is the Early War German army for the Great War. As usual we'll start with an overview shot:

Cavalry (Take a good look since this will be just about the only time that I used Strelets figures)

The mass of Infantry, 3 companies of regulars plus some Jäger

Close up of an infantry company

Close up of the Jäger

Hope you like it!

Cheers Sander,

Listening to: "Rock in Rio" by Iron Maiden

Holiday Update Part XIV: Labels

2011-08-25T08:20:00.000+02:00

Hoi,

Finally added a "labels" section to the blog. Now I've started out with the idea of labelling all old posts but stopped with that when I saw just how much work that'd be. So from now I'll just label all new posts and those are the ones mentioned in the brackets in the labels section ;-)

Cheers Sander

Listening to "The Idle Prentice" by Gin lane

Holiday Update Part XIII: Battle Report

2011-08-23T10:15:00.000+02:00

Hoi,

Last Sunday, Mark, Jan-Willem (Pijlie) and yours truly played a game of Black Powder Napoleonics. The game was based on capturing 3 objectives: both armies (French and Allies: Dutch, Brits and Prussians) needed to occupy a farm and crossroads and the Allies needed to destroy the French Artillery battery which the French had to prevent from happening. For me it was the largest game I played with my Napoleonic figures and I had to employ pretty much of all my late war troops. This forced me to supplement the French with a two battalion brigade of Württembergers which is pretty anachronistic but I just don't have more French infantry painted at the moment. I am doing something about that as we speak by the way. For Mark this was the first time with the BP rules and he wanted to have all of the basic rules pretty clear in his head up front, so I got a refreshment course as well, being a bit rusty on most of the rules myself.

Jan Willem played the French (General de Division Jean-Guillaume de la Flèche), Mark was at the helm of the Prussians (Herr General Oberst von Zinn zu Mann) and myself featured as Commander of the Dutch-British contingent (General Alexander Offstreet), as the lads said: I've had a lot of fun coming up with them names so I couldn't stop myself mentioning them here.

Without further ado here are the pictures:

The set-up of the table, my gaming room was pretty much cramped up by the additional trestle table.

Some deployment pictures

The battle is joined:

Mark and me discussing our next step

In the end the game went something like this: the heavy cavalry on the French right wing was being stalled by their Dutch Belgian counterparts and failed to make in impression, the Dutch-British centre marched towards the crossing and took on the artillery head on. On the French left wing the Prussians managed to wipe out more then half of the division and since the French cavalry on the left, by then had two of it´s 3 units shaken that division was annihilated as well. The Prussian Jäger managed to occupy the farm early on in the game and the French were unable to get them out. So in the end half the French army was broken and the Allies had 2 of the 3 objectives in hand with the guns a turn away of being charged by the Black Watch... Jan Willem had no option left but to sue for peace...

Jan Willem and I also played a game of Great War but that I'll show you later on this week,

Cheers Sander

Listening to: "Ixnay on the Hombre" by The Offspring

Army Showcase Part III: Assyrian Army

2011-08-21T17:17:00.000+02:00

Hoi,

For this Army Showcase I decided to take my oldest finished historical wargames army. Oldest in both chronological- as in actual sense. I put this together for some games of WAB but haven't used it in about 8 years...

High time they should come out of the showcase right?

The army:

A block of regular infantry and allied infantry, I love the look of those massive shields

Tribal Skirmishers

Regular missile, I actually have a few more of these but they didn't fit the picture right.

Line Cavalry

Guard Cavalry, I am also doing a Guard Infantry regiment but it has been sidelined for other projects for quite some time now...

The general in his Chariot, I also have a King and chariot waiting behind the screens but he's got sidelined as well.

All HäT figures of course.

Cheers Sander

Listening to: "White Elephant" by the White Stripes

Army Showcase Part II: Colonial British Army

2011-08-18T09:22:00.000+02:00

Hoi,

The second subject in our new series is the British Colonial Army that I use for Black Powder games. The highlights of this army must be the Elephants. These have been showcased by themselves before on the ETS pages http://www.hat.com/Othr8/Sander91P.html for instance so here's just the army itself.

Overview:

Camel Corps and Indian Brigade

Heavy Weapons and British- and Scottish Brigades

Most of these figures are either HäT or ESCI, with some metals mixed in. I really am looking forward to the upcoming HäT British infantry sets since I want to add some Blue coats (Royal Marines) and the Royal Rifle Corps to this lot.

Cheers Sander,

Listening to: "Ephemeral" by After Forever

Holiday Update Part XII: More testshots Brunswick Cavalry

2011-08-17T09:07:00.001+02:00

Hoi,

Here are the new HäT Brunswick Cavalry testshots. Nice little figures to put together and to paint, a sprue will contain 4 figures and horses plus several arm options. I opted for a command stand with officer and trumpeter and a seperate hussar on the charge. The Uhlan has the option of a lance arm in charging and resting position. Sine I intend to use him as ADC to my Black Duke figure I took the latter. I livened up the bases with some left over accessories from other sets, a drum, a keg and a musket (on the lancers base, but that got covered in glue and flock...).

Hope you like them cheers Sander

Listening to: "Deep Purple in Rock" by Deep Purple

Holiday Update Part XI: testshots

2011-08-15T08:24:00.001+02:00

Hoi,

Yesterday's army showcase was quite easy to fix; I just took some figures off the shelf and snapped away with the camera. For today's update I bring you some pictures of just finished painted figures again. I managed to get hold of the newest HäT testshots of Napoleonic Mounted Officers and Brunswick Cavalry, and the former are done.

The set includes a Prussian Officer, Prussian Landwehr Officer, Russian Officer (early War) and a Spanish Officer. The latter two I have painted a little different just to show what can be done with them. I needed a Bavarian officer so turned the Russian chap into a Bavarian and then the Spaniard I painted as a Württemberg Officer. All except the Landwehr Officer have separate arms, being a testhot the sabres weren't up to their full length, but this will be remedied in the production runs. These loose arms can be exchanged between the 3 officers giving you loads of diversity of pose. Some head-swaps will been a very good idea as well, I can see the Landwehr chap, with his frock-coat, as a British, Nassau, Dutch or Austrian Officer. The plastic of these test-shots was very dark chocolate brown which reminded me of the early HäT cavalry sets like the Prussian Lancers.

To identify the chaps more easily and to make the bases more dynamic I included foot figures on each base and all excepting the Landwehr Officer's attendant are HäT figures, the latter is Revell painted as reserve infantry. I like the Prussian Regular Officer the most and the Spanish figure the least if truth be told, but hey I'm not complaining in any way! This is a brilliant way to get yourself a great amount of mounted officers. Just by painting them differently you'll be able to get a myriad of mounted officers for sets were none exist or where you want some diversity. The Prussians can be painted as Russians and vice versa so opportunities galore.

True, there are some minor gripes, mentioned here and there: the horses are not the best in the hobby, this time I agree on that point, but they'll do. There's two horse who have sheepskin shabraques over which they are carrying a saddle while regular practise was the other way 'round: i.e. sheepskins over saddles and I'll bet that's what PSR will comment on, but other then that I am just as happy as a bug in a sheepskin ;-)

Here are the pictures,

From left to right: Landwehr officer, Prussian Officer, Württemberger (Spaniard), Bavarian Officer (Russian)

Cheers Sander

Listening to: Sing Loud, Sing Proud" The Dropkick Murphy's

Army Showcase Part I: WW1 Late War German Army

2011-08-14T16:45:00.000+02:00

Hoi,

Well I thought I'd try something new: a column of Army Showcases. To start with I hereby present you with my current late war German army for the Great War game.

The entire army shot together:

The Infantry companies, there are two of them , grey and yellow company.

The Sturmtruppen with an A7V and Fokker Biplane

Cheers Sander

Listening to "Best of Kula Shaker"

Holiday Update Part X: Rectify!

2011-08-09T12:27:00.000+02:00

Hoi,

Yesterday I posted my Dutch Artillery Train. Good friend Thomas pointed out to me that the uniforms of the troopers were actually grey not brown as I have depicted them. I've checked this and it's true... Even so I am not of a mind to re-do the troopers and will leave them brownish, but if you are planning to do these then please mind the fact that the uniforms are indeed more greyish then brownish...

Cheers Sander

Listening to: "the voice in my head screaming: "Do better research! Never trust your pc screens settings, always double check!"

Holiday Update Part X

2011-08-08T12:07:00.001+02:00

Hoi,

Today a little piece I have been working on for some time now, well it has been sitting on my desk for some time I mean. When I got HäT's Austrian Artillery sets I meant to use the equipment, not the crew as I don't do Austrians for the Napoleonic Wars. Looking through some pictures in my uniformplates folder I stumbled along this pic:

It reminded me of the mentioned HäT sets and so I went about it to create a Dutch 1815 artillery train. On it's formation in 1813, after being freed from the French by Russian, Prussian and British troops, the new United Kongdom of the Netherlands was very much impoverished and loads of materials were supplied by the Allies. Most notably the UK but some stuff also came from the Austrians, or British made stuff meant for Austria.

Without further ado:

Cheers Sander

Listening to: "Wishmaster" by Nightwish

Holiday Update Part IX

2011-08-07T09:25:00.001+02:00

Hoi,

For the last few days I have been painting like mad. Mostly I have been painting the upper storey floor and stairs but in between, when said floor and stairs had to dry, I had massive amounts of time top paint up not one but two regiments of HäT Napoleonic Württemberg Line Infantry regiments.

So here are some pictures:

I intend to create a 3 regiment brigade, with added Light infantry and artillery support. There are some headswops in there, most notably in the command stands. The flags are from: http://www.warflag.com/napflags/index.htm
For uniform reference I used empire.histofig.com.

Cheers Sander

Listening to: "Lord of the Rings" BBC Radio Dramatisation

Holiday Update Part VIII

2011-08-04T09:36:00.001+02:00

Hoi,

Just a picture update of some nice new Napoleonics. This time I present you with the 33rd Regiment of Foot in firing line. The figures are mostly Revell with some ACTA mixed in for good measure. The Ensigns are conversions since we are still awaiting a new British command set, like HäT's, coming out.

Also I'd like to mention I obtained two very nice books today. First off is the new Black Powder supplement "The Last Argument of Kings". http://www.warlordgames.co.uk/12349/new-black-powder-the-last-argument-of-kings/ I haven't had time to read it in it's entirety but just the pictures are worth it by themselves.
The second book I bought is Hourtoulle's "Jena and Auerstad" http://www.amazon.co.uk/Jena-Auerstaedt-Triumph-Francois-Guy-Hourtoulle/dp/2915239762/ref=pd_sim_b_1 and it's great as well. I'm not planning to do any of the two battles soon but am doing the Prussian and Saxon armies featured in this tome so the uniform plates come in mighty handy.

Cheers Sander

Listening to: "Americana" by the Offspring

Holiday Update Part VII: BatReps

2011-08-03T09:38:00.002+02:00

Hoi,

As my last battle against Mark, left me fleeing the field of battle, even though I claim the moral high-ground due to killing Ikkit, I wasn't up to fight another game and produce an even higher lost-games-count. By now steam was coming out of the ears of David and Jesper, overcome as they were by all rules and dice-modifiers that had been thrown over the table just now. So Mark and I decided to play a game of All Things Zombie. Me featuring as GM and the other 3 as the players.
Now I know some of you think ATZ is just a bunch of "Malarky"but the gameplay is very fluid and makes for great fun-games too.

So there you have it, 3 teams of soldiers (spetznatz, US National Guard and US Special Forces) have to rescue some scientists from a cabin in the woods...but which cabin? And if you pick the wrong cabin, what's inside?

BRAINSSSSSSS!

Cheers Sander

Listening to: "Fallen" by Evanescence

Holiday Update Part VI: BatReps

2011-08-01T20:16:00.001+02:00

Hoi,

Roughly a week ago I played two games with some friends. Mark and myself had decided to play a game of Warhammer Fantasy, his Skaven and my Dwarfs are age old enemies by now and always like to clobber each other. As some friends of us, David and Jesper, are starting out in the wondrous world of gaming we invited them to come watch.
In the heat of battle I forgot to keep track of everything but here are some pics:

Deployment and rolling for first turn:

Skaven menacing front-line:

The Skaven clash with the Dwarflord his hammerers and the Iron-breakers, for the record: the dwarfs charged!

Loads of dead rats:

Most of the Skaven centre on the run:

Our Doom is wheeling near...

Ikkit claw in combat with the Runesmith, this battle he won, only to perish in the end...

The tide is turning and so are the dwarven warriors

Skaven slaves charge and vanquish a unit of thunderers

The Skaven overcome the fence and the Dwarfs flee

The most memorable events were Mark shooting his jezzails and gasmortar at the dwarfs, killing two warriors (i.e. 16 pts in my army list) only to blow up his mortar, 3 jezzails and some other regular Skaven amounting to about 160 points of his list and his warpfirelightingcannon scoring a hit on my warriors (with a potential 9 hits) and Mark realising the rules for the darn thing had changed so he rolls the artillery dice instead and rolls a misfire and blows up the gun!

More pictures of this day of gaming soon!

Cheers Sander

Listening to: ""The Long Road Home" by John Fogerty

Interlude about bedtime stories!

2011-07-30T09:19:00.000+02:00

Hoi,

Today I checked up on several blogs, amongst which was Rosbifs: http://rosbiffrog.blogspot.com/. He has this post up about a bedtime story we'd all like to read to our kids sometimes but dare not because kids have the unerring ability to use certain words in the most unfavourable moments possible.
Check his blog and see for yourself.

Now normally I wouldn't post this here as such but I tried to react on his post on Rosbifs blog but was unable to do so in both Firefox and the Explorer and seeing as that I have no e-mail address I'd thought I'd do it via my blog, so Rosbif if you're reading this, here's my comment (for what's it worth)

Very nice, the wife won't like it though! Do you know this one? http://www.amazon.co.uk/Wheres-My-Cow-Discworld-Picture/dp/038560937X it is read here (rather ineptly) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yY_CcVY2rBU

I have this book and intend to translate it in Dutch and read it to my kid when he's born anytime soon...

Cheers Sander

Listening to "Media Vita" by Reïncarnatus

Holiday update Part V

2011-07-29T19:53:00.001+02:00

Hoi,

Sometimes Lady Luck smiles on you and you have to grab the chance she offers you with both hands and feet. Just a few days ago I was able to obtain a batch of 8 boxes of plastic figures from "marketplace" a Dutch e-bay for just €25,- the sets are:

House of Campaign French Carabiniers
Revell Napoleonic Prussian Infantry
Revell NapoleonicBritish Rifles
Revell Napoleonic British Life Guards
Revell 30YW Swedeish Infantry
Italeri NapoleonicFrench Chasseurs a Cheval
Italeri AWI Continental Infantry
Italeri/ ESCI Muslim Warriors

Since the price tags were still on the boxes I was able to figure out what the sets cost in real price: this happened to be €55.61 not bad eh?

Cheers Sander

Listening to "Best of CCR"

Holiday Update Part IV

2011-07-26T10:30:00.002+02:00

Hoi,

Another small project I've managed to finish in between chores.

The first subject are some HäT testshots of Austrian Grenadiers of the Napoleonic Wars. They have been sitting on my desk for ages but I was totally fed up with doing white uniforms back then because I just had painted a lot of Austrian Chevaux Legeres. Well anyway here they are:

Next are some HäT Saxon Jäger also from the, early, Napoleonic era. I kinda like these chunky chaps since they make for easy painting and don't look half bad either, judge for yourself

See you next time!

Listening to: "Machine Head" by Deep Purple

History of the Netherlands

2011-07-24T10:26:00.000+02:00

Hoi,

As History teacher, even when on Holiday, I cannot withhold this link from you:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQgulL_30n8&feature=related

Cheers Sander

Holiday Update Part III

2011-07-23T08:08:00.001+02:00

Hoi,

As promised, some shots of the artillery set, I have done 2 Middle-Eastern/ Gallipoli bases and one late war European base. I love all the little extras you get on the crew-men sprue; crates, shells and shell-wicker baskets. Also I like that the guns are now produced in hard plastic and the crews in the regular softer stuff, makes for easier construction and conversion.

The Gallipoli versions.The log barriers in the left-hand picture are taken from the HäT Russian WW1 gun crew. The Officer on the right-hand base is an Emhar officer with HáT sun-helmet conversion head.

The Late War version, with added Emhar Officer.

Cheers Sander,

Listening to: "Californication" by the Red Hot Chilli Peppers

Holiday Update Part II

2011-07-22T09:24:00.002+02:00

Hoi,

While I am still hard at work doing chores in and around the house, I have found some time to finish the HäT ANZAC heavy weapons teams and am in the process of finishing the HäT ANZAC artillery as well.

Here are some pictures of the heavy weapons. For both sets I mixed crew from the artillery and heavies sets to create more diversity and threw in some Emhar officers as well. A lot of these chaps have head-swaps with the brilliant extra head-options provided in the HäT artillery set. I specially like the tropical sun-helmet.

Watch this space for pictures of the artillery sets.

Cheers Sander

Listening to: "October Rust" by Type O Negative

Holiday update Part I

2011-07-15T09:54:00.001+02:00

Hoi,

As I said in a post earlier this week; painting time is sparse over here. I just about managed to get two little projects finished by now.
First up is this Prussian Napoleonic Command stand featuring Marshal Blücher and ADC. The marshal and the horses have been ready sitting in my glass cabinet for ages, I just had no suitable ADC. At first I decided to convert a HäT early war Hussar into a late Hussar by means of a head swap, this turned out to be a fluke because the head was too big. A bit later on I decided to discard my plans to start a late war Russian army and use the models I had lying around as Prussians instead, so I used this Russian Hussar to paint a Prussian hussar with little pennant to act as ADC, now what I should have dry-fitted was the horse... because the Zvezda hussar is far too large for this HaT pony...let that be a lesson to everyone everywhere to always dry-fit before starting a project!

Next up: inspired by HäT's imminent release of 7YW Prussians I decided to finally try to finish my Revell Austrians. These chaps have been in my ownership for ages, nigh on 12 years I guess, and I always intended to convert them into Brits ever since I got my hands on the Black Powder ruleset. Now that HäT is doing Prussians with mitre caps and all, it's far easier to make Brits out of those and paint the Revell chaps up as they were intended: as Austrians. Here is a combined Grenadier battalion, which I can use as seen here or break up and place back to their parent unit when required.

Last up are some of the latest HäT release of E19 sets: 8243 WWI British Q45 Howitzer and 8256 WWI British Artillery Crew. I combined spare heads from these sets with some of the ANZAC heavy weapons team to create more diversity. Below you'll find some WIP shots of both my Arty stands and the heavies.

Cheers Sander

Listening to: "Best of Kula Shaker" by Kula Shaker

Historicals

2011-07-13T09:25:00.000+02:00

Hoi,

Sorry ladies and gents, no pictures today... While I've been having summer holiday for the last 3 days, no serious painting has been done over here. I have been very busy in and around the house doing all kinds of chores. Any painting time I do get is late in the evening and doesn't do much for my "painted figures rating".Anyway, what am I going to talk about then?

Games Workshop... again? Yes again but differently this time. Warhammer Historical have launched two new rulesets this week, to whit:

Waterloo, Napoleonic ruleset

and

Gladiator

The rulesets are based on existing GW rulesystems, although I couldn't tell you which ones, so they will be easy to learn for old GW hands as myself but... and there's a big but (pun intended) I love Black Powder! BP is a far more versatile game because you can use the rules for the period covering a whole range of wars from 1700 right up to 1900. Waterloo just about covers the French Wars from the Revolution up to the title battle of Waterloo. Enough said about this one: I will not be buying Waterloo any time soon.

Now Gladiator is a different kind of dilemma all together. You all know that I have some gladiators lying around and there are loads of models out there that really are very good. I'd like to set up a Gladiator arena and start my own Ludus and see how far I can come as Lanista. Also it's probably very cool to play with the pupils at school.

Perhaps perhaps you'll be seeing shots here of my Gladiator games in the near future.All this is kinda ok, but whatever happened to "Over the Top" the expansion book for "The Great War"? In the wabforum I heard that the document is ready, pictures and all, and had but to be sent to the printers, years ago... So why is it being overtaken by not ONE but TWO other rulesets???

Meanwhile I received some new HäT sets from the last Eddy shipment being Austrian Landwehr (will be converted to Brunswickers) and some WW1 Russian and British Artillery with crews.

Now but for some time to get them painted....

Cheers Sander

Weathering the storm!

2011-06-30T13:18:00.000+02:00

Hoi,

Well we had a terrible summer storm two days ago, and it caused quite some trouble at home. Next to our house there's a great big, 90 years old walnut tree and it decided to crop itself and dump a large branch more or less right on top of us.

Apart from that we also suffered water-damage through a leak in the living room roof. Ironically we had just got a contractor in to renew the roofing...

Oh well... shite happens!

Friend Jan-Willem, also know as Pijlie has started a blog, check it out at:

http://pijlieblog.blogspot.com/

Cheers Sander

Listening to "The best of Kula Shaker" by Kula Shaker

The Black Duke!

2011-06-27T13:00:00.000+02:00

Hoi,

Since the last weeks of the school-year are in full swing, which means I get a lot of correction work on pupil's tests, I do not have much time to paint. Therefore today brings only a small update.
The Black Duke of Brunswick. The figure of the Duke himself is from Waterloo1815, the ADC is a metal one from CWTOYS and his horse an Italeri French HQ figure.

Cheers Sander,

Listening to: "The Best of the Who" by: guess Who?

Salamanca anyone?

2011-06-18T13:47:00.000+02:00

Hoi,

I'd like to point you in this general direction:

http://salamanca1812.blogspot.com/2011/06/they-have-arrived.html

Cheers Sander

Listening to: "Tron Legacy, the Soundtrack" by Daft Punk

Vorwärts Bayern!

2011-06-17T08:35:00.000+02:00

Hoi,

Perhaps not the most excellent work I have displayed here, but today's update brings you an infantry regiment of Napoleon's stallwart Bavarian Allies. The officer and ensign are metal figures of either Stegmann or Art Miniaturen the rest are all HäT figures.

Enjoy:

Cheers Sander

Listening to: "Going Under" by Evanescence

Blogger trouble

2011-06-11T18:54:00.000+02:00

Hoi,

I am having some trouble with placing comments on other peoples blogs but now on my own as well so sorry if you're not getting a reaction you'd hoped for!

Cheers Sander

En avant!

2011-06-09T07:35:00.000+02:00

Hoi,

A while back I've shown you some pictures of the French 5th Hussars I've been working on. Well the horses are done and the gents are saddled up for action!

Cheers Sander,

Listening to: "Going Postal" Terry Pratchett audiobook, read by Tony Robinson

Shear Fun!

2011-06-08T07:41:00.001+02:00

Hoi,

Today I would like to present you with a little project which has been in the works for some time. The stone-walls you see here were sent to me a while ago by a friend who wanted me to see them. They are done in resin by a small German manufacturer who's name has unfortunately escaped me. The sheep and donkey are white metal and again I can't remember their brand for the life of me.

I've also done some shots with other miniatures because I wanted the animals to tell a little story. The donkey is watching the battle currently going on. The ram is coming to investigate what all the racket is about, mum is following him and baby asks mum what's up... Yeah I probably have to much time to think this kind of stuff up...

Cheers Sander

Listening to "Americana" by the Offspring

A Never Ending Story....

2011-06-07T16:43:00.000+02:00

Hoi,

Let's talk GW... A quick calculation shows that I have been involved in this hobby for about 16 years. For most of that time I have been involved in gaming with some kind of GW based rule-set. I have armies for 40K and Fantasy:

To whit:

40K :
- Dark Angels
- Imperial Guard
- Sisters of Battle
- Daemon Hunters

Fantasy:
- Empire
- Dwarfs
- Gobbos

I also play and have armies for: WAB, LotHS, and Great War. I think I can say I have pumped quite some money in GW produced stuff. I used to love their rule-sets which worked fine and captured the fluff of the armies mentioned very well making my games, even though I tend to loose pretty much all of them, very worthwhile. But for years now I have joined the Legion of Grumblers who have been driven away by strange and down-right wrong policy decisions within the GW empire.

It started out with the simple fact that a new version of my codex/ armybook was released about every 2 years and the same more or less is true for the core rules. The result always has been that I would moan and gripe and eventually I'd go to the store and get one anyway. Some revisions are necessary that much even I will admit. But something inside me really snapped when the rules were twisted into a mould which produced rules for small kids...

The fluff was gone from the codex and the army-book, the army-lists became dominated by pimped up heroes and small squads of super troops, therefore playing with a themed or as I say fluffed army was a sure road towards disaster from the start.It hurt me most in the present Space Marine and Dark Angels codices: the Space Marines pretty much got all options that only the more revered chapters used to have and the Dark Angels pretty much lost all the juicy special rules and even special characters like Asmodai! He's the core, the heart and soul (pun intended) of the Chapter! And then the choices to limit the use of war-gear and number of troopers in squads! Now all Space Marine squads can have plasma cannon as Tactical squad heavy weapon, what happened to the first Founding Chapter having more of these ancient weapons? And why oh why is a Dark Angel veteran sergeant limited in his choice of war-gear more then say a Vanilla erm Ultra Marine smurf?
What about this one? who were the original Angels of Death? Yeah that's right! The Blood- and the Dark Angels! They used to have an awesome duo-codex off their own stating why they were truly the angels of death, now every bloody jerk in brightly coloured power armour can call himself Angel of Death, my ar..!

It doesn't stop there either: look at the Chaos Space Marine Codex! What happened with the Iron Warriors? Where's their Basilisk gone to?

Sure there are Errata and other benefits instead of the stuff I've mentioned, mind you I've refrained from more grumbling because there's a load more grievances in my Book of Grudges that'd take to much time and space to vent here, but I think most of their games are now aimed at simplicity for kids to learn the game and, more importantly: SPEND LOADS OF MONEY on GW products...

The heart of the game has switched from playing a characterful game representing the games' background and universe into a money-driven company who produce pretty nice figures now and again. I will still play some 40K and Fantasy battles mostly because most players around here don't play anything else, but I will do my utmost best to turn them to the historical gaming side in which you can use cheap plastic figures (100 chaps for €10,- instead of one hero figure for €12,-) and where your grasp of strategy, deployment and use of troops coupled with a bit of luck from the Dice Gods will win you the battle.

Why I came to rant about this all? I made the mistake of buying this months White Dwarf which features the launch of GW's Finecast resin range. Basically the story is like this: white metal is becoming too expensive so all present metal mini's will in the future be made from resin, but because casting resin is a different process then white metal and resin moulds are less durable then metal moulds prices will rise anyway...

Yes well that's the mathematics of a superpower for you...

And on that bombshell...

Listening to: "The raving voices in my head"