Little steps - weekend progress

After another busy week at work, I managed to get a little done (as well as fitting in a VWC meeting).

Caesar's War progress has been partly derailed by trying to decide on a set of rules; I was going to adapt DBA, but am now veering towards Strength & Honour, or a version of the same. For a start the bases will be 80mm (2x 40mm element frontage) and in 15mm, I don't think they need a grid and there are some bits I either dislike or intend to amend. There are bits I like and others that seem - a bit contrived or unnecessary. In any case it is not intended for solo so there will be tweaks whatever I use.

It has meant some of the command figures and things like ships may not be needed. There were bits I will still need.

On the Caesar's War front it was a case of waiting for a still dry day to get some priming done - bits for camps mostly. 

These use commercial pieces from Museum Miniatures and Tin Soldier and are for the "Barbarians" be they Celt or German. Simple ditch and ditch plus rampart.

Wagons for a laager.

I had cut out some bases so can give an impression of what they will look like.

Ditch which can split into two

Wagon laager

Ditch and palisade

I found myself with little time for painting and was struggling to get motivated, so decided to do something other than Celts, Romans or Germans!

A little while back Alan of https://tradgardland.blogspot.com/ had embarked on some splendid Interwar Imaginations using Strelets figures:

https://tradgardland.blogspot.com/2026/02/the-army-of-transilvania.html

https://tradgardland.blogspot.com/2026/03/volare-cantare-units.html

https://tradgardland.blogspot.com/2026/03/a-few-transilvanian-recruits.html

https://tradgardland.blogspot.com/2026/03/the-army-of.html

And it inspired me to try something similar:

https://aufklarungsabteilung.blogspot.com/search/label/Interwar%20Imaginations

Well after priming white they have lingered in a box awaiting Contrast Paint and AP wash treatment. This weekend I managed to get some test colours of Contrast Paint splashed on the three sprues.

The army of Ruritania

The army of Graustark

The army of Transbalkania

Partly this has been kickstarted by discovering Jim Webster's Klashnikov Tribal rules:

https://www.amazon.fr/Jim-Webster-ebook/dp/B0CWCHL2XD?language=en_GB&currency=GBP

There is also a campaign and logistics add on:

https://www.amazon.com/Kalashnikov-Tribal-Logistics-Wargames-Rules-ebook/dp/B0G276SB9X

It envisages rather scruffy disreputable wars involving regulars, militia and thugs, with AFVs and artillery being generic MGIAT (My-God-Its-A-Tank) and allowing for generic aircraft, so  I can field some wonderful biplanes.

The Strelets winter figures are suitably scruffy looking so fit perfectly into the idea of small Balkan nations fighting ultimately pointless territorial conflicts with hints of medieval savagery!

I have found Alan's method of painting on the sprue difficult; I would also like to try his method of AP washes on the basic plastic - I don't think it will matter if there is a range of uniform colours as this will add to the scruffy appearence.

Caesar's War progress

Perhaps unadvisedly,  I dug out all the painted Gauls from the various boxes to check on how many I actually had in a painted state....

To misquote Zulu... Centurion - "scouts report Gauls to the South West ......thousands of them!"

 There are 24 stands of cavalry and 6 stands of light horse....

"Solid" warbands and hordes

"Fast" warbands and hordes

Skirmishers

In the interim, I had painted more cavalry

Gallic

Roman

I have also cleaned up some camps for the Gauls and Germans

Any more Gauls will be four to a base or hordes or command stands and there are still a mob of Germans to finish!

I suspect there has been something of a "project creep" going on although I do need a lot of barbarians to represent the forces in the game on which the campaign will be based. Certainly into Big Battle DBA territory now! 

Partizan 2026 part 2

 Here's a selection of a few of the other games I snapped on the day.

Samurai castles featured...

Shrewsbury - Rampant Lions Questionable Honour

Iron Brigade Assault on Kawajima castle

The Bunker - Wild Geese Africa (based on the film?)

Like a Stonewall group - Cape Finisterre 1805

Harrogate club Walk this Hue Vietnam 1968

Steve Jones AWI

League of Augsburg

Simon Millar War Spanish Succession 

1st Corps Magnesia

In other news, progress on Caesar in Gaul continues slowly - nine cavalry elements await basing and more eBay rescues are in the storage boxes but further painting has been brought to a stop due to unseasonable heat wave here in the UK - with temperatures in the 30s, the paint dries too quickly even with a wet palette. More bits have been cleaned and primed. Still have not tackled the ships and got distracted by researching the colour of Roman ox carts!