So what I have I been up to...

Well, as per last post, I have attempted to remain focussed on the Solder King Imagi-Nations project. It has been difficult as I find myself drawn towards other projects (F&IW, AIW, WW2 desert) but have knuckled down to the painting of the next state - Waldow.

In the game, Waldow is divided into a "lower" and "upper" province. I decided to amalgamate them into a single Grand Duchy. It is not an electoral state, but is a ripe target in the game should you wish to increase army sizes. It is bordered by Arcadia and Bravance, with Banst to the north and Estavia to the west.

The new calculation of army sizes has increased the planned forces to a war footing of 18 units, a respectable force just slightly weaker than the main kingdoms with 24 units. I suspect it will need them. It is ruled by a Grand Duke with no wife, heirs or other family which could create a succession crisis. The Grand Duke Xenophon Amadeus has some strange ideas and despite his misanthropy is rumoured to have decreed in his will, that on his death Waldow should become a republic! The scandal!

Waldow has had some colour ideas for a long time; very much influenced by Sweden and the German units which served France, the heraldry and uniform colours are based around light blue and yellow, with white and occasional dark blue. The flags have been more taxing; partly due to not being able to settle on a heraldic device. The original idea of using some GW Brettonian transfers, left a lion passant as the device but this seemed too close to Arcadia's lion rampant. As the idea of using transfers was largely abandoned, I could in theory opt for anything. Obtaining some Veni Vedi Vici decals gave an option of a swan, which has appealed as different. I'm concentrating on the figures at present, the flags can wait.

Here are the first infantry; in actual fact I have almost finished two more units the same; others will have variations in waistcoat and breeches - some all yellow, some all blue. Forgive any errors from the enlarged photos - it's only after a zoomed in photos you notice such minor errors!

And just for Jonathan, as I know he likes my scribbled sketch ideas for uniforms, here's a succession of thoughts and experimental manuscripts from the Ducal archive, the last including potential flag patterns / ideas.

Soldier King project update

After much lethargy, distractions and a lack of focus, I have attempted to get my wargaming mojo back by concentrating on part-completed projects. One of which, is of course the Soldier King project using plastic Spencer Smiths.

The completion of the army of  Banst seems to have sapped a lot of the enthusiasm for the project; not sure why, but I couldn't seem to get the army finished. Plans for work over Christmas were scuppered by illness and work has been draining and sapping any energy at the weekends.

A visit to Hammerhead and an improvement in the weather has helped, as well as a refocus on work-life balance. Without going into details, developments at work have left me with a different perspective and I think I will be able to afford to retire at 65 after all; only another three years after April!

As such, I have returned to the SK project. There are three armies left to do for the non-Electoral states of Waldow (upper and lower amalgamated), Sinistria and Dupanen. In addition, I have started converting figures suitable for Rebels or Civilian militia. My original plans were disrupted by a couple of factors; the Kingdoms of the game each have armies of 24 units plus artillery and commanders. The game gives each 12 "income" points. The very first idea was to have 12 units, one for each income point. Part way through, after completing Bravance and Hrvatska, I realised the armies were too small, so doubled them.

Unfortunately, when I added Estavia and the Electoral and non-Electoral states, I did so in a rather haphazard way; The Electoral and non-Electoral states had army lists drawn up from the income points. Banst (as always) proved more difficult. To get the level of army I wanted, I increased the number of units which meant it was unbalanced compared to other Electoral states but in line with the kingdoms.....

I went down several rabbit holes trying to balance it all out, getting very confused with how many boxes I had to store the potentially increased armies as well as becoming disillusioned with the amount of increased painting and cleaning up this would entail....

I'm sure this all contributed to my flagging enthusiasm. A sudden lightbulb moment helped; if I took one income point as the cost to raise a unit and half a point to maintain it, I could reconcile the army sizes to the income in the game and scale back to amount of new units that would need painting...

One way to look at it was if all income was used, the states was on a "war footing". I also thought that the "Rebel" figures could also become a militia to boost some states armies. Looking at the map also produced some thoughts; the non-Electoral states are in the front line for any invasion by the four kingdoms, especially Waldow; the Empire may have to fight on more than one front and the various Electoral states may be pressed to form a single Electoral army without losing territory...

I have therefore decided to expand Estavia and create some "Imperial militia" that can be used to bolster the Electoral states in addition to any civilian militia they call out. The non-Electoral states will have to be on a war footing......

Sadly, the pictures that follow are not that exciting, but I have managed to clean-up a lot of Spencer Smith plastics (a job that entails carving away the flash that surrounds the figures) wash in detergent, glue standards and varnish (I coat the figures in a layer of acrylic varnish before undercoating and painting) the extension to Waldow. Just awaiting suitable weather for the black spray undercoat.

I have also just cleaned the excess plastic from the army of Sinistria; since the picture was taken I carved down the blanket roll on the blue figures - these will be light infantry modelled on the Russian copies of Austrian Grenzer. I also discovered that one of the replacement Grenadier heads had disappeared - there followed much cursing and swearing followed by a fruitless search and acceptance I would need another donor figure, which was dug out of the lead and plastic mountain in the garage....

I took this as a sign to put it all away in bags and back in the box.....

On a related note, my friend Eric Turner in the USA has been working on Imaginary Napoleonic forces from old school 25mm figures donated to him - see his blog: 

https://brownspreadandyellowfruit.blogspot.com/

Eric was lacking artillery crew and generals so I dug out some old Hinchliffe destined for the melting pot; I also asked if he would like some "Grotesques" to act as generals....after some discussion Eric asked if he could have something "heroic" and something "reluctant" so some work with Sculpey produced:

Crude and ugly they may be but also 100% unique!

Hammerhead 2025 - the photos

As promised, a photo dump of pictures I snapped at the show. There were lots more games, some not very photogenic; these are just games I found interesting for one reason or another.

VBCW

Boondock Sayntes - Fords of Isen

Midgard Troy in 1:300

French & Indian War - Derby raid on a native American village (needed more trees IMHO)

My personal favourite - To The Strongest Glorantha / Runequest - Battle of the Horn Gate Prax (no apologies for number of photos)

 

The Crimson Bat! 

Chaos waiting in the wings....

A very cluttered 10mm League of Augsburg game

Peter Dennis paperboys Egyptian v Hittite

WW1  Zero Hour

Fitzaubrey Last Hurrah

The Bunker Shaun of the Dead

My mates from the Tyneside club - Death on the Nile scratchbuilt 10mm Egyptian and Sea People galleys

A Small table game - Deathship?

An Italian Wars game using an adaptation of Fire & Fury ACW rules

Lots of other games that were either too busy to get near or not very photogenic IMHO .

Had a long chat with people from the Tyneside group and a shorter one with Simon Millar and Ian Notter with the Glorantha TSS game.

Hammerhead 2025

Yesterday I went to Hammerhead at the Newark Showground. Pictures will follow once I get them organised and catalogued to the games.

Impressions

I got there around 11.15 and left around 15:30. When I arrived, people appeared to be already leaving, although could just have been putting stuff in their cars.

There was a queue, unprecedented in my experience unless turning up before a show opens. I was therefore expecting it to be busy; it wasn't. I think the queue was down to the entry system, with one person taking entry fee, one putting on the bracelet and another handing a plan, which sort of created a delay in filtering people in. I have to say I saw lots of people bypassing the entry - some were carrying boxfiles so may have been part of the DBA competition. I'm sure if you had just walked in  confidently enough, especially if carrying something, I doubt you would have been challenged.

Big plus, a printed floor plan! I did note Bacchus seemed absent, although I may have just missed them / assumed the stand was part of Warlord.

The show remained busy throughout without becoming crowded. The traders seemed to be busy, except for a few "niche" stands. The "bring and buy" was a strange mix of three deep or empty spaces, depending on what was being offered for sale.

The games were a mix of bigger tables and very small 3'x3' or 4'x4' with a lot of sci-fi and fantasy mixed with historicals. Some of the bigger "traditional" games looked unplayed, with the odd punter maybe speaking to the person(s) putting it on. Other bigger tables with traditional wargames looked as if the players were the ones putting it on, as they didn't change throughout the day..... 

A few games have been at other shows, some were new. The terrain was mixed, from TSS tiles or green cloth to sculpted, ratty looking trees to dioramic masterpieces with everything in between. The DBA competition looked especially grim and could have been from the 1970s or 1980s......horses for courses I suppose.

I spent a lot of the day speaking to some old mates from the Tyneside Wargames club who were putting on Death on the Nile - scratchbuilt 10mm Egyptian v Sea  People naval battle created by Pete Foggin, who grabbed some coffee stirrers for more ships! I did see Martin Rapier as I was talking, but didn't manage to speak to him or bump into him afterwards.

I did have a chat with Simon Miller and Ian Notter who were there with a To the Strongest Glorantha / Runequest game featuring Ian's Praxian Nomads and Richard Crawley's Morocanth (I only worked out it was Richard after I had walked away) as well Simon's lovely troops including the Big Red Bat itself (display only). We chatted about adapting the rules for Glorantha and model Sables, Impala and Antelope......

A good day out, finished with a good VWC session, left me feeling as if I've recovered some of my wargaming mojo....