Fix Bayonets: The Day of the Horsemen

A view from Maison Smyth in Dean Motoyama’s Franco-Prussian War game adapting over the Bolt Action rules. The miniatures and the terrain was spectacular.

Yesterday was our annual Fix Bayonets game day. Like the trip to Chehalis, it is a fun little gathering, now in its seventh year. Lawrence Bateman, Damond Crump and Bruce Smith take responsibility for hosting the game day at historic Fort Steilacoom, and the ten dollar entry goes toward buying new stuff for the fort.

Fix Bayonets offers two game periods and I participated in both of those. In the Morning David Sullivan and I hosted a Rebels and Patriots game. David chose a scenario out of the rule book and created “Barlowe’s Necessary.” The British and American forces were created out of roughly equal points for six different players, three per side. Three of the players in the game were school-age and fairly new to miniature wargaming. But they were a pleasure to play with and did pretty well.

I was an American player, pretty much in the middle of the table, and paid for that privilege. David was on the left side, slogging through slow, rough terrain, which also shielded him from a lot of fire. Chris, my young cohort, was on the right side, and though the British facing him scalded him with hot fire at times, was able to take cover behind a fence line and some woods.

My command, was in the open. Which means about the same thing as my personal motto: “Shoot me again.” If I had a piece of heraldry, it would feature a green cross, with a red heart in the middle, full of bullet holes.

I actually had some cool units. My best unit was Lee’s Legion light infantry, and they did some great work, trading shots with several units and making an important charge during a key turn. My unit of William Washington’s 3rd Continental Dragoons made their debut. I also had a unit of militia skirmishers. Finally, by a sheer order of luck I rolled up a unit of raw militia, shooting poorly, that I figured wouldn’t be too useful. I’m glad I did.

A lot of the British units were lights or grenadiers, with a couple of line units. That meant that point-wise, there were fewer Brits to fight, but they had much better staying power than the Americans. I faced a unit of light infantry skirmishers, a unit of line infantry and a unit of lights firing at my guys. Tough.

But I also fought with my own damn die rolls which were pretty terrible for the first two- thirds of the game. I was able to activate okay, but just wasn’t able to hit much. The worst was when I sent my cavalry crashing into the woods woods to rout out the annoying and destructive fire of the British skirmishers, hit them, but couldn’t inflict a single casualty. They returned to my lines at half strength, having accomplished nothing.

Things were brightening on my right flank, as Chris inflicted casualties on Mark’s lights. A bad die roll saw the Brits take to the hills and Mark withdrew his grenadiers to cover a source of victory points. But David was being pressed on the left as troops from the center were being drawn into the the fight around the Barlowe house due to my ineffective performance. My skirmishers fled the field after taking serious damage from the British skirmishers. The dragoons cowered behind Lee’s Legion. The Legion troops soldiered on, firing ineffectively, slowly accumulating casualties, but tough as nails. The green militia, gamely advanced, looking for something to do.

Then, it was like a light bulb was turned on. A round of fire sent a unit of British line running. A British light infantry unit advanced just a little too far, were charged by the Legion, and even though the Legion lost the combat, they didn’t break. The militia advanced and successfully fired at the British skirmishers. Dragoons, advancing behind the Legion charge were perfectly positioned to deal some death.

The British line infantry to the right prepare to dispatch Col. William Washington’s dragoons after their successful charge eliminated a key British light infantry unit. Only Washington would survive.

In the following turn, the last of the game, the dragoons charged the light infantry, surprising the startled Brits, inflicting enough casualties for them to break, both sides taking losses. However, the redcoats retreated just far enough to be contacted again by the pursuing Continentals. The lights disintegrated, and the cavalry dispersed. In the end, only Washington rode back to the American lines.

David held the Barlowe house, the Legion lights earned two honor points, and the British forces were all damaged enough to win the Americans a convincing victory. The Continental dragoons rocked.

In the afternoon, I played in Dean Motoyama’s Franco-Prussian War game using Bolt Action as a rule mechanism. I found it easy to play and the WWII rules set worked pretty well for the 19th century conflict.

Dean devised a six-turn game in which both of the evenly matched sides could easily control two of four ruined buildings on the table. The side that could control one of the other side’s building would win. The Germans had an artillery piece, while the French advantage lay with their Chassepot rifles, out-ranging their foe’s Dreyse needle-guns.

Mark Serafin and I ran the French. We committed half our force against the building directly to our front, while holding off units to our flank. To my right, I occupied one of our buildings with one unit, supported by a unit of mounted chasseurs. Mark took the building on the right side supported by a unit of Algerian Tirailleurs.

With the clock ticking, we immediately pinned the unit in the house to our front, without doing a lot of damage. Meanwhile three units of Prussians crossed the stream protecting my fortified flank. What to do?

The chasseurs were a deterrent to do too much too quickly, and I eventually drew two units to support my building. Fire into a wood full of Prussians neutralized one unit. Twice, the Prussians advanced to fire on the chasseurs, but using Dean’s emergency escape rules allowed them to retreat to safety.

Jim Sagen, commanding the Prussians threatening my command, decided to assault on my position on turn four. He advanced his artillery to get within close range. He chased my chasseurs away for the last time. Things looked bad. In his bloody assault, Jim destroyed my defending unit, but in the process, lost all but one of his figures. My cavalry crept ever closer to one of his supporting units. It was now turn five.

I counter-attacked an unblemished unit of Zouaves into my building, tossing out the lone surviving Prussian. When the time was right, I launched my horse into the supporting Prussian unit. With no pre-measuring, I wasn’t quite sure whether they were within the chasseurs’ 18 inch charge range. Made it by a quarter of an inch. I managed to kill five of the eight Prussians before they could fight back, and that was their end.

The chasseurs rule the my end of the table in Dean Motoyama’s Franco-Prussian War game.

In the final turn it was pretty clear the building was secure, but there was one more Prussian unit ripe for the taking. The damaged unit in the woods fell victim to the chasseurs. With that, the game was over and it remained tied, as it began.

Dean’s experiment with the rules was successful for a first test. I think there is still some fiddling to be done with the assault rules, but the firing and casualties seemed to work quite nicely. I had a lot of fun with his beautifully painted miniatures.

So two awesome games in which cavalry played a major role in both. That doesn’t always happen.

I Got Stuff Done!

Sep10

Late Sunday night I was still struggling to get some stuff finished for the week, despite putting in a fair amount of painting time for the week. But, it finally happened.

Let’s be clear, I do have some busy distractions right now. In early October Lorri and I are going on vacation to Hawaii. We’re excited. We’ve never been there before, so it’s a big hoo-hah deal.

While we’re gone we are doing a major remodel at Chez Smyth. The remodel will require moving all the furniture out of the living room and dining room. We’re renting a POD to store furniture, but I have about 700 books and 300 records that will have to be packed so bookcases and record storage can be moved.

It’s a job. The benefit is that I’ve been able to weed out some of my books, which will create better storage for other books I’d like to move to more desirable places and creating a bit more storage for other things. Like miniatures.

But, I have gotten some painting done.

Washinton’s 3rd Continental Light Dragoons is one of my very favorite units from the War of Independence.

I completed my first mounted unit for Rebels and Patriots. I’ve long loved William Washington’s 3rd Continental Dragoons. They fight everywhere throughout the Southern Campaign. Washington, a cousin of that George guy, was a terrific leader. Even though his unit totaled less than a hundred men, they always seemed to be in the right place. At Cowpens and Guilford Courthouse, key counterattacks really turned the tide of those battles. Unfortunately, Washington’s luck ran out at Eutaw Springs when he led his cavalry into wooded ditch defended by British regulars. He was unhorsed and captured.

My figures are from Front Rank. I’ve had them for a while, and I’d like to start painting a lot of these stray figures. As will al Front Rank figures they are pleasingly chunky. If I have a quibble, it is that the troopers all have their carbines out, which I think is dumb. The British light dragoons don’t have their firearms out. They have swords, like any proper light dragoon. When Washington wounded Tarleton at Cowpens, trust me, he wasn’t slinging a musket stock.

I love the white coatee with blue facings. It is white, with Vallejo Light Blue Grey. I gave the officer white pants, the others have Vallejo Desert Yellow. I could have opted to do the coat in Vallejo Grey-White and done a bit more with highlighting, but I didn’t. I did highlight the horses, which left them a little lighter and redder than I would have liked. I also highlighted the horse furniture and I’m really happy with how that turned out.

The Eutaw standard, which really isn’t much of one. But it was fun to paint.

The standard, called The Eutaw Flag was the one carried by the 3rd Continental Light Dragoons. It was made from the tablecloth of Washington’s fiancee. I hand-painted that baby, yessirree. Not a major strain, I assure you.

From here, I’ll pick up the continuing saga of the HMS Orwell. You’ll recall it is a plastic kit I was struggling a bit with.

Orwell in Light Sea Grey before the camouflage is painted on.

After spraying it with Humbrol light grey, I took on the real paint job. Think of the spray as a primer coat.

Orwell after camouflage. All that is left are a few decals, and then glue the model to its clear acrylic base.

First I painted all the decking with Ceramcoat Charcoal Gray. Then I went back and painted the hull and all the non-deck places Vallejo light sea grey. The camouflage, taken from an illustration of another O class destroyer, the Obedient was applied in Vallejo Black, and Vallejo Light Blue Grey. Yes, it was all done by hand, and no I didn’t use any kind of mask because I’m basically a lazy sluggard.

All that’s left to do is the decals and there aren’t many of those.

From here, it’s on to finish up some U.S. Volunteers in the Philippines, and I’ll begin assembling my remaining transports for the Museum of Flight convoy game.

Cod Wars: More of the Weird Stuff

Sep4

I’m a huge fan of David Manley’s games. He’s done tons of them. My favorites are Action Stations for coastal combat in WWII, soon to be superseded by a slimmed down version newly published called Narrow Seas. I really like his two air games, Air War C. 21 for modern air combat and his hopefully his WW II version Air War 1940. They are elegant, easy to learn, and easy to play which you can’t say about many air rules. Finally, and this is going to sound like a back-handed compliment, but it isn’t intended as such at all, I really like his naval rules for the American Civil War, Iron and Fire. Based on my limited play, I feel like Manley is the only Brit who gets this conflict at sea and can put it into game terms.

Lots of other great Manley rules, but the most recent set to lure me into something new is his game for the Cod Wars. What, you may rightly ask, are the Cod Wars? They were a series of three international incidents between Iceland and Great Britain that occurred between 1958 and 1975. They grew out of an effort by Iceland to protect its cod resources, continually extending its exclusive fishing zone, while British fishing fleets continued to fish in ancestral fishing grounds in defiance of Icelandic law.

While no lives were lost, the presence of Icelandic coast guard vessels among the British fishermen, cutting nets and impounding trawlers, precipitated difficult relations between the two NATO allies. During the third Cod War in 1975 following the extension of 200 mile fishing exclusion zone, the British fishermen were escorted by frigates from the British navy, featured more cut nets, and ramming that put both the coast guard ships and the frigates in dry dock for repair. After each of the Cod Wars, Iceland’s right to protect its cod resource was affirmed by international law.

So, I know what you’re thinking: “Smyth, don’t be ridiculous. Nobody makes miniatures for the Cod Wars. Fishing trawlers my ass.”

Hah! Let me just respond that you are wrong, wrong wrong. Not only are they made, sort of, well made on demand by Shapeways, but you can get them in a variety of different scales. They are available in 1/600, 1/1200, and 1/1800 scale. It was my original intent to do them in the largest scale, but the game really requires several of the British frigates and in 1/600 they would be about 60 bucks, so I went with 1/200.

I ordered my first batch of vessels about ten days ago, and they arrived on Saturday. They look really nice. They’ll need to be cleaned according to the Shapeways protocol, before priming and painting. The first batch include the British frigate Exmouth, the Iceland Coast Guard Vessel (ICGV) Baldur, and two support vessels to the fishing fleet, Star Aquarius and Star Polaris. They are all about three inches long.

The first batch of stuff in clear plastic. From left to right, ICGV Baldur, HMS Exmouth, Star Aquarius, and Star Polaris. Exmouth is just short of three inches. They have a fair amount of detail for their size. I’m impressed.

The second group of ships I received are a collection of British fishing trawlers. There are three stern trawlers and three side trawlers. They are all pretty generic.

British fishing trawlers. The top three are side trawlers and the bottom three are stern trawlers. They perform differently in the game. Really nice miniatures, the side trawlers are just short of two inches. The trawlers offer the best opportunity for interesting paint schemes.

I’ll add more ships offered in sets by Decapod, as well as more of the Leander class frigates. I won’t start painting them, however, until I also order some clear acrylic bases for the ships from Litko, and I’m still a ways away from making that order.

Cod Wars!, the rules for fighting actions or a campaign are great. They are available as a .pdf download from Wargame Vault for $12 normal price, but David’s Long Face games often have sales. They include rules for engagements, and include plenty of ship cards for the vessels that took part. The included mini-campaign looks pretty interesting too.

With all the other projects I have floating around, this may seem like one more thing to do. But as my friend Michael Koznarsky once told me, when he was explaining me to someone else it was “Kevin, he does the weird stuff.”

Tiny Searchlights: or Why I Can Never Be a Great Modeler

Sep4

I took some time off from painting last week. The rush to finish The Buffalo hunt kind of wore me out. I’ve managed to pick up a brush the last couple of days, though I’ve been torn about what to work on. I still have a couple of units on my painting table: William Washington’s 3rd Continental Dragoons, all six figures of them for Rebels and Patriots; and twelve figures of Old Glory Volunteers for the Philippines. I’m making progress and hope to finish them soon.

Volunteers by Old Glory and #rd Continental Light Dragoons are under way, but a ways from being completed. Hoping for this weekend (Sept. 8th.)

But on the horizon are a couple more important game days.

In September David Sullivan and I will host a Rebels and Patriots game at Fix Bayonets in Steilacoom. I think we probably have all the figures we need, so I just want to wrap up those dragoons.

In November there is the Museum of Flight game. I’ve suggested to Dave Schueler that we run an air attack on a convoy. I have bombers suitable for the purpose to raid Italians, Germans or British, and can likewise put up defenders and escorts for all the nationalities. All I need is a convoy. And maybe some escorts.

I’ve started putting together some British escorts. I have a box of the 1/700 scale British O Class Destroyers from Tamiya. The kit was cheap, and it comes with two destroyers!! I think I ordered directly from Japan. It was ten bucks plus reasonable shipping, and did I say it came with two models?

I started assembling the first ship last night. As I was doing so I realized either how terrible my vision was or how poorly I can manipulate small pieces, or why I should just never be a modeler. The kit is pretty straightforward and actually has very nice detail There are a bunch of sub-assemblies to put together before putting attaching them to the hull. Makes sense. But some of the parts are oh so small. There are the individual 20mm guns that are very nice but pretty little. Getting them to fit into those tiny little holes is really a challenge. I was able to pull it off only by using tweezers.

But the absolute death of me is the eeny-teeny searchlights. Each ship has three. One is very small, the other two are grain-of-sand sized. I did everything I could do to try to align them properly in their very small spaces, arriving many times at some version of upside down, glued to the hull, or adhered to my fingers. When two of them finally fell on the floor, invisible to my 64-year old eyes, I gave up and called it good.

O-Class

This is the ship assembled. No you won’t find any searchlights, but the rest of the pieces are there to the best of my ability. Note the slight list to the main mast. The ship will be the G98 Orwell, because I just can’t help myself. Orwell was a 4-inch armed destroyer. The second model will be the G 04 Onslaught, a 4.7 inch armed version. The model was spray primed with Humbrol light grey. More painting to come.

The August Tally

I have no idea what I actually completed in August. Not much from my historical projects. I did complete the Buffalo project. I think that was:

12 Comanches on foot

6 Foundry grizzly bears

8 wolves by Foundry and Alternative Armies

16 buffalo by Acheson, Westwind and Foundry.

That’s 42 figures in about three weeks of painting time. Not bad. Not great.

August is also my little work gig for the Washington State Journalism Education Association, and I get a paycheck for that. Lorri usually allows me to invest part of it in game goodies. So I did some buyin’

By far the biggest purchase was a big pile of Litko bases that should keep me pretty well stocked for the year. Mostly bits for the Daniel Mersey rules.

I also bought some planes for up and coming projects.

Daveshoe, George Kettler and I really want to do some Vietnam era stuff. Dave and I have most of the planes for the Navy, but I wanted some A-4C’s for the Air Force. I decided this was a job for Raiden miniatures, so I ordered the Phantoms. Of course I couldn’t help but pad things out a bit, so I also picked up six of the excellent Bristol Beauforts. They were the prime torpedo bombers for RAAF, and participated in the air campaign against Rabaul, so that’s a future side project.

Dave and I also plan to run a game based on the American bombing of Ploesti. I have some of Phil Bardsley’s beautiful B-24D’s, but needed six more, so I sent off an order to Scotia for more. Well, actually I ordered ten B-24’s and I’ll figure out what to do with the rest. Probably something to do with Rabaul. Hey, the RAAF flew those too. I also slipped in some Beaufighters, which the Australians also flew against Rabaul. Anyway, there are plenty of airplanes to keep me busy.

Hunting Buffalo at the Veterans Museum

Aug25

Today was the day I unveiled The Buffalo Hunt. It was an NHMGS Game Day at the Veterans Museum in Chehalis. What a great venue. Just south of town, and not far off the highway, it is a terrific museum. It’s full of small arms and uniforms from American services of the twentieth century. Most of the exhibits did a great job of tying display pieces to local stories. Worth your time for sure.

I drove down with David Sullivan and Dave Schueler. They popped in to Chez Smyth at 9:00. They endured three barking Australian Shepherds and after downing a cup of coffee we headed south. We made it to the museum before 10:30. The Dave’s slipped into a game of What A Tanker while I hung out and kibbitzed. It was great to see everyone, as always. We dashed out to lunch, and returned around 1:00 and quickly set up the game.

I always have trepidation running games by myself, but especially a game that’s really never been run before. While the game owes a lot of inspiration to Matthew Hartley’s Tusk, there is a whole lot of me in this game. While Tusk has a few mammoths in the game, my game had six obstinacies of seven buffalo each. Each player had four to seven figures in clans, each somewhat different from each other, so the scale of the game is simply larger, and a little more complex.

Neil’s hunting party killed plenty of buffalo, but suffered some figure losses as well.

Al Rivers, Neil Marker, Michael Koznarsky, Dave Schueler, David Sullivan and Dale Mickel all took part in the maiden voyage. The game, overall, went pretty smoothly. But we ran into an early snag as I ran out of figure types right away. In the future, players will simply choose and arm the figures as they wish, and simply pay the appropriate point cost.

Buffalo Hunt 2

The buffalo were spread across the table. The players rolled for their entry, and set out to kill their buffalo. Unfortunately the buffalo had other ideas. In the first turn, as we had two dead buffalo and two dead hunters; it was clear the players weren’t going to have a walk in the park. Arrows were missing, hunter die rolls were failing, and there were twice as many hunters dead as buffalo.

This group of buffalo is fleeing to the board edge, pursued by Al’s group of foot bowmen as well as a pack of wolves.

By the end of the game, nearly all the players had multiple losses. Only Al’s party came through unscathed. While the victory conditions called for killing buffalo, players were also punished for losing party members, and there were plenty of those.

Michael’s party is in pursuit of the white buffalo. Unfortunately, the white buffalo is having none of it.

I think we got in about 13 turns in two and half hours. We never ran into a major snag in the rules, though I did file away some ideas for the future. In a quick debrief, everybody seemed to have a good time. There were also some great ideas that came out of the discussion. I can honestly say I’ve never had so much fun running a game.

Huntin’ Buffalo

Aug24

Clan markings for each of the Comanche hunting parties. They’ll each have different characteristics for the game.

On Saturday I’ll head down to the first annual Veterans Memorial Museum Day in Chehalis a couple of hours from home. I’ll be running my first game of The Buffalo Hunt.

I wrote about this project in July. I thought it would be a simple project with a few buffalo, use my existing Comanches, play a fast and loose set of rules. Easy cheesy.

Nothing is ever easy cheesy.

I ended up painting six little groupings of buffalo totaling 42 miniatures in all. I also painted some 14 predators, including eight wolves and six bears.

Six obstinacies of Buffalo as they will appear in Saturday’s game. No, not quite like they’ll appear. They’ll be spread around the table and there will be terrain. But you get the idea.

I lost my patience with Wargames Foundry in Great Britain as I waited impatiently eight weeks for my order. E-mails and TMP posts a-go-go.

I re-wrote a fun and easy set of rules and made them a little less easy. I’m hoping they’re still fun.

Incredible, if ridiculously late bears by Foundry. Wolves are mixture of figures from Foundry and Alternative Armies.

I painted another twelve Comanche figures, certain I didn’t have enough. I remounted another 14 or so from bases that seemed like nothing could be removed from them.

Despite the lack of easy cheesy, I’m quite pleased that a scant two months after ordering the first batch of figures, the project is pretty much done. There will be no more Indians, predators or buffalo. Just tweaking of the rules.

Now I can get back to the Philippines, a few AWI figures, and start working on planes for Vietnam.

I’ll letcha know how Saturday went.

International Naval Wargaming Day

Aug6

Thunder

It’s August 6th, and you know what that means. It’s the birthday of Fred T. Jane, the author of Jane’s Fighting Ships, as well as a set of naval wargame rules long before it was fashionable.

Stop your laughing right now, dammit!

A. This is the first year I remembered it was International Naval Wargaming Day, so I beg indulgence.

B. I didn’t actually get to play a game today. Pretty much all of my friends are working because they have real jobs, and I don’t have to have a job.

C. But I did recently get a kind of cool looking board game, Thunder Upon the Water, on the Battle of Albemarle Sound from the American Civil War just before I headed to Pullman. I haven’t played it yet, but I did take time to start preparing to play it solo. This is the action between the Confederate ironclad Albemarle and its consorts and the blockading Union fleet. It’s an interesting and bloody battle and I’m anxious to give it a whirl.

It’s published by High Flying Dice games, and designed by Paul Rohrbach. It looks pretty easy to play. Definitely best as a two player game, but very playable solo. It also has miniature influences and could inspire an Ironclads scenario.

Cutting apart cards and counters took all my time today. But I’m ready to give it a try tomorrow. The game looks interesting and fairly easy to play, with some nice twists. Can’t wait to give it a try.

There is a fair amount of preparation. I ordered mounted counters which all have to be separated with an X-Acto knife. The cards used to play the games all have to be separated with a pair of scissors. But there was other things to do that required my attention today, so maybe I’ll get to play tomorrow.

I hope you had a chance to remember this special day. And if you didn’t, well maybe next year. Fred won’t mind.

Big Bamboo: Terrain for the Philippines

Aug5

Bamboo 4

The Philippines calls for some interesting terrain pieces. Much of the the islands are covered with jungle, so I’ve tried to acquire some bits I can make jungle-like terrain from. I’ve gotten materials I can use to make rice paddies from. I’ve also picked up some of the Pegasus banana trees. I haven’t done anything with those yet. But, yesterday, my first since returning from J-Camp, I did sit down to work with materials to build a bamboo forest.

There are some great bamboo trees. They are available from Amazon. They are by WINOMO and come 100 trees for $14.95. They are nice, but I don’t really think I got 100 of them. 100 sounds like a lot, but bamboo forests are very dense. Think of your average hunk of bamboo. Thin trunks with some leaves. They can pack ’em in really tight. So, you use a lot.

They need to be drilled into a suitable base. I was poking through my piles o’ stuff and found some very small hills we used for micro armor back in the day. They are made of resin, and I hauled out the ol’ Dremel tool and drilled lots of holes to an appropriate size and super-glued the bamboo in. I got through one and half of these hills and ran out of models. I’ve ordered two more packs for the remaining bits I have. The resin is nice because they are heavy enough to provide ballast for the all the bamboo.

This is my partly completed forest The resin base is drilled out waiting for more bamboo. These may look familiar, and are products of the middle eighties. They are about 7 1/2 inches long and at the widest point about 2 1/2 inches. Something I can use them for rather than sitting in my unused DBA terrain chest. Note the holes are really drilled close together so they can be planted densely.

I use an unusual ground cover for the base. Spices. That’s right spices. The jungle forest floor tends to be covered with leaves, so I wanted something largely representative. I use oregano and basil combined together in a little bowl. I put down my PVA glue and water and just cover the base with the mixture and let it sit for an hour until good and dry.. Spray with Dullcote and I think it looks pretty good. Even if it doesn’t, it smells like spaghetti. Note, I just use the cheap dried stuff. I also use it on my miniature bases for the Philippines.

I dunno if it looks good but it sure smells great.

And this is the finished product.

Bamboo 5

I’ll have several of these. There is often lots of bamboo forest in these jungle campaigns. Very rough going. American soldiers in Vietnam talk about making about 100 yards per hour cutting through these forests. I’ll probably make as many as six of these in various sizes and put them on irregular shaped moss sheets available at Jo Ann’s Fabrics for not a ridiculous amount of money.

Yes, I know the glare makes this largely unhandy.

The first of several terrain types I’ll be making and I’m pleased to at least get started on them.

Shufflin’ off to Buffalo, er Wazzu

Jul29

A chunk of my growing buffalo herd. Monday Knight Production buffalo in the foreground, being trailed by a more diminutive Dixon bison.

Taking a week away to attend my final student journalism camp. It’s been five or so years in Bellingham at Western Washington Universtiy, about two and half hours away from home. This year, due to construction in Bellingham, and the sweet deal offered by the Murrow School, camp has moved to Pullman in the opposite corner of the state, about five hours from home. Today is mostly a travel day, tomorrow a work and preparation day, and then journo kids from Wednesday until about noon Saturday when things wrap up and I return home.

I’ve enjoyed my 13 summer camps, but this is last unless there is some awfully strong persuasion to convince me otherwise. Time for me to move on.

One of the projects I won’t be able to work on is my Buffalo Hunt game. I’ve been pretty steadily painting figures for this project. Chiefly, i”m working on buffalo.

Now, I know what you’re thinking, “Smyth, a buffalo, is a buffalo, is a buffalo, get on with it already.”

And, of course, you’re right, sorta. But they really aren’t and I’d like to offer my observations and recommendations. I’ve ordered the beasts in 28mm from five different manufactures, and here you go.

WestWind

These are perfectly usable miniatures. They come five to a pack for $15, which is a perfectly reasonable price compared to other manufacturers. Available as part of Old Glory’s Cowboy range, they are cheaper if you have an Old Glory Army membership. They are well-cast, with some, but not an unreasonable amount of flash. There is a variety of types, including what looks to be a calf. I found them quite easy to paint. Highly recommended.

Dixon

I gave two British manufactures a try. Dixon was very easy to work with. They have two varieties of buffalo. I ordered four of each. With the exchange, they were about four bucks each, plus shipping. They are clean, well-cast, and easy to paint. I found them to be a little small, but not ridiculously so. Might work best with true 25mm figures or as part of herd, or just with other Dixons. Not bad figures at all, but not my favorite.

Monday Knight Productions

These figures are old school, and part of the true 25mm Desperado range. They are clean, and I like their size. They come two to a pack for eight bucks, and I bought four packs. They lack the detail of other figures, and aren’t super animated. But I really like ’em. They were easy to paint, and I like their proportions, though they do seem a tish flat. A little past their prime. They come with their own large base, which makes them unique. But I like ’em.

Acheson Creations

These large resin miniatures are from Acheson’s Primaeval Designs of Prehistoric Mammals. They are called Steppe Bison and at seven bucks a throw, they are the most expensive of my buffalo miniatures. I need 36 buffalo for my project, and I certainly wouldn’t use 36 of these babies. But they are terrific castings–well cast with loads of detail and animation. I use them as the leaders of each obstinacy (yes that’s what a group of buffalo is called) of six buffalo. They do require some care. They do have a little bit of flash, and require some soaking in soap and water to get that release agent off. If you don’t do the latter, your figures will shed paint. After that, they are much fun to paint. The absolute best of the lot, if you can afford them.

Foundry Figures

I should just leave this space blank because I don’t have them. Ordered figures on June 17th, confirmed by e-mail on June 18th. They are clearly coming by container ship through the Malacca Straits, Hong Kong, and Guam. This service is unacceptably slow by any important manufacturer, but especially one of such importance as Foundry. Patooey.

This project still has some work to finish. I thought I had enough Comanche figures, but decided to add another dozen foot figures from Warlord Games. I still have almost all the Achesons to paint and one more pack of WestWind’s, but I find them fun and easy to do, so no biggie. The Comanches are another story as they are special orders. So we’ll see.

State Volunteers in the Philippines

Jul28

I’ve switched my priorities for the Philippines to painting some Americans. I’ve been focusing on Old Glory Americans. Coming 30 to a bag, I can squeeze two units out of each pack. I only buy OG figure types I can’t get from 1898 Miniaturas. These include state volunteers, Marines, sailors and some mounted cavalry.

Old Glory Volunteers. Though the angles and crevices created by the angles of the rifles can pose some challenges, they are still quite good figures.

The Old Glory figures lack the elegance of the Spanish miniatures, but they are sturdy and representative of the period. They aren’t as nice as 1898 Miniaturas, but much better in proportion and casting quality than Tiger Miniatures. I also seem to still have an Old Glory Army membership, so when I get logged in they are very inexpensive.

The Philippine-American War is separate from, but very related to outcome of the Spanish American War. That war, and the subsequent conflict in Asia found the U.S. Army woefully unprepared for the conflict, depending as they did on a small frontier army, dispersed in small units across the country to keep the peace on the borders, near recently pacified native populations.

As the army did during the Civil War, it depended on states to supply volunteer troops as war broke out against a more modern, better-equipped European power with outposts flung, literally, around the world. We remember Theodore Roosevelt’s Rough Riders as the chief non-regular army unit in Cuba. But there were others from New York, Massachusetts, and Illinois that served in Cuba from the action Las Guasimas to the siege of Santiago.

With most of the regular army tied down in the Caribbean, and a budding rebellion to quell in the newly acquired U.S. colony in the Philippines, the army turned to the states to supply the bulk of troops. 13,000 of the 15,000 troops deployed to take over Manila from the Spanish were volunteers from California, Idaho, Wyoming, North Dakota, Kansas, Montana, Pennsylvania, Colorado and Washington.

Volunteer troops in the Philippines looked similar to US regulars with the dark blue serge shirt, light blue pants, with light brown drab hats and leggings. State volunteers were mustered back to the US after the first year of the war in favor of federalized US volunteers, so they tended not to have the later brown khaki shirts and pants of troops that appeared after ’99.

A critical difference between volunteers and regulars was in their arms. US regular infantry and cavalry in the Philippines were armed with the Krag-Jorgensen .30-.40 magazine rifle or carbine that fired smokeless powder cartridges. There were not sufficient Krags to arm the volunteers, so they were given the venerable 1873 model “trap-door” Springfield rifles. These single-shot weapons fired a black-powder cartridge, which left their owners in a more revealing position when fighting Mauser-armed Spanish and Philippine republic troops, though the equal of those with the rolling block Remingtons also widely used.

Volunteer units performed well in the Philippines. They participated in the campaigns around Manila, assaulted Philippine trenches and blockhouses, and despite their outdated firearms, usually out-shot and out-fought their often better-armed opponents.

Painting the Old Glory figures require persistence. Many of the rifles are at unfortunate angles and it is critical to remember to get a brush in those hard to reach places with primer (because your spray won’t get there) as well as your paint colors. I went with Vallejo Dark Prussian Blue for the basic shirt color, and then dry brushed with a mix of DPB and Vallejo Light Gray. The blue is very thick, so thinning is advised. The pants are painted Vallejo Light Blue-Grey, and the hat and leggings are painted Vallejo Beige-Brown and highlighted. I’ve gone to using Vallejo Neutral Grey for the metal parts of rifles, rather than gunmetal or something else. I think that works best for late 19th century firearms.

I’ve also acquired additional figures from OG that 1898 Miniaturas show no signs of producing. These include U.S. Marines, sailors and mounted cavalry. I’ve finished two of units of Marines. Not surprisingly, they very much resemble the volunteer figures. That’s kind of a OG model for completing their ranges. Honestly there aren’t a lot of differences–the cap replaces the broad-brimmed campaign hat, the shirts are wrong, I think. The sleeves would have been longer, though the figures do have a higher collar. Rifles are correct on the model as the Marines carried the unique bolt-action Lee Straight Pull Rifle.

Marines 2

Updates

I have tried to stick to my pledge of twelve figures per week and if you average things out, I”ve sort of done that.

July 8th–12 OG Marines plus 8 buffalo of various manufactures. Remounted one unit of AWI for Rebels and Patriots (which doesn’t really count toward a painting goal.)

July 15th–Finished 5 West Wind buffalo-didn’t quite wrap up those twelve Marines I was working on. Did remount four American units and one British unit for Rebels and Patriots.

July 22nd–Finished 12 Marines and 8 buffalo from Monday Knight Productions.

So, 45 figures over three weeks, plus some remounting projects. I’ll take it. I’ve also started working on William Washington’s 3rd Continental Dragoons for Rebels and Patriots as well as the next round of volunteers for the Philippines.

Status of the Philippine American War project–Five completed American units, six completed Philippine units. About 35% of project complete not including terrain making.

If you’re on Facebook-and I know many of you are not.

I get it if you’re not as more Facebook stupid stuff is revealed every day. But there are some interesting miniature gaming groups on Facebook, including a Naval Miniatures group, an Air Miniatures group, and a Northwest Historical Miniature Gaming group.

This week David Sullivan created a Vintage Miniature Wargaming Rules Group that has just been hilarious to watch. All the rules that posters have shared. It’s been great. Only a couple of rules sets have been trashed and most are simply haloed by fond memories. Great job David. Here are some that I have shared. (Yes, I do actually own them, and lament the passing of many sets I once owned but no longer have.)