Musketeer/Footsore Irish Republican Army

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14 IRA gunmen by Musket Miniatures, now Footsore Miniatures.

Being of Irish heritage-my much missed grandfather was from Cork-the Irish Rebellion and Civil War 1916-22 is of great interest to me.  A few years ago I bought figures from Musketeer Miniatures for this period, a British company, who had an American distributor in the U.S. Unfortunately Musketeer changed hands last year and is now part of Footsore miniatures.

They weren’t my first figures for the Irish conflict.  The Australian company, Cannon Fodder also got a start on the period with a group of very nice IRA gunman, a very nice Auxiliary figure and a British soldier.  Unfortunately they didn’t get very far with the range before Cannon Fodder became Blaze Away miniatures.  Sadly, Blaze Away is now gone and so are 20th century figures from the Cannon Fodder line.  Pity.

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A little tighter view of the Lewis gun, left, with his loader.  There is a nice variety of figures in the range and the figures themselves are pretty good. A little bit of breakage, however, and some mold mark issues as well.

I’ve decided to focus on my collection of figures for this period as one of my painting projects for 2016 and yesterday I finished my collection of IRA gunmen–14 in all.  When I bought my Musketeer figures I was very excited about them.  I’m a bit less so now.  Let’s be clear, they are still nicely proportioned, historically correct, and dressed in a variety of period attire, but they have some production issues that make them a bit less than I’d like.  First, they have very breakable gun barrels. At about two bucks a figure, the last thing I want is to get figures that aren’t usable because their gun barrels are broken. Some also had unfortunate mold marks.  Well-detailed pewter figures are hard to clean, and I found these with just a little too much flash in hard-to-get-to places for my liking.  If I was rating them, they’d get maybe a 7 of 10.  Good, but not brilliant. Cleaner than your average Old Glory figure, but not as good as the average Perry figure.

Nothing fancy to paint these guys.  They are a combination of Vallejo and Ceramcoat colors. I did make sure to do some highlighting before washing them with Vallejo black and brown wash.

What’s on my painting table

I’ll be taking on my first Dragon Rampant unit.  I have twelve orcs from a variety of manufactures, including Mithril, Ral Partha, and Alternative Armies.  They work together size wise, plus, as we learned in Peter Jackson’s Fellowship of the Ring, orcs are manufactured in a variety of colors and sizes, so–no problem.

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Watch out!! My first Dragon Rampant unit is on the painting table.  It’s a mixture of Ral Partha, Mithril and Alternative Armies figures.  It’s actually a pretty nice mix.

I’ve also dredged up a pair of C in C Boston II’s from my aging airplane stash.  I’m still assembling them, which is not always an easy feat.  They’ll be completed in a camo for the British in the Mediterranean.

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The very nice C-in-C Boston II’s.  I like forward to painting these in British colors for the Mediterranean.

Looking way down the road my next Irish Civil War unit will be the green-clad Royal Irish Constabulary figures by Musketeer–there are seven of them.

Less is More

I’ve given up the idea of tracking each of my purchases and painting on a running basis, but I have come to embrace the idea that finishing figures is a good thing, and completing more than I purchase is also good.  So I’ll try to keep a running total right here in Less is More. Just in general, I’m not buying new stuff–well sort of.  I did buy some planes for the Channel Dash as well as additional jets for a future Cuban Missile Crisis project. I also have some stuff from ROS coming, some day in my lifetime, that I’ll figure into this initial entry.  The goal is to finish the year with more painted figures than purchases, way more.

Purchases

  • From 1-94 Enterprises  28 airplanes
  • From ROS  6 airplanes 2 Siebel ferries

Painted

  • 20 airplanes
  • 14 Irish Republican army figures

Net

34 figures painted (January) – 36 purchased (December) = net of -2 figures.  Still a week to go in the month and no additional purchases planned.  I fully expect this will be the only time I register a negative number.

Music to Paint By

When I graduated from college in 1978, one really popular album was the debut by Van Halen.  It was like nothing I’d ever heard before.  One of the songs Eddie and the boys covered was a Kinks song “All Day and All of the Night.”  They destroyed it with Van Halen’s smoking guitar and David Lee Roth’s incendiary vocals. And one of the things it did was to inspire the Kinks and their lead guitarist Dave Davies, Ray’s brother, on to some flaming guitar heights of his own. Listen to their 1980 live album, One for the Road, and you’ll know what I mean.

Dave Davies

Most importantly, it encouraged Dave, the less well-known Davies brother, but a fine guitarist, to go out on his own.  His first solo effort is AFL1-3603. This is a good record.  All the songs are written by Davies.  He also plays almost all of the instruments. Most of the tunes feature some heavy-handed guitar work. From the opening song, “Where Do You Come From,” there is no mistake you’re listening to a rock and roll record.  But there are other songs, that are also quite good, notably “Visionary Journey” and “Imaginations Real.”

Don’t get me wrong, though this is guitar focused, it is not a record of aimless solo guitar-noodling.  Rather, it’s a product of its time, the guitar is loud, it’s very raw, but supports the song structure without wandering about by way of the third moon of Saturn only to return to what’s important three minutes later. C’mon, it was released in 1980, we’re done with that shit.

I guess my overall verdict is AFL1-3603 is solid, with consistently good songs and good performances.  It won’t remind you of Lola vs. Powerman and the Money-Go-Round, or really not much of the Kinks catalog at all.  But it’s a good record, with a very cool cover, and a worthwhile addition to your colleciton

Dragon Rampant-Yes!!

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On December 22nd, Osprey Publishing released the latest of their rules sets, Dragon Rampant.  Built on their, in my view, very successful  and very fun Lion Rampant, this is a set of fantasy rules that keep things quick and simple.

Dragon Rampant is intended to be relatively economical.  Every army will likely have 4-6 units.  They will likely have at their core some 12 figure units of infantry slime, with some six figure units of knights, or elites, or monstrous nasties, maybe even some 1-3 model units of something or another really unpleasant–trolls, ogres, giants, wizards, dragons would fit the bill.  The game allows magic.  Author Daniel Mersey has made allowances for players to experiment with all kinds of unpleasantness.  I love it.

Unfortunately, new rules often mean more purchases-something I’ve pretty fastidiously avoided the last nine months.  It doesn’t mean I haven’t bought anything, I have–ships and planes for Pensacola and the Channel Dash–but no figures to speak of. That’s especially true of fantasy figures.  I try to keep my historical minis to no more than two bucks a throw, more for mounted troops. But fantasy figures are often five bucks a pop or more. And it’s not like I don’t have tons of figures laying around waiting to be painted.

So I’ve turned over every loose rock I have to locate anything that might serve to make a couple of fantasy armies, and tonight I struck paydirt. More about this in a moment.

I’ve decided on a couple of different armies.  The first is a Rohan army.  I love the Rohirrim.  I did long before there were Peter Jackson movies.  I’ve always wanted to do the Battle of the Pelennor Fields in 15mm, and some day I may still do that. I have many of the figures–they just need paint.

But I also have a ton of Rohan figures I bought when Games Workshop was putting out their Lord of the Rings range. I have plastic cavalry and infantry and some metal leaders–a Theoden, Eomer, Eowyn and standard bearer who can form a unit of heroes. But wait, that’s not all folks.  In rummaging through the deepest darkness of my boxes o’lead I also rant across enough old Mithril Rohan figures to build a unit of mounted.  So here is what I think I can do:

  • Rohan heroes (Elite riders)–1 X 4 figures
  • Riders of Rohan (heavy riders–4 X 6 figures Games Workshop, 1 X 6 figures Mithril Miniatures
  • Men of the Westfold (heavy foot)–2 X 12 figures Games Workshop

Of course, every fantasy army needs something truly fantastic, so I will also add a 1 X 6 unit of Eureka centaurs.  I’m not quite sure if they qualify as some sort of cavalry or if they are a unit of warbeasts.  We’ll see.

So I was able to construct an army of Rohirrim of troops I already have. But I want them to have somebody to face.  My first choice is, of course, orcs. But as much as possible I want to minimize the cost. Remember, fantasy figures are spendy, the centaurs are five dollars each.  I have some orcs from the GW LOTR range, but not enough to do a lot with.  I can make one unit of Uruk-Hai pikemen–that’s cool. I also uncovered some Mithril and Ral Partha orcs, enough to make a unit of nasty looking bastards.  I remembered that once upon a time I bought a whole bunch of Alternative Armies orcs and various other nasties, and these went missing for the longest time.  But no more!! Tonight I found them.  There are orcs, some warg riders and even some orc chariots of doom.  Enough nasties to field against the Rohirrim.  If I get desperate, I’ve even dismantled the old HeroQuest game I used to play with my sons twenty years ago and run off with the plastic figures, including goblins, orcs and various other bad guys.  Yes, I have stooped that low. I still don’t know quite what I have or how I’ll organize them.

The difference between beginning Lion Rampant and beginning Dragon Rampant is that my armies for the Hundred Years War were already painted–enough so that I could field seven retinues of English and French. Unfortunately, exactly none of my fantasy figures are painted. So it will be a while until I can actually play, but I’m game.  Anything I can do to usefully employ some figures I’ve just got gathering dust is a good thing.  So Dragon Rampant will be a big project for 2016.

I’ll be sure to share as the project gets rolling.

And now, my little air force

I put the finishing touches on this little bunch of planes for the Channel Dash.  It’s 16-six Spitfires, six Beaufort bombers, and four Whirlwinds. Together with the Betty bombers, that’s twenty planes and a good way to start the new year.

The Raiden planes were all purchased for the Enfilade project, but the Bettys were all quite old, so it’s nice to take the occasion to get some old stuff done too.

Just as a general review, the Raiden planes were the nicest 1/300 miniatures I’ve ever painted.  The Beaufort in particular, one of the newest Raiden planes, was incredibly well detailed, solid, really a pleasure to work with. I highly recommend them.

I also want to offer props to I-94 for their improved British decals.  As I stated in my previous post, working with decals can be hard.  Some of my friends, commenting on my post, have suggested it is too hard. I-94 replaced their BR-100 decal sheet with two new sheets, BR-107 and BR-111.  I believe I put on something like 144 separate decals from the BR-111 sheet.  I liked so many things about them, but the three biggest are: 1) the color is vastly superior to previous sheets, 2) these sheets offered a wide variation of roundels and tail flashes not previously available, 3) they were extremely easy to use, sliding off their transfer sheets within seconds. Just really good stuff, and highly recommended.

I’m done painting planes for the time being. But I really enjoyed doing them. I don’t know that I’ve ever been so happy painting anything as when I finished these planes for the Channel Dash + Bettys.

I reorganized all my painted planes to better care for them and I’ve included pictures.  Basically my planes fall into a few categories:

  1. Taiwan vs. Peoples Liberation Air Force.  50 jet aircraft for a hypothetical conflict between Taiwan and China in 1995. Includes a few American planes in case of intervention.
  2. Cuban Missile Crisis–I put together a project I ran at Enfilade back in the ’90’s.  Look for the current 25 planes to get much larger in the next year as I take another stab with much better miniatures. Many of the American planes are now available from Raiden–my current crop are from the old, disappeared and not lamented Skytrex range. Also some long forgotten SDD miniatures, including a pair of British F-4K Phantoms and Buccaneers before the RN fleet carriers went away.
  3. Fleet Air Arm–40 planes, all Scotia miniatures.  Most I painted for an Enfilade game I hosted in 2001.  They were painted with Polly S paints, that sadly I can no longer get. So when I thought needed some more Fairey Barracudas for our Tirpitz attack, I went with a different camo scheme.
  4. Channel Dash–I’ve written ad nauseum about these planes already.  This box has 25 planes including five Scotia Lancaster bombers with Grand Slam bombs, just in case the Tirpitz is lurking nearby.
  5. The Rising Sun–I have a pile of various Japanese planes.  No real rhyme or reason.  Some A6M2 and A6M5 Zeroes, Nell and Betty bombers, early war Claudes, Franks a Nick and a host of other young men just begging for something to do.  33 planes
  6. WWII Americans–another box of random planes, but lots of them.  A PBY Catalina, a B-25, B-26, B-17, a navy PB4Y-1 Privateer, perfect for one off suicide missions.  Australian P-40K’s, AVG P-40C’s, a bunch of P-39’s, a couple of A-20G’s.  F4F’s and F6F’s and Avengers in navy blue.  But my favorite are the Devastators in pre war colors (just because they were fun to paint. And shouldn’t that be the point?) 25 planes in all.

I have lots more to paint.  Tons of Spanish Civil War planes-lots of Navwar/ROS planes I’m not sure will ever get painted.  More WWII, including some Germans–you might have noticed the lack thereof in my collection.  More jets, more American WWII planes.

I broke one of my own rules and actually counted my painted planes.  It comes out to about 210.  I don’t often spend tons of time painting airplanes, but given how much I enjoy it, I should spend more time working on them.

What’s Next?

Today I’ll put my planes away and return to work on 14 IRA gunmen from my Irish Civil War project. They are kind of dragging along and I want to finish them and tuck them away because there are other things that are making me itchy:

  • I should soon have a small order from ROS/Heroics with my Swordfish torpedo bombers and a pair of Siebel ferries. The Swordfish go with the Channel Dash project, I will have four Siebel ferries to finish, together with a 1/600 V and W destroyer and a German torpedo boat that is needed for the ship attack portion of Channel Dash.
  • I’ve been bitten by the Dragon Rampant bug.  My next post will be a fairly lengthy overview of my thoughts and plans for this project.

Music to Paint To

There’s not a ton of music to come to America from Australia and achieve a lot of commercial success.  ACDC for sure, Colin Hay’s excellent Men at Work for a short time, The Little River Band for your pop music fix.  But one band that is sadly overlooked is The Divinyls.  Really the Divinyls was just a twosome, vocalist Chrissy Amphlett and guitarist Mark McEntee who surrounded themselves with a rotating crew of backing musicians.  You might remember them from MTV (when MTV did music videos) and their 1991 naughty hit song “I Touch Myself.” Amphlett’s unique vocal performance and her utterly sensual stage performances, together with McEntee’s New Wave inspired guitar style produced some solid pop music.

What a Life!

I’ve always really liked their music style, and listened to some of their stuff on YouTube and MP3’s.  So when I ran across a $7 copy of 1985’s What a Life!, I grabbed it.  There are some solid songs there, with “Pleasure and Pain” about BDSM, and public apathy about protecting missing young girls in Australia in “Good Die Young.” The music throughout is mid-80’s New Wave influenced pop.  McEntee’s guitarwork is solid and never overdone, always lending a bit of an edge to Amphlett’s memorable vocals. It was a wise. buy.

I’ll almost certainly pick up a copy of the Divinyl’s first record from 1983, Desperate.  I know where it can be had for a fair price.  Unfortunately, their best record, The Divinyls, with their MTV hit, is really hard to get on vinyl because by 1991 the industry was making its way to CD’s and was never pressed as an LP in the U.S. That means a foreign purchase with all the expense of shipping. Ick.

Just as a side note, as I was researching a bit for this writing I learned that Amphlett died in 2013 of breast cancer after fighting for years against multiple sclerosis. She was 53.  Good die young.

Final Planes Post: The Decal Monster

I’ve been painting planes a long time.  Lots of planes-well, I guess it’s all relative, but probably 150 or so. Painting is painting.  You do some research on paint schemes or camouflage and you paint yet.  Yes the planes are small, so you include as much detail as you want to add.

And then you add the markings. There is no easy way to say this, so I’ll just be honest: Marking 1/300 planes with tiny decals is a time consuming pain in the ass. But if you want to finish off your miniatures you have to do it.

I understand there are other types of markings out there, but I use the traditional waterslide decals we all used when we were building our model airplanes back in the day.  Those are the kind you cut off a sheet of markings, put in water and hopefully slid them off on to the model where you wanted them.  Same general idea with 1/300 planes, they’re just much smaller.

There are a couple of different suppliers of markings for your teeny-tiny planes.  Dom’s Decals is located in Britain, and he seems to have lots of different nationalities covered.  1/600 too if you’re looking for those. I haven’t ordered from him, but I hear they are good.  I’ve used the markings from I-94 for years, and I am generally quite pleased with the quality and range of decals and the service is very good. .

A couple of quick things about decals.  They are generally cheap. $3.00 can put decals on about six planes, maybe more. The newer they are, the easier they are to work with.  I’m not a pack rat, so generally I don’t keep paint or other such ephemera around forever. But for whatever reason, probably because they don’t take up much space, I keep decals forever.  Older decals take longer to “soak ‘n slide,” and they are also more brittle, meaning they tear more easily.

I recommend a few different items to have to help you with your decals

  • embroidery or floss scissors OR a super sharp #1 Exacto knife, preferably with a new blade
  • a small bowl of clean water
  • pair of tweezers with bent nose if possible
  • decal setting solution
  • paper towel or something to blot with
  • size 1 paint brush handle OR fairly small fingers.

I am going to relate a story in which everything is a bit of a struggle, and ends with fairly mixed results, and another in which everything goes fairly according to plan.

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Glimpse of the Betty with the large fuselage Hinomaru marking. These were older, but went on fairly easy and in one piece.

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Same plane with smaller Hinomaru for the wing.  Again, aging decal came a bit to pieces as I was putting them on the miniature.

To be clear, I have had twenty planes to paint and apply markings to.  I’m going to focus on the Scotia Bettys, a medium bomber of good size in this scale.  I have some aged markings.  I wanted to use the hinomaru with border because it shows up well against the dark green color. I have no idea where the decals came from or who made them, but I’ve used them before.  Let me take you through my steps:

  1. I use floss scissors to cut out the decal.  You can use an Exacto knife.  The key is to get as close to the decal as possible without actually damaging the transfer.
  2. Drop the decal in the water.  You can hold it with tweezers, but that seems like a poor use of time.
  3. After about ten seconds, your decal should be ready to slide off on to your surface.  UNLESS your decal is really old like my old hinomarus and then it will take MUCH longer.
  4. Prepare your surface by putting some setting solution.  This is a mild adhesive that also softens the decal.
  5. Slide the decal where you want it, which is almost a sloppy version of herding cats.  Use your brush handle or small fingers (like mine) to make it go where you want.  If it sticks where you don’t want it, wet it again, push it with the handle or finger while using extremely gentle, pleading language.  That always works for me. Profanity always results in a torn decal.
  6. Blot with paper towel, tissue, t-shirt or other absorbent material
  7. Paint on another helping of setting solution.
  8. When all markings are applied, spray with a thin coat of Dullcoat. This is a solvent and will dissolve your decals if you are not judicious.  DO NOT hand paint decals with Dullcoat. Trust me: It would be bad.

I had to put marking on my Betty bombers.  While the planes were pretty easy to paint, the markings were pretty difficult. The problem I ran into was the age and quality of the Japanese markings I’d been hanging on to. It took a long time to pry the transfers loose from their backing paper. And some of the decals just came to pieces.   The white border of the red meatball, in some cases, kind of dissolved and so did at least one of the smaller wing markings.  If I was to do this again I would order some different markings. The larger fuselage markings seemed to work just fine.

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Lots more to do with the Spitfires.  But with fresher decals the entire job was much easier.  The fuselage roundels were two parters with the yellow surrounds going on first followed by the tri-color markings.  Be sure to set the yellow down first, add setting, spray with Dullcoat, let dry thoroughly before attempting the tri-color. As you can see they aren’t perfect, but this picture is much larger than the actual plane.

I had more success with the British markings for my Spitfire Mk. V’s.  The decals were hot off the press and that is good for a couple of reasons. First, I-94 has re-done the WWII British markings. The colors are more easily seen against a dark background.  There is a great variety of sizes for roundels, and many more choices of tail flashes. But the chief advantage is the speed the transfers are ready to “soak ‘n slide.” Ten seconds tops. They were very easy to work with.

Some I-94 marking some in two pieces.  The two British packs each contain separate decals for the red, white and blue roundel with the encircling yellow stripe. The same is true of early American marking with the red dot.  There is a bit of a trick to doing these.  In the case of the Brits, do all your other marking-wing roundels, tail flashes, and the yellow background circle.  Use your decal setter and then spray with Dullcoat.  Don’t try to layer the second decal on top of the first roundel without spraying and allowing to dry. You run the risk of dislodging the first decal and having to start over again.

I’ll do one more look at my planes when they are all completed.

It may not be Boeing . . .

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Bettys and Spitfires waiting for their markings.

One more look at the planes under construction in the Smyth production line. In the back are the Spitfires and Bettys.  They are finished now except for decals. More about this later.

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The Smyth production line with Whirlwinds in front and Beauforts in the second row.  Still a bit to go on those ten planes.

Those in front are the Beauforts and Whirlwinds. The Bristol Beaufort was designed with a view of becoming the standard torpedo bomber for RAF Coastal Command. Unfortunately, it’s performance wasn’t quite up to snuff, and it was replaced by the more robust and pugnacious Beaufighter. However, the Aussies really did like the Beaufort, and it was produced under license to become the standard torpedo bomber for the RNAF.

The Whirlwind just looks so cool.  A bit like an under-nourished Mosquito, but not as successful.  Only a handful of these were produced, but were on hand for the Channel Dash.

All the British planes are dressed in the late 1941 gray and green camo.  The Beauforts and Whirlwinds are beginning to get their black-lined detailing. A bit more left to do.

I order my water-slide decals from I-94 Enterprises, Dave Winfree’s fine company out of Illinois.  Unfortunately I had a pile of RAF decals, but I was wrong, so I had to hurry off an order today. I might be stuck for a few days while I wait.

I’ve had a ton of success ordering from I-94.  Dave also includes some nice directions on his site for applying decals. This time I’m going to follow them closely.  I’ll let you know how it goes.

The paper is on deadline the rest of the week so I’ll be busy at least until the weekend–no work or posts likely until then.

Music to paint by

The first time I ever heard of the Small Faces was in a teen magazine when I was a kid.  I don’t think they made a great translation to the United States from the U.K.  The song you’re most likely to be familiar with is “Itchycoo Park” which was just a little controversial with its references to drug use. Such was the world of 1967.

Ogden's Nut Gone Flake

But in 1968, the Small Faces released Ogden’s Nut Gone Flake. It’s great record.  A combination of hard rock and psychedelia that goes well with the music coming out of Britain in 1968.  Side A is pretty standard rock fare, but Side B is the interesting story of “Happiness Stan,” a tale told in the third person by guest narrator Stanley Unwin.  The second side also has “Rollin’ Thunder” a great rock and roll song.

Ogden’s is not an easy get.  A first pressing in its unique round cover is worth some serious cash.  Mine is a 1973 repressing, and not in perfect condition.  I consider myself fortunate to find it for twenty ish bucks. But if you’re serious about “getting” the music coming out of England with Wheels of Fire by Cream, Beggars Banquet by the Stones or Then Play On by Fleetwood Mac, you shouldn’t overlook this one.

Smyth Aircraft WIP pt. 2

So I’ve tucked in a couple of pictures of Bettys and Spitfires under construction.  As you can see, they are a bit further along.

The Spitfires are in their late 1941 camo, with medium gray and military green both by Vallejo.  I paint their cockpits a Ceramcoat Light Gray.  The next step is a bit tricky.

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Spitfires after they’ve been scrubbed and detailed.  Hopefully you can see how the camo has been lightened a bit.  I’ll add a bit of hue to the super light areas.  Before the canopies have been detailed.

The best airplane painter of all time, period, the end is Paul Hannah. Some of you may know him from his work with DBA and breathing fun into a set of rules that on their face are not.  Paul was a stickler for a couple of things around painting wee planes.  He is the first who raised the issue of scale and brightness of color.  The smaller the scale of the plane, the lighter the color should be, lest the detail  or the subtlety of the color scheme be lost entirely. (Paul also used to beautifully hand paint all his markings, but ’nuff said about that-because that’s just crazy talk.)

That being the case, I decided not to actually lighten my color, feeling that to reproduced the tinted colors over and over again would be impossible I “scrubbed” both the Betty bombers and the Spits.  It’s sort of an intense version of dry brushing with less paint on the brush.  I use it with a very ratty Army Painter dry brush.  A little bit of white paint on the end and then scrub away. It’s super important that almost all the paint is off the brush, or you end up in repaint mode.  It has two effects: it definitely lightens whatever the paint is, and it also offers a bit of a “weathered” effect.

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Betty bombers after they’ve been “scrubbed.” It really lightens up the dark IJN navy green.   Some planes have received their canopy work. The wing details on these Scotia models is not quite so busy as the Raiden Spitfires.

Then it is on to detailing. I always paint charcoal gray or black in the wing panels and the creases caused by control surfaces.  It just adds a bit more to the miniature.  I also do my best to paint the framing for the canopy or other plexiglas surfaces.  Just adds a bit more to the complexity of the miniature. Yes I use a small brush.  I have a 5/0 from Dick Blick I use only for this purpose, but I also have an Army Painter “insane detail” brush that is less expensive and will also make due.

I’ll be moving on to the light undersides and the yellow forward edge markings  next.  I’ll show off again when the planes are completed less their edge markings.

Music to Paint By. Story.  My only brush with rock royalty was in 1999 when my son Patrick, age 19, played with his high school band at the Ballard Firehouse.  His was one of two bands who opened for rock great Robin Trower. I was able to say hello to Trower, though I don’t think he ever actually acknowledged me. He impressed me as a small, very out of place Englishman who didn’t really fit in with his Ballard surroundings.

I don’t want to say I’m big fan of Robin Trower.  I do want to say that some of his music is absolutely unbelievable.  The sound he gets out of his guitar, the textures of sound he’s able to create are absolutely incredible–on Bridge of Sighs, his best known and, critically, best received work. I haven’t listened to a lot of his other records.  In City Dreams is quite good, and For Earth Below is okay.

Truce

When Pat and I were up at Georgetown records the other day, we were thumbing through the magical $3.00 bin and I spied Truce, a 1981 collaboration between Trower and former Cream bassist and vocalist Jack Bruce. I thought it might be an interesting combination of musical talents. Unfortunately, I couldn’t grab it, because, under the rules of the game we were playing it couldn’t be a band I knew or had in my collection and I had some Trower.

But on Friday, I zipped into Tacoma to pick up some record sleeves at High Voltage and dipped in to see if there was anything “I had to have.” We know this term in gaming don’t we? It so happened they had a copy of Truce and I had a 20% off coupon, so we were made for each other.

I took the record home and threw it on the turntable as I was painting Bettys.  I can’t call this a brilliant record or give it five stars, but it is really good.  It’s pretty stripped down blues based rock.  Trower gets to show off his chops as a great guitarist and Bruce fits right in, with some of his best work since Cream. It’s hard rock, not for the faint of heart, but it’s melodic and accessible, and a pleasure to listen.  There is no single track that stands out, but likewise, there is nothing trashy either.  The perfect record to paint your basic Tiger IE, or Grenadiers of the Imperial Guard.

Trower and Baker have one more collaboration with drummer Bill Lordan called BLT (oh how cute)  that has joined by wantlist, so one more record to look out for.

 

 

Good-bye 2015, hello 2016

2015 was a weird year in my gaming life.  It was a year in which I was less committed to the hobby.  It was one in which miniature wargaming was less joyful.  I’m not sure I can explain why, probably because I can’t put my finger on it.  I think it was the aftermath of my illness, plus the addition of a competing interest.  In any case, I can honestly say I feel like I’m back even if making time for actual games remains a challenge.

Expect some changes in the blog for the coming new year.

  • I’ve given up trying to track my painting for the year.  Suffice to say that at the present time I paint pretty regularly and buy very little. Part of that is because my record addiction has sucked up most of my funds, but honestly when it comes down to it, I need very little to continue working on my projects.  Like all-okay almost all my readers-I’ve stockpiled enormous quantities of unpainted lead I just need to paint. I’ll keep painting and you’ll see what it is I’ve painted.
  • I made 38 posts in 2015.  That’s more than the 22 posts I made in 2014.  Shockingly, I had 6,800 page views and honestly I can’t believe the number of visitors that come to this blog.  I can’t thank you enough for your curiosity, your loyalty and support. Every blogger wants his work read, but honestly this is overwhelming and humbling. But this is one of those cases of too much is not enough.  I haven’t kept a regular publishing schedule, I had several big gaps between posts and my goal this year is to post weekly if not more frequently.  So 52 posts is my goal for 2016. Whether it’s a new set of rules, a game I’ve dabbled in, or just work in progress, I’ll plan to share.
  • One of the things that has really given me pleasure is combining two of my most consuming interests: records and wargaming.  I will continue the regular feature “Music to Paint By” with the majority of my posts.  Sometimes the music will be familiar, sometimes more esoteric, but I enjoy sharing, so hopefully you’ll enjoy reading.

2016 will offer some opportunities to continue with many of my long time interests.

  • I have a lot of American Revolution figures for both sides left to paint.  It’s a period I really enjoy painting.  There are still the Perry Welsh Fusiliers and Lee’s Legion.  I have a complete unit of British Grenadiers by Front Rank.  I have the second battalion of the 71st Highlanders and the Von Bose Regiment by Old Glory.  It’s a period I love, but, sadly I haven’t pulled them out to game with them in at least three years.  I hope to maybe give Jim Purkey’s Fife and Drum rules a try, which are a bit easier to teach neophytes than Regimental Fire and Fury.  Anyway I hope to get at least one game in.
  • I started painting some French men at arms for the Hundred Years War in November and just couldn’t go on.  I had to pack them away.  I’m sure I’ll continue tinkering.  Still want to continue with my Fire and Fury variant, which had its first go in October. With the Perry’s coming out with plastic men-at-arms and foot figures for the period, I’m sure I’ll be in on the goodies.
  • ACW Naval has been such a pleasure to paint. With the future of Bay Area Yards uncertain, I’m sure I’ll be sending some cash off to Thoroughbred Miniatures to fill out my fleets, particularly the Union vessels.  I’ve been away from these too long, and they just mean too much to me. Ironclads, Sail and Steam Navies, and I’ll probably snag a copy of Iron and Fire by David Manley in the near future.
  • My Irish Civil War figures are sitting on my painting table waiting for some attention.  I’ve even found an acceptable (and free) set of rules called Like Cricket, But With Guns, it simply requires me to paint some stuff, design a scenario and play with all of it. Hopefully that will happen after all the planes are done.
  • Today I received my Dragon Rampant rules in the mail, and I haven’t even cracked them yet.  But the Riders of Rohan have always been one of my favorite peoples of literature and I have many of them to paint from the GW Lord of the Rings range.  I now see some incentive.

So lots to do, always lots to do.  Be sure to check out my friends’ blogs–Dave Schueler’s Naval Gazing, David Sullivan’s I Live With Cats, and Dean Motoyama’s WAB Corner, and Doug Hamm’s Dots of Paint.  All interesting, different from one another and worth your time.

 

Wanna Be a Star

Music to Paint To: Chilliwack is a band that enjoyed some popularity in the 70’s and 80’s.  A band from the Vancouver, B.C. area, and named from a Vancouver suburb, I saw a lot of their records as cut-outs during the glory days of Peaches and Tower Records.  Never listened to their stuff though.  Yesterday I spent a very enjoyable day with Pat and we went on a big adventure to Georgetown Records and then off to Henry’s near Safeco Field for lunch. I insisted we play a little game at the record store.  I agreed to pay for a choice for each of us from their tasty bargain bin of $3.00 records.  It had to be something not in either of our collections and we’d take it back to Pat’s house and give it a listen.  I chose 1981’s Wanna Be A Star by Chilliwack.  The title track is great, the rest is interesting and listenable.  Apparently this record is Chilliwack’s best.  It certainly has some elements of Supertramp in there without the amazing keyboards, but a typical not too bad power trio from the period.  Definitely worth at least three dollars and will proudly grace a shelf in my collection–at least until I need the space.

What I’m Up To

I’ve nearly made it to one of every teacher’s favorite time of year-Christmas break. I’m exhausted.  Really.  Adding yearbook to my newspaper duties is wearing me out.  I love it, but it’s hard and stressful.

In any case I’m a couple of days out. and I couldn’t be happier. I’m looking forward to time for my Pensacola project and one of my goals is to be ready to playtest by the time I go back to school.

Of course life would not be Smyth without a complication or two.  This time the complication is that my wife, the lovely and talented Mrs. Smyth, is going to have rotator cuff surgery on Dec. 30th.  That’s right your basic shoulder rebuild, which may keep me from gaming for a while. It will definitely keep me out of a Lion Rampant gig on January 2nd.

Mostly I’ve been working on the Pensacola project.  I’ve nearly entered the terminal stage for preparing “stuff” for the Ironclads game.  Spoke with David Sullivan about the game on Sunday and we’ve definitely decided on Enfilade Sunday as the game date.

Morgan and Gaines

Thoroughbred Morgan and Gaines.  Same model for both ships.

I’m wrapping up work on a bunch of Thoroughbred miniatures for the game.  I finally wrapped up Morgan and Gaines.  I’m pretty happy with them.  I gave them a really simple rig to finish up.  It was more than a little bit of a struggle to do the very little rigging. Dunno what the deal was. I actually remembered to stick a flag on these babies too.  Something I’m bad at.

Thoroughbred’s double-turreted Miantonomah. I received it assembled and repainted it.
T-Bred Casco class shallow draft monitor as torpedo boat. Somethin’ different

I also finished Miantonomah and the little Casco light draft monitor as a torpedo boat.  The Miantonomah was a double turreted monitor mounting four 15-inch Dahlgren smoothores.  Never played with one in a game, but I’m sure it would be nasty and a half. There were several in its class and it was followed by the even larger Kalamazoo class.A friend gifted me my Thoroughbred Mianatonomah. Not to seem ungrateful, but I reprimed and repainted it so it would fit in better with my paint scheme.

The Cascos were a class of light draft monitors that were less successful than their predecessors, the Passaic and Canonicus classes.  Intended for service on rivers, they saved weight with their very under-powered engines.  Most of the ships in the class were turreted and mounted a pair of 11-inch Dahlgren smoothbores.  However five vessels went turretless and carried a single eleven inch gun in an open mount (yikes) and mounted a spar torpedo.  Unfortunately its max speed was about 5 1/2 knots, which makes its effectiveness as a torpedo deliver device somewhat suspicious. Like all Union ironclads in my collection it is painted neutral gray.

The Modoc, which is what I’ll name my miniature, is a very nice model. With the torpedo removal device on the bow, the goofy armored tower, the 11-inch open mount which sits between two ventilators (making firing directly forward impossible.) A bit more interesting than your basic monitor. However, I have little question it would be pretty terrible in a fight.  Under armored, under armed, too slow, pretty much all the cards are against it, but in a game who knows.

I have a few more Thoroughbred models I’ll finish over the break. The Confederate ironclad Tuscaloosa will finish the Mobile Squadron.  A nice, simple model, smallish for an ironclad.  Maybe a different take on the Richmond class.  In addition I have a pair of the five gun earthworks that will be options for the Union defenders to share.

Tuscaloosa

Confederate ironclad Tuscaloosa didn’t have engines in time for the Mobile Bay action, but for Pensacola–who knows?

I don’t think I can overstate how much I enjoy working on the T-bred ships.  They are solid, realistic, and I know what I’m getting.  While I think the Bay miniatures are also very good they are more impressionistic-a work of art that always seem to challenge my limited modeling skills. The ranges complement each other, and I would be oh so disappointed if something happened to either company, but the Throughbred line is still my favorite.

T-bred earthworks

Two Union earthworks by Thoroughbred

With the break now here (it took me a couple of days to write) I’ll finish these miniature and move on.  I have some 1/300 British WWII planes from Raiden miniatures to begin painting for the Channel Dash, and I’ve gotten a bit of a start on my Irish Civil War figures from Footsore miniatures.

More later.

Music to Paint By

BlondieI’ve finished my Blondie mini-collection.  Yes, everyone knows “Heart of Glass” and maybe “Call Me,” they are two quite good singles, but Blondie is so much more than that.  The final record to acquire with my record store sales is their 1976 self-titled debut. Blondie is New York punk/new wave.  The songs are relatively simple and up-tempo and a lot of fun. Though it has the distinctive new wave beat, their is definitely a canny pop sensibility.  It also has Debbie Harry’s sweet voice in contrast to the often harsh vocals of their contemporaries-The Ramones, The Patti Smith Group, and others.  But the songs, sung by the tough chick with a heart of gold, are anything but sweet.  Lots of good songs on this record, but my favorites are “In the Flesh,” and “Rip Her to Shreds.” The original Private Sessions pressings can be spendy, but the Chrysalis reissues are a bit more affordable. Very good stuff.

Pensacola updates and clearing my painting table.

DSCN1379

Thoroughbred Figures Gaines, two of ’em.  The Gaines and Morgan were both purpose-built gunboats for the defense of Mobile. The models are a pleasure to assemble and paint. They await their rigging.

I’ve tried to be better about posting regularly, and honestly it’s been a pleasure just to fill you in on what I’ve got going on.

My number one priority is the Ironclads Pensacola game.  I’ve worked a lot on the scenario, dealing with some of the issues endemic to large games with our adaptions of the Yaquinto rules.

The biggest issue I’ve tried to cope with is managing fire from and damage to Fort Pickens.  The Confederates main objective is to reduce the fort’s effectiveness through bombardment.  The other problem is adjudicating the fort’s massive fire power, literally hundreds of guns, without completely bogging the game down in a system that is easily bogged down.  I think I can do that by homogenizing fire from the fort’s largely obsolete guns, but still retain the unique feel of the game system.

More information to come on the game.  But I’m in one of my super-interested in a project phases.  I’m in the middle of working on the Thoroughbred models of CSS Gaines and Morgan.  They are the same miniature.  The models are typical Thorougbred–sturdy and clean, a joy to assemble and paint. Both gunboats were purpose-built for defense of Mobile Bay and make a nice contrast with the Bay Selma.

Mentions of the vessels in the literature suggest they were pretty dark–heavily colored with creosote.  I painted the hulls Ceramcoat Charcoal Gray and dry-brushed with a  lighter gray before washing with Vallejo Black Wash.  Unfortunately it washed all the character right out of them, so I went back and dry-brushed with Vallejo Neutral Gray for a more satisfactory result. The decks are Vallejo deck tan, washed black.  The gun carriages, which I think are beautiful but too big, are also the neutral gray color with black barrels.

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Throughbred Mianotonah is primed and next in line for completion.

Together with Selma and Miami, I’ve really enjoyed working with ship miniatures.  I have a T-Bred mini of Mianatonomah, a double-turreted monitor on my painting table next.  It’s an option for the Pensacola game.  I’ve also ordered four more Thoroughbred miniatures that are required/options for the scenario.  In addition I have three large, masted vessels I’ve had for years–the Bay Minnesota, a large screw frigate, and Thoroughbred’s Hartford and Mohican, which will double my collection of screw sloops.

I’m hoping to bump my collection of ACW ships from about 70 to 100, mostly to fill out ship choices and quantities for scenario making. I need more monitors, gunboats and river rams. Sounds like a lot, but they really are a pleasure to work with.

While I’m in between ships to work on I need something else to do.  I had the 28mm HYW men-at-arms on my table, but honestly it’s really not what I want to do right now.  I swear I’ve picked them up a half dozen times, painted some shield patterns, a few black lines for armor here and there, and I’m stuck.  Now isn’t the right time. So I’ve tucked them away.

DSCN1382

28mm Irish Republican Army figures by Footsore Miniatures, formerly Musketeer Miniatures.  I have probably 35 or so figs from this range, and I’m anxious to give them a try.

I have some AWI jaegers and some HYW Irish kerns that need some re-basing, but after that I’m not sure.  I’m placing an order to I-94 Enterprises for some WWII British aircraft for the Channel Dash project Dave and I are working on for Enfilade.  But I’m seriously thinking about putting some time in on 28mm figures for the Irish Rebellion/Civil War 1916-22.  I have figures for both sides as well as some vehicles–Crosley tenders and a Lancia armored truck.  So there’s plenty to keep me busy.

It’s important to keep working on stuff, so I may as well be painting something I want to paint.

Plastic Letters

Music to paint by

I’m intrigued by Blondie, the ’70’s New Wave band that morphed into a huge pop success in the late 70’s and early 80’s. Fronted by tough chick with a heart of gold Debbie Harry, the band was quite successful until its collapse in 1982.  Last weekend I took advantage of my local record store’s 20% off Black Friday sale and snagged 1977’s Plastic Letters.  Not one of Blondie’s strongest records, it seemed like a bridge between their 1976 inaugural self-titled offering and 1978’s smash, Parallel Lines.  The record has a couple of covers that offer great homage to rock’s past, including  Denis a sendup of the 1963 hit Denise by Randy and the Rainbows. The rest of the music is okay, but nothing as interesting as the string of hits to follow.  Still a good listen, and a worthwhile addition to a Blondie collection