Sir John Norwich's Regiment of Horse - and an update on Google changes

The first Parliamentarian cavalry rolled off the painting block today. Sir John Norwich's Regiment of Horse is based up and ready to take its place in the fight against the 'Divine Right of Kings.'

Next up will be the artillery for both sides in the shape of light guns and teams.

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Incidentally I've noticed a few losses among followers to this blog lately, and I admit I was puzzled by it. Have I become so boring people actively unfollow? Thanks to the estimable Stokes at the Grand Duchy of Stollen blog, all is explained.

It appears a few changes have taken place in the world of Google blogging. Since January 11th this year you must have a Google account in order to follow blogs through the Google Friend Connect service. If you follow blogs with Yahoo, Twitter, Orkut or other Open ID services you'll lose your subscriptions to blogs via Friend Connect.

If you'd like to continue receiving updates on this and other blogs, you could follow Google's suggestion and sign-up for a Google account and re-follow. Thanks!

Sir Allen Apsley's Regiment

A snowy day here in Ohio, and another regiment for the ECW forces - Sir Allen Apsley's (Royalist) Regiment of Foote. For some reason I keep thinking of them as Sir Arthur Askey's Regiment. Perhaps their battle cry would be "Hello, playmates!"

Lacking any information about turn-backs and so on, I've painted them with blue cuffs. The base work will come next. A regiment of Parliamentarian cavalry and the generals for both sides have taken their places on the painting block. All I have to do after that is paint up the artillery for both sides in the shape of a light gun apiece.

River running

I was at a loose end today so I cracked on and finished the river sections.

The groundwork was done, so it only needed a coat of acrylic craft paint to blend everything in. It proved hard to keep the shade of 'water' consistent over the course of several pours of varnish, but I think once the sections are laid in place on the green base cloth it won't show.

I've also almost finished the bridge. It needs a bit more vegetation and flocking on the ground areas, but it came out okay. Thankfully the glue sticking it to the plastic had provided a good enough seal so the Envirotex didn't ooze underneath it.

The river sections may well see their first use soon. I'm hoping to get what might be the penultimate game of my Bury St. Edmunds VBCW mini-campaign in this coming week. The last game saw the nasty blighters of the BUF thrown back with severe losses of men and morale by those sterling chaps of the Anglican League. Now the League is on the offensive once more, and aiming to cut the BUF's main line of retreat back to Bury St. Edmunds...

50,000 hits!

It's been a while since I last posted here, and I see that sometime in the past few days the hits on my wargames table blog has passed the 50,000 mark! I seem to be doing something right.

Progress is being made on the ECW collection, and I have the pikemen of Sir Allen Apsley's Royalist regiment about finished.  All they need is a coat of matte varnish and they're ready for basing.

Work on the N-scale bridge is also progressing.

Like the river sections I made earlier this is based on a piece of clear acrylic plastic. The bridge is a combination of card and wood. The ground work either side is drying and I've put some paint down to act as an undercoat and to seal the sand to the spackle. The next steps will be to ensure there are no gaps under the bridge and to pour the Envirotex Lite.

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A discussion about Chris Peers' Death in the Dark Continent rules on the Lead Adventure Forum has reignited my not-too-dormant interest in Colonial African gaming. I'm well aware Captain Fred Pike and the men of the Barsetshire company have been in limbo for too long. I have a few scenarios in mind, but the most interesting one needs a few bits of new terrain. Once my current project is off the table I'll see about making them.

A Mass of Malignant Cavalry and the Beginnings of a Bridge

A quiet beginning to the New Year here in NW Ohio. I completed Sir Charles Gerard's Regiment of Horse for the Royalist army, the first cavalry unit of my ECW collection. They only need the base work to be done to be finished. Normally I find cavalry a chore to paint regardless of scale, but these painted up nicely.

Sir Allen Apsley's Regiment of Foot is on the painting block. They're a red coat regiment from the King's Oxford army to go with Bolle's blue coat regiment.  

I also made a beginning on an N-scale bridge to complete my river sections.

Apologies for the quality of the photos. Our camera batteries died so I had to use the new tablet we got for Xmas. Its imaging quality isn't as good as a camera. The brickwork looks a lot pinker than in real life.

I photoshopped a section of real-life brickwork, scaled it to my needs then printed it off on regular paper. This I cut out and stuck to sections of corrugated card. I'll use more card to form the road bed and arches which will also stiffen the sides, and apply more brickwork to the road side of the parapet. Once these steps are done I'll attach it to a section of clear plastic and build up the terrain either side to match my other river sections.

Happy New Year!

Another year, and a leap year too. Here's to one filled with good health, peace and prosperity.

River ford

Another Christmas Day has come and gone. I hope everyone had a good time and got lots of nice gaming stuff. Boxing Day saw me noodling with a ford for the river sections.

As usual I began with a piece of clear acrylic. It's wider than a standard river section and I cut the corners off to meet the straight pieces, since I want to make it appear as a broader and shallower area of river where a ford might be found. The width would allow for slopes down from the road to the ford. (The trio of carol singers in the background are an ornament based on the gargoyles from Disney's Hunchback of Notre Dame movie. One of them lost a hand, which I glued back. I've spent a lot of time repairing small breakages in ornaments this year for some reason.)

For the next stage I glued strips of wood to stiffen the plastic and raise the level of the banks-to-be. I used ordinary epoxy adhesive for this, a dab of which went to fix the ornament's fist. The stretch of shallows that will mark the ford is sand sprinkled on Aleene's tacky glue mixed with a little water and spread over the plastic. Ordinarily this wouldn't stick to the plastic that well, but it's easy to work with and in this case it'll be sealed beneath the layer of Envirotex Lite varnish.

Next up, I applied spackle to the banks and spread it out and down to form the slopes to the fordable area.

A bit of ordinary acrylic craft paint for grass and mud. I usually do this painting stage after sealing the banks with Pledge mixed with a little brown paint, but since the fordable stretch would go under the varnish, I needed to do this now.

Final stage - the Envirotex Lite is poured on then spread to cover the river and fordable stretch. It's still wet right now, and the ford is more visible than the photo suggests. Once everything's dry, I'll remove the strips of tape from the ends and the ford'll be open for business.

This is really intended for 10mm figures, but will work just as well for larger scales. Next up I'll work on an N-scale bridge. I was thinking of making one that would fit on any stretch of river, but on further thought I'll make one with its own length of river. It'll look better that way. 

Merry Christmas!

I'm off to make lunch then it'll be on to a spot of Christmas baking. A Merry Christmas to one and all!

River sections - third stage

With Christmas Day fast approaching I put on a spurt of modelling activity and finished the third stage of the river sections today. The last coat of Envirotex Lite varnish has been poured and the sections put aside to set.

Once all is dry it's on to the fourth and last stage - painting and flocking the banks. I plan to make a fordable section and a bridge, something like Hays Bridge in north Oxfordshire, which featured in the Battle of Cropredy Bridge.

 

There are still plenty of bridges like it still in service in the UK, so it'll do just fine for AVBCW too. I also have a couple of large-ish sheets of clear acrylic, which will make good ponds or small lakes, depending on scale.

At the moment I'm thinking it's high time I got a game or two on over the holiday week. The Barsetshire Regiment is still making its way through G'Wandaland, and I have the penultimate battle - probably - of the VBCW campaignette to CoC rules. We'll see what I can fit in, between baking Christmas goodies. 

Bolle's Royalist Regiment of Foot

Another weekend, and another regiment added to the ECW collection. This is the Royalist Bolle's Regiment.

I arranged them with the same frontage as my Parliamentary foot, but with fewer numbers to reflect the poor recruiting and equipage of the Royalists in the earlier war. Since I've been painting and basing figures in singles and pairs for some time for the VBCW collection, I'd forgotten what a pain in the fundament basing close-order figures is!

Currently, I have Royalist cavalry on the painting block. A look over the remaining ECW lead pile shows a typical problem with buying multi-figure packs: I don't have enough of some infantry figure poses, and a few too many others. There are enough for another regiment of Royalist foot, but not enough for another Parliamentary regiment. I think I'll need as many packs again to make up a reasonable size force. Ho hum.

Progress with the river sections is slow but steady. I hope to finish them before the month is out. I'm impressed with the Envirotex Lite. It's relatively easy to work with, and the drying time isn't too long. The pack I have is a few years old, and it sat unused in storage in a freezing-cold garage for months, yet it's still perfectly fine. It's a bit expensive, but I think it's worth it.