Dismounted Union cavalry trooper (Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge entry #12)

Now that we have come close to the end of the Challenge, I think there could be no more fitting theme than a last stand. I think there are many fitting examples of a last stand in history, be it 300 Spartans at Thermopylae (sadly I did not have the time to paint those) to the last defenders of Berlin. But I wanted something, that painted a universal picture. And one that really does it for me is an unhorsed cavalryman, left with nothing but his saddle and fighting attackers off at close range. And luckily Warlord Games did a lovely little vignette showing just that for Historicon last year. No I was not there myself (my last visit to Historicon was already nine years ago), but I found a fine gentleman, who had been willing to buy me a mini and send it to me. The annoying thing for me though was that Warlord sold the overstock through their website shortly after… so much for exclusive mini! 😦

Anyway, the mini itself is really nice in dynamic pose, accuracy and detail. Unfortunately I had the mother of all mould misalignments (2mm) so there was a fair bit of cutting and filling required to make it look fine. Anyway, here is the final result:  

Dismounted Union Cavalry trooper (front)

Dismounted Union Cavalry trooper (side)

Dismounted Union Cavalry trooper (rear)

For those of you wondering about the other entries, here is the link to the special page Curt set up for this fortnight theme and for people to cast their votes for favourites.

 

Crisis Antwerp 2013 picture report

So having returned from Crisis, I would like to show you some of the sights that could be seen there.

As usual, all pictures are linked to bigger versions!

If you did host a game and you can not find any pictures of it, I really apologize, it is probably that the pictures I took of it were no good. Sorry!

First of, just to give you an idea of the size of it all (and this is just the first hall):

Crisis 2013 1st Hall aerial shot

I will refrain fro saying too much about the games and rather let the pictures do the talking, now if you should find anything that is mislabeled please let me know!

This could be a find example of that since I simply call it Wild West although from the looks of it, it was post ACW US cavalry vs. Native Americans.

Wild West

Wild West

Now Warmachine is not my cup of cake, bit this one was great with its two levels!

Warmachine

Warmachine lower level

TSA Afghanistan Participation

THS
(Fort George 1779)

THS
(Fort George 1779)

THS
(Fort George 1779)

THS
(Fort George 1779)

Stirpitz Hussars
Ocana 1809

SELWG
Valhalla Demo

Red vs. Blue

Red Star Games Dien Bien Phu Table

RCW (I think)

Rapid Fire Market Garden

North Star Games 1672

Napoleonic Paper Flats

Militia Brabantia Wargames Club – Punic Wars Naval

Militia Brabantia Wargames Club – Punic Wars Naval

Megabattles Ligny

Megabattles Ligny

Megabattles Ligny

Medival Japan Demo table

Medival Japan Demo table

Flames of War Market Garden

Flames of War Market Garden

Korean War

Korean War

Flames of War

Flames of War Ardennes

Fire and Sword Demo

De Alde Garde
Geulders vs. Geulders

Darkest Africa

Darkest Africa

D-Day

D-Day

D-Day

Culloden 1746

Culloden

Crush the Kaiser

Crush the Kaiser

Blood Bowl

Battlegroup Fall of the Reich

Battlegroup Fall of the Reich

Barry Hilton

Barry Hilton

ACW

54mm ECW

Now these were the general impressions from the show and now on the game I hosted… the battle of Möckern. I have to admit, that we did not really get to play a lot. There were always so many people who came to chat, that eventually there was no cohesive game to speak off. This will be remedied soon though, since we are planning to game it for good, before the year is over.

DHC Wargames Club
Völkerschlacht von Leipzig, Battle of Möckern

Thanks to all who came by and introduced themselves, really enjoyed chatting with all of you. Hope you got the same feeling in return!

DHC Wargames Club
Völkerschlacht von Leipzig, Battle of Möckern

What surprised me, was that this was the only game on display that dealt with the Völkerschlacht of Leipzig / Battle of Nations. Given that the bicentennial was only two weeks ago, I would have guessed there would be about a dozen other games.

And I was even more impressed by one gentleman who looked at the uniforms and flags of the troops on the table in detail and then went on to ask if this was Möckern. Really impressed by this kind off-the-top-of-the-head knowledge!!! And it made me proud to see that all the details I have worked on have not been wasted. Thank you!

DHC Wargames Club
Völkerschlacht von Leipzig, Battle of Möckern

DHC Wargames Club
Völkerschlacht von Leipzig, Battle of Möckern

DHC Wargames Club
Völkerschlacht von Leipzig, Battle of Möckern

DHC Wargames Club
Völkerschlacht von Leipzig, Battle of Möckern

Now someone lease also made me proud and that was Sami, who spend the day (and the previous night in the hotel) in the most well behaved way. Not bad for a dog of 5 month on his first big trip to a war-games show!

Sami

And this is the view we got just when we left the grounds at the show.

Scheldt

Hope you enjoyed the report and hope to see you next year!

 

 

Painting mud

The recent posts about the minis for the La Bricole painting competition kicked off a lot of requests for my recipe for how I painted the mud. I am happy to deliver, but I have to say that it is so simple, that I am too embarrassed to call it a tutorial.

First a few words on where to paint the mud. Now while battlefields themselves can be wet from constant rain and the like, they are often not that muddy. This requires the soil to be churned up. Either from plowing, dozens of feet walking over the same spot, hooves, wheels, tracks or explosions. So this might not happen at too many places on the battlefields themselves, but it sure happens on the march or in camp. So even with soldiers just arriving on a pristine battlefield, they will be dirty. Obviously most of the dirt will around the feet and ankles, their knees (while striking tents, preparing foot or just sitting on the ground) or if you want on their behinds (usually not worth the effort since it would be hidden by the coats anyway). The exception I make are officers, since they usually had people setting up their tents, cooking their food and most of th time did not have to sit on the ground. So I only “muddy” their feet. With soldiers wearing greatcoats I also muddy up the lower edge of the coat, assuming that it would brush on the ground while kneeling, sitting down or just getting their share of mud thrown up by the shoes while walking or marching.

Now on to the actual painting. Obviously you should have painted the clothing and boots by now, or anything you want dirtied up. What you need is an old, wide brush. The ones usually used for basecoating are just fine. The hairs should not be longer than 1/2 the original length and no less than 2/3. It does not matter if some hairs are longer then others. Now you can use both synthetic or organic (red sable), but chances are good that paint will clog the brush up. So organic brushes are better since they will not melt if you need a solvent to clean them. So the brush should look like this:

old brush

Pick up paint with it and brush it out on a piece of paper until you have about the amount left on it you would need for drybrushing. Now stiple the dirty areas with paint. For the first step I use Valejo “Flat Earth” (VAL 983). This represents the mud that is still somewhat wet.

Mud step 1

I now repeat this with Valejo Panzer Aces “Feldgrau II Highlight” (VAL 339). This represents the mud that has already started to dry. Go easier on the spots you already did since you still want “wet mud” to be showing through. And stiple some on a little higher, giving the impression of mud that splashed well… a little higher. In real life the higher you go the less will splash there, meaning there will be less new mud getting there and giving the old more chance to dry.

Mud step 2

And that is it. I usually paint metal stuff like sword sheaths, spurs and so on after doing the mud. Assuming that there is no fabric it can soak into, I think it will not cling on as good, dry out and fall or rub off faster.

In the end the results should look like this:

Loading 6pdr.

Bavarian Grenadiers

French Grenadiers

As you can see the effect works best on dark and light colours and not as good on tans and browns (what a surprise). Hope you can put this to good use!

 

GMB Flags & what happened to this place in WWII

Today my packages were in the post. One of them was by GMB flags. Now I have been using his flags for almost a decade now. All my ACW units have them and when I started doing Napoleonics they were the first choice as well. Now about a month ago someone complained on TMP that he had received bad service, which came as quite a surprise, since I never got anything but exceptional service all those years, including a custom flag at request. Actually Grahame would be on my top 5 prefered retailer / manufacturer list. All this happened at about the time, when I realised, that I had bought half his Prussian range, but none of the flags I needed for Möckern (honestly… not a single one). So I ordered what I needed through his new webstore. Got a personal message back within the day, an automated message that everything had been shipped within 48 hrs. and everything arrived in perfect order. Not sure why someone seemed unhappy on TMP, but I can only give my complete endorsement for GMB Flags.

My GMB order

Regarding WWII. The area I live in has the highest ration of unexploded ordnance from WWII in the whole of Germany (and no I am living nowhere near Dresden. Now this means that whenever someone wants to build anything on their land, it needs to be checked for bombs, shells, grenades and ammo. First step is to look at aerial reconnaissance pictures or plans for German defences. If these show hits without telltale crater, have too many shadows or show a position step two is to have everything probed. If that comes up positive step three is bomb disposal. I have seen my share of the later when I was still an officer on active duty in civil defence. Now we are planing to add some sun roofs to the house, so a check was due. Yesterday I got a call from magistrates saying that we got the all clear after step one. We were only subject to intermediate artillery shelling. So now I know what happened here 66 years ago.

There will be another post in a couple of minutes.

 

Getting started

Well I guess times have caught up with me. When blogs first emerged a couple of years ago I simply thought that all they achieved was senseless ramblings. But over recent years that has changed. I have found a number of great blogs, which convinced me, that there is something more to blogging then first met my eye. Plus I find myself more and more lacking the time to update our clubs homepage  (dhc-wargames.de). So I decided to start a blog, too.

So what is this about? Well generally speaking… about the biggest of my four hobbies… tabletop wargaming. Although I fear I will mention the other three from time to time as well. So you can expect posts about minis painted, projects being worked on and games played.

Speaking of which… projects. Last week it dawned on me, that I already had my projects planned until 2018. I am not sure if it is pure madness to plan this far ahead (a topic I opened on theminiaturespage.com seemed to suggest that I am the only one), but this is the way it is right now. There is one show a year, that is the main event for me. That is Crisis in Antwerp, Belgium. Eventually there will be other shows to attend, but this one holds a special place in my heart. So what have I planned for it?

• Well for this year it will be most likely be a WWII game, since it will be 70^th anniversary of Operation Barbarossa. The nice thing about it is… I already got the minis and terrain for that covered.
• For 2012 it will be Gettysburg or at least part of day one (Archers and Davis attack on the fields around Willoughby Run from 1000h to 1200h). I know that the battle of Gettysburg was in 1863, so this will only be the 149^th birthday, but since I have different plans for 2013, it had to be one year early. And again… I already have the minis and terrain covered.
• So what is so special for 2013? It is the 200^th birthday of the Völkerschlacht von Leipzig (Battle of Nations) and I want to depict Yorck´s attacks on Möckern. Now this will be a hard one, since I have no terrain for it yet and the only minis painted for it so far is a battery of Prussian artillery which should be finished this coming weekend.
• 2014 will see the 70^th anniversary of the Normandy Landings, so that was an easy pick. Again most of the minis and all the terrain are ready, so this will buy me time for 2015.
• Obviously it will be Waterloo in 2015. My plans right now are the massed cavalry attacks, but again… the numbers of painted minis are ridiculously low, so this will be even more work then Leipzig in about as little time.
• I have no plans for 2016 and 2017, although I am sure that one of those years will feature Quatre Bras, since I will have most of those minis ready when I am done with Waterloo.
• 2018 will see the Kaiserschlacht for its 100^th birthday, but only on a skirmish scale.

As you can see, there will probably be lots of Napoleonic minis to be seen in the future on this blog. We shall be starting off this weekend with the 54ème Inf. de Ligne, the 12ème Cuirassiers and the Preussische Fussartilleriebatterie Nr. 12.

I hope I have not completely come full circle here, in the sense that I have only provided senseless ramblings. But since I do not want to end a post without any pictures… here is one of a Prussian artillery officer. The mini is a 28mm Calpe Miniatures Horse Artillery Officer. I painted him for the 12th Btry., but he will not end up on their initial bases, since I felt, that he looked a little out-of-place. He will find his place once I tackle the wagon park, but until then, he will be all by himself. Just as I am here right now. So comments will be appreciated! 😉

Prussian Artillery Officer

Rear view