il Desto Fante

In need of a reset

2011-08-31T14:52:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow is September 1st, and it makes almost a five-month of long sabbatical from posting. This has been, indeed, a fairly frustrating year, hobby-wise. As I briefly mentioned in the past, for more than six months I were not able to purchase much needed miniatures, because of a long and unfortunate sequence of events including the demise of GFI/Minifigs, the supplier of my much beloved Minifigs 15mm miniatures, and the collapse of the relationship between Essex Miniatures and its U.S. distributor Wargames Inc. To say the least, these situations were very annoying, and left me rather jaded in respect of the professionalism in the hobby, or lack thereof. All I wanted was spending my money on toy soldiers, dude. It was indeed frustrating not being able to succeed in such an apparently elementary task, and to deal with counterparties that were less than straightforward in addressing some basic customer request.

Fortunately, things are improving. A two-year baby boy makes very difficult to find the time to paint of play games, but it doesn't deter dad for continuing the build up of his forces, nor to plan ahead future campaigns and new directions where to direct my hobby interests. At the end of spring, I finally succeeded in getting the much desired figures; thus, I am glad to report that a rather massive order of British, French, Bavarian troops, plus some additional Austrian and Prussian complements, is at Fernando, my miniature painter of choice who did marvels on my previous order. I have already seen some previews of his work on the current batch, and I am very excited about it. A few other units are getting completed by yours truly, slowly but steadily -- hopefully pictures will follow soon. In the making, new plans for scenarios, new plans for my long dormant Imagi-nation campaign, new plans for additional WAS/SYW units. Wargaming is slow, but life is good. I feel I am ready for a much needed reset, and I look forward blogging more frequently.

Experimenting with terrain

2011-03-14T20:29:00.000-07:00

I have always had mixed feelings with felt as wargame terrain. Yes, it is cheap, and I cannot quite put my finger on it, but I always perceived it as being... cheap, in fact? Compared with the precious miniatures we deploye, and the often beautiful buildings and structures on our tables, felt never looked quite right to me.
Or maybe it was just a matter of execution. Some friends seem to be very easygoing and not too concerned about the silliness of some of their felt patches on the tabletop. But, after all, it is not the material, but what you make with it, right? So, I decided to experiment a little bit with felt myself, and I am glad to report that I am very pleased by the result.
I started with patches of brownish ochra felt, in order to recreate the effect of a summer field. Here's how it looks like.

Happy with what I see, I push the idea further, working with patches of dark green felt in order to recreate the effect of woods. I need more trees, and some bushes to do justice to the concept, but I was also pleased by the first stab in this direction. I am not a fan yet of the thin stripes of dark green used to underscore bushes along a road, or maybe a little countryside creek running across the ope fields, but overall, I am confident I can improve on that front, too.

Since I was on a roll, I embarked in the most ambitious project: to use thin stripes of green felt, of the very same type as my background terrain, to model the banks of a small river. Here the goal is to show some roughness and three-dimensional effect around the edges of the flowing water, something that I have never been able to accomplish in the past. I need to do better work with some glue here, but I was again very pleased by my first attempt.

This is a very rough first stroke at the whole idea, but I am won over. I think felt will become a recurrent trick out of my terrain bag. I just LOVE the effect on the river banks. I thought the corn fields were nice, and they did not feel cheap at all. And I see some potential is the dark green patches for thick woods and forests.
Overall, a productive evening.

Die Fighting, part II: a preliminary review

2011-03-13T14:55:00.001-07:00

As anticipated in my previous post, Die Fighting is the latest set of rules by Bob Jones for the Horse and Musket period 1700-1900. These are tactical rules, in the sense that the basic unit is the battalion, unlike Bob's previous set "Repique: Zouave" which was more of a grand-tactical game based on brigades and divisions. In this respect, Die Fighting takes a more traditional approach to wargaming scale. The game has been out for about ten days, and there is already an excellent online review by Scott Mingus at the Charge! blog.

Scott does indeed an excellent job at reviewing the book and the basic mechanisms of the game. I hope my comments here will not result in much redundancy, but I still want to share a few of my reactions at a first reading. I have not had an opportunity to play the game yet, but several business trips over the last ten days (and the resulting idle time sitting at airports) gave me the chance to read the text a couple of times, and start some work on an order of battle for my future first playtest. So, here's my take on Die Fighting.

Quality of product: very good. It is a nice softcover booklet of 54 pages, including two sets of cards and one Quick Reference Card. The quality of the printing is very good, the text is well organized and easy to read. I would have liked a few more examples, but examples are indeed included and are helpful to get a better understanding of some subtler points in the rules. Overall, the feel is that of a "simple" game, almost with an "Old School" flair-- but definitely not simplistic!

Core concept. Units in each opposing army have a basic "type" (guard, elite, regular, irregular, etc.) Based on this "type", each unit contribute a certain number of "resource dice" (six-sided dice) to the army common pool. Actions like movement or combat cost resource dice. When you run out of dice, you've lost. Simple, isn't it? In reality, this whole "game engine" appears to create rather sophisticated trade-offs for the player. You need to spend resource dice to execute your plan, but you must be cognizant that the leadership resources that dice represent are not unlimited. Excess spending of dice and lack of discipline in staying focus on the task at hand may result in costly waste; sudden opportunities can be exploited, but you must keep in mind that resource dice are not infinite, and an action now might come at the cost of an action later.

Other dice. The rules add two additional sources of dice: leadership dice, depending on the quality of commanders and sub-commanders, and "free" dice, that depend on specific game circumstances as dictated by a Free Dice Table (which has mostly to do with terrain and combat factors.)

Sequence of play. True to his philosophy of game design, Bob did not write a I-go-You-go game; yet, unlike Piquet, the cycling of activities through the turn can be more or less structured. The game revolves around six very straightforward phases: specialized actions, officer actions, infantry actions, cavalry actions, artillery actions, rally restore and reload actions. The actual order in which they are executed depends by the period that is being played, and/or the players' personal preferences. Players can choose between three basic phase orderings: "Fixed Synchronous, " "Fixed Asynchronous," and "Variable Asynchronous," which, approximately refer to a same fixed sequence for both player, a individually-set fixed sequence (that may differ between players), or a more chaotic variable sequence. Additional options add some randomness that would be particularly suitable to solo playing.

Movement. It depends on a roll of up two resource dice, plus or minus other dice depending on leadership and terrain factors. If you are familiar of The Sword And The Flame, the mechanism in Die Fighting reminded me of those movement rules, with a few original twists added.

Combat. In firing and melee, attacker and defender roll their dice, and a variety of consequences (from "no effect' to "retreat," "disorder," "rout," and losses in resource dice) will depend upon the difference between the total score of the dice rolled by the attacker and the dice rolled by the defender. The game does NOT require stand removal as losses accumulate. Disordered or routing units can be rallied during the "Rally, Restore and Reload" Phase.

Basing. Some recommendations are included in the rules, but as long as the two opposing armies are based in a consistent manner, the rules will work for any basing scheme.

Period flavor. The rules include specific provisions for the "Linear Warfare" period, with two subsets of tables for the earlier War of Spanish Succession and the later War of Austrian Succession and the Seven Years War; the "Revolutionary Warfare" for the American and French Revolutions; the "Napoleonic Wars"; and the "Wars of Transition" (ACW and FPW). More templates will be freely available online at a later time (see below about "game support.") A Colonial expansion is already in preparation.

Game support. Die Fighting is fully supported by the Repique website and Bob Jones' Zouave blog; furthermore, Bob is very active in addressing general and specific questions on the game at the Repique Yahoo forum, which, in the files section, includes FAQ and the inevitable Errata.

Of course, despite our bad habits as wargamers, rules are not made to be read, but to be played, and every preliminary review can only offer a limited taste of the game until units are deployed on the battletop, and a battle takes place. That's exactly what I am planning to do, and in the meanwhile I will make note about the actually preparation of the game (preparations of OOB, rating of units, organization of sub-commanders' battle groups, etc. etc.) in order to share in additional posts on Die Fighting. For the time being, let's just hope that "real life" will cooperate letting me having the time to follow-up on my plans, without throwing surprises or unplanned business trips on my schedule.

Die Fighting, part I: Bob Jones' implicit theology

2011-03-13T13:48:00.000-07:00

I received in the mail the latest work of Bob Jones, of Piquet fame. It's Die Fighting, a ruleset for the Horse and Musket period 1700-1900. Before I write a review, which will probably take a separate post, and after, as a full disclaimer, I mention that Bob is a good friend, companion in several good meals and sparking chats, I have to say a few words about Bob Jones' implicit "theology." By that I mean the views about wargaming, rules writing, and combat that lie at the heart of a rules writer's work. In the "Die Fighting" Foreword, Pat McGuire offers many interesting remarks about Bob's style, and in the very same spirit I want to add one though or two to the excellent points made by Pat.

There are at least three core ideas that shape Bob Jones rules:

he writes games where players face several crucial decision-node points. In this respect, Piquet was widely and wildly misunderstood. In Bob's games, you have a chance to act on your own turn, phase or card, but you also need to consider opportunities to act at any other moment, oftentimes directly challenging the actions undertaken by your opponent.

he writes game that reflect the chaotic nature of the battlefield, where you seldom have a clear picture of the whole situation, where circumstances change suddenly and radically, and where your seldom have control of the events when the battle unfold.

he writes games where leadership is fundamental, but it is also a scarce resource. Either in the composition of a sequence deck, a' la Piquet, or in the tally of Resource Dice, as in Die Fighting, Bob's rules provide you some latitude for action, but a latitude which is not unlimited. Doing something now usually means that you will not be able to do something later. Maddening, for those of us used to linear, I-go-You-go sequences of play: but a mechanism which is a wonderful engine of excitement and uncertainty in the game!

On this backdrop of gaming "philosophy", on to Die Fighting: any fully successful creation that delivers exactly what it promise to accomplish! In the next post, a preliminary review, following a reading of the rules before my first playtest.

The strength of my cavalry squadrons, and the sad state of the miniatures business

2011-02-28T10:35:00.000-08:00

I spend most of my 2010 working on my Seven Year War project: shopping for miniatures in the spring, painting and getting miniatures painted by Fernando in the summer, and basing my armies in the fall. So, it was with a certain disappointment that later in the year I realized I made a mistake.
I built my cavalry squadrons at a strength of twelve miniatures (on six bases of two miniatures each), under the assumption that a six-base squadron will look good next to six-base infantry units (each with four miniatures per base, for a total of twenty-four miniatures per infantry unit.) Wrong! Once I deployed my squadrons on the field, it became apparent that they could look even better if they were sixteen miniatures strong. You can judge by yourself by looking at my Austrian cuirassuers.

A linear formation of eight miniatures wide and two deep looks good, and for larger games I can split it in two, and deploy two squadrons of eight miniatures each. It sounds like a win-win arrangement. And also in plain march line the impact would probably be better than the current six bases strength, although the impact in this case is already pretty good.

So, no big deal, you'd think. Go out, but four more miniatures for squadron, get them painted, and voila’, all my squadrons upgrade in strength. Instead… wrong again! I made the big mistake of ordering my missing miniatures to GFI/Minifigs in November, and I found myself entangled in the sad story of the near collapse of their business. After nearly two months of wait, I ended up cancelling my order – fortunately, I didn’t suffer a financial loss thanks to the reimbursement by the excellent Paypal: nonetheless, what a waste of time! Not good. But then I proceed with my next best alternative, i.e. ordering from the US stockist of Essex Miniatures... and I ended up stuck in the back-log of their inventory restocking, which apparently takes biblical times these days because of security delays at the U.S. Customs! Definitely, not my luckiest streak. Bottom line: I have been waiting thirty-six miniatures to complete nine squadrons since mid-November 2010, and tomorrow is March 1st 2011. Ordering miniatures should not feel like root canal.

I am back

2011-02-26T20:28:00.000-08:00

I am back. I went five months without an update on my blog, but believe me, it was not for lack of ideas, projects, or progress on my miniatures and terrain. Rather, it was a complete lack of time; it didn't help, either, that I am now blogging for professional reasons. Quite frankly: if you spend many hours at the office thinking about blogging and writing for a blog, a blog is not exactly what you want to do when you come back home at night.
But anyway: I am back now. The goal is to post here at least once a week. Take it as my New Year Resolution. And if I will not deliver, feel free to come and poke at me in the comments!

In the meanwhile, as a teaser of things to come, two pictures from my SYW project now fully under development. Pandurs (above) and Austrian infantry (below).

And, oh, yes, progress also on the terrain front, as you see!

A completed project?

2010-09-30T16:05:00.000-07:00

Is there anything like a complete and completed project in wargaming?!? Am I going to die, next?

Well, yes and no (about the project, not about me dying, of course!)

It seems that my colonial Abyssinia project is extremely close to reach its conclusion. My original target was to have all the necessary units required to play every scenario in Mark Fastoso's Colonial Campaigns book, Ethiopia 1887-1895. And I am now glad to report that the target, by and large, has been achieved. The line-up is nearly completed: all the miniatures are in, painted or very near to be finished. I can count, for the Italians, three units of line infantry, two bersaglieri, five askari, three Eritrean bands, one squadron of mounted askari lancers, plus guns, Maxim guns, and wagons. For the Ethiopians, bands of Galla warriors, Bana warriors, and Danakil lancers (two each), four bands armed with muskets and rifles, four bands of Tigrai irregular, two generic spearmen units, four mounted bands, and guns.

Of course, with hindsight, a few choices could have been different. One day, I might buy a few packs from the Italian shop Aude and get some real "Penne di Falco" askari lancers, instead of my own conversion from Egyptian lancers. And yes, sooner or later, I would add an Ethiopian "barded" cavalry unit from Eureka, a range which did not exist when I embarked in my project. But again, these are minor quibbles, refinements on a project which is now firmly built, and ready to be brought to the next stage -- the tabletop!

As I was going to the final touches to some of the aforementioned unit, I had to good idea to take some picture of the final result. You may have already seen some of these miniatures in early stages of development (here and here), and so you may imagine my satisfaction of bringing the work on them to a closing.

The first two pictures show the Tigrai irregular bands, 15mm Irregular miniatures.

Next, Bana warriors from the excellent 15mm Tin Soldier range, which I plan to deploy as Shoa warriors.

I made sure that at least one miniature could stand out as leader, and here's the detail on the Shoan one.

Tin Soldier also offers Galla warriors, and here's what I was able to came up with.

And here's a more dramatic shot of the charging Galla. Notice again the leader.

Finally, the band(s) of Danakil lancers (Tin Soldier.)
.

I also completed the painting job on the Ethiopian leaders. Special attention was paid to create a nice vignette for Negus Neghesti, but I also made sure to paint some good details on the other general offered in the Tin Soldier command pack.

A final note: all my Irregular and Tin Soldier 15mm miniatures are distributed in the U.S. by Silver Eagle Wargame Supplies. Over the years, Jacob has provided top notch customer service and assistance, and it is a distributor whom I enthusiastically endorse and recommend.

WAS & SYW 15mm options for minor armies

2010-08-07T21:28:00.000-07:00

A few days back I posted the following question on TMP, but the answers I received were unusually inconclusive... so I am re-posting here, hoping to find some additional insights.

I am tempted to expand my WAS/SYW collection, now being built around Prussian, Austrian, and French forces. In particular, I'd like to add some selected regiments from minor countries; I am looking in particular to Saxony, Bavaria, and the Reichsarmee. Since I am working with 15mm, as a matter of fact it all boils down to the style of the coat.

In the case of the Reichsarmee, the excellent article in the Seven Years war Kronoskaf site helps a lot, stating very clearly which contingent wore a Austrian-like type of coat, and which ones followed the Prussian style.

But what about Bavarians and Saxons? I found reference for the Bavarians pointing both to French and Austrian styles; as for the Saxons, I have been looking to plates for quite some time, and I have not been able to decide which way I should head to.

Unfortunately, available 15mm miniatures cover well only the major players: British, Prussians, Austrians, French, Russians; all the 15mm ranges I know of remain somewhat wanting for the smaller contingents. Which leaves me with the doubt about what would be good "stand-in" for Saxony and Bavaria? Could any expert in the field help?

As always, thanks in advance for sharing your insight!

A momentous decision

2010-07-20T08:25:00.000-07:00

About a couple of month ago, I had an epiphany.

I was looking at my Marlburian miniatures, feeling not too happy about the basing, nor about my painting, or lack thereof... I looked at the pile of well-ordered units waiting to be painted on my workbench. I quickly thought of how much time it would take me to add just one or two new units to the current roster. And all the sudden, I had to ask myself the question: what is my hobby? Is it my hobby primarily painting miniatures? Or it is about playing battles with them? Until a couple of years ago, my answer would have been a resolute "Both!" but what about now? I am at the stage of my life in which time has become the scarcest of the resources. Back in the days, I was not bothered by projects that would require one, or two years of painting units before one single die could be rolled on the tabletop. But now? Those one or two years have become three, or four, or who knows how many. Painting in any significant batch of time has become nearly impossible, and you don't make much progress with twenty minutes here, and twenty minutes there.

In that moment, I realized it was time for a decision. Either I make painting my primary hobby, and I postpone for good any hope to fight a battle any time soon, or I focus on the gaming side of the hobby, which may require... somebody else to do my painting.

OK, I said it. Until a few years ago, this was anathema to me. But now my disposable time has evaporated, and it might be time to reassess how I do things. My good friends Peter "Gonsalvo" and Bob Jones, of "Piquet" and now "Zouave" fame, have been recommending the outsourcing of painting for a long time. I think the moment has come for me to follow the lead of these wise men. As of July 2010, the decision is taken: I am back to miniature wargaming. And a large package is about to be shipped to Fernando in Sri Lanka to get the proverbial job done.

I feel I am about to enter a new era of appreciation and enjoyment of my hobby.

I am back!

2010-07-19T13:43:00.001-07:00

Well, it has been a while since my last update, wasn't it?

You may imagine DestoFante leisurely reclined next to a pool, or on a beach, with a frozen margarita in one hand, and the latest issues of the Battlegames magazine is the other, maybe only partially distracted by a couple of beauties sunbathing nearby (that's usually when Mrs. DestoFante's slap brings me back to reality...)

And you couldn't be any farther from the truth. In fact, the last 60 days have been busy. Really busy. On the personal front: the DestoFante family bought a new home in May, went to closing in June, did the remodeling in July, and we are now ready to move next week! The job has kept me busy, too, with travels through the Midwest and the East Coast. The good news is -- because of a meeting in Philadelphia, I was able to be at Historicon, although for just one day and half! I will provide my personal report from the convention in the next few days.

But, most importantly: I am getting into a new period. The war of Austrian Succession/Seven Years War. This sounds like a momentous decision, but it is not: it is the result of a couple of years of pondering (read what I wrote back in 2008, here and here) and some conclusions reached over the last couple of months. The explanation of which will take the next post.

For the time being -- I am back!

Alternative Europe -- courtesy of The Economist

2010-05-02T08:38:00.000-07:00

Over the past several months, I have noticed a growing interest in expanding the concept of imagi-nations, traditionally linked to 18th century Europe, to more contemporary settings, namely the 1920s and 1930s. Originally, at least on my radar, was the development of the "Very British Civil War" project -- I have not bought the booklets yet, but I am waiting for a review by Bob Cordery who recently took the plunge. More recently, a joint effort has culminated in the blog Interbellum, with its associated links to the imaginary nations of Borduria, Tradgardland, and the like.

I have to confess to remain tepid to the period. Call me an elitist, or an old school whig, but the age of mass ideology has little appeal on me. Past the early 1920s, I'd rather fast forward to the 1950s and pick it up from the de-colonization conflicts. But that's just me.

Nevertheless, I was intrigued by a recent article in the magazine The Economist. It seems the editors did a good job in shuffling the cards, and coming up with an alternative map of Europe, more reflective, to their saying, to the current geo-political realities. What I like in the piece is that the new map is which is both "realistic" (whatever it means...) and stimulating for our hobby purposes. It does not create an imaginary geography from scratch, but it adjusts the continent in a way that is very stimulating for designing scenarios in the 1920s and 1930s. And, how cool, they even made room for Ruritania, Borduria and Vulgaria!

Here's the re-drawn map of Europe according to The Economist, and the article that I am copying in its entirety.

Redrawing the map -- The European map is outdated and illogical. Here's how it should look

Apr 29th 2010 | From The Economist online

PEOPLE who find their neighbours tiresome can move to another neighbourhood, whereas countries can’t. But suppose they could. Rejigging the map of Europe would make life more logical and friendlier.
Britain, which after its general election will have to confront its dire public finances, should move closer to the southern-European countries that find themselves in a similar position. It could be towed to a new position near the Azores. (If the journey proves a bumpy one, it might be a good opportunity to make Wales and Scotland into separate islands).
In Britain’s place should come Poland, which has suffered quite enough in its location between Russia and Germany and deserves a chance to enjoy the bracing winds of the North Atlantic and the security of sea water between it and any potential invaders.
Belgium’s incomprehensible Flemish-French language squabbles (which have just brought down a government) are redolent of central Europe at its worst, especially the nonsenses Slovakia thinks up for its Hungarian-speaking ethnic minority. So Belgium should swap places with the Czech Republic. The stolid, well-organised Czechs would get on splendidly with their new Dutch neighbours, and vice versa.
Belarus, currently landlocked and trying to wriggle out from under Russia’s thumb, would benefit greatly from exposure to the Nordic region, whose influence played a big role in helping the Baltics shed their Soviet legacy. So it should move northwards to the Baltic, taking the place of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. These three countries should move to a new location somewhere near Ireland. Like the Emerald Isle, they have bitten the bullet of “internal devaluation”, regaining competitiveness by cutting wages and prices, rather than taking the easy option of depreciating the currency, or borrowing recklessly as Greece has. The Baltics would also be glad to be farther away from Russia and closer to America. Amid the other moves, Kaliningrad could shift up the coast towards Russia, ending its anomalous status as a legacy exclave of the second world war and removing any possibility of future Russian mischief-making about rail transit.
Into the slots vacated by Poland and Belarus should come the western and central parts of Ukraine. Germany, with the Ukrainian border now only 100km from Berlin, would start having to take the country’s European integration seriously. The Ukrainian shift would allow Russia to move west and south too, thus vacating Siberia for the Chinese, who will take it sooner or later anyway.
Next comes some reordering of the Balkans. Macedonia, Albania and Kosovo should rotate places, with Macedonia taking Kosovo’s place next to Serbia, Kosovo moving to Albania’s slot on the coast, and Albania shifting inland. Paranoid Greek fantasies about territorial claims from the deluded Slav irredentists from the north would evaporate. Bosnia is too fragile to move and will have to stay where it is.
Switzerland and Sweden are often confused. So it would make sense to move Switzerland north, where it would fit neatly into the Nordic countries. Its neutrality would go down well with the Finns and Swedes; Norway would be glad to have another non-EU country next door.
Germany can stay where it is, as can France. But Austria could shift westwards into Switzerland’s place, making room for Slovenia and Croatia to move north-west too.* They could join northern Italy in a new regional alliance (ideally it would run by a Doge, from Venice). The rest of Italy, from Rome downwards, would separate and join with Sicily to form a new country, officially called the Kingdom of Two Sicilies (but nicknamed Bordello). It could form a currency union with Greece, but nobody else.

* A welcome side-effect of these changes will be to make space for previously fictional creations such as Anthony Hope's Ruritania, Hergé's Syldavia and Borduria, and Vulgaria, the backdrop for “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang”.

Lot of food for thought and dream, uh?

A tale of four (postal) orders

2010-04-06T14:40:00.000-07:00

This not a "test", because it was not really designed to be one: just an interesting "tale" about ordering miniatures all over the world, with different conclusions to be drawn about consumer services -- mostly, very positive conclusions.

In the evening of March 23rd I submitted four orders for WWI miniatures to complement my Turkish and Australian/British/Indian forces for the Middle East theatre. The four orders were not exactly comparable, as I picked and chose missing elements here and there. From Eureka in Australia I ordered a few Light Brigade mounted figures. From QRF, a mix of infantry and mounted troops both for ANZAC and Turks, plus a couple of guns and some MG sets. From Peter Pig, some WWI Indian bags plus a few other bags from the Sudan range, and some heads in sun hat for swapping and conversions. Finally, from Minifigs/Caliver a variety of items including more mounted Light Brigade and Indian infantry, plus British infantry in sun helmet, some Yeomanry troops and a Rolls-Royce armoured car. And a few bags to check out (Circassian cossacks, uh?) Minifigs was probably the largest and most diversified order, with QRF coming second in variety, Peter Pig third with a couple of unusual items. Eureka was probably the simplest, most straightforward order to fill.

The submission of orders and payment went very smoothly, with prompt email replies with payment receipts from Peter Pig, QRF, and Minifigs. For Eureka, I had to check back on the website. All in all, it was a total of three orders from the UK and one from Australia to be shipped to Chicago, USA.
[By the way: can you tell we just experience a dollar rally in currency markets?]

That was in the evening of Tuesday, March 23rd. On March 24th, an email from QRF announces that my package has shipped! Good, that's promising... I wonder how this little contest will play out. On the very same day, an email by Minifigs/Caliver tells me to expect the package by mid-April. ...mmm... this sounds a little optimistic. During the winter, my orders to Minifigs took about three weeks to ship, and other three-to-four weeks to be delivered: based on that experience, I was not really expecting my miniatures before early May, but we'll see.

A couple of quiet days follow, and on Wednesday March 31st... the Peter Pig order shows up in the mail! WOW, that was fast, five working days! On Friday April 2nd... surprise! Eureka package is at the front door, too! This is even better, seven working days from Australia! And yesterday, Monday March 5th, the large-ish QRF models are delivered! Excellent!

There is very little to say: these three companies showed a fantastic consumer service... it makes me want to go back and order more! Bravi! to all the gentlemen involved: Nic in Australia, Martin and Geoff in the UK.

Now I am rooting for a prompt delivery from Minifigs/Caliver. These are miniatures I love, and I know the staff at Caliver has been struggling a bit during the transition from the previous ownership. I have been a big fan of this line for several years now, despite the sluggish delivery performance. I can only hope that, by now, Caliver has successfully turn the situation around, and they will indeed succeed in having my package delivered by next week.

Overall, a very satisfying customer experience. Let's knock on wood about the final parcel.

Happy Easter!

2010-04-04T11:43:00.001-07:00

It has been almost 40 days since my last post. In the meanwhile, business took me almost on the other side of the planet for a trip to the Persian Gulf, and then a few days in Washington D.C. Unavoidably, traveling has slowed down my wargaming stamina. Although, there has been something else going on. The hobby flame comes and goes in spurt, and about every two months or so I feel the need to take a break from the current project and refocus on something else, different, or new. For financial reasons, I try to limit the new project at one per year, while old ones come back into the rotation cyclically. From November to February I was very much into Napoleonics, but after my traveling I felt the need to take a break from it, and direct my energies somewhere else, at least for a short while.

So, where do I stand right now? There is an old project gaining strength, and a couple of ideas about a new period to start in 2010.

Old project back on the workbench. This would be WWI Middle East -- Sinai & Palestine, Mesopotamia, and Gallipoli. I have almost completed a full Turkish regiment; I have a mix ANZAC brigade on foot ready and available (Australian and New Zealand troops), and I am currently working on a Light Horse brigade as well. Arabs were already available from my colonial collection. Assorted guns are also being painted. Also, being slowly worked on, a Indian brigade with one British battalion and three Indian ones, plus a Gurkha battalion just because nobody can make it without Gurkhas. I got some missing elements for all the above by filing a few small orders with UK Minifigs, Peter Pig, QRF, and Eureka. At the end, this should make for an interesting collection of troops for a fascinating area of operations. Pictures and progress report to follow soon.

New projects being considered. Fundamentally, there are two. Two and half, to be precise. One of them is WWII in the desert. I have a lot of scenery for this setting, again thanks to my colonial collection. I have some unpainted figures already, sitting in some box in the closet. I am holding back only because of the cost of adding armour. In 15mm scale, the quantity of tanks, armored cars, and various mechanical gadgets required for this front can be intimidating. I am almost tempted to mix 15mm infantry figures (which, in the case of Eureka and Peter Pig, tend to be on the smallish side of the scale, i.e. "true" 15mm) with 12mm tanks from GFI. In general, I am not fond of this type of mixing. But , ehi, I might try with a few vehicles, just to check whether the "feeling" is acceptable, or just plain wrong. Any comments?

Alternatively, project # 2 would be the Thirty Years War. Again, there are miniatures sitting in the closet, and again, I did some stimulating readings on the topic in the past. Here, the question mark relates to the size of those early war tercios, and I also question how a game of the period would "feel." I have a couple of good rules that could easily work: "Father Tilly" (the new edition), "Piquet - Anchor of Faith", "1644". The temptation is definitely there.

Finally, the "half" project I mentioned would be the the Russian Civil War. I can pour some enthusiasm in leading a White Army, but overall I find the military dimension of the whole affair somewhat lacking; or, maybe, I just need to study it more. This would be a natural progression from my WWI project (not the Mesopotamia/Sinai/Gallipoli: the "other" project about the European theaters.) And some of the miniatures could be used for any type of troubles in the 1920s -- Germany & Weimar, Poland, maybe even a pre-dated Very British Civil War, which appears to be the latest fad in wargaming. This theater would be very playable with any WWI rule set, and it would be a perfect way to test the Perfect Captain's "Red Actions" rules that I read with some interest some time ago. I'll keep this idea in the backseat for the time being, but it is not completely off yet, despite not being completely on, either.

More pictures: Austrian and French infantry

2010-02-16T20:13:00.000-08:00

Tonight I will post a few pictures from the set I took yesterday. this time, it's the turn of the infantry units, French and Austrian.
Austrians first. Each individual unit is painted to represent an historical
battalion. You will recognize below troops from from IR 23 Erzherzog Ferdinand (red facings), IR 10 Ansbach-Bayreuth (green/paperlgrun facings), and IR 16 Terzi/Erzherzog Rudolf (violet facings), among the others. Flags are from Warflag, resized. Somewhat I nailed down the correct technique to resize and fold a flag only later, when working on the French. You will notice the difference.

Finally, no Austrian Army should be allowed to take the field without deploying a unit of *pink* infantry -- in my case, IR 38 Wurttemberg. I was bold enough to use a bright, Magenta fluo color... what to say: you notice this unit.

Now, the French. By the time I started working on these units, I figured out the proper way to fix the flag, and courtesy of Warflag again I was able to create a couple of cool stands.

As previously explained, in my French Army I use a mix of color-code and grenadiers and voltigeurs to identified individual units. The color-coding part is still a work in progress, in part because of the delays in the shipment I am waiting from the UK. But at least some of the grenadiers are in place, as you will see in the next pic.

And finally, let's not forget the officers! Very likely, you have already recognised a General Lasalle look-a-like in the picture above, but a second officer is portrayed here as he stands in front of a battery (... maybe not a great idea...)

I hope I will have the time tomorrow to share a couple of pictures of my french artillery and cavalry. Thursday I am leaving for a business trip overseas, so blogging will be once again to take a backseat. Fortunately, I am well-prepared for the 15 hours flight: I have already packed Fredrick Kagan's "The End of the Old Order: Napoleon and Europe, 1801-1805", on the Austerlitz campaign, and the first volume of John Gill's trilogy, "1809 Thunder on the Danube: Abensberg". A lot of Napoleonic readings, and a lot of food for thought about my future French vs Austrians battles.

Latest Napoleonic photos -- Austrians

2010-02-15T21:08:00.001-08:00

For the past several weeks I have been steadily working on my Napoleonic armies, both the Austrian and the French. The results are beginning to become apparent, and forces are beginning to build up despite some delays in mail delivery (in particular, i am still waiting for a crucial order from the UK, submitted on 12/15 and yet to show up in my malbox...)
Tonight I took a few pictures, and I will post the best or more informative of them over the next few days. Right now, I start with some Austrians. Today I completed four officers, and I added the final touches to several infantry, cavalry and artillery units, as well as to my windmill, which you will be able to spot in the background in some of these pics. At the moment, my Austrian Army counts two cuirassier squadrons, two hussars, one of dragoon (with two of chevau-legers on their way), two artillery batteries, twelve regiments of infantry, one of grenadiers (two on the way) and one of jaegers (one on the workbench.) In the mail, more artillery, two grenzer regiment, and some odds and ends.
Here's tonight pics. First, a spiffy officer showing some leadership:

This is one of the two cuirassier squadrons:

Next, the 7th Hussars Squadron - Liechtenstein:

Last but not least, the heavy 12lb guns from one of my batteries:

I have a couple of cool pictures of the infantry units, but for tonight I will only share a group photo taken of the whole lot in the box... it still looks cool to me!

Tomorrow I will try to post infantry pics for the Austrian and the French, and later this week some other shots of the French artillery, cavalry (the Empress Dragoons of the Guard!) and some officers (included General LaSalle!) And, crossing my fingers, if all goes as planned, in two weeks after a business trip abroad I should be able to fight a little meeting engagement!

Rant on badly advertised rules

2010-02-02T10:57:00.000-08:00

I just posted this in a thread on TMP, in reference to a new, and apparently mysterious ruleset titled "Ridiculous Vanity 2nd." [No link provided because no relevant link is found, to further prove my point.]
I repeat here my rant almost verbatim, just to get it off my chest.

I am always a little puzzled when a new ruleset is announced on TMP, but then it results nearly impossible to get any information about how the system works. I usually repeat the same questions all the time: how does the sequence of play work? (I stay away from I-go-U-go) What basing is required for miniatures? How many units do you need for an average game? What are the basic mechanisms for morale/combat/melee? Orders of battle or army lists? Or tournament point? Etc. etc. These are basic questions, and I would expect to be included by default in any presentations of new rules. Instead, oftentimes you get nothing, nada, nicht, niente.

Really, it is always the same basic questions that players ask, so you would expect that people making a pitch for their rules would care to comment and inform the public, especially when the set is priced at $35-$40... I don't spend $40 on a ruleset just for the surprise to discover how it works, nor the joy of realizing that it is not the type of game I like or I am interested in playing.

Bottom line: Sorry, rules writers/publishers: but a cool picture on the front page doesn't make it for me.

January 5th, 1970

2010-01-04T19:39:00.000-08:00

DestoFante turns 40 today. I missed the '60s by four days and three hours, and I share the birthday with fellow economist Jean-Baptiste Say (b. 1767), German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer (b. 1876), King Juan Carlos of Spain (b. 1938), and Diane Keaton. The day appears to be void of any significant event in military history, other than the battle of Colmar/Turckheim, fought on January 5 1675, which resulted in the victory of the French forces under the Vicomte of Turenne over the Brandenburgian and Austrian armies commanded by the elector of Brandenburg, Frederick William.

Here an early picture of mine from August 1970.

A Napoleonic Renaissance -- part II: the French

2010-01-01T16:09:00.001-08:00

I can hardly believe that about six month ago I sat at my workbench and I seriously considered to get rid of all my 15mm Napoleonic miniatures! What a difference six months do. There were a couple of reasons, definitely not that compelling (!), behind that thought. Maybe the idea was not much leaving the Napoleonic period, but rebuilding it in a different scale other than 15mm (6mm? 10mm?) Maybe it was a sense that momentum was lost in my Napoleonic project, as I had not done any progress on it for several months. Maybe it was an issue with esthetics: 15mm Napoleonic miniatures were my way into the hobby in the late 1980s (ouch!), and I sense I have been dragging them around too long, with too many changes of heart about rules, basing, and painting styles (I do paint much better today than in 1990... and I paint with acrylics rather than enamel.)

Anyway: I am glad I did not make that mistake, and I am now working full steam on Napoleonic miniatures with a renewed enthusiasm. Lesson learned: if I am into a period, it is because I made a thoughtful decision in the first place, and despite the momentarily ebb-and-flow of my interests, there is a long-term reason for sticking with it.

One positive outcome of my mid-summer crisis is a complete rethinking of the organization for my armies. I will start today with a review of my "new" French, and will add more later about the Austrian.

First of all, I stated a goal. I want an organization that will be historically plausible, and that will provide me with an immediate identification of all the units on the terrain without having to add labels to the bases. And I want an organization system that fits well with my units, 12-miniature "battalions" each made of four 3-miniature stands. (I'll use "battalion" as label of convenience; depending by the rules, my 12-miniature unit may in fact represent a battalion, a regiment, or even a brigade.)

Here's what I came up with. I arrange my battalions into regiments, each with three battalions. In order to visualize the differences and to easily ID them, I color-coded them based on the pompom on the shako. Thus, the miniatures in the first four regiments will respectively wear red, blue, green, and yellow pompom. And in order to differentiate among the three battalions in each regiment, I made a unique base for each of them: the first unit has a command base, with officer, tambourine and standard bearer; the second battalion has a grenadiers stand, where grenadiers wear red plume -- and one of them a bicolor plume with red and the regimental color; the third battalion will include a voltigeurs stand, with green plumes but for one bicolor one with green and regimental color. It's convoluted to write, but very easy in practice: just by looking at the unit, you will spot the color of the pompon and by the nature of the fourth stand (command, grenadier or voltigeur) you will immediately know what unit it is!

This is the theory. In practice, the adoption of this new "model" has required a few adjustment. First, I had to re-base several stands of French infantry. Never a fun job. Then I had to make an order for the voltigeur, which I am still waiting, thus I am hanging until USPS will deliver the package. Fortunately, I had some grenadiers around, so I have been able to work on them. Pompoms need to be re-painted. And, since I am at it, I am taking the opportunity to add a few touches to the old Ligne infantry, which was painted years ago on... a different standard. This is a work in progress, but I can share some preliminary photos. Here I have added the Litko bases for the missing miniatures (voltigeurs, the grenadiers and fusiliers still on the painting deck.)

Not shown, there are several other infantry units that will complement my army. Two battalions each of Guard chassuers and Guard grenadiers; four battalions of infantry in bicorne; two battalions of infantry in overcoat. I only have one unit of Legere, but by the end of the year I would not mind to add two or three more.

Now for the cavalry. Currently, I have one unit of cuirassiers and three units of chasseurs a cheval. In order to keep the distribution of units balanced in historical terms, I recently ordered another unit of cuirassier, and two each of hussars and dragoons, plus one of lancers de Kleve-Berg. For the Guard, I have a unit of Empress Dragoons and I hope to add soon some Polish Lancers (New Year's resolution #2!) This should result in a good variety of units for my battles!

Finally, the artillery. Still a work in progress; I have some 4-pdr and 12-pdr, and a lot more in the order being delivered. I confess that my thinking is still evolving on this, but once my package will be here, there will be the opportunity to come to some conclusions. ideally, I'd like to have units for line foot and horse, plus at least one guard unit. We'll see how to proceed on that front.

Happy New Year!

2010-01-01T15:09:00.001-08:00

I am writing, right now, my second post about the Napoleonic Renaissance... but while I type, for the time being, my best wishes to all of you for a fantastic 2010, filled with more and more new toys, nail-biting games, and hours of joyous painting!

A Napoleonic Renaissance -- part I

2009-12-20T14:09:00.000-08:00

Lack of postings for several weeks doesn't mean that wargaming activities have ground to halt -- quite the contrary! Juggling night feedings, diaper changes, a real life job and an equally real multitude of miniatures projects has been rewarding and challenging at the same time, and it resulted in blogging taking a back seat as more urgent tasks took precedence... but it is now time for an update!

Let's start by spending a word or two about the Napoleonic Renaissance that appears to be gaining some momentum, these days. True, the period has never really gone out of fashion: but for a few years I somewhat sensed it was stagnant, as far as generating new enthusiasm and energy in the hobby. Then, in a matter of months, if not weeks, we have been overwhelmed by several, very catchy products. Four new major rules have been released, and one fifth has been reissued in a new, expanded edition. I am talking about Foundry's Napoleon, Black Powder, Republic to Empire, Sam Mustafa's Lasalle, and TooFatLardies' Le Feu Sacre III ed.. As Mae West put it, "too much of a good thing is just wonderful"!

All these rules, for the most part (LFS being the exception), seem to share the same trend toward glossy, beautifully produced and printed rules booklet. The topic has been discussed ad nauseam in wargaming forum, and I will spare you to add my totally negligible opinion on the issue. The problem for this wargamer is that quality comes with a price, and at the average cost of $45-$50 per book I had to rethink what would have been my default course of action -- that is, go out and buy them all!

How to choose among so many offerings? Well, I look at the reviews. In recent weeks I have noticed the emergence of "playtesting vigilantes" on TMP, people ready to go out and clobber those dedicated gamers willing to share ASAP their opinions on a game, before conducting several playtests of the rules. I cannot stand these "vigilantes": yes, some playing mechanisms might make more sense after one game or two, but a lot of information -- the information we need to make an informed purchasing decision -- can be share just by reading the rules. I am grateful, therefore, to the people who did take the time to offer a peek into game mechanics, and an opinion about the rules. When considering a purchase, I usually focus on a few feature I deem important: scale of the game, how big a table the game requires (I need to accommodate my games on a 6'x4' space), how big the units must be (in the case of Napoleonic, my units are 12 miniatures based on four rectangular stands of three miniatures each), the sequence of play (I don't like IGO-UGO), how long it will take to play (I need to clear up in six-seven hours maximum), how many miniatures it will take for an average battle (I am a solo player and I cannot reasonably field more than 150-200 miniatures per side.) So, rather that rehearsing for zillionth time the basic of those reviews, which I bet many of you have already read, I'd rather offer some of my thoughts during my shopping decision-making process, with no pretence to be correct in my judgment, nor to be fully fair to the products in question.

NAPOLEON'S. I read good reviews about the book as an excellent introduction to the period, but nothing about the rules themselves really caught my attention. I am already an experienced Napoleonic player, so, while I welcome a product that will ease access into the genre for new players, I didn't feel compelled to add these particular rules to my collection. Thus, I passed on this item.

BLACK POWDER. Online reviews were consistent in stressing that these rules are for big units on a big table. That was an automatic NO for me. Other comments stressed the quality of the text, entertaining and tongue-in-cheek, with a soft "old school" feel. This was attractive to me, but not at $45+. Fortunately, Amazon is offering them for a fraction of their retail price, very much a mistake due to some confusion in regard of the currency. I could not say no at that price, even if I have to wait for the first week of February for delivery.

REPUBLIC TO EMPIRE. This set appears to belong to the family of detailed and process-oriented rules that were popular in the 1980s and 1990s: by what I read, I would associate some of their mechanisms to the tradition of Empire, Legacy of Glory, Valmy to Waterloo... I own all of these sets, that were read a lot and played not that much. Honestly, I do not have much appetite to add another one to my collection. Pass.

LASALLE. These rules are authored by Sam Mustafa, of Grande Armee fame. Regardless of some minor disagreements I may have with those, I strongly believe that everything Sam writes is well worth attention, and the price of the publication. Thus, I ordered and already read this excellent book, and I am very satisfied with the choice. There are some very intriguing concepts in this piece. The sequence of play is IGO-UGO, but with a twist. The size of the game is right, and the rules almost perfectly fit my basing scheme (but they are flexible enough to accommodate for almost every major basing scheme out there.) Other features are unusual for a Napoleonic game. The author tried to work out a compromise for rules that would please the traditional Napoleonic grognard, while appealing at the same time to the tournament crowd. For full disclosure, I have to confess I am not a tournament player, and I am actually very opposed to the whole tournament scene and culture. That said, cuique suum; and I would acknowledge that Sam's compromise is indeed very witty. Nothing prevents you to play Lasalle as a purely "historical" game, and nothing prevents you to play it in competitive settings; yet, Lasalle avoids all the silliness of army lists and points that, to my eyes, mar tournament rules. Instead, Lasalle introduces basic armies, standardized but historically plausible, that in turn can be beef up with additional units (think of them as "assets" in the modern jargon) for the game that are both balanced yet make historical sense.

LE FEU SACRE. This is the outlier, as a game that refrains from the bells and whistles of a glossy publication and it is distributed in PDF for a very reasonable $12. The reason why I bought it is that i have greatly enjoyed some other rules and game from TooFatLardies: I Ain't Been Shot Mum, If The Lord Spares Us, Troops Weapons & Tactics,Rock the Casbah, B'Maso. Thus far, I only had the opportunity for a quick read, and I noticed that LFS seems to be a more rigorous and detailed game than many of its TFL more free-wheeling predecessors. Nonetheless, some of the ideas are interesting, and there will soon be the opportunity to play test it.

TO SUM UP Here I am, sitting on my couch surrounded by two new Napoleonic games, Lasalle and Le Feu Sacre, and with a third on its way, Black Powder; on the shelf in front of me, some other classics from my collection: my favorite ever, Piquet - Les Grognards; two strong runner-ups, Grande Armee and Napoleon's Battles (the AH miniature game, a classic in itself)... you would wonder, something must be brewing into my napoleonic plans and projects... and this is indeed the case! For which, though, you will have to wait for the next post (I promise, it will come soon!)

Marlburian infantry units in review

2009-11-01T20:51:00.000-08:00

Today I finally managed to spend a few hours to fix some final details on my Marlburian armies, and I also had the opportunity to take some long-due photos of the final results of, literally, months of work. I am very pleased by how things are shaping up in this project. of course, I would have liked to proceed faster, but overall I cannot complain. Life has been busy, really busy: and yet, I have succeeded in bringing several units to the table -- literally.

Right now, the bulk of my Marlburian forces are in two armies: the one of the Elector of Palatinate, and one French. ideally, I will probably develop an imagine-nation narrative when the time to deploy them will come, but for the time being I am glad to keep them both relatively historical.

For the Palatinate forces, I also manage to paint a commander, maybe the Elector himself. You cans ee him here, all smiles after a full staisfactory review of his troops. These are 15mm Edition Brokaw miniatures.

Thus far, I have completed five Palatinate regiments, based on 12 miniatures per regiment: IR Bettendorf and IR Rehbinder (blue coat with red cuffs); IR Haxthousen and IR Westerwald-Dillendurg (blue coat, green cuffs); IR Saxe-Meiningen (red coat, green cuffs.) Here the five units:

For the time being, only one Palatinate cavalry regiment has been completed, RR Hochkirk, while two other cavalry units are in the pipeline, one dragoons and one cuirassiers (the Gendarmes de Venningen.) Here's Hochkirk's cavalrymen:

The French units have been completed in a more free-wheeling, unsystematic manner. Thus far, I count four "regular" infantry regiments: Normandie, Piedmont, Perche, Enghien. In addition, there are two Irish units, Abermarle and Donnington, and one Swiss, Stuppa, plus some Spanish grenadiers (you can see them in the background in the second picture below, or here for a close-up during painting.)

What will be next? There are some items with very high priority. I need cavalry for the French; two units of dragoons are about to hit the workbench, and eventually one more of mounted musketeers. As I mentioned, there are two cavalry units for Electoral Palatinate that are almost completed, and I am considering an additional couple of Imperial cuirassiers. Then, I need artillery -- something is in the pipeline, but I need to hurry up... So, yes, still a lot of work is waiting for me. But, nonetheless, some very sweet progress as well!

Naval teaser!

2009-10-22T21:20:00.000-07:00

Life chez DestoFante has not been limited to sleepless nights and changing diapers! Wargaming time, in all honesty, has been minimal, as you might guess; but we had a few progress, about which I hope to update you soon in thorough manner. For the time being, just a teaser -- a naval teaser! Here a few WWI British warships just christened early tonight. These models are 1/6000 Figurehead, representing four Weymouth-class (Town-class) light cruisers, namely HMS Weymouth, HMS Dartmouth, HMS Falmouth, and HMS Yarmouth, and three Devonshire-class armoured cruisers: HMS Devonshire, HMS Hampshire, and HMS Carnarvon.

I hope to have the time to get back online soon with some pictures of my finally completed Marlburian units!

9/11

2009-09-11T13:19:00.000-07:00

Having spent most of the day with my boss and professional colleagues sharing our recollections from this day eight years ago, I now find comfort in sitting back, serving myself a glass of wine, relaxing if possible, and thinking about this very same day, only three century ago.

Thanks to Grimsby for the reminder!

Look who is here!

2009-09-10T11:33:00.000-07:00

DestoFante Jr. was born at 12:20pm on August 30th!
Mom and son have been doing very well in the first 10 days, and maybe the day is not too far that the sleepless dad will retrieve brushes and paints from the closet and resume "normal" wargaming activities. In the meanwhile, this little angel is keeping us busy almost around the clock!

I dipped, and almost regretted...

2009-08-25T16:44:00.000-07:00

I decided to dip... and I went close to a complete disaster.

First, a quick overview of my dipping technique, which is actually not a real "dip", as I use a brush to apply the Minwax Polyshade finish to my miniatures. I normally use a fairly large, cheap brush, and two types of Polyshade, one called "Antique Walnut", with a more reddish-brownish tint, which usually works great for red-clad miniatures, and the other with a blackish color, called "Tudor Satin", which works great for miniatures painted in gray and white as main color.

So, today I headed to the roof deck, armed with all the necessary to engage in a nice session. First I applied the Tudor Satin to the Spanish grenadiers, a Palatine regiment, and the French Piedmont and Normandie. So far, so good. But I didn't stir the Tudor Satin can much before applying the dip, so it came out as a relative "light" layer. When I moved to work to the Swiss and the Irish/Palatinate units, I made sure to stir more robustly the Antique Walnut, and... gee! It came out thick and dark brown, and covered everything, from bayonets to the white and yellow trim on the hat. I had to sweat quite a bit to thin the dip, and to remove as much of it as possible from the areas whose color I wanted to keep more vivid. And as I was working in this crucial cleaning action... the brush broke off! I was able to fix it on the fly, and to complete the cleaning/finishing strokes -- I just had to be very careful with the brush.

Photos will follow soon. For the time being, let me articulate the lessons of the day:

a. make sure the brush is in good condition; if it is, take a second one with me nonetheless, just in case;
b. use a smaller brush: it will make my work slower, but it will ensure I have better control of the amount of finish I apply to the miniatures;
c. try not to put any dip on the hats and the bayonets;
d. give the dip a few minutes to sit down, or stir more gently at the beginning. Go for a ligher mix. These are War of Spanish Succession figures, not colonial natives, duh!

Bottom line. The Swiss and the Palatinate/Irish came out a little darker than I would have preferred, but they are still nice. Normandie, Piedmont, Palatinate, and Spanish grenadiers look great. The day was saved!

More pic, and a question

2009-08-24T21:58:00.001-07:00

[Apparently, blogspot is working again, and I can now continue the post abruptly interrupted a few minutes ago... make sure you read both this and the post immediately below in sequence!]
First, I want to share the pictures I promised when I posted the photos of the Milano grenadiers and the Piedmont and Normandie regiments earlier tonight.
The first picture shows the back side of the Stuppa men, followed by two close-ups of the Stuppa and Donnington officers. As you may notice, I am becoming more and more daring with the use of silver and brass on laces and uniforms, as well as on tin buttoms. Ehi, they look good to me, given than about one year ago I was still adamant in NOT wanting to paint XVIII century uniforms because "too complex and ornate"!

And now a question for you all, my friends.

Usually, I have come of the good habit to dip my miniatures before basing them. You may see some good example of my technique and final results here and here. But now, I confess to be torn. The dip may still provide a great effect on my infantrymen, but I am afraid that the dipping will partially cover my painting efforts, especially on the officers. So, I am almost tempted NOT to dip this time around. I need to think about this. Oh well... in the meanwhile, I can start some work on the cavalry. I have dragoons and cuirassiers waiting on the workbench!

Still waiting... but making the wait productive

2009-08-24T21:35:00.000-07:00

First and foremost: DestoFante Jr. is taking his time. He should have shown up eight days ago, but so far, nothing. Nada. Niente. So, after a few days of excitement and heightened expectations, we are settling into a not exactly comfortable routine. I cut back on my hours at the office to spend more quality time with Mrs. DestoFante, who by now is bored to death and over-stressed, and understandably so.

In the meanwhile, somebody gotta kill some time...

And so, I took the brushes off and I re-started my weekly routine of slow but steady progress. Actually, this couple of days were more satisfying than most, because I finally completed different units in my Marlburian project that have been on the workbench for quite some time.
First, a Spanish grenadier unit, Milan Regiment. You may remember a Santa-looking unit from a post a while ago, but you will appreciate the better style of the completed grenadiers now that painting is concluded. These are 15mm Spanish grenadier from the GFI/Minifigs range.

Next, also from my favorite 15mm range by GFI/Minifigs, two French units, Regiment Normandie and Regiment Piedmont. In order, you will first see an infantry from Normandie, followed by two from Piedmont.

There are some more pics from the two red-clad regiments that complete this batch, the Swiss Regiment Stuppa and the Irish Regiment Donnington. Apparently, my blogspot connection is running to some trouble tonight, so you will have to wait until tomorrow... believe, it is worth the wait, because I took some artistic dares in painting these units (especially the officers), and I am very proud of the results!

Dilemma

2009-08-20T11:30:00.000-07:00

Every now and then I get trapped in some dilemma of sort about practical aspects of my wargaming projects, and that state of mind seems to drain energy from achieving further progress.

I stumbled on one of these blocks on a relatively minor issue concerning my Marlburian armies. Here's the problem: I am building my units in a modular fashion, so that, depending by the mood, the rules, or the battle, I will be able to deploy battalions or regiments with either 12 or 24 miniatures. Ideally, I would like to have all my infantry units made of 24 miniatures, but in a bout of realism, and taking into account the fact I live into an apartment and I play on a 6' by 4' table, I want to have the flexibility to opt for 12-miniature units. So far so good, as far as line infantry is concerned.

But what about grenadiers? I am fine with a 12-miniature grenadier unit; the problem is that a 24-miniature grenadier one looks... excessive, at least for the period (1700-1720.) Or isn't it? Am I wrong? I would feel comfortable with large grenadier units for later conflicts, like the Seven Years War: but what about this earlier age?

I am actually considering keeping all the Marlburian grenadiers in units of 12. They will be fine when deployed in a battle with other 12-miniature units, and they will still look OK when taking part in clashes with 24-miniature line infantry units (assuming that the whole idea of "line infantry" made any sense in this earlier period.) Or maybe I should sink myself in further readings about the period, and verify whether, historically, there is any ground to justify smaller count of men in grenadier units vs. regular infantry units.

On this problem, I got stuck: and no progress on my projects has been registered for a few weeks now.

Exhausted, but I accomplished my mission!

2009-08-09T16:03:00.000-07:00

And so Cpt. Agesilao Fantoni did, after several hours of tense action in the valley of Wekiro!

The game played out exceptionally well. I took several pictures that I will include in the final AAR. As a teaser, I will liberally sprinkle a few in the present notes, just to whet your appetite!

Photo-op: Fantoni's Force poses for a picture before leaving Monkullo.

Many solutions I experimented for the first time contributed to a fantastic experience.

The integration of "Mythic Game Master Emulator" with "The Sword And The Flame" works smoothly, and added a lot of color and narrative threads to the "vanilla" game based on TSATF. Of course, there is room for improvement: the Random Event outcomes by MGME have a "fantasy" flavor that, with some work, can be corrected, so that the experience will feel more directly "colonial"; that said, it took very little effort to fold the random outcomes into a colonial narrative, thus, little complain here.

The terrain looked good. Really good. And so did the miniatures. Probably my best looking game ever. Heck, having a blog, and a digital camera, and attentive readers, really forces you into doing your homework!
The valley west of Wekiro: "a narrow valley with steep mountains on both sides, and a dried creek bed at the bottom".

The story was solid, and, as I was hoping for, it opened several threads that might become the basis for a campaign, and future games.

Fantoni's force advancing toward the village.

It was a great idea to keep my computer on, and to jot down notes as the game developed. I have now several pages of a narrative that would make the AAR, hopefully, quite entertaining -- and not a chore as it is when I need to write everything from scratch one day or two after the fact.

Hostile presence in the village.

There were also a few, minor issues I was not completely satisfied with. As mentioned above, some of the tables in MGME may be improved, to provide outcomes whose interpretation is more straightforward in a colonial setting.

Abyssinian warriors holding the village.

Second, I didn't realize how rusty my TSATF memory was. I haven't played the game in quite some times, and I forgot some minor elements in the rules. Also, there were a couple of circumstances where I doubted how the situation should be handle, especially as far as point blank fire, and shaken and routing units are concerned. I need to brush up my TSATF for sure! Re-reading the rules tonight, after the action, will definitely help for the next game. Also, I'd like to make some personal notes -- flow diagrams to help my memory in dealing with a few cases.
Last but not least: as the game got going, I realized I was missing my d20 dice! They must have got lost in our recent move, as there was no way to find them anywhere. I'll tell you: playing TSATF 20th Anniversary Edition with one and one only d20 was a real pain! Likewise, one card was misplaced, but fortunately there was an easy fix and that problem did not have major consequence for the game.
A little regret for the missed opportunity to playtest "Colonial Adventures", which I did not have a chance to do today. Next time, I want to give these rules a try, definitely!

Abyssinian warriors meeting their fate charging the Italian infantry.

Next, I will work on an After-Action-Report. I may actually break it down in two parts, the first relative to the force entering the valley (in which RPG aspects will prevail), and the second about the fight with the Abyssinian bands (here it will mostly be a TSATF fight along the traditional standards.) And I need to sort through the several pictures of the game, to highlight the narrative. Busy days ahead!

Abyssinians charging the askaris.

[Apparently DestoFante Jr. is not due before next weekend, and all we have to do is sit down, relax, and wait... writing a detailed AAR may actually be very therapeutic!]

Cpt. Agesilao Fantoni enters the village followed by his troops.

Orders have been issued!

2009-08-08T22:11:00.000-07:00

I report the following orders, as they were issued yesterday afternoon. The original Italian text follows.

"Massawa, Eritrea Colony, August 8th 1889

I, the Commander, direct:

Cpt. Agesilao Fantoni, 7^ Infantry Rgt. “Cuneo”, to take command of the following force:
-- one company of Colonial Infantry “Askari” under the command of Lt. Arrugola;
-- one platoon of Fanteria d’Africa detached from 7^ Rgt. “Cuneo”;
-- an auxiliary detachment of Camel Troops in support.

In the afternoon of Saturday August 8th, the aforementioned force will move to Monkullo, and then proceed northward along the desert trail to the village of Wekiro, where they will camp for the night.

At dawn on Sunday, the force will march westward in reconnaissance of the adjacent valley. The force will verify reports of activity by local bands of native outlaws, and will eventually proceed in eliminating the threat.

Maj. Forra, from the Military Institute of Geography, will be attached to the force to map the area.

At mission accomplished, the force will return to Massaua on Monday.

The Commander
Military Governor of the Eritrea Colony"

The orginal Italian text reads:

"Massaua, Colonia Eritrea, 8 agosto 1889

Dispongo:

Che il Capitano Agesilao Fantoni, 7^ Rgt. Fanteria “CUNEO”, assuma il comando di una forza cosi’ composta:
-- una compagnia Fanteria Coloniale “Askari”;
-- un plotone di Fanteria d’Africa distaccato dal Rgt. “CUNEO”;
-- un distaccamento ausiliario di truppa cammellata in sostegno logistico.

Nel pomeriggio di sabato 8 Agosto la succitata forza si trasferira’ a Moncullo e proseguira’ a settentrione, via sentiero desertico, fino all’insediamento di Wekiro, ove s’accampera’ per la notte.

Con le prime luci dell’alba di domenica, la forza procedera’ ad occidente, in ricognizione della valle sovrastante Wekiro.

La forza accertera’ l’attivita’ di bande brigantesche segnalate in azione nell’area, ed eventualmente ne procedera’ alla eliminazione.

Se forze indigene in superiore numero saranno identificate, la forza ripieghera’ su Moncullo e tosto riferira’ a questo Comando.

Il Ten. Arrugola e’ comandato a disposizione del Cap. Fantoni.

Il Magg. Forra, dell’Istituto Geografico Militare, e’ autorizzato ad unirsi alla forza comandata allo scopo di effettuare rilevazioni topografiche.

A missione conclusa, la forza rientrera’ a Massaua nella giornata di domenica.

Il Comandante
Governatore Militare della Colonia Eritrea"

NOTES
All is ready. I just finished painting the camels in support of the Italian mission. The mountains are ready, and I hope they will look really good -- hopefully, it will be a surprise to my readers. Miniatures are ready, too: about seven/eight units of Abyssinians/Fuzzy Wuzzies, and two units of askari plus one of Italian infantry. The terrain will be set up tomorrow morning, and I expect the game to take place from noon on. At the last minute, I decided to play the game with TSATF, as I am more familiar with the rules, and I feel more comfortable to experiment a few other ideas moving from a more familiar sets. Time permitting, since I expect this to be a relatively short scenario, I may still play the scenario a second time with "Colonial Adventures", as originally planned. I am still determined to try something new, i.e. to combine TSATF rules for the resolution of the tabletop action with "Mythic Game Master Emulator", in order to add some RPG elements to the game, and produce a nice narrative for the blog. Plus, I believe this would be an interesting "starting scene" for a campaign to follow.
I expect the Mission to Wekiro Valley to be a small affairs, but ideal to test some new arrangements for my games; ideally, this will be an "Italian colonial" equivalent of the mission to Chamla Valley included in TSATF.

Something brewing in Eritrea...

2009-08-06T21:14:00.000-07:00

Yep, something is definitely brewing in Eritrea... Let's say that over the past 10 days I have achieved some momentum in my Italian Colonial project. I have a small but growing force ready to take the field, and enough indigenous warriors to provide a decent opposition to any advance. The amount of terrain available should suffice, but to make a believable action at the foothills of the Abyssinia plateau I definitely needed some real mountains, of the type shown by Jeff in the Saxe-Bearstein blog or by LittleJohn's at Lead Garden blog.

I am now glad to report that some steps in this direction have been taken. I have three larger set of hills/mountains, and a smaller "kop" on the workbench; one is almost completed, and can be shown here; the other three pieces are in different stages of preparation, but should be ready by tomorrow morning at the latest. Here's a preview.

Examples of mountains being prepared.

I want to do another last minute purchase, tonight or tomorrow morning, at Michael's, the local craft store. I need more little stones to mark a dry creek, and the desert conducting to a narrow valley... Then, I will be ready to play a small scenario!

When? Well, thanks to an inclement weather advisory for the weekend, with expected heat in triple digit, I think that Sunday afternoon might be the day! I need to hurry up with some final preparation -- the mountains, the hills, some final touches to the Abyssinian warriors, the camels following the Italian Askaris. But a little mission in the afternoon of Sunday is entirely feasible. Keep your fingers crossed!

What rules? Funny you ask, because since my last post I caught up with some interesting readings. TwoHourWargames has a very interesting set for the colonial period, "Colonial Adventures", which strikes me as a modernized version of "The Sword And The Flame", with some clever mechanisms to limit the player's control over what happens on the field. I believe this would work very well for a solo game. Also, to add some color and background to the game, and eventually making it the kick-off of a small campaign, I would like to introduce some narrative elements more traditionally associated with RPG. In fact, I found online "Mythic Game Master Emulator" or MGME, a set of rules meant to facilitate solo RPG but very suitable to integration with traditional wargaming. On different Yahoo groups I found a fascinating NWF Frontier campaign played solo with MGME, where table actions and combat were resolved through TSATF. And by digging into my Google search results, I found that nobody less than our Jeff of Saxe-Bearstein is also using MGME for his Fantasy adventures! With such an endorsement, I feel quite intrigued to test the system myself, pronto!

So, here's my wargaming roadmap for the days ahead: completing the preparation for a small scenario; working through MGME to prepare a background for the mission, execute it, and come back here with a battle report, pictures of the game, and reviews of both of THW "Colonial Adventures" and "Mythic Game Master Emulator." Looks like a lot of work... hope it won't take weeks before the next post on DestoFante, but stay tuned!

UPDATE 8pm. Last touches on the first mountain range: done.
Second mountain range: done.

Pathan taking a walk to test the new mountains: done.

Deal, or no deal?

2009-07-30T20:44:00.000-07:00

Deal. Over the past few weeks, I kept an eye on a few auctions taking place on eBay, and I have successfully snatched a couple of amazing deals. The one I am most proud of is a lot of colonial British, and several Pathans for the North-West Frontier. I already had a few Irregular miniatures for this theater, and the recent addition will nicely complete my existing armies.
Once I received the packages, I proceeded with some cleaning, some final touches to my personal tastes, and a "miracle dip" that provided a wonderful (to my eyes, at least!) finish, especially to the native figures. And finally, I have some eye candies to share on this blog! Here's a few pictures of the almost completed projected -- only the final touches to the bases are still due.

First, an overview of part of the figures. To my eyes, they all look like 15mm Minifigs, probably with just a couple of Stone Mountain in the lot.

Now two close-ups. the British look impressive! I cannot wait to deploy these guys on the road up to some forgotten valley over the frontier with Afghanistan!

And here the fearsome Pathans.

So, what will be next? With completed armies available, maybe it is time to prepare some adequate terrain... and look at my closet! A few nice buildings, and a whole mosque are waiting to be painted up!

A Churchillian moment

2009-07-17T13:56:00.000-07:00

I spent part of this week on the road for a business trip to the Lake of the Ozarks, in Missouri. On my way to the meeting, I happened to drive through Fulton, Missouri. I was not expecting it -- I didn't check the itinerary beforehand -- but a light went on as soon as I spotted the sign of the city. Now, I am not that old: but in what now feel as a different era, in a different country, I was quite engaged in politics, and a rather staunch "Cold Warrior." Fulton MO immediately evoked a defining moment in that struggle: the speech by one of my heroes, Winston Churchill, warning about the threat of Soviet expansionism in Europe:

From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the Continent. Behind that line lie all the capitals of the ancient states of Central and Eastern Europe. Warsaw, Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Budapest, Belgrade, Bucharest and Sofia, all these famous cities and the populations around them lie in what I must call the Soviet sphere, and all are subject in one form or another, not only to Soviet influence but to a very high and, in many cases, increasing measure of control from Moscow.

[Above, Winston Churchill at the podium delivering his lecture to the audience in Fulton, March 1946.]

And here I am, years later, driving though the town that was the scene of the historical moments. Since signs on the main route announced a "Winston Churchill Memorial", I took a few minutes for a quick visit to what turned out to be a very interesting museum, hosted on the ground of the local Westminster College. The story about the invitation sent by the college to Churchill (inspired by an alumnus connected to fellow Missourian Truman) and the visit by the former British Prime Minister and then-President Truman in 1946 is, in itself, fascinating. The following picture was taking as the duo paraded through the streets of Fulton, before the address of the Prime Minister.

The Memorial is a small, wonderful museum, definitely worth a visit longer than the little time I had available -- I am certainly planning on stopping there again at the first opportunity, and spend at least a couple of hours walking through the exhibition, the Church that was transplanted from London to the middle of Missouri in the 1960s, and the surrounding grounds. It is a little gem, and I am glad I had this random opportunity to visit the Memorial to one of my favorite historical characters.

As an additional treat to myself, on my way out, I stopped to the small store inside the museum and bought a copy of "River War" (which I own in Italian, but not in the original English language.) I am sure I will soon succumb to the desire to engage in some Sudan scenario...

Who are these guys?

2009-07-13T17:31:00.001-07:00

And, more importantly: where are they from?

I just completed an interesting deal with a very fine gentleman from Texas, who just delivered some unpainted Marlburian figures. I received the package today -- and I am having a ball to sort through the goodies! In the lot, there are several Roundway Miniatures, mostly British with a few bags of Bavarians. I have never seen Roundway figures before, and I have been pleasantly impressed: they appear to be on par with Dixon and Minifigs, and they will provide a very welcome addition to my expanding armies for the period.

Included in the package, there were also several Edition Brokaw miniatures. I understand this is a very "old school" range, and many may well turn their noses to figures who are, at best, a little cartoonish in their features, and who require a lot of care and cleaning because of the flesh they carry. That said, these are also among the cheapest miniatures for the period, come in a relatively large assortment, and "paint well and fast." Thus, I welcome the opportunity to add some more of them to the several EB miniatures already in my painting pipeline.

Nevertheless, there is a little puzzle I am now facing. The gentleman from Texas was not able to identify the miniatures from Edition Brokaw. I did some comparison with what I already own, and I came to the conclusion that the larger part of the lot, about 100 figures (I have yet to count them properly), are generic musketeers, which EB recommends for use as British, Dutch, and Austrian, plus as troops of some of the Holy Roman Empire. Here's a (very) bad picture of sample of them.

Unfortunately, I have been less successful to properly I.D. the following two groups. I am posting here some pictures, ad I hope some of you may help in recognizing what they are. The first group looks like line infantry with musket at waist, one belt across the the chest and the back, and cartridge box on the right flank.

By carefully reading the catalog provided by Edition Brokaw, and by comparison with my other EB infantry, I can exclude they are Palatinate units. They are not "generic" musketeers: they miss the waist belt and the small sword (a bayonet?) that the generic units carry. So: who are they? Maybe Danish? Saxons? Swedish? Any one? Bueller? Bueller?
Finally, there is a mysterious unit of guard or grenadiers. Here's the picture.

They seem to sport what appears to be a short mitre, a feature which helps, but only to some extent. As they do not wear a bearskin, Austrian and Bavarian grenadiers are out of question. Maybe British? Or Dutch? I have no idea what Danish grenadiers would wear; I would rule out Saxons (and Swedish), as they are suggested to wear a tall mitre.
Bottom line: I'll buy a drink at the first occasion to the ones who will help in a positive identification of these new additions!

And two other regiments for Electoral Palatinate

2009-07-09T20:50:00.000-07:00

Voici! Palatine Westerwald and Haxthausen-Paderborn regiments getting ready! Still a few touches needed to complete these two units, but I feel confident that a preview can be shared by now. These are 15mm Edition Brokaw miniatures.
[As an aside note: there seems to be very little out there in terms of Edition brokaw miniatures, so I am glad to share. I found many people in the hobby to be interested to look at this range "in flesh"... no pun intended...]
First of all, the photo of the all "ensemble".

Now a close-up of some line infantry, front and back. For the drummer colors, i work on my imagination and taste.

Finally, the grenadiers -- I am planning on basing four grenadiers with both the main units, not for any pretension of historical fidelity, but, again, for a decision based on personal taste (and on the odd lot of Edition Brokaw bags, that come with 20 miniatures per bag whereas I need 24 figures for two units.

A few, final touches here and there, a dip, basing, and shoes: probably an afternoon worth of work, and hopefully by the end of next weekend these regiments will be battle ready.

The Saxe-Meiningen and the Abermarle regiments

2009-07-09T20:21:00.000-07:00

As promised, today I can share a few pictures I took early this evening. First batch, it's the two red-clad regiments of Electoral Palatinate, the Saxe-Meiningen Regiment, and the Irish in French service Abermarle Regiment. The former can be recognized for the green trousers, while the latter shows green vest and red trousers/stockings.
In both cases, I painted the drummers in reverse colors. These figures are 15mm by Essex.
The first pic shows the two units on sticks.

I put some extra attention to the officers, standard bearers and drummers, and I am quite satisfied by the result, shown in the next picture.

Now a closer shot of the drummers.

And finally, a detail from the Abermarle Irish unit.

As usual, magnified pictures tend to exacerbate the little errors on 15mm figures, but overall I am quite happy of he outcomes. Next, I will apply the "magic dip", and finally I will paint the shows after the figures will be based. Still some work to do, but so far, so good!

Progress!

2009-07-08T16:56:00.000-07:00

I hope to have some pictures soon, but at least I will go ahead and share some news about the good painting work that took place chez DestoFante. In a bout of hobby productivity, this past weekend I made some major advancement on a few regiments for the Marlburian period.
All of them are set up so that each unit can be deployed as one larger, 24-figure regiment, or a smaller 12-figure one. This solution offers me some flexibility in terms of rules and size of games that will be played (hopefully soon.)
For the time being I will stick to the "base-12 system," and list the latest additions: for the army of Electoral Palatine, there are three new infantry units completed, the regiments Saxe-Meiningen, Westerwald, and Haxthausen-Paderborn; a cavalry unit, Hochkirk, is almost completed, too. For the French army, I need to add some finaly touches to the Regiments Piedmont and Normandie, as well as the Irish Donnington and the Suisse Stuppa; a second Irish regiment, Abermarle, is ready to be based. There are three Spanish regiments near completion: Viejos and Nuevos Amarillos, and Milano grenadiers. And for the Imperial army, two regiments of infantry from Brandeburg-Bayreuth are receiving the final details.
Next: I need to work on two units of French Dragoons, one or two of Imperial cuirassiers, one of Palatine cuirassiers; I also need to catch up with some artillery.
To tell the truth, I am seriously considering to do some outsourcing for my painting job: the services of Mr. Fernando in Sri Lanka come highly recommended by a few friends who took this route, and since I expect to have little time to paint (and sleep, and eat...) once DestoFante Jr. will show up in a few weeks, I am actively readying myself for this alternative strategy.
Photos to follow soon!

Back home from vacation

2009-07-04T20:22:00.000-07:00

We just returned from a nice vacation: by Amtrak, we completed a three-leg journey through America with stops in Denver, Salt Lake City, and Reno/Lake Tahoe. We are now back in Chicago, which unfortunately still offers a weather more suitable to October than July. And we are entering the final stretch of our little "summer project" -- DestoFante Jr. is expected sometimes in late August!
These days, I am spending more time building baby furniture (today, the crib and the changing station) rather than painting miniatures. But I hope that dynamic will change over the next few days. Since we are pretty much at the stage in which all is well taken care for, and we sit back and wait... oh well, you can kill the waiting time getting some painting done, can't you?

Happy birthday, DestoFante!

2009-06-22T11:29:00.000-07:00

I celebrate today one year of blogging. And I celebrate, indeed, in a subdue manner, as I have not been very active posting, in recent weeks. After a nearly flawless move at the beginning of May, it took a few weeks to get settled in our new apartment. Then, there were the obvious preparation to welcome DestoFante Jr. into this world later in August [to this regard, I am glad to report that Mrs. DestoFante is doing very fine, and we are very excited about the major change in our life, by now a few weeks away.]
Professionally I have been busy, too -- which is good, considering how lucky I am to have a job, during these trying times for the American economy. And finally, when I am able to have a little time for my wargaming hobby, I'd rather spend it doing something, rather blogging about it!
Anyway, today we crossing the ideal line of 1 year of activity -- 365 days of sharing ideas and annotations. And this should be the right time to welcome and thank all my visitors, 3,600+ according to the counter on the website, who spend some time reading, commenting, and sharing information on these pages. Some of you have turned into good friends, which made the experience all the more enjoyable. Definitely, maintaining a blog has turned into a good "discipline device" for my hobby activities.

So, what lies ahead?

As we enter into the summer season, I'd like to regain some momentum in three/four projects that have commanded my attention over the past several months. I have enough ships to actually play some WWI naval engagements. I have a well-developed WSS project, in which several units may soon be brought to completion, and some actual gaming is not too far in the future. I have a near-completed Sudan/Abyssinian project also nearing completion. I have some fun ideas to jump-start activities the now dormant Republic of Lopongo. And a bunch of minor periods to which I may pay occasional attention: Napoleonic (that, actually, should not be considered "minor"), modern Middle East, Vietnam; WWI; Italian Risorgimento.

There is still considerable uncertainty about how the baby will affect my wargaming habits. One guess: I will step back from more time-consuming activities, like painting, and step up more fun pursues -- like actual gaming. This means that I will soon explore the route of painting services for my miniatures. I already have a couple of names on my list.

And now, off to cut the cake with one candle. Happy birthday, DestoFante!

Gaming the French colonial expansion

2009-05-19T13:17:00.001-07:00

My 15mm colonial collection is mostly Anglo-centric. Truth be told, I have a significant portion of my figures for Italians in Abyssinia, but the rest is, by and large, for British theaters of action: Sudan, South Africa, North-West Frontier. In the closet, there are a few bags of unpainted Chinese: years ago, I bought some Old Glory 15 for the Boxer Rebellion. I have yet to paint those miniatures, but ideally they will provide some variety adding American and German troops to the lot.

One area, though, that in my opinion remains under-appreciated is French colonial conflicts. From the Sahara Desert to Equatorial Africa, to Fashoda, to Madagascar and Indochina, the period doesn't lack in color. Alas, when we think "colonial French," we seem to limit our view to the French Foreign Legion, with her kepis and blue overcoat. This should not be the case. French deployed a variety of colonial troops, recruited almost in every corner of their vast empire. And it seems that, with a few minor conversions, a wargamer should be able to cover almost all the bases, and add variety and character to his colonial collection.

Just for sake of divertissement, I did a little of research about French colonial units can I could easily created in 15mm, based on existing ranges, or fortunate purchases from companies now out of business. Here's some ideas about how to spice up your French presence oversea.

Zouaves, Turcos, and Tirallerus Algeriens are easily available from most of the Franco-Prussian War sets. Having seen a few, I came to the conclusion that Essex miniatures would be the best "colonial" conversions, as they are slightly less heavily packed than their counterparts for the European theatre.

Infanterie de Marine is actually available at Old Glory 15, in the aforementioned Boxer Rebellion range.

Infanterie is the basic infantry, as represented in some of the late 19th century prints: white pants, blue jacket, and white colonial casque. Here's one found on the internet.

Units of Infanterie would be easily converted from the existing French Marines by Old Glory.

Tiralleurs Senegalais would be converted from the Sudanese infantry made available by Old Glory 15 in their Sudan range. In the following print, also found over the internet, some of the Senegalais troops can be spotted in the background.

Tirailleurs Tonkinois et Annamites. As far as I know, they were only produced by Frontier Miniatures in a Boxer Rebellion range that has gone, unfortunately, OOP a long time ago. I was able to secure two bags, about 100 figures, in a circuitous manner. I found online a gentleman who happened to be friend of the Florida man who owns the moulds. Apparently, he was willing to occasionally produce a few bags here and there, for friends or upon request. I have never been able to get in touch with him directly -- apparently he only attends conventions in the South, and he does not respond emails nor phone calls. Bizarre. The topic was discussed on TMP a few years ago. This is very unfortunate, because these are (were) very good miniatures. I have never understood while they have never been taken back to the market. [For some mysterious technological reason, a webpage for this range is still online, several years after the manufacturer and retailer ceased all activities.]

Overall, this would be a fun project. Maybe the French takeover of Madagascar might be played for a small campaign, or maybe a fictional German intervention in Madagascar in the late 1890s might be created. In general, I feel colonial French have a lot of potential, and when my life will come back to some after-move normality, I may be willing to explore the possibilities.

News about MagWeb

2009-05-14T13:55:00.001-07:00

This announcement was posted a few days ago on TMP, and I hope not to commit capital offense in reporting it verbatim:

The MagWeb server is still off line, and support@ and magweb@ e-mails to our server will only bounce. I don't have an ETA on getting MagWeb back up and running, but I know that when it does get back online, it will be in a different format. We've found that we just can't rebuild something this large built over the last 13 years in just a few months.

As MagWeb has not been updated since the end of September, we here at MagWeb agreed that we should offer a refund to members' credit cards for the unused portions (October onward) of memberships. Our guru, Tibor, has done most of the work, and this will appear as a credit on your next Visa or Mastercard statement -- anywhere from $4.08 USD on up depending on when you joined.

So, I'll apologize (once again) for any inconvenience and thank you (once again) for all your support of MagWeb past, present, and future. I'll also try to cruise TMP more, or at least the "Websites for Wargaming" section.

Feel free to point folks to this message in TMP or repost this message elsewhere on the web.

As always, if you need to reach me, you can at my home e-mail address: [omissis]

Russ

Russ Lockwood
CEO, MagWeb.com

For those of you not familiar with the site, MagWeb is a fantastic online archive of wargaming magazines, some of them dating back to the '60s. In particular, I am very fond of The Courier, the magazine that basically re-started me into miniatures wargaming in my early '20s: I believe that the full text (and most maps and figures) from the publication are available online through MagWeb, from the first issue in 1979 to the last one in 2005. Also, MagWeb preserves the electronic archive of the Midwest Wargamers Association Newsletter, MWAN for short, a magazine that had -- and still has -- cult-like following among wargamers, and to this day reference for generations of players, a few years after its demise also in 2005 (clearly, a hell of an annus horribilis for wargaming publications...)

Unfortunately, I believe MagWeb was a victim of the extended flooding in the Midwest last year, which knocked its server down with severe loss of functionality. To this day, I can still have access to the information, but the search engine function has never been fully restored.

All I can hope for is that Russ will soon restore the site to its full capacity. If you have never subscribed to MagWeb before, you should plan to invest a few dollars into this service as soon as they will be back: it is money well spent!

Naval inspirations

2009-05-08T10:19:00.000-07:00

You may remember that a few months ago I finally dared to paint some Figurehead 1:6000 ships, and overall I had a very good experience -- actually, I became very excited about naval wargaming! then, as usual, my mind drifted away from that project, which nonetheless is abandoned. Far from it! A couple of recent postings in other blogs have revamped my Fall flame. Bob Cordery shows some old Minifigs models, and Jeff has been working on his grand fleet.
The inspiration from their work made me elaborate some thoughts on my own project. First of all, I feel comfortable in doing naval WWI at the small scale of 1:6000, since all I have available is a 6' by 4' table, and ground scale would look completely off at any other level. That said, there is something for larger scale, let say 1:3000, and I wonder whether sometimes, in my future, I would consider that scale for the pre-dreadnought period -- where, I feel, scales can be further compressed without stretching credibility to an extreme. To this regard, a recent exchange on TMP did not go unnoticed, either.
The second thought is about rules. I do have an itching, and it has been going on for a while, for Seekrieg V. It is an expensive affair, reason for which I keep postponing the purchase. It also sounds a pretty complex ruleset, somewhat against my recent inclination for a simpler, "old school" approach to wargaming. Yet, I am fascinated by it for two reasons: first, I am more attracted by small naval engagements rather than large, Jutland-like confrontations; and second, I am sincerely curious about the inner working of a battleship, and I do not mind to somewhat dig deep into the belly of the beast, so to speak.
Of course, the irony is not lost on the fact that the complexity of the battleship would be represented on the tabletop but a tiny piece of metal in 1:6000 scale. There seems to be a strident contrast there. Maybe this is one factor that is holding me back from the investing in the rules (which, these days, might still outperform my 401(k)...) And maybe it is this very factor that tempts me in the direction of 1:3000 models for the pre-dreadnought era (which, by the way, would still be covered by Seekrieg V.)
Just thinking out loud.

We moved!

2009-05-04T10:19:00.000-07:00

Now, that was the easy part, despite a couple of nights up until 3am, and shuffling apparently zillions of boxes from one side of town to another, and a full weekend spent disassembling and reassembling IKEA furniture, or assembling IKEA furniture ex novo.

The tough part of the job starts now: getting back to a semblance of normality in our life, proceeding swiftly to clear our new living space out of boxes and junk, and complete the roll call on what's there and what should be there but it's somewhere else.

More on topic: thanks to proper planning (the five Ps rule: "proper planning prevents poor performance"), the moving of my wargaming world proceeded smoothly, with relatively little damage expected at this time. Painted and almost painted miniatures were moved by yours truly, and despite some shaking of the boxes due to the bumpy ride to the new apartment (roads in Chicago still need extensive repairs after the winter), the mission was accomplished without any accident. Unpainted miniatures were packed and moved with the rest of our belongings, and I am glad to report all the boxes are accounted for. I could have done a slightly better job in organizing boxes and packs by period and army, so that less mix had to be arranged in some boxes. It may take a while now to sort things out, and unpack and make sense of what ended up with what else. In general, though, I am quite confident that everything will be accounted for, and in good shape. Expect a report soon.

The joy of blogging

2009-04-27T20:26:00.000-07:00

Here is a post by the always thoughtful and inspiring Bob Cordery -- a post I could have written myself, and to which I do subscribe from the first to the last line. In particular that last sentence:

I find the process of writing my blog entries makes me THINK about what I am doing, and this has helped me to DO far more than I would otherwise have achieved.

How true! Thanks Bob for giving voice to our sentiments with such a clarity!

Moving!

2009-04-27T20:15:00.001-07:00

On Friday, we are moving to a new apartment in the South Loop neighborhood of Chicago. With DestoFante Jr. on his way, we thought it was a good time to add a bedroom, and cut my commuting time from and to the office.

So, the past couple of weeks have been dedicated to packing all our stuff, and of course extra care was spent on preparing my wargaming collection to the relocation. I bought a few extra containers, where miniatures will find permanent home; some old boxes were tossed, as inadequate to endure the stress of the move, others were rearranged to make sense of what is contained were. Unpainted miniatures were finally organized by period. It was a nice opportunity to review the state of advancement of several projects, to update myself about the availability of terrains, and to think about what will be next.

It was also a nice opportunity to go through my library. Several books will be relocate to the office, many other will be reorganized on the shelves of the new apartment by language or topic. The craving for reading some neglected work was hard to suppressed. And finally, a small pile was set aside for donation to the library.

Bottom line: wargaming ground to halt for a few weeks as the move takes place, but hopefully by Friday night unpacking will proceed full speed in our new home, and it will not take long before I will sharing some progress! Cross your fingers, and please share any tip from your past experiences -- we have still time to prevent any major mistake!

Happy Easter & Happy Pesach!

2009-04-12T09:17:00.000-07:00

I hope all of you are enjoying a relaxing and happy day with your families and loved ones. My most sincere wishes for a special day to all my readers!

What a difference light makes

2009-04-06T09:57:00.000-07:00

I took these two pictures last Saturday. It is the very first tank I painted, an Israeli M-60 by QRF (I believe they have recently remade their casts for several of these items; this would definitely be a piece from the "previous generation.) This work was done about one year ago.
Painting tanks is a very unusual application for somebody like me, mostly used to work on horse & musket figures. Tanks are easy to prime and to paint with the base color, and not so easy to finish with proper tones and details. Anyway, as a first attempt, I was not too displeased; a few weeks after I finished the M-60, I completed three M-113 (you may see two of them in the background of the previous post's vignette) and they definitely showed my progress in getting comfortable with the different techniques of armor painting.
Fast forward one year: this past weekend I decided to take a few pictures, and I had to wrestle a bit to get good results from my camera. Light made all the difference, as shown in the two pictures. The first is taken with natural light in my dining room; the second one was the result of flash and higher speed. Just a few hours before, I had been a little disappointed by the very light blue I got on the uniforms of some of my Marlburian armies, as I mentioned here. I believe I have now learned a thing or two not just about painting tanks, but about photography as well.

Experimenting: how to write a battle report

2009-04-05T13:27:00.000-07:00

It is just a vignette, showing some of the IDF miniatures I just finished to base... but I am very intrigued by the idea to write my battle reports in this format...

On the workbench: Marlburians infantry

2009-04-05T10:44:00.000-07:00

I spent my weekend working on completely different figures in a different period, but it happens that I have some nice pics showing the progress made in past weeks on my Marlburians. And since I have not posted a good, colorful pictures in a while, I thought this may well be a good occasion. None of these units is completed yet, but they are moving along the production chain, and (I guess) can already make a good showing of themselves.

First, a unit made by Essex miniatures. Painted to represent an Irish, "Wild Geese" battalion, Albemarle. On occasion, the very same uniform will also do for the Saxe-Meiningen regiment of the Palatine Electorate. (And yes, if you really have to, the Imperial Osnabruck regiment has basically the same outfit, too, with white gaiters -- and on 15mm miniatures, from 3ft away, probably nobody will notice...)

Next, a French regiment -- it may equally be Normandie, Navarre, or Piemont. For sure, not the most flashy uniform: grey and white. But these are "Vieux Regiments" who deserve a spot on my table. (These, and the following three units, are Minifigs figures bought by the always nice and incredibly helpful Tom Dye.)

Third, a little jewel. The picture is unfortunately overexposed, and it shows in light blue what, in reality, is just a medium "Bavarian" blue. These are grenadiers from the Spanish "Milano" regiment, which, as a matter of fact, is not really Spanish but Italian. Milano being the birthplace of yours truly, this unit could not be left out. Kudos to Charles S. Grant's "Armies and Uniforms of the Marlborough's Wars vol. 2" for publishing a truly inspiring plate of the Milano Regiment.

Then, the Swiss of the Stuppa Regiment. Again, the exposure is off, and a medium blue is turned into a light blue that requires some mental and visual adjustment to be seen in its real color. This unit was a lot of fun to paint. And, once again, on a "as needed" basis, these miniatures can double up as Dorrington Irish.

Last, but not least: the Tercio Amarillo Viejos! Here's Charles S. Grant is inconclusive, as he reports about contradicting sources: some put the facing of the unit in red, other authors in blue. I have not made my mind yet, but at the moment I am inclined to go for the blue option. I have to say -- the yellow turncoat looks spiffy on my table!

There are two other groups of figures I hope to showcase soon: the infantry cheaters, that is SYW miniatures partially converted to look credible on the field half a century earlier, and some cavalry. Look for the next installment in this continuing series!

Busy life

2009-04-04T10:41:00.001-07:00

Life has been busy chez DestoFante. Between traveling and work, with a move weeks away and a baby due August 15th, I am actually surprised I can still squeeze in one hour or two for painting or catching up with the hobby. Of course, the choice is between coming here, and talking about the hobby, or sitting to the table and practicing the hobby. You guess how my time is distributed... But then, I realized that to my readers I may appear as a complete wargaming slacker! So, here a few topics for posts I promise I will write soon, if not exactly right now.

Cold Wars. I manage to squeeze in a cameo appearance for 36 hours at Cold Wars, the HMGS-East spring convention in Lancaster, PA. I did a little shopping, as you may expect, and also had a few thoughts about the state of the hobby. I need to write a thoughtful post about those, and share a few pictures (eye-candies always welcome!)

My Marlburian project continues in full swing! A couple of weeks ago I made some significant progress, short of a great push but enough to feel a sense of accomplishment. Photos to follow, hopefully soon.

I also saw some progress in my colonial project: there are several Abyssinian units almost ready for dipping and basing, and so several other European miniatures. It didn't help that I had to wait for almost one months to receive Litko bases, but the quality of the product is so good that the wait is worth. Of course, I got a little derailed by some tangential thoughts. I really would like to play some "Hunting the Slave Traders" games in Sudan, circa 1880. This would be more of a "Dark Africa" than a "Sudan" project, and unfortunately "Dark Africa" in 15mm doesn't offer the same variety of opportunities as it does in 25mm. I still need to do some thinking about that.

Further diversions. You may remember from here and here that I also harbor a closeted interest for the modern period. I have sketched some good detail about an African imagi-nation, the Republic of Lopongo, where to carry campaigns in style of Bongolesia and Ztum-Setum. That project has slowed down in 2009, but it is not forgotten. Also, years ago I began to paint some IDF and OLP miniatures from Peter Pig and QRF. I fully understand that the topic is politically charged, and I keep quiet about it; yet, this past week, I decided to take a step and I bought the PDF version of two "TooFatLardies" items, "Troops, Weapons & Tactics" and "Rock the Casbah." Once again, Rich Clarke did it for me. As in the case of "B'Maso", the quality of these products is excellent. They deserve a full review. It now seems that a "Lebanon 1982" project will be in the offing...

So many topics, so little time... I hope this will just serve as "menu" of posts to come, but in the meanwhile: back to table to get some painting and photographs done this afternoon!

15mm slave traders -- OG15 SYW Ottomans?

2009-03-26T15:15:00.000-07:00

Just posted on TMP, but I know there is a lot of XVIII century expertise here too, so I will repeat the question.

I am looking for good/passable stand-ins for African slave traders in the late 1800s. Think Gordon.

One option would be a mix collection of Colonial Egyptians, Sudanese, and Beduins, maybe with an occasion Crimean War Turks.

Another option is to look at the SYW Ottomans in the Old Glory 15 range, about which, unfortunately, I do not know anything. They are supposed to cover the 1700-1820, so I should be able to make some quick conversions without pushing the envelope too much. But what which bags should I consider? Bashi Bazouks? Nissam? Janissaries? Sekans? I am not familiar with any of these types, and no pictures are available at OG15. Anyone familiar with the ranges could provide some quick summary and/or description? Recommendations?

Thanks in advance, guys!

Building a bridge to somewhere (*)

2009-03-20T21:39:00.000-07:00

As explained in PaperTerrain website, "There are one 3-arch bridge, two 2-arch bridges and two 1-arch bridges included in the set. Unlike most of our building models, these bridges are designed to have a reinforcing layer of foamcore or balsa wood in the side supports. The foamcore or balsa is not included in the kit and must be provided by the buyer. The bridges come in two different color stones: brown and gray. You may select all brown, all grey or a mix."

So, after I left the office, I stop at a nearby hobby store, bought one sheet of foamcore, and came straight back home to work on the smaller of the bridges in the set, the one-arch brown stone model.

As for all the other PaperTerrain models I built in the past, good instructions are included in the set, so all boils down to some skill in cutting the paper card-board. Not a big deal, and something I carefully accomplished in a few minutes.

In the case of this bridge, though, there is a tricky part: the additional foamcore board to make the structure more robust. Here's I ran into some troubles: apparently, my strong glue was not strong enough to glue anything but my fingers. After a few botched attended, I grew very frustrated and I turned back to my trusted Elmers. The problem is that Elmers is a "wet" glue, far from ideal for a paper structure -- although a strong cardboard paper, in this case.

Apparently the change in strategy worked, and I was able to complete the project. It became evident at this stage, though, that I had previously committed a sin of omission: I should have primed the foamcore in dark brown first, as now I will have to retouch some spots where the white material shows from the paper junctures. Here's a few pictures (unfortunately a little on the dark side) about the completed bridge.

I spent part of my evening on a little project that has been in the pipeline for some time now: building one of the PaperTerrain bridges.

A final note on the reinforced structure which supports the bridge. Because of the problem with the glue, I opted for some little nails to keep the structure together. I took a picture of the bridge upside down, where you can spot a nail that did not go through straight.

Conclusion. I really like this bridge, and despite a few headwinds I had to face during the construction, I think I learned a few tricks and that the next time everything will work in a much smoother way. The bridge looks good, and it will look even better after a few retouched. Overall, I recommend you to give PaperTerrain -- definitely worth it!

(*) "We don't need bridges to nowhere anymore: we need real bridges to take real people to real jobs" -- DestoFante speaking to the media in his professional capacity.

Resist resist resist

2009-03-18T17:10:00.000-07:00

I am resisting thus far, but for a long time I had been complaining for the lack of 15mm miniatures for French Indochina... well, not anymore!

Eureka has just released a full range, and it looks excellent! Both French Legionnaires and VietMinh. And the Legionnaires would look so good in French Algeria, too...

Congratulations to Nic Robson for filling this exciting niche! As for myself... I am resisting... for a while...

Announcement

2009-03-16T13:16:00.000-07:00

If you noticed a drop in the frequency of posts in recent weeks, you are right but it goes with cause...

Mrs DestoFante and yours truly announce their first baby, due on August 15th. Sex still TBA, but we will be back with an update in the first week of April. In the meanwhile, we have been working on a relocation, from the North Side of Chicago to the South Loop.

Currently, Mrs DestoFante is in great spirit and health -- she is actually performing on a Midwest operatic stage. I am also in great spirit and health, and I just completed a cameo appearance at Cold Wars. A report with photos and comments will follow soon.

On other, un-related issues: the NCAA committee rejected an at-large bid to the basketball team of George Mason University, thus denying the American public the opportunity to enjoy high quality basketball during the March tournament.
As a result, wargaming activities will continue with no further distraction during the next four weeks.

Historicon to relocate to Baltimore in 2010!

2009-03-11T20:00:00.000-07:00

Read the news on TMP.

I congratulate HMGS-East on the decision!

I was expecting to see Cold Wars move rather than Historicon, but the decision is ballsy and long due. It made little sense to have two, and for a few years three, conventions in a rural location such as Lancaster. The convention has clearly outgrown the Host, whose quality is, to say the least, lackluster, despite some recent efforts to add some variety to the food they provide.

Baltimore offers MUCH better access – by airplane, for all of us leaving away from the East Coast; and by train, if you want an alternative to driving. Hotels will likely be more expensive, but I will save money on the rental car. And I am thrilled to have the food variety that downtown Baltimore offers, compared with the modest offerings available in Lancaster. Contrary to some comments read on TMP, the city of Baltimore has shown some excellent progress in revitalizing the downtown: it is a fun, hip place to be, with excellent restaurants and a variety of activities available for the whole family.

I think the move really introduces some differentiation in what HMGS offers. Our "Northern" members will still enjoy one convention in Lancaster, if they do not want to take the trip down south; yet, Baltimore might open the opportunity to attract new people who had been reluctant to travel to rural PA.

For once, I say "BRAVA HMGS"!

The myth of "the great push"

2009-03-11T10:55:00.000-07:00

Wargamers live with their myths, both collective and individual: realistic "rules", historical "accuracy", the most accurate uniforms painted on the most accurate figures, and so on. At the individual level, my personal, biggest myth is the idea of the "great ___ push". The "great Napoleonic push." The "great Colonial push." The "great WWI push." By this expression I mean to refer to the large quantity of half-painted miniatures I have sitting in boxes in my wargaming closet. The idea -- the dream, the myth... -- is that if I could only have 36 hours of undivided attention to dedicate to complete the project, in tayloristic fashion, I would indeed be able to complete my project "du jour." Of course, real life doesn't work like that, and the idea of a great push remains a myth. And yet it is an inspiring myth, and a comforting one. I know I am not the most systematic wargamer, I know I have tons of lead in a variety of stages of preparation, and in most cases I do really care about bringing a project to completion, at least in the sense that I want to be able to move some basic armies to the field to play some games. Wargaming projects never end, and there will always be the need for an additional unit, some more cavalry, a few more guns, a nicer officer figure, more suitable terrain, and so on. But if I could only, in one week-end sitting, through a "big push," bring to completion what I have preparing thus far for a long time, and complete a couple of armies in one long session... Ah, the myth of the great push!

In search of a spiritual moment

2009-02-24T13:55:00.000-08:00

I've been looking for a missionary. I thought it would be a great addition and add a lot of character to my colonial games. Missionaries can contribute a lot to the morale of the troops, but they seem particularly suitable to spring interesting situations: you need to escort them to long-lost missions around the world -- clearly in enemy's territory; you need to keep them supplied; you need to keep open the communication routes to their missions. And, last but not least, you need to protect them from hostile actions.
Thus, the question is: where do I recruit suitable missionaries/monks/friars/priests?
My first stop was Peter Pig's Wild West range, which offers at #69 a "priest with donkey." To tell the truth, I was not much impressed in the first place, and the bag ended up lost in my closet (I suspect the cats have something to do with the mysterious disappearance, but so far they have not confessed yet.)
Fortunately, there are a few other options to explore.
In the Mexican-American range, Minifigs includes "priests and padres. Alas, no pic available.
Essex provides "assorted praying monks" in its Crusade/Medieval range. You get even better luck if you are looking for Warrior Monks, whom Essex offers both in stationary and advancing poses.
Old Glory 15mm has a bag of monks under the "Pilgrim" category in the Crusades range. According to comments posted on TMP, "one is carrying a cross but others are armed with clubs or rocks."
Museum Miniatures gives you the choice between two "religious pack": praying monks and praying nuns, presumably also from the Medieval range. Caveat emptor: the website is a nightmare to navigate. If nevertheless, you prefer your nuns, well, not praying, but fighting, you can go back to Peter Pig and pick their feisty ones from the WW2 range -- too bad the pic seems to have been dropped by the site, because these club-swinging nuns were something, I tell you - almost like the nuns in charge of my kindergarten back in the days.
I have not searched further, maybe going upscale looking for a pope or at least a cardinal, who would look great in my Risorgimento games.
Further recommendations would be very welcome. Ite in pace.

Wargaming cycles

2009-02-20T17:54:00.000-08:00

A recent post by Jeff made me reflect about the cyclicality that is a major feature in my wargaming interests. By now, you must have realized that my interest in wargaming projects comes in bouts. I usually have five or six major periods that I juggle. In average, for a couple of months I get very excited about a project, then my enthusiasm seems to peter out. Do not get me wrong - I am still very much interested in what I am doing: only, it seems that I suffer from a short attention span, and keeping projects in a rotation help me to enjoy the hobby at its best -- and to relax along the way, which should be primary goal of any hobby. For the past couple of months I was fired up about my War of Spanish Succession armies, but I now feel the need to move my focus to something else, at least for a little while. Don't worry: WSS will be back -- apparently, my rotation seems to bring projects back at least once every six months, so I expect to be back at work on my marlburian miniatures by the summer. In the meanwhile, I have been looking around my boxes to see where the next flame may be: more WWI naval? More Napoleonic? Some progress in Lopongo? WWI Gallipoli? Right now, I am inclined to pick up again my colonial armies. I did excellent progresses a few months ago, so I should be able to field a few armies and have some fun on the battlefield within a relative short time frame. Italian, Abyssinians, and Zulus are all in advanced stage of preparations, and so are British, Pathans, and Boers. It seems a reasonable direction to concentrate my efforts over the next couple of months.

What this is all about...

2009-02-10T16:36:00.000-08:00

Think about: we spend countless hours to search the most arcane historical episodes, to paint the most accurate uniforms, to discuss and playtest the most convoluted rules, to create the most striking and fanciful terrain... and then somebody like Bob Cordery shows up with something like this, and he reminds us what wargaming is all about: the joy of having fun with toy soldiers, a few wooden cubes, and an old railtrack we received as a present when we were, shall we say, seven year-old?

I am looking at Bob's game in sincere awe, because he has been able to capture all the magic of the hobby which thrilled me even before I became a teenager. Simple miniatures (he actually deploys FPW figures as 1930s troops!), simple terrain and scenery, and tons of fun! This is all what wargaming should be about! Oh, I wish I could wash years of conditioning and self-conditioning off my mind, and just go back to play toy soldiers with the creativity, ingenuity and naivete I had when I was playing with my plastics Airfix miniatures 30 years ago!

THANKS TO: Bob Cordery, for graciously authorizing the reproduction of his pictures in my blog!

A wargaming mistery is solved - plus a few ideas about making terrain

2009-02-08T10:45:00.000-08:00

There has been some investigative reporting going on by veteran wargamer Bob Cordery, both on his blog and TMP. In an old newsletter he found the following picture, and he did some work to identify the wargamer so concentrated on the developing game.

It turned out that this fine gentleman was a Canadian professor of sociology, Gerard De Gre, who apparently was a significant contributor to the hobby in the '60s and the '70s. Later, Prof. De Gre fell into oblivion -- until Bob started asking questions about him a few weeks ago. I want to thank Bob for the fantastic job in rediscovering the forgotten ideas of a pioneer in wargaming!

A close inspection of the picture posted above, though, spurred a few thoughts on my own. Look at his tabletop. In my games, I tend to have an emphasis on the "vertical" elements -- typically, houses, trees, and hills, plus, of course, miniatures. The only "horizontal" elements I depict are roads and rivers. Yet it seems to me that De Gre had used the horizontal surface to depict, in a two-dimensional space, some "vertical" elements -- look, in particular, to the banks of the river. Hence the idea: maybe I could integrate 3-D elements with 2-D drawings of terrain features. I am thinking, in particular, to all those details that would make a table look good, but whose physical presence in 3-D would slow down the actual game -- or adding to the cost of terrain. Elements like bushes, river banks, sunken roads, small walls, fences.

I did some research, and I found out that the practice of using miniatures over 2-D surfaces with 3-D effects is very popular among RPG players. (That's "Role-Playing Games", just in case...) There are actually special software programs that help RPG players in drawing their maps, dungeons and the like: Dundjinni, Campaign Cartographer, Fractal Mapper.

Here's an example, from the Dudjinni website:

My idea would be to use printouts like the one shown here to add character to the flat ground, and then add, on top, the "regular" wargaming elements in 3-D -- hills, houses, trees. I would expect the final look to be close to what appears on Prof. De Gre's table.

I confess: the idea is intriguing. I am not sure how much money and time I want to invest into this side project, but I definitely want to explore this possibility more.

Back in Chicago

2009-02-08T09:53:00.001-08:00

These were, to say the least, a rough couple of weeks. Ten days ago my grandmother passed away. We were blessed to have her in amazing spirit and wonderful health until the very morning she felt sick. This has been very sad. I was lucky enough to be able to arrange a trip back to Italy for the funeral, and the opportunity gave great peace. Unfortunately, the return turned into an Odyssey, as bad weather and technical failures marred each segment of the itinerary. Flying with the worst air company in the planet, Alitalia, didn't help. I got stranded in Rome, in a hotel without heating, for one night. I got stranded several hours in Toronto. My luggage was lost.
I finally made it back to Chicago, just to face a huge pile of work in my backlog, and two major media presentations. And now I am sick - probably a mix of fatigue, stress, changes in temperatures and weather, and a good ole winter cold.
Enough whining; from today on, I should be back on a relatively normal schedule.

In search of: recent Gå På rules review

2009-01-22T21:41:00.000-08:00

I swear I just read it yesterday: an excellent review of Gå På, the rule set dedicated to the War of Spanish Succession and the Great Northern War by Thomas Arnfelts of Acedia Press. Some of you, or some of the bloggers you link to, bought and read the booklet over the holidays, and posted a very well-done review. I want to share it with a friend, but I didn't bookmark it, and of course now I am going crazy because I cannot track it down. Can anyone help? Thanks in advance!

UPDATE 1-24-2009. Found!

WSS/SYW cavalry - a question, and a special sale

2009-01-19T11:41:00.000-08:00

Question to my very knowledgeable readers: are there SYW cavalry units that, properly painted, could pass muster as WSS cavalry units?

The question follows not only from my precedent threads on "cheating", but by the excellent special sale now advertised by Old Glory 15 (which I learned by a mail they sent tonight to their customers: nice touch!)

For those of you into miniatures by OG15, BattleHonors, and Rank &File: for orders of $100+, you get a 30% discount... how could YOU resist?

Cheating - a continuing series...

2009-01-18T12:55:00.000-08:00

Since, ehm ehm, I decided to spell the beans about a few, despicable wargaming practices I decided to engage in, I will confess another questionable course of action I recently resolved to follow.

The astute reader may have notice, in previous posts about my WSS project, a unresolved tension about the size of the units. I know and I wholeheartedly agree that 24-figure units look much better than 12-figure units. On the other side, all I have is a 4' by 6' table, and I plan on using a few different rulesets, some of which can be played with 12-figure units. Not that I plan on fighting Blenheim, but it would be nice to have the flexibility, depending by the scenario, to play larger scale battles with 12-figure units or enjoy smaller scale engagements with 24-figure battalions in full display. As many wargamers, I also suffer from a certain bulimia in planning for my armies. Seriously: with so many colorful regiments, how do I decided what to paint, and what not.

So, how to reconcile these opposite aspirations? And how to accommodate for 12- and 24-figure battalions, without too much redundancy but enough variety?

Once again, an attentive exploration of online sources came to help (I already pointed to this fabulous and inspiring website.) Let's look to a few examples.

On the left, we have a sample of the uniform of the Regiment Normandie; on the right, the Regiment Piemont. They look almost the same, but for a little detail: the lining on the tricorne is yellow in the former case, white in the latter. Subtle difference, which does not go unnoticed by my anal retentive self: but how noticeable would be on 15mm miniatures from 3ft away? You may have already guess where I am going with this... IF I paint ONE 24-figure units, where half of the miniatures have a yellow lining, and the other half a white one, I can cheat a bit and actually have TWO different 12-figure units when playing larger encounters. Again, cheating is cheating, but functional to an end. The difference is minuscule enough not too be too disturbing when Normandie and Piemont will be bunched together, but fully satisfying when I will play Age of Reason, or Piquet, or GaPa, as written.

If you can tolerate this shortcut, the possibilities to diversify your armies on the cheap become endless. Two more examples.

In this case, the two regiments are Anjou, left, and Berry, right. Here's the difference is in the intensity of the blue. Almost impossible to detect, unless you watch closely and in the right light. And the same difference in the intensity of the blue color on collar, cuffs and waistcoat is what set apart the uniforms of the next two regiments, Stuppa on the left (Suisse unit in French pay) and Dorrington on the right (an Irish battalion also in French pay.)

Bottomline. I understand I have just shocked and outraged the purists. But I believe that I found a decent trick to achieve a few goals: I can afford to have several different units on a 12-figure per unit, and at the same time I can combine these in pair and, with little and tolerable differences, deploy 24-figure units when the fancy strikes. A shortcut to enjoying the best of the two possible worlds!

Cheating

2009-01-15T09:57:00.000-08:00

A.k.a. converting figures.

As I noticed in the previous post, uniforms in the early XVIII century seem to share several common traits, so that national differences are mostly ( mostly: not entirely) confined to the color of coats, cuffs, waistcoats, collars. This realization spurred some thinking about one of my persisting, sore issue: what to do with a very large amount of unpainted lead I bought years ago from Old Glory: assorted 15mm Prussian and Austrian for the SYW, a period I decided, after all, to overlook in favor of the earlier war of Spanish Succession. My readers will be familiar with my headaches about these miniatures, as occasionally I return on the sour topic.

Having resolved against a SYW project, the question about what to do with these figures still stand. My last, tentative answer: to attempt some conversion to the early period. After consulting several plates, I realized that, at a 15mm scale (and thinking in terms of painting outcomes at a 3ft distance on the tabletop), WSS and SYW uniforms differ in three respects:

A. SYW coats are shorter and more fitting; WSS coats are longer to the knee;
B. SYW uniforms show elaborate and colorful turnbacks, and several details in terms of pockets, bottoms, etc. WSS are plain and simple;
C. SYW belts tend to be white, whereas WSS belts are mostly buff or brownish.

There is nothing I can do about A., but converting B. and C. from SYW to WSS only require a proper painting job; to some extend, at a 3ft distance view, a proper painting job may also help to artificially make coats longer than they are cast.

Hence my plan: I brought back on my table some Prussian musketeers and Austrian infantry units in tricorne, and I painted the upper section of the pants in the same color of the coat: dark blue for the Prussian, soon-to-be turned into Palatine Leibregiment, obviously white for the Austrian, soon-to-become the French Luxemburg regiment. A heavy layer of paint help in tricking the sight. I will NOT paint most of the details, just leaving to the final dip to highlight some of them. Finally, all the belts will be painted brown. We'll see what the final result will be. And no: do not expect to see any large picture of these miniatures. I know I am cheating!

But it the plan will work, I might finally find a solution for all those neglected and not really loved OG miniatures sitting in the closet! Austrian and Prussian musketeers will become French, Austrian and minor states WSS units; part of Austrian cuirassiers will become the Palatine's Venningen Gendarmes, and the artillery will be liberally distributed on a as-needed basis. I still have a few doubts about Prussian grenadiers and fusiliers, so if you could make recommendations for suitable WSS counterparts I will sincerely appreciated!

Dipping

2009-01-14T08:04:00.000-08:00

I just replied to a comment by Steve to the previous post, and I realized that some of this information might be of interest to a broader audience (if you are like me, you probably skip the comments section, or get distracted at the second one...)

Steve guessed, correctly, that the figures shown in the pictures had been "dipped." Correct! If you look through some my old posts in the "Painting" category, you will find more examples about my dipping technique. I use MinWax Polyshade, a product to treat wood,easily available in American hardware stores. Depending by the effect I want to create, I use either the "Tudor Satin" finish, which is basically black (although MinWax has now a new shade which is officially 'Classic Black"), or the "Royal Walnut", which is more brownish-reddish (it works very well for natives in the colonial period; I once tried "Honey Pine" to create a sandy effect on bedouins, though, but it was a complete disappointment.) In the case of my WSS miniatures, it was "Tudor Satin."
Strictly speaking, I actually do not "dip", but I apply the finish with a brush, as I like to control the final effect. In particular, as a matter of personal taste, I like white to remain white, rather then turning "dirty grey" as it may happen in case of too heavy dipping. Occasionally, I leave the figures to drip upside-down on some support of sort to get rid of the excess dip. As a general pattern, results are excellent on miniatures primed in white and painted in bright colors; the effects are barely noticeable on dark colors (check the Palatine infantry, in dark blue, in the previous post.) And on miniatures primed in black, a dark dipping may result in figures excessively dark, at least for my taste -- as documented here.

In general, I am a fan of dipping. While it does not shorten my painting time, as I tend to detail my miniatures quite a bit anyway, it really add that special shading that, to my eyes, turns a painting job from B- (here) into an A- (here).
But again, as we say in Italy, "ogni scarrafone e' bello a mamma sua": every cockroach is beautiful to his mommy's eye, thus I tend to have a weak spot in grading my own figures...

A project gains traction

2009-01-13T09:01:00.000-08:00

Belated Happy New Year!

By a quick look at my blog roll on the side bar, it is apparent I am the last one coming back to blogging after the holidays break. As now usual, a variety of circumstances have delayed my updates, but that doesn't mean that no wargaming activity took place chez DestoFante. Under my Christmas tree I found a new ruleset, "Cartouche 2" - the Piquet module for WSS, WAS, SYW and AWI. It is an excellent addition to an already excellent line of products, and I will come back soon with more thoughts about it.

I also persisted in my slow, but steady progress on the WSS project, and I am now glad to share some previews of the finally mounted miniatures that you have already seen at different stages of preparation in the past. We are getting very close to the final christening! At the present time, I have completed four 12-figure units, two French and two for Electoral Palatine. And, more importantly, I can show you the pictures!

The clever and knowledgeable reader will recognize, top to bottom, a Palatine unit from Edition Brokaw, a first French unit from Minifigs - the Regiment de Perche - and a second French unit from Minifigs, the Regiment d'Enghien. Flags are from Warflag and Palatine and Perche, and from this site for the Enghien.

A few words for commentary. These are my first XVIII century units officially completed. (Almost completed, to be precise: I still need to do some green painting on the bases, although I do not plan any flocking.) There was a lot of learning involved in the process; as in the case for new figures and new periods, at first things look more complex than they really are. I experimented a bit with colors, learning a lesson or two. I wish the French "grey" could be more greyish: it almost look light-blueish in the pics, under less than ideal light. The choice of the two specific regiments, Perche and Enghien, was more driven by the experimenting with the colors than by gaming purposes or historical interest. In the case of the Palatine units, I learned that it makes a huge difference to apply Vallejo dark blue over a black or white primer. Discerning eyes will recognize, in the back of the Palatine unit, the attached grenadiers with brighter coats - these were the figures primed in white, while the main body of the unit went through a black priming in an early batch.

But now some good news. WSS uniforms seem to be remarkably similar across armies: it is not uncommon for some miniature manufacturers (Dixon, Essex, Irregular) to actually offer generic types to cover all nationalities. In terms of painting, it means that once I went through the learning curve once, I now feel confident to be able to quickly add additional units at a relative fast pace. In the making, I already have another 24-figure (or two 12-figure, depending...) Palatine unit, plus the Palatine Leibregiment, plus a converted French battalion (Anjou or Luxemburg), plus a Palatine cavalry unit... and a long queue of French (including Suisse & Irish) and Spanish (including Savoy) figures heading for priming soon, plus some Brandenburg-Ansbach Austrian grenadiers already on the bench... stay tuned!

Merry Christmas!

2008-12-25T10:01:00.001-08:00

Marry Christmas to all DestoFante's readers!
My best wishes for holidays of peace and joy for all of you!

A year in review

2008-12-22T10:17:00.000-08:00

DestoFante will be on the road for the next 10 days. First, Christmas with Mrs. DestoFante & her family in Florida; then, New Year’s celebration with my family in Italy. I expect the program to include a first jump in temperatures from -20°F with wind-chill in Chicago to 82°F in Southern Florida, then another sudden drop to the mid 30°F up in the Italian Alps near the Swiss border where my family live.
And DestoFante detests sudden changes in temperature.

These travel plans also mean that, maybe with the exception of a few hours of painting that I hope to squeeze in tonight or tomorrow, the wargaming year is coming to a close. It seems the right time to make a quick summary of the accomplishments of the past 12 months (there will be opportunities to discuss the projects for 2009 at a later time.)

First of all, this blog. It provided “method to the madness.” It has been a wonderful instrument to reconnect with old friends, and make several new ones. It really keeps the excitement going, and it works well as “discipline device”: it keeps me focused on my projects, and it provides the incentive to get things done, or to articulate my thoughts of the several different aspects of the hobby.

In terms of new periods, in 2008 I broke ground on three major projects: the Marlburian age, an “AK-47 Republic” imaginary African state, Lopongo, and my first foray in naval wargaming with 1/6000 WWI models.

Old projects never die, nor fade away… nor really get completed, because you also have one or two units here and there that can be added. In 2008, I made progress on the miniatures of my Abyssinia campaign, and I completed a few Napoleonic and WWI units.

In terms of rules, I was glad to provide some input to my friends EB who is working to revise the colonial module for an excellent ruleset (hint, hint: these are my favorite rules.) The project is due for publication in 2009, and it will probably be available at Historicon.

I also had the opportunity to buy and read two excellent rule booklets, among the best I have seen in several years: Sam Mustafa’s “Grand Armee” and “GåPå.” I promise a post on the topic of rules a long time ago, and for one reason or another I have not been able to write it yet, but I am looking forward to share with my readers some of my preferences & pet peeves on the thorny issues. Since I am very particular about what I like and what I dislike in rules, it is quite significant that in a matter of a few months I found not one, but two sets I sincerely enjoy very much.

I should add two further rule books that are going to have long-lasting impact on my gaming: the old but newly republished “The War Game” by Charles Grant, and the revised XVIII century module for Piquet, “Cartouche 2”, which hopefully will be delivered in time to appear under my Christmas tree in two days.

As for terrain and scenery, in 2008 I learned that paper models are cheaply (or freely) available, and they have reached an excellent quality. I plan several purchase at PaperTerrain over the next 12 months, as terrain is one area where I have been lagging.

Finally, this year marked my return to Historicon after a one-year hiatus. As usual, the experience was blast – both socially and in terms of shopping. The show is always the same, but that’s the way we like it. Crossing my fingers, I hope to have the good luck to return to Historicon in 2009, although it is too early to tell.

All these small and large accomplishments, I should add, were achieved during an unusually busy professional year, when we saw changes of historical magnitude in our economic and financial landscape. The almost complete silence in blogging during September and October were the direct result of such a dramatic time; nevertheless, the hobby has also been a major stress-reliever during a very tense period.

I should have time to make a few plans for 2009 during the flights in the next week or so, and I will definitely check in for the seasonal greeting over the next few days. Not sure if new pics will come available, but I will post any good ones I will get in my hands!

Freezing temperatures...

2008-12-21T19:44:00.001-08:00

... make for a perfect painting afternoon! And I am glad to report some further progress in my Marlburian project. I am currently working on a few units from the Army of Electoral Palatine I bought at last Historicon from Editions Brokaw, plus one French infantry from Minifigs, plus one unit of Brandenburg grenadiers. Here's a few pics, taken before I realized a major mistake: belts and bandoliers should not be white, they should be buff or leather! Since then, I promptly corrected the error with some appropriate retouches -- unfortunately, no picture to document the final result.

ISO a good boardgame for my father-in-law

2008-12-14T14:08:00.000-08:00

Hello my dear readers,

I apologize in advance for this open and somewhat off-topic request, but I trust your indulgence and broad knowledge of everything-wargaming as I work on my Christmas list…

My wife suggested that, as a present for my father-in-law, we look into a military boardgame. I have been concentrating on miniatures for two decades now, and my Avalon Hill days are long gone, so I am not really sure what to look at. My father in law is a retired high school principal, with a keen interested in American history, in particular AWI and ACW. He never played wargames before, but he seemed genuinely interested to my gaming hobby. I do not expect him to pick up brushes and miniatures, hence the idea to proceed with a boardgame first. Ideally, I'd love to find a game with the following features:

a. good/high solitaire playability;
b. very good historical background;
c. medium complexity: something engaging for an adult, not too simplistic yet not too overwhelmingly complex;
d. focus on the American War of Independence or the American Civil War.

I am sure that, out there, there must be a "present day" AH "1776"… I just don't know where to look. Any suggestion & recommendation will be greatly appreciated – and hey, if any winning idea will come, I'll buy you a drink at Historicon!

Thanks in advance!

Is paper the new black?

2008-12-13T17:39:00.000-08:00

Of course it is not, nor I would ever dare to state the contrary. Yet, I think that for people in the right mindset, with the proper expectations, and for the right price, paper can go a long way on our wargaming tables.
Enter exhibit A.

This building was downloaded a few evenings ago from this website. If I well understand, the models are inspired by buildings in the French island of Reunion (which, by the way, I thought it was a penal colony.)
Yes, this is not perfect. It is not the solid, stocky building I would have bought at JR Miniatures. Not the excellent, hard cardboard models from the always intriguing Paperterrain. But hey, the price is certainly right: they are free to download! All I needed was a color printer, some glue, some patience, and a couple of hours during a rainy afternoon. And rest assured this palace will come handy again and again: I already envision it as the Prince's Palace in my XVIII century imagi-nation, the Principality of Saxe-Pape-Cyssor, and it will also serve as the presidential palace in Lopongo.
I hope, eventually, to refine my skills in paper building - starting with a not exactly simple project has probably affected today's final result, too. But again, with the right expectations and the right mindset, I believe this palace will be in proud display on the tabletop soon.

Annoying delay

2008-12-01T14:17:00.000-08:00

You may -- or may not -- have noticed very little action in my fictional African Republic of Lopongo. Unfortunately, we ran into some headwinds. In order to get ready for a first, "fighting" scenario, I was waiting a few miniatures I ordered through a winning eBay auction. It was a very nice lot: some vehicles, some Peter Pig figures, a few other interesting items. Even the price was more than fair.
Alas, the US Postal Service lost the package! As I file complaints and insurance claims, I am apparently stuck with an annoying delay in the project. I need a few figures to get started on the first scenario (and I am not telling about it yet!), but I am reluctant to do another order now, in December, with holidays looming - and USPS notoriously overstretched...
Thus, in the meanwhile, I have been doing some background reading to add some realism to the first developing plot in Lopongo: the oil deal between the government and the French. I learned a lot about the economics of oil in Africa and, ironically, I have used part of that information in my professional capacity before than on the tabletop. I look forward to move the Lopongo story forward with a detailed post about the economics and politics of the oil deal soon.
In the meanwhile, I am glad to refer to another blog of interest for those of you following modern insurgencies/conflicts: Tiny Metal Men, faring from Australia, with some catchy materials. Read there, and keep an eye on here, too.

O boy, "they paint" fast...

2008-11-23T15:02:00.000-08:00

... and you paint, and paint...
And here we go. Fresh from my bench, SMS Goeben and SMS Breslau ready to sail off Messina, destination: unknown. Circa August 6, 1914.

Now the question is: does Britannia still rule the waves?
These guys are out to offer their answer...

Some commentary will follow soon... but I figure out you will enjoy a happy Sunday night with some eye-candies. All these miniatures are Figurehead 1/6000. Painting took place between yesterday and today, and this time around there was some headwind: one lesson I learned is never, never spraying a white primer outdoor in the freezing Chicago temperature. Nevertheless, I recovered from that horrid splash of condensed white paint shot on HMS Warrior, and I sailed relatively smoothly for the rest of the job.
Funny fact: none of these miniatures were in my possess as of last Monday morning. On Monday afternoon, I submitted an order to the Figurehead distributor at The Last Square, Madison WI. The miniatures were fortunately in stock: the package was sent on Tuesday morning from Madison, and delivered on Thursday in Chicago. By Sunday night, they were painted and ready for action. Sigh of bliss...

Dried-up acrylic paints

2008-11-18T13:22:00.000-08:00

In a few weeks I will visit my family, and I will face again one issue I confronted during my last visit. I found in a closet a box with several acrylic paints, forgotten for a long time and, by now, completely dried up. Question: is that any chance I may "resuscitate" them? They are water-based acrylic paints, so, I wonder, maybe I could add some solvent (or just plain water?) and bring the pigments back to life. is it possible?
Clearly, DestoFante does not understand much about the chemistry of acrylic paint, but still hopes...

Dipping the toe in new waters

2008-11-16T13:47:00.000-08:00

Having just asked myself the other day, "how am I suppose to paint these little jewels? ", where by jewels I meant some 1/3000 and 1/6000 miniatures for naval wargaming, it was only consequential to spend a quiet, otherwise uneventful Saturday afternoon by taking up my own challenge. Again, I have never painted any ship, in an scale, before, so this was an absolute FIRST. Here's my humble chronicle of the events of the weekend.
I started by gluing my ships to nails with a flat head - I guess, this is the naval equivalent of the wooden stick I use for 15mm miniatures. I was lucky enough to have some styrofoam around, which provided an excellent base. The Figurehead 1/6000 minis were separated, the actual vessel on one nail, the base on another. Here's how my table looked at that point.

Next, some white priming. This was done with the Krylon H2O White Primer I bought in the by now not-so-recent trip to WalMart. Very nice primer, I would agree - and pretty cheap. I keep it light, since this are tiny tiny model, and I didn't want to overdo my hand. Here's a close-up of RN Regina Elena.

Next step, I did some actual painting, starting from the 1/3000 Davco. D-551 Audace was relatively easy: light gray for the vertical surfaces, and dark gray for the horizontal ones. This seems to be a pretty standard scheme for NATO. The tanker was slightly more challenging. I was not able to come up with a color picture of British Trent, so I had to adopt the scheme from a few other online pictures I found through Google. As for the Osa-Class mssile boats, a few good pics helped a lot; I opted for brownish horizontal surfaces and gray vertical surfaces, based on a few pictures from former Soviet and Iranian sources. This is not the best pictures, but at least shows the three vessels together.

Since the Osa-class ships are attached to the base, I took a little time and fun to paint the waters... and this is the moment in which things got exciting. I have to confess, thus far I was painting without much self-awareness, but now I began to feel the excitement. I took a picture of this Osa and I began to feel self-confident into my efforts.

I polished the three Osa, Audace and the tanker with a black ink wash. Not my favorite technique - I actually explored a very light dipping in my dark WinMax Polyshade, but I decided against going this way - the Osa model I experimented with looked too shiny, and I was not able to control the "blackening" to fix a few "painting sins." Black ink did it, and I was glad with the results.
I took a break, and I realized it was time to move on to the the 1/6000 Figurehead vessels. I cannot hide my concerns: these are tiny. Really tiny. I already felt I was stretching my abilities with a 1/3000 model, and Figurehead was upping the ante to an entirely new challenge. Oh, well... I started dipping the brush with the thinner point into the paint, and I slowly went to work... first, the horizontal surfaces, a yellowish buff; then the vertical surfaces, a brownish gray. The color scheme came from a few models I found online (in a much bigger scale!) at this excellent website. Then I painted the chimney turrets black. And then... I was done! Seriously, there is not much else you can do on a vessel at the 1/6000 scale! This is how RN Regina Elena looked at this stage.

I faced again the dilemma between miracle dipping and ink wash, and I went for a split decision. RN Regina Elena received the ink wash, while RN Dante Alighieri got a mini-dip. I worked on the bases, and by now I felt I mastered the tricky task thanks to the previous work done on the Osa ships.
And right there, I was done: the miniatures popped easily off the nails, and as easily were glued to their bases. Done!
After all the work, this morning the time came to take some "official" pictures. First, the Osa class missile boats.

Now D-551 Audace and the tanker.

Then RN Regina Elena.

And finally, RN Dante Alighieri with RN Regina Elena in the background.

Some final thoughts. Painting these miniatures was actually far easier than expected, and that's true also for the 1/6000 Figurehead. Actually, I am thinking to buy some more from this line. My first foray into painting naval miniatures was fun, at moment exciting. I am delighted by decision to spend my Saturday on this task. I will resist the temptation to stand on the deck of RN Regina Elena and declared "Mission accomplished", but I feel elated by the experience, and I think I will soon explore naval miniature wargaming with more dedication. I have a few thoughts to share on the topic of which rule sets to adopt, but I will leave that for another post. For now, let me bask in the sunshine on the deck of one of the aforementioned ships...

Naval detour

2008-11-13T17:49:00.000-08:00

Over the years, I had a few moments of fondness for the idea of naval wargaming. On my bookshelf, I have a copy of Harpoon, in case I decided, one day, to play some modern scenario. And Seekrieg V has been on my wish-list for quite some time.
Occasionally, I also bought some miniatures: modern 1/3000 Davco and WWI 1/6000 Figurehead. These miniatures just came in my hands again tonight, as I was browsing through my wargaming closet. They are nice, nice for sure... but... er... how am I suppose to paint these little jewels? I found a few online tutorials, most notably this, but nothing that really convinced me that painting naval miniatures would not be complete madness.
So, here I am contemplating the nice pictures I am sharing, and wondering...
Modern Italian DDG "Audace", 1:3000 Davco model
WWI Italian BB, RN "Regina Elena", 1:6000 Figurehead model
WWI Italian BB, RN "Dante Alighieri", 1:6000 Figurehead model

ERRATA: The modern vessel, "Audace", is in fact a Davco model, not Navwar as previously stated.

Another quiet night of painting...

2008-10-28T20:32:00.000-07:00

This is becoming a recurring theme for this fall. I am able to squeeze in a little bit of painting, let say 90 minutes to a couple of hours. Not much to register any major breakthrough, but still a very enjoyable session, actually relaxing and not too tiring on my eyes. I usually work on a batch of figures: 24 marlburian miniatures (a battalion), or 24 Napoleonic ones as I did today. This is a rather rewarding strategy: I work on a small group of figures so that I can do some actual progress, and I do not get bored as I did when working on the boots of 60 miniatures in one sitting. The downside is that progress is slow, but hopefully there will be soon a good number of figures ready for basing - and then, you can count on some good picture!

Post number 100

2008-10-28T20:26:00.000-07:00

I just realized that the previous post was number 100. One hundred posts since June 21st - not bad! When I started blogging, I was not sure how frequently I would be able to write my wargaming notes. Apparently, I did better than expected, but I still feel some frustrations about the past few weeks, which have been professionally very demanding. In any case - I am still here, and happily so!

A night of peaceful painting

2008-10-21T21:22:00.000-07:00

... and the nice feeling that progress is happening in my "age of reason" project! I spent a couple of hours adding a few but fun details - the cuffs, the tricorne lace, the belts...
Here's, in no particular order, some of the work for the night. The first two shots are Minifigs WSS French; the third, the infamous Old Glory SYW Austrians; the last, the Edition Brokaw WSS Palatine. On this final line: the sculpt is somewhat rough and "old style", but I have to say these miniatures are easy to paint, and very fun to work on. Despite the tentative details, they have a shot of becoming favorite of mine along the Minifigs range!

A new, exciting colonial blog

2008-10-20T17:02:00.000-07:00

It was opened in mid September, but somehow it slipped from my attention until now... The "Campaigns of General William Augustus Pettygree" is an "old style" wargaming blog that brings us back to the North-West Frontier... I can't wait to have the time to read all the past posts (the recent ones are very inspiring!

New brushes

2008-10-19T20:21:00.000-07:00

I haven't bought brushes in quite some time. Actually, a long time - it must be more than a few years. Probably I got by because I take good care of them, but they were beginning to show signs of wear. Points weren't as fine as they should, and I was beginning to have hard time in catching some of the tiny details. Time to go shopping for some new tools!
Fortunately, in the Chicago suburbs we have a very nice hobby store - Game Plus in Mount Prospect. I headed in that direction for some shopping yesterday, and here's what I took home.

Four spanking new brushes, three in a nice set by Reaper. Size 5/0, 0, 1, and 2 flat. This addition should provide some mileage to my current painting projects - Lopongo, WSS/Saxe-Pape-Cyssor, etc. This purchase will also give me some leeway to transfer the old brushes to some heavy-duty task, like dry brushing camo or horses.
To tell the truth, I have done some more painting today wild those old tools, which served me so well over the years. Maybe they could have kept going for a while. But it is nice to have something new!

Lopongo miniatures - a preview

2008-10-18T11:45:00.000-07:00

This is my first attempt to paint contemporary armies. An interesting journey: clearly, painting camo is not as easy as I first thought, but with some exercise I should become able to produce OK, "wargame standard" miniatures. It is a work in progress, but I want to share my first brush strokes.
The first group will be mercenaries: South Africans, Rhodesians, Belgians, some veterans from the French Foreign Legion. Not sure yet whom they will work for - a big oil company setting up operations in Lopongo? A PMC (private military company) hired by president Kwanto Sei Bruto? or maybe by a district governor with ambitious plans of his own? Stay tuned! For the time being, here's how they are coming along.

The second shot is for Lopongo regulars. As you may expect, these are likely under-paid and under-trained men from which you would not expect much... unless motivated by the desire of better pay after a radical political change, or inspired by a visionary religious leader, or driven by long-seeded tribal animosity...

The Republic of Lopongo

2008-10-18T09:44:00.000-07:00

I did it. To relax from the stress caused by the global financial meltdown, I took a breather and created my imaginary Western Africa nation, the Republic of Lopongo. I opened a blog about it, "Qui Lopongo", where an independent news agency will report events, breaking news, and in-depth analysis from that unfortunate spot on earth. I even drew a few maps, that you will find in the blog under a detailed "Country Brief". I plan to keep "Qui Lopongo" in character, and post all the wargaming information on "Desto Fante".

A few words of introduction. I was fascinated by Peter Pig's AK-47 miniatures when they were first released. After all, who didn't love a book like "Dogs of War" or a movie like "Wild Geese"? My problem in embarking on a wargaming project, though, was the AK-47 rules. I love the tongue-in-cheek style - which I deem necessary to a subject that may be unsettling to many - but I was less than impressed by the actual gaming mechanisms. A couple of things have changed. TooFatLardies just published a supplement for the post-colonial African conflicts, B'Maso, tailored for their WWII rules IABSM (which I enjoy a lot) and for their skirmish set TWT (I never remember what that stands for, but it is IABSM at a smaller level, i.e. IABSM is company vs TWT is platoon.) Second, an interesting ruleset is out there for modern regulars vs. irregulars types of fight, "Ambush Alley". Thus, I came to the conclusion that with IABSM, TWT, "Ambush Alley", and the compass of B'Maso it will be possible to play AK-47 scenarios - even a nation-wide campaign! - which both maintains the chrome and provides fun game mechanics & narrative.

In the Country Brief, I went to some length to set the background, and I also add some "color" to the personalities involved. Italian-speaking friends will probably take note of the ironic nature of the names used - unfortunately, with a few exceptions, most of the jokes go lost in English.

Finally, a few acknowledgments. There are two great websites that have offered ever-ending inspiration for Lopongo: Ztum-Setum and Bongolesia. I've never met personally the gentlemen behind Ztum and Bongolesia, the members of the South East Scotland Wargames Club and Mr. Murph in Indianapolis, but my kudos to them! I hope Lopongo will be as inspiring and fun as their African imaginations!

Excellent service!

2008-10-12T19:28:00.000-07:00

On September 22nd, I placed an order to Silver Eagle for the few Abyssinians figures I need to complete the roster of my army. Monday September 22nd. I got a nice reply by Jacob, who told me a few items were out of stock. I agreed to split the order, and... Wednesday September 24th, I got my package! I mean - 36 hours to go from CT to Chicago. WOW! Bravo! I received this past week the second installment, which I was not expecting until the second half of the month!

I should add: I have received some very good service by several dealers over the past six months: Silver Eagle, Minifigs USA, PaperTerrain, Peter Pig, JR Miniatures, TooFatLardies. Maybe I am just lucky, but I like to think that we have some truly exceptional individuals serving the wargaming community!

Gentlemen, there is only one way to express our appreciation and gratitude: we'll keep spending!

Back ache

2008-10-11T18:06:00.000-07:00

DestoFante has been grounded for the day by an annoying back ache. He is lying on the couch, in pain. He thinks that a good glass of Scotch whiskey is all he needs for a prompt and complete recovery.

Mrs. DestoFante disagrees.

Painting the Age of Reason miniatures

2008-10-10T16:57:00.000-07:00

Here's a preliminary, photographic report on the progress, or lack thereof, made last week, amidst tumbling markets and failing economies. These two sets are respectively French WSS and Prussian SYW, both by Minifigs USA. I am painting 24 of each, in order to have two "big" battalions by 24 figures each - yahoo! As you will notice, still a long way to go, and I still need to get completely comfortable with the Prussians. The French feel more straightforward, or mybe it is just my preference for WSS over SYW. After all, if you remember my thoughts back from the summer when I started all the blog, the whole was to experiment with different periods within the 18th century, and go for the one I feel more comfortable painting. Anyway, preliminary as they are, here's a glimpse to what is being worked on.

And in true spirit of the times (the current, not the XVIII century) please notice the worthless stock quotes in the Wall Street Journal I used to protect the underlying table.

On other matters...

2008-10-08T20:10:00.001-07:00

A couple of weeks ago I moved my Marlburian project along, very slowly, with a few of painting sessions in between market collapses. Pictures were taken, but the lighting was poor. I will post soon a few samples anyway.
In stark contrast with the polite and chivalrous style of warfare in the Age of Reason, I also read with some interest the latest supplement by the guys at TooFatLardies, B'Maso, which deals with post-colonial wars in contemporary Africa. This work quickly brought me toward two other books that I literally devoured, "The Wonga Coup" and Forsyth's "Dogs of War." Connecting the dots, I realized that there is a very interesting opportunity to translate the imagi-nations concept into modern Africa, and I actually did some background work to outline a fictitious West African state, plagued by a paranoid dictator, diamond-trading guerrillas, oil-protecting mercenaries, coup-plotting colonels, and order-restoring French paras. This would be an excellent excuse to spend some money on Peter Pig's AK-47 miniatures, and paint some khaki uniforms. We will soon hear more about this, too.

Abyssinian Wars Project

2008-10-08T19:39:00.000-07:00

Before the turmoil on financial markets completely absorbed my life, I hinted a few times to a colonial project I have been working on for a few months. My friend EB is writing the 2nd edition of a great set of rules for the colonial period, and he asked me to contribute the army lists for the publication, expected to go to the press next year.
It was tough to find the time, but I finally delivered EB some drafts last week, and apparently he thinks they are really good. Some more work to polish the ratings, and add a few optional rules, and voila', we will be in good shape. Stay tuned, because when the time will come, I will provide plenty of information about our project.
In the meanwhile, I took the opportunity of this contribution to go through an inventory of miniatures I have available for the Italian-Abyssinian War, 1887-1896. My playtests were conducted with some Mahadist units as stand-in, but I realized that, with little efforts, I may have a full, completed project!
So, first of all, I pick up the excellent scenarios booklet "Colonial Campaigns - Ethiopia 19887-1896" by Mark Fastoso (whom, incidentally, I also help with playtesting.) Second, I tallied up all the units you need to play the 10 scenarios, thus deriving a nice matrix of what do I need to have in storage. I counted five types of units for a total of 13 units for the Italians, plus leaders (mounted and foot) plus guns, MGs and wagons. The Abyssinians forces display also five types of units, for a total of 16 units, plus leaders and guns.
Next step, with my little matrix in hand, I paraded the existing forces on the table for a roll call. Some units are already battle-ready, some other miniatures are at different stages along the painting process, and a few are still in their sad little bag, unpainted. I took a few pictures, one for the Italian

and two for the Abyssinians.

This quick survey highlighted a few shortcomings, which I immediately try to fix with an order for a few bags. I received the missing pieces during my recent "sabbatical", so to speak, and as soon as I'll come back to wargaming in full swing, I will have in my hands all I need to complete the two armies in a short time!

Finally!

2008-10-08T19:33:00.000-07:00

Finally!
I am back. It seems ages ago when I was able to post here almost on a daily basis, and now almost two entire weeks went by without me popping in, not even to just say hello.
If you have been watching the news, you probably suspect the reason of such a long absence. The situation on world market has deteriorated steadily, and now our economic shop has a forecast for a recession in the fourth quarter of the year (that is: now) until the late spring 2009. We have been working almost around the clock, literally: a few decisions by the federal authorities were taken on Saturdays or Sundays, so I have been working during weekends, and some other events took place during night time, because of the time difference with Europe and Japan. These days, it is not uncommon to start exchanging emails with my boss at 3am, and stop past 11pm. Needless to say, Mrs. DestoFante is not happy! I will now proceed, in a different post, to some wargaming updates.

Reality bites

2008-09-23T14:51:00.000-07:00

If you had the opportunity to read the headline news over the past 10 days, or watching five minutes of the evening news, you already know what I have been up to for the past couple of weeks. How distant is the summer, with its warm, long days, and plenty of time for blogging!
The developing financial crisis has kept me busy professionally, and I spent the very little spare time in doing some little progress in my projects, rather than updating "Desto Fante." Things are coming along both in my colonial project - the Italian-Abyssinians wars - and in my "Age of Reason" long term project, with some painting done on the samples I brought back from Historicon. Currently, painting is proceeding on the following infantry units: one marlburian French, one SYW Austrian, two marlburian/SYW Prussian fusilier, and one SYW Prussian musketeer.
I also made two small orders: some additional Abyssinians from Irregular and Tin Soldier, to complete the "bande" units (irregulars fighting on the Italian side), and my first order ever to PaperTerrain... for sure there will be more to discuss on the latter!

How to catch my attention on eBay

2008-09-14T21:07:00.001-07:00

A thread on TMP made me think about the best practice to capture my attention toward an eBay auction. I enjoy eBay, I think it is a good instrument to look for good deals in miniatures, but I also believe that, without some homework, you can easily make mistakes. Here what I would recommend to a potential seller, based on my experiences as an occasional buyer:

A. group your miniatures in medium-to-large lot, from 50-60 figures up. I rarely spend time on small lots;

B. make sure to have pictures. Good close-up are fundamental;

C. make sure to add detailed descriptions: scale, maker, units included, number of figures. You would be surprised by how many auctions are poorly worded. Again, poor, confused or misleading title will kill your chances;

D. make sure to have a exhaustive header, including again scale, maker, period, nationality of the figures (i.e. "15mm Minifigs Napoleonic Prussians".)

I have seen some item overly mispriced on eBay. In some cases, prices were outrageously inflated; in other cases, I made excellent purchases with fantastic discounts. For sure, it takes some time and a little of talent to learn how to ace those auctions!

Good readings

2008-09-14T17:33:00.000-07:00

As I laid in the Mexican sun last week, I had the rarer and rarer opportunity to read almost non-stop for several hours -- a guilty pleasure I have not indulged in for a too long time.
Two of the books that were devoured cover-to-cover have some relevance here. They both refer, more or less directly, to modern, almost contemporary conflicts. Low intensity warfare in the second half of the XX century is something that has intrigued me for a long time, and yet I have been reluctant to tip my toe into this period, at least publicly. I think this is my sense of decorum in display: these events are still open wounds for many people, and making them the object of wargaming is something that must be done with great taste, respect, and measure, and some understatement.
Back to my recommended readings of the day.
The first book is about the open engagement in the Vietnam War, Operation Starlite in August 1965.

The title is "The First Battle - Operation Starlite and the Beginning of the Blood Debt in Vietnam". It is a quick book, little more than 200 pages, and it contains several ideas for good scenarios. It is also a fascinating reading to cast some light about the fighting doctrine of the U.S. Marines and the VietCong in the early stages of the conflict.
The second book is not military history, but a novel which had some success a few years back.

Alexandra Fuller wrote "Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight: An African Childhood" as a memoir of her childhood in war-torn Rhodesia, and the book chronicled the story of her family moving across the region (Rhodesia, Malawi, Zambia) in the '70s and '80s. It s a very frank and sweet book, which portrays the harsh realities of a country in political and military turmoil.
Just a few weeks back, TooFatLardies published B'Maso, a supplement for "I Ain't Been Shot Mum" which provides historical background, army lists, and scenarios for the conflicts of African decolonization: from the Mau Mau in Kenya in the 1950s, to Katanga and the Congo in the 1960s, Biafra and Nigeria, Rhodesia, the Portuguese Wars in Mozambique, Guinea Bissau and Angola, and the border war in South West Africa.
I have to confess: reading this book made me very curious about the possibilities in TFL booklet. Very interesting. Maybe it's time to go and give a second look to Peter Pig's AK47 range...

Did you miss me?

2008-09-14T17:12:00.000-07:00

I am back - did you miss me?
Mrs. DestoFante and I enjoyed a delightful vacation in Mexico, and we have some picture to share!

Once back I had to deal with a busy week at work. If you are checking the economic and financial news tonight, you may realize that my next day or two might end up being absolutely hectic indeed. But for the time being, I ams till enjoying a rainy (very rainy, as Stokes reported early today) but restful weekend. And yes, some wargaming progress was finally taking place! I will soon provide a more detailed update, but here a quick overview:
A. I completed the basing of a good portion of my Hadendowa/Abyssinians;
B. I did a thorough headcount of what I will need to play most of the Italian-Abyssinian War scenarios in Mark Fastoso's booklet. And the good news is: I am almost perfectly on target! Have you ever heard of a "completed" wargaming project? This may well be it!
C. "Almost perfectly" in the above item - I prepared two small orders to file with Irregular and Essex for a few spare items I need: a couple of Maxim guns and a few irregular Eritrean to deploy as "bande" with my Italians;
D. also, I am working on a new order to Minifigs to beef up my Marlburian French - for my "Lace Wars" aficionados, I may be back soon on that project as well!

I also completed a couple of fascinating readings, which served as inspiration to explore some wargaming ideas. More to follow on this as well.

Back to work!

Off to Mexico

2008-09-03T21:47:00.000-07:00

Just a short vacation. Will be back on Monday. Don't miss me too much!

In praise of lead hoarding

2008-09-02T13:17:00.000-07:00

I have noticed in a few occasions that wargamers tend to chuckle and be dismissive about their hoarding of lead in the closet, i.e. the large amount of unpainted miniatures we keep in storage, waiting for the elusive hour in which action will actually take place on a long dreamt-after project. Recently, during an exchange in the "Old School" yahoo group, I even read the recommendation to donate part of our inventories to lure "new blood" into the hobby.

Well, here's a case in which my professional training kicks in. Let me offer a case about the desirability and "efficiency" of holding unpainted lead in the closet. I will argue in the negative:

You should NOT hold unpainted miniatures if, in the future, you expect

better cast miniatures;

wider ranges;

higher personal wages and salaries;

to be very disciplined in the execution of your wargaming projects.

I think point 1 marginally holds: contemporary miniatures seem to be technically better than they used to be 20 years ago; nevertheless, many of us are more than happy with classics like Minifigs. In average, I think 1. is a weak argument.
Unfortunately, experiences teaches that ranges currently available may not remain available in the future. Just three examples for the 15mm scale, out of my personal interests: the excellent Boxer Rebellion miniatures by Frontier Miniature; Alphacast's Balkan Wars figures; MJ's Falkland miniatures. Definitely, point 2 does not hold.
On point 3, evidence is mixed. If we really believe in the thesis that the hobby is "greying," increasing expected incomes may not be a reasonable assumption. I would rate the point as weak. The reason why future income matters is that the opportunity cost of miniatures today, in terms of foregone consumption alternatives, may exceeds the opportunity costs of the same amount of miniatures tomorrow, when higher income may accommodate both for miniatures and for more alternative spending. Sometimes, it just makes sense to wait for the future.
Finally, point 4 is just a subjective characteristics, and I would rate it as inconclusive. If you are an "impulsive painter", the assumption is clearly incorrect, bt some of us may actually muster the strength to "stay on mission" despite the several temptations that always linger around the hobby.
By and large, I would argue that the case against hoarding lead in the closet is not substantiated, and under fairly reasonable assumptions may in fact be optimal to add to our collection of unpainted miniatures.

I would add a fifth, strong point in favor of hoarding. When you buy and hold unpainted lead, what you actually buy is an option - the option to go to the closet on the spur of the moment, and start painting whatever you feel in the mood to paint. What is the value of such an option? It is the present value of the money spent in the past on the miniature now being painted, plus the cumulative cost of storage - which, likely, is very little for most of us. I would argue that the cost of the option is greater than zero, but still lower than the benefit associated with the opportunity to paint whatever you want, whenever you want.

The bottom line of tonight's "Freakonomic" musings: go out, buy miniatures, and if they will rest for more a decade in your closet as it happens to me, don't feel bad about. It is probably the "economic efficient" thing to do.

Real life

2008-09-01T20:23:00.000-07:00

It appears that real life is getting into the way of many of us, these days. In Zum Stollenkeller, Stokes is dealing with the kick-off of the academic year. In Saxe-Bearstein, Jeff is busy in a play. Here, I finally welcome back my wife, a professional opera singer, who has been on the road for a summer festival over the past three months. We are just relaxing and enjoying the Windy City together with some family, and we'll take a few days off for a quick vacation next week, which means: quiet time on the wargaming (and blogging) front for some time. But you know I never resist the temptation to pop in from time to time for sharing some thought on the hobby...
For the time being, I will share two pictures taken today, during the architectural tour on the Chicago River.

Apprehension for Hurricane Gustav

2008-08-30T20:48:00.000-07:00

Hurricane Gustav is picking up strength, and heading in the direction of New Orleans. We all remember how much the city suffered when Katrina hit, and our prayers go to all the people on the Gulf Coast for whom mandatory evacuation was ordered on Saturday. Among them, I want to dedicate a special thought to Larry Brom, a gentleman and a scholar, author of one of my favorite rule-set for the colonial period, the legendary "The Sword And The Flame." Larry has been an indefatigable supporter of colonial wargaming; I met him a few times at Historicon, and I sincerely enjoyed his wit as game-master, and our post-game conversations. His small wargaming, business, Sergeants 3, suffered a lot in the aftermath of Katrina, and barely made it through thanks to the efforts of Larry and his daughters. Now, a new threat at the horizon, after what has already been a rough year for Larry's health. Tonight, my special prayer go to Larry, Lori and Christy.

In search of a primer

2008-08-27T20:49:00.000-07:00

I ran out of white primer. It happened while I was working on the Abyssinians/Hadendowa figures, and I had to switch to the black primer. Not a big deal, but I tend to prefer the white one, at least to prevent the darkening issues I experienced with the "miracle dipping" as I previously reported.
Now I have the issue of getting a new white primer. Which is more problematic than you think. First of all, I need to select one. The can I just finished was spray from Armory, and it was mostly OK, but had a few cons. First of all, I thought it was relatively pricey. When something is labeled as special for "model hobby", the price gets steep - and I do not believe there is anything actually special about it. I went on TMP, did some search on the boards, and I think my intuition is largely confirmed. Second, I also suspect my Armory spray primer exhausted the propellant before it exhausted the actual paint, because I shake the can and I feel it is far from depleted despite the fact that, no matter how hard I shake, nothing is coming out of it.
So, the hunt is on for a new primer. Again, reading through the TMP posts, I collected a few recommendations that all seem equally good. I have four products on my list:

Krylon Ultra Flat Black;

Duplicolor Sandable Primer (an automotive primer);

Testors White Floquil;

Plasti-Kote.

First of all, I wonder if the readers of my blog knows any of the aforementioned products - leave a comment, I look forward to you opinions! In particular: since I paint with water-based acrylics, are the above products compatible with this type of paints?
Second, I need to face an additional challenge: I live in Chicago, where spray paints are ban by law. It is a city ordinance against graffiti, one of the very stupid rules we have in this city (don't get me started about the pate' de foie gras fiasco!) As a result, in order to get spray paint you need to drive to the suburbs, which adds time and and make shopping less convenient.
Bottom line: buying a new primer should be a trivial issue, and it is turning into a little nuisance.

Hidden treasure at the Chicago Public Library

2008-08-27T20:46:00.000-07:00

I made a very interesting visit to the Public Library in Chicago, and I am now reading Featherstone's "War Game Campaigns." Very interesting, as all classics are despite the almost 40 years passed by since publication.
There are a few "old school" books available for circulation, and I think I will take advantage of the opportunity in coming weeks. Not that I lack reading materials, as my wife is quick in pointing out: but you know, the most interesting book to read is always the one I will read next...