Limbers for Light Guns

With everything else going on around here. I've got a pre-release BLB game planned for some friends in March and I'm scrambling to gather together stuff I need for the scenario. It's stuff I've wanted anyway (like the unit of All Pike painted earlier this month), but the desire to put on a good show is a great motivator to get the lead out!

The scenario has reserve units coming on the board and a couple of light guns are among the reinforcements. While I could just place the gun stands on the table modeling limbers is always preferable to me when moving guns is part of the game.

These were simple builds with a couple of parts from the bits box, a quick scratch-built fence, and a pikeman (sans pike) I painted for the uniform feature in BLB2...

I laid the plans for these models back when I painted my light guns originally. The guns are not glued to the artillery bases, saving me from needing to paint them twice!

Up next is a limber for a field gun which I need for the other side...

Beneath the Lily Banners/The War of Three Kings (PRE-ORDER)

Take the field and win the crown of England for your chosen liege Lord! Fight for King James and aided by your French allies, lead the Irish Army to victory against the usurper and his foreign horde. Support King William’s claim to the throne and captain an international army of English, Irish, Dutch, Danish and French Huguenot soldiers to wrest the crown from the hands of the tyrant!

The War of Three Kings offers the opportunity for games set between 1660-1721 to be played with simple yet elegant mechanisms which deliver a smooth playing experience, authentic period flavour and loads of fun.

The system covers pike and shot warfare in all western and central European theatres. This third edition of Beneath the Lily Banners (first released in 2009) has refined the game play allowing users to focus on enjoying the spectacle created by miniature gaming one of history’s most colourful periods!

Hard Cover; full colour; 184pp; by Barry Hilton with art by Clarence Harrison
Price: £30.00/$44.00 (Save money by pre-ordering... details below)

North America: Warfare Miniatures USA
The rest of the planet: League of Augsburg Shop

Irish Militia 1689

One of the new things in Beneath the Lily Banners: The War of Three Kings, is the ability to model different pike to shot ratios on the tabletop. I'm running a game for some friends early next month and I had everything I needed for the scenario except a unit of All Pike. It's been on my 'to do' list for a while to paint a brigade of non-uniformed troops to use for the early war in Ireland (and as militia for any part of the campaign), so I got a start on it last week...

Foot units of All Pike get a couple of hefty bonuses in close combat, but of course have no shooting ability. Something I'm a little unhappy with on this unit from a modeling perspective is despite having three pikes on the central stand, I didn't pay attention to the fact that all of them are holding their weapons in their outside hand (relative to their base). This blends them in with the wings and leaves a huge gap in the forest of pikes in the middle. I might actually end up prying those three off and rearranging them to fill in a bit.

I know, I know...

Trolls Come in All Shapes and Sizes

One of the most tedious things about working on rules is trying to weigh options against others. In my games, I tend to just throw models on the table, but in an effort to ensure others a decent shot at having two relatively balanced forces for a fair game relative strengths and weaknesses need to be compared to get a ball park for how many 'points' a model is worth.

In Donnybrook this was fairly simple. There are some Special Characters that have an edge over others if approaching as a power gamer, but the card mechanics tend to have a balancing factor of their own. If my unit of Recruits has their card come up three turns in a row while your Elite grenadiers are faffing about without a draw, the d6 models will end up being more powerful than the d10 ones for that game.

In Donnybrook Dark, balancing things is more difficult. How many zombies equal a detachment of Drilled Dragoons? How many trolls?

Right now, I'm leaning toward 1 point for two trolls and that means I needed another one. I painted Örjan a few months ago. This model is an 80's era Citadel troll and perfectly fit the aesthetic I wanted.

Digging around in the recesses of the mountains of lead tucked away around my house I found another antique model that fits well with the first one, even though in a totally different aspect. Meet Hugo, an old Ral Partha sculpt...

My concept of my milieu is that Fey creatures don't follow any norm and come in all shapes and sizes. This model was a little smaller than Örjan, but mounting him on the rocks gives him the illusion of a bit more bulk.

More soon...

A Guide to Basing - The Quindia Studios Way

Which means lazy! I've gotten a couple of questions recently about how I base my models and I thought I'd detailed this here before, but... well, I couldn't find it so here you go. This is an easy method that still gives good results.

I mainly use three materials, fine ballast from Woodland Scenics, coffee grounds (the same as the mid-level texture on my terrain boards), and static grass - usually from Games Workshop because that is what is always available locally. Of course there can be more details, but this is the basis for almost every model in my collection.

When making units, I try to keep in mind where the bases will join those of their comrades to get as seamless appearance as possible. I apply white glue directly to the base and spread it around with a damp brush. I use the base as a pallett initially. just getting a small amount on my brush and carefully applying glue around the feet of the models before thinning out the rest.

I have two tubs of basing material. The initial dunking is in the coffee grounds, and I just dip in a corner or two, or else pick up a pinch with my fingers to sprinkle a trail down the center. Then the lads are placed in the fine ballast and the extra shaken away. I use my finger to brush away any stray bits on the edges so I can line them up properly on the table.

I let this dry, normally over night, and then add paint directly on the texture, taking advantage of the natural color of the materials as my base. I use Wargames Foundry Base Sand A and use sort of a heavy dry brushing technique. Then I pick out out some of the larger chunks with Wargames Foundry Slate Gray A and highlight with Slate Gray B.

WHen the paint is dry, it's back to the glue. I only put one dot on the base of a single model and maybe two on a larger stand. A little goes a long way with this step and I want my earth to show through. I use a damp brush to randomly push the glue around and skip around to the base to make small tufts. Then they go into the third tub...

That's it! Sometimes I might add larger tufts of grass or stones, bits of fencing, discarded weapons, etc, but for the most part I try to keep things simple. I have more models to paint and I don't have time to hand paint mushrooms and the like. This style also matches my terrain boards well.

Hopefully this was helpful! I keep meaning to do more in the way of hobby articles rather than just 'look at the new thing I painted', but life has been stupid busy of late. In any case, the next time someone asks me about basing I will be able to find the article!