Projects for 2021 and completed projects from 2020

Back in January of last year I posted the following projects for 2020. Projects for 2020 are as follows: All are 6mm unless noted otherwise. 

Complete Late Roman/Byzantine army completed 

 Complete Sassanid army completed 

 Add cavalry to Achaemenid army completed 

 Finish Warbands not started 

 Make additional built up areas in progress 

 Make pine Forest not started 

 I have a dozen two foot square interlocking mats that have been painted a light brown to finish in progress 

 I have a bunch of 28mm Fantasy figures in various stages of painting to finish. Finished some armies, working on others 

 Add a few more 28mm science fiction building paper buildings. completed 

 In addition to the above I also completed a 28mm sci-fi alien battle group, sci-fi IFV's and tanks. I could have done quite a bit more, but spent the later part of the year doing things other than wargaming. 

This year I will be working on the items that were not completed. The 6mm warbands and the pine forest are the lowest priority at the moment. The 6mm built up areas, two foot square interlocking terrain mats, and the remaining 28mm fantasy have the higher priority.

Army of the Dark Lord part 3

I finished painting four units of heavy infantry and three units of archers.  There is another unit of heavy infantry to paint along with half a unit of elf light infantry and another half unit of human light infantry.  These will be done at a later date while I work on some other projects.  These figures were all primed and the Black Guard was finished a while back.  Front row from left to right two units of human archers, one unit of elf crossbowmen.  Back row from left to right a unit of heavy infantry (most of the figures are from the Battle Masters game) the Black Guard, another unit of heavy infantry, and a unit of elf spearmen.  The Black Guard has their weapons, shield designs, and other metal items highlighted with antique gold.  This doesn't show up too well in the picture, but there is a out of focus closeup of them in the third picture down in the Battle of Rabid Rabbits Rapids report here

The army of the Dark Lord part two

I finished painting and basing the next batch of units for the Dark Lord's army this morning.  Two of them had to be primed.  Though I used a grey spray primer, it was not the right shade of grey and I had to paint all the figures with Charcoal Grey from Howard Hughes..  This batch went quickly as there were only seven other colors that I used.  Where I could I did paint some teeth and tongues   There are two units of spearmen in the back row, two units of archers in the front row and one unit of javelin armed skirmishers in the center of the front row..  I will be starting on the next part tomorrow.

These are being used for a fictional campaign using a map that I used several years ago.  The Dark Lord is located in the northeast corner of the map.

Army of the Dark Lord part one

I started painting the next army this week.  Two units were already finished and a third was almost done, but there were three infantry units and one mounted unit that needed to be primed.  All the rest of was just primed.   As of this morning I completed the one that was almost done, primed and finished the unprimed mounted unit and completed three other units.  The other unit that was already finished will be included with the other units of the same type.

 All six units

 The Dark Lord's mounted guard.  This was one of the two finished units. 

 Elf knights on reptiles.  This was one of the unprimed units

 Another knight unit.  Most of these came from the Battle Master board game.

 Reptiles riding reptiles

 Light horse.  this was the unit that was almost finished.

 Dire Wolves

 Character figures

 Two subordinate commanders to left and in front.  Army commander in center

Two heroes.

Elf Army Part Three

Last night I finished painting the elf cavalry and ten character figures.  The elf cavalry is organized as eight units of eight figures each. While most of the horses were almost finished the riders needed to have their armor repainted to match the heavy infantry.  Six of the units are on partly armored horses and two are on unarmored horses. The army's units equipment and organization is based on the Maurikian Byzantine reforms.  The cavalry has lances and bows.

The figures are all plastic and were purchased years ago at much less cost than the current offerings from Games Workshop.  While most of the figures I have were made or designed by GW there are several from other figure makers. This is the last of three posts.  Clicking on older post will go directly to the previous post.  The first post also has links in it to the dwarf army and human army units.

 All eight units

 The guard cavalry.

 One of the two units on unarmored horses.  They carry a mix of equipment

 The other unit on unarmored horses

 The army commander at the left and two subordinates.

 Two mounted heroes

 A mage

Four heroes on foot.

I also found a couple of figures that I could use to finish the sixth unit of light infantry.

Elf Army Project Part Two

Last night I finished painting five, sixteen figure units of Elf light infantry and another 14 Elf light infantry.  I will either base the extra 14 figures as an understrength unit or add a couple of extra heavy infantry figures to bring it up to 15 figures.  These figures required more work as they were just primed.   I have ordered some plastic glue from Amazon so that I can make needed repairs to some figures and add standards to two of these units.  I will be flocking bases later.

Elf Army Project Part One

After painting the 6mm figures last month, I spent the first week of this month taking care of other things and reading the new set of rules from Wiley Games.  These are the set called "Bigger Battles and are intended for larger scale skirmish games where units of 5 to `12 figures are used instead of individual figures.  This inspired me to dig out my 28mm figures that I had started a while back and finish painting them.

The first batch is the Elf heavy infantry.  The next batch will be the Elf light infantry, followed by the elf cavalry, and finally special figures like heroes and mages. I had originally started painting these a while back and then decided to change the color scheme.  This group of figures was about 1/4 to 1/3 completed prior to working on them this past week.  The Elf heavy infantry is organized as eight units of 16 figures.  The color scheme is green and yellow uniforms and equipment with red weapons and silvered and gold armor. I need to get a tube of plastic glue to fix a few missing spear points on several figures. Edit:  This is the first of three blog posts the other two follow directly by clicking on the newer post at the bottom of the page.

Shields were made from scans of shield patterns that I had and resized and reshaped as ovals in addition to the circular ones using PaintShop Pro.  I did not want to use the original shield shape and patterns supplied by Games Workshop.  The new shields are printed on heavy card stock and glued to the figures. Most of the shield patterns are sort of floral in design.  The guard infantry unit has a white Pegasus on a pale blue background and one unit has an altar with a central flame.

 The guard infantry

Keepers of the flame

 

 

 

 

 

When the rest of the army is finished they will be able to engage the dwarf and human forces I painted a while back.  Dwarf Army  Human army

Projects for 2020 and a review of projects for 2019

Back at the beginning of 2019 I posted my project plans for 2019.   These are listed in black with status in Red   All Projects are 6mm unless noted otherwise.

Finish Late Roman/ Byzantine army  Still to be done
Finish Sassanid Persian Army  Still to be done
Finish Warbands  Still to be done
Finish lace wars armies  Completed
Finish Napoleonic armies.  Completed
Purchase and paint modern engineering equipment after GHQ finishes releasing the vehicles for early this year.  Completed
Make 2mm towns and villages. (counted about 40 for one scenario)  Dropped plans for 2mm army
Make some more 6mm towns, villages, and farms.  Made some, more to do
Finish painting 2mm armies.  Replaced with 6mm Franco-Prussian and completed
Paint about a dozen 25mm sci-fi figures I dug out of storage.   (yes, they are actually 25mm figures from 35 years ago)  Completed
Make jungle.  Got some left over palm trees and bamboo to place on Litko hexes.  Completed
Make pine forest.   Bump chenille on Litko hexes.  Started

Items that were added and completed
purchased and painted some 1:285 Leopard 2 Revolutions
Finished painting some 28mm fantasy figures.
Finished the 28mm castle
Purchased and painted some 28mm science fiction figures
Printed and assembled a 28mm spaceship using World Works Games First Light, expansion, and other sets.
Printed and Assembled the 28mm Desert Village and Desert Fort sets from Wargames Vault.
Printed and assembled a 28mm Science Fiction town using World Works Games Mars Station set.
While most of the above were not reported on the blog, they can be seen in several of the blog posts.

Projects for 2020 are as follows:

All are 6mm unless noted otherwise.
Complete Late Roman/Byzantine army
Complete Sassanid army
Add cavalry to Achaemenid army
Finish Warbands
Make additional built up areas
Make pine Forest
I have a dozen two foot square interlocking mats that have been painted a light brown to finish
I have a bunch of 28mm Fantasy figures in various stages of painting to finish.
Add a few more 28mm science fiction buillding paper buildings.

Incident Near Al Shain

Al Shain is a city in Monokeros near the border with Kaelum and Musca.  Along the border there are several small forts and villages.  The following game took place near one of them.

The8.5x11 inch political map for the Vela campaign that I ran years ago.   There is a more detailed two foot by three foot hex map of the region.

I invited some friends over for a game day and bar-b-que on May 25th.  The first game used the Fistful of Lead rules and was a diplomatic mission..  An emissary was travelling from Kaelum to Monokeros with an important message.  He and his escort were trying to reach the safety of the border fort.   Agents from Musca were attempting to intercept them before they reached the fort as they passed near a local village.   A group of Dwarves from the nearby mountains were on a mission to retrieve a pair of gems that had been taken from them and used to adorn a statue in the village square.  There was also a group of bandits from the Ancha desert out for loot and hostages to ransom.  The scenario is intended for about six players, though it can be played with as few as three.   The villagers could also send for assistance from the fort garrison.   Gary Bitters commanded the villagers and the diplomatic Escort.   Mike O'Brien had the desert raiders and dwarves,  While I had the rangers from Musca.

 The calm before the storm  Over view of the table from the north on the evening before the game

 View from the west

 The local fort.   The buildings and fort are from the Desert village and Desert fort sets on Wargame Vault

View from the south

 View from the east.  The village militia asleep in their homes.

 The raiders arrive at the edge of the village.

The rangers and the escort spot each other

The rangers block the path in front of the diplomat and his escort.   I was able to take down their escort leader and wound the second in command with bow fire.  One of the village militia attempted to take out the hero with the rangers by sneaking up and attacking her from the flank only to be knocked dead by a backhand slap.  (rolled a twelve to hit on a d12 for a +2 to the wound roll added to the hero's additional two +1 to wound traits and a high die roll on the wound table)

The dwarves (top center) advance gets bogged down in an exchange of missile fire with a village archer

 Fighting near the town square.  Two of the raiders have been taken down to the left of center by bow fire from the elf..  Mike's raiders and dwarves eliminated most of the village militia.   Leaving only the village chieftain, his henchman, the wounded elf, and one or two of the militia grunts still alive.

 Another view of the action between the rangers and escort.

 The dwarves reach the edge of town.  One of them would get into the building to the left, then climb to the roof where he slew the archer.   He would then exit from the front of the building to attack the elven archer from behind.  The other dwarves at the center of the picture fighting the villager.   This combat went a number of rounds with the villager (who was a grunt) being able to hold off the dwarf hero and clan leader in hand-to-hand combat.  The melee ended when the elf shot at the group with her bow killing the villager and putting shock markers on the three dwarves.  The Dwarf crossbowmen are busy reloading after missing the archer on the building roof to the left.

Dwarf on the building roof on the left. the elven archer between the building and market stall facing the angry dwarves after shooting at them.  Several of the raiders are down with wounds.  Their hero has reached the statue and was able to pry one of the jeweled eyes loose.  We ended the game after this turn with Mike being declared the victor.  The archer laying on his side on the right indicates that he is inside the building.   The green markers indicate figures that have acted during the turn.

After lunch we played a game of Red Alert.   Mike jumped out to an early lead in the game mauling several of our fleet units.   We were playing scenario three from the rule book..  Gary and I took out his heavy battleship squadron and led for a brief time.   Mike regained the lead as he continued to heavily damage our units with great use of his combat and command cards.   Gary and I were finally able to win after being able to use our cards to advance our four center units over the course of two turns and take out Mikes fleet commander.   Two of our four units were eliminated in the process.  We all made a few mistakes as we haven't memorized all the rules yet.

Thanks to both Mike and Gary for a fun day of food and gaming.