2015 In Retrospect

During this past year of 2015 I've worked through the pile of unpainted plastic and managed to paint a bit of it. I feel as if I've made a dent in my collection. Although lead and plastic mountain seems to grow with other eras of interest, namely ancients and medieval. Although those will be a future project. The most sizable increase in the hobby was the completion of a portion of my 28 mm samurai army, which if it goes as expected I should see it hit the gaming table in the early part of next year *fingers crossed.* The white and red flagged portions are of the Takeda Clans (Takeda Shingen and Takeda Katsuyori), while the yellow flags are Tokugawa Ieyasu. I almost have some Oda Nobunaga units complete, they should be completed within the next week or so.

Calvary for the samurai armies have been mostly assembled this year, I still have a few boxes to finish assembling, and then will come the fun of painting the rest of them. They take substantially more time because the cavalry are the most detailed of the Wargames Factory samurai figures. In the bottom box are some archers for Oda Nobunaga and Tokugawa clans which still need decals and basing.

Some of the unpainted but assembled warriors which are the ashigaru foot soldiers, archers, and samurai for the clans.

This next photo is what is currently on my painting table at the moment. Some samurai for the Oda Nobunaga clan, and Tokugawa clans. These should be finished painting within the next week or so. The yellow and white paint are difficult to get even coats on the flags. In the back right of the photo is what might become a command stand with the big nobori flags, taiko drummer, and conch blower.

One of my goals this December was to clean up some room at my hobby area. I was looking at my painting table yesterday and noticed that I've had these zombie figures sitting around half finished for about the last year. I finished them up last night with a sepia wash. I'm not sure what to do with the basing on them, but I'll know more when I finish assembling the box, as this is about half the box. I can't recall if I've shown pictures before of these walkers. They are originally Dust Tactics walkers which I intend to us for In Her Majesty's Name to try out the walker rules.

And finally I've finished a few tokens for Osprey's Ronin system. Since you can take the heads of your fallen opponents I thought it would be fun to make some decapitated head tokens.

Wishing everyone a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Kevin

Update on samurai progress

*BEGIN TRANSMISSION*

Hi All,

This post is basically a picture dump of the finished samurai so far. Right now I have two different clans under Takeda for the battle of Mikatagahara. I still need to paint up Tokugawa and Nobunaga, and the rest of Takeda, and all the cavalry which will take some time as i'm finding out. The decals were printed myself on waterslide decal paper and sealed with the decal sealing solution. So far it has been good printing out blacks. The inkjet has trouble getting very red reds however. It's sort of difficult getting good photos of miniatures, because my current lens has a very narrow focusing depth when its up close.

Ashiragu

Archers

Samurai

Archers

Back row in focus

Front row in focus

Have a good battle
Kevin

*END TRANSMISSION*

Check Your Six! Finnish Aircraft

Check Your Six! was my first foray into painting miniatures. If you haven't checked it out it is available from SkirmishCampaigns. It is a fast playing WW2 simulation of air combat in 3d. They also have a second version which is jet combat. Throughout my time painting some of the CY6 aircraft I've painted some Japanese and Finland planes. Although I haven't painted any aircraft in quite some time, I noticed these pictures on my computer and wanted to upload a post about them

The Continuation War for the Finns was a matter of defending their homeland against Soviet Invaders. Some good resources I found on the air war between the Fins and Russians are Osprey's "Lentolaivue 24," and "Finnish Aces of WW2." The book on Llv 24 (as the squadron will be known from this point forward) has a wealth of information about the pilots and missions they flew. The Finnish Pilots were very effective with their aircraft in both the winter war and the continuation war.

And now on to the miniatures. These are 1/300 scale Buffalos from Raiden. Its fun to paint their squat shape in the black and green of the Finnish air force. Here are some photos of them, my personal favorites are the winter camouflaged ones.

I'd like to find other books focusing on the other Finnish air units from the flying regiment 1 (recon) and flying regiment 4 (bomber). I've found a book in Finnish on ler4. If I can find some other books, they will be of great use as I continue to paint up my Finns for Check Your Six! If anyone knows of such books, drop a comment below. Eventually I'll get back to painting aircraft when I tire of my current ancients kick. I still have quite a lead mountain of German, Italian, and Japanese aircraft. Although most of what I wanted to complete for the Finns is done.

Until next time,
Kevin

Update "Assault on Plastic Mountain."

Hi All,

It's been about four months since my last post (Wow!). I should probably try and keep this blog updated a bit more regularly. I've been sort of busy with school and work. Although I have been rapidly assembling more Wargames Factory miniatures. I had a good amount of time while recovering from getting my wisdom teeth out to assemble most of my Greek Hoplites, and some Persians.



Here's whats on the workbench at the moment.

-Assemble Samurai
-Assemble Samurai Calvary
-Paint Samurai (In progress)

-Assemble Persians (Continue assembling the hoard)
-Paint Persians (In progress)

-Assemble Greek Hoplites (60ish built)
-Paint Greek Hoplites (In Progress)

-Base above miniatures (Not started)

As you can see I'm stretching out into the ancients era. I have both the Hail Ceasar rules on order and the Field of Glory rules on order. From what I've been able to find out, the FoG uses a specific basing system, but HC does not. Which will give me the flexibility to use both systems with a single army. I'll be lucky to get any of it on the table before the year is out, although its a goal (perhaps a lofty one).

I'll post again probably once I have some units based and finished.

Here's the progress so far on the Greeks.

Until then,
Have a good battle!

Kevin

Hobby Day April 11 2015

Here is a report on Hobby Day at the St. Crispins Irregulars which meet in Anaheim. It was a relatively light turn out due to Tabletop Day which claimed a lot of our members at various events. But in other news, I finally got a good chunk of time today to finish up the assembly of my samurai army. Next it will be on to painting. I got the samurai cavalry assembled today which will more than likely go to support one of the clans (until I manage to get more cavalry).

It felt good to finally get back to making some progress on this project. I'm planning on painting Takeda for sure as one of the clans, and I'm still debating as to what I'll paint the other. Possibly Tokogawa, so that I can fight the battle of Mikata-ga-hara. Although I'll need significantly more cavalry.

Figures done:
Ashigaru with Yari (60)
Archers (60)
Arrow Carriers (4)
Samurai with spears or katana (74)
Tai Commanders (9)
Horagi, conch (2)
Lead Commanders (2)
Taiko Drummers with drum (2)
Banner Bearers (5)
Mounted Units (12)


Anyways, until I get to painting, here is just an update and a future goal for this project.
Keep them dice rolling.
Kevin

2/14/15 Hobby Day Report

I managed to get out to the monthly hobby day put on by the St. Crispin's Irregulars this month. It was slightly down in turn out than usual. But I had a good time nevertheless. I played several board games over the course of the day all of which I have never played before.

The first was Nautilus (http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/3154/nautilus)

The game consisted of a building phase where each player placed down a tile(s) in order to construct more of the underwater base. The game is a balance of building up an economy by sending down different modules to the floor, and exploration of the surrounding area in order to unearth treasures, and ultimately pieces of the lost city of Atlantis. It was an enjoyable game with a definite shift in strategy once the end game began.

The second was Caverna (http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/102794/caverna-cave-farmers)

Since I was familiar with Agricola the basics of the game were similar. The game adds weaponry which you can equip to your people, and send them on quests to obtain loot. This additional level of complexity gives it a different challenge. The food seemed to be much more easy to obtain in this game. It had enough variety in the buildings you could acquire which were similar to the improvement cards in Agricola. I did enjoy the way that the harvests are unknown and change every time you play. I thoroughly enjoyed the game, it took several hours to play through. It had enough complexity and differences from Agricola to have an entirely different feel to the game, despite having the same worker placement mechanic. In my book it is a winner.

Here is a photo of our game in progress.

Another game I enjoyed that day was The Princess Bride: Prepare to Die (http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/137348/princess-bride-prepare-die)

This game is a variation on the familiar apples-to-apples game. In it you place down a black card which is a reason for the character to "prepare to die." And then going around the table the "non-readers" of the black card play their red cards which have character names on it that relate (or don't) to the black theme card. It led to some hilarious comparisons, and an enjoyable variant on apples-to-apples.

A game that I tried later in the day was Save Doctor Lucky (http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/1157/save-doctor-lucky)

This game was a variant on the original Kill Doctor Lucky. Instead of trying to kill him in the reverse-Clue style of the first game. In this edition the players are trying to rescue Doctor Lucky off of the Titanic as it goes down. All the mechanics of the game are identical except that when you make a save attempt, another player MUST be able to see you and the doctor. The game-board also sinks beneath you as the draw piles are exhausted. It was a nice twist on the Doctor Lucky games, although in my opinion I think Kill Doctor Lucky was a bit more fun since it was the first one released. But that's just my two cents.

All in all it was an enjoyable day gaming with friends.

Enjoy!

Keep those dice rolling!

Kevin

2015 Beginning the Year Strong 87 Assembled

I actually got a good chunk of time over the holiday's to assemble a good deal of miniatures for my samurai army. They are Wargames Factory Plastics by the way. Here is the first major update as what I have assembled to date.

Assembled But Unpainted

Archers (15)
Arrow Carriers (2)
Taiko Drummer (2)
Taiko Drum Carrier (2)
Banner Bearer (2)
Lead Commander with Saihai (command stick) (2)
Samurai with Spear (15)
Samurai with Katana (16)
Tai Commanders (4)
Horagi (Conch) Unit (2)
Ashirigu with Yari (25)

I'll see what I can get done in the coming months as my master's courses have begun back up again. 87 out of 225 assembled is good for a starting point. My New Year's resolution is to get them assembled and painted at least by years end. If I get them assembled and painted sooner, I'd like to get in some games with them. So far I'm thinking of either the Taiko! rules or the Killer Katanas II rules set.

In Taiko! its 1 figure = 50 men
In Killer Katanas II its 1 figure =120-300 men (According to an internet search, as my rules are currently on their way).

If KK2 scale is as claimed, then I look forward to being able to do a historical battle of about 33,000 men on a side. Should prove interesting. Although at the Taiko! scale I can do roughly one-third of at at 11,000. I could always fudge the scales later. At roughly 100 figures a side it will be a decently sized battle.

Until Next Time,

Have a Good Battle!
Kevin