The Tale of Historical Wargamers Season 1, Month 1 (July WIP)

[f2k]

A small update...

I’ve decided to go back and redo the first batch of cars I painted. The camo just didn’t look right to me so that will be redone.

I experimented with some new patterns – one with very small dots of paint splattered all over a yellow basecoat and one with large patches of brown and green separated with yellow.





I went with the version with the large patches (as that’s much easier to do and stands out better on the tabletop) and did a test with it:



It’s still lacking the windows, a bit of pin-washing and, of course, the base. But what do you think?


On an interesting note, rumours have it that the next book for FoW will contain the final version of the 653., fighting on the Western Front with Jagdtigers. Now, that’s going to be interesting – from the stats I’ve seen they look like absolute beasts!

All that’s needed now is a dedicated StuG company for midwar – then I can have all three versions of this particular unit.


On the other hand, my regular opponents has just handed me his late war books and declared that he’ll be playing desert war only from now on. I’m actually tempted to put this project on hold for a while then and get back to working on my early and mid war DAK force so I can play against him.

Arghhhhh...

Decisions, decisions...

[emperorpenguin]

Great camo scheme I really like it

[sigur]

...
Good catch, the answer is simply that now, they can be used both for skirmishes and for larger battles (in regiments). While they are mostly for use in the latter, Hail Caesar! being the first ruleset to be tried out some time soonish, for skirmishes I'll probably use the Lord of the Rings rules (both I and my regular opponent know these, and they're quite excellent really), perhaps SAGA at some point.

Nice looking Romans and Germanic dude. I can see your trouble with 28mm stuff and it's one of the reasons I went for smaller scale with my own historical stuff. Anyways, for what you have in mind I think they're perfectly suited.


@f2k: I really like the way the camo looks now. Camouflage on the tabletop always is a tricky thing but I think that the three-colour with large patches is a nice way to go. And kudos to you for going back and redoing a whole bunch of stuff. I hope that you have some other people to play FoW with if your buddy goes with North Africa only. It almost sounds likea spur of the moment decision though so maybe he'll be back to late war sooner rather than later so you can bring out those Jagdtigers.


Ho-hum, only three more days to go for the first month. Let's see if I can whip up enough stuff until then. How about you guys?

[f2k]

Thanks guys. I’m glad you like it.

Yeah, camouflage is tricky – particularly at this scale. I find myself constantly painting it too large as if I was still painting for 28 mm.

Sadly, right now I don’t have anyone else to play against. The local FoW community broke up several years ago and hasn’t really gotten together since. I still hope that we can eventually get something going again but...

Hence my sudden desire to take a quick trip to the desert. I either play against him or I don’t play at all...

I’m hoping to get the rest of the camo redone today. A bit of extra details over the next few days and my motor pool is practically done.
I’ve just received the new Stuka that I ordered so I’m planning to return to that next month before starting on the infantry.

[Codsticker]

I'm not doing very good here. I was away for the first week of July and before I left and after I got back I have had to put in long hours at work to catch up and it looks like I will be busy all day today (sunday). Hopefully I can finish some archers off tommorrow. Not that I will be able to post pics as my daughter has lost the battery charger for the camera and the battery is dead.

The rest of you look like you are making great progress.

[emperorpenguin]

Finished the 155th Pennsylvania Zouaves





Just need to base them and find my flags sheet!

I doubt I'll get the New York 5th Zouaves done this month but instead I'll finish up the US 1st Sharpshooters

[Codsticker]

That's a good batch of minis done there.

It looks like if I put the hours in this evening and tommorrow evening I will be able to get my minimum done and not have to play a Joker to start this project off.

[f2k]

Those are some nice minis emperorpenguin. Sorry if I missed it, but what scale are they?

As for my poor long-suffering Germans (the Eastern Front wasn't a nice place to be, you know) I have now almost completed the motor pool.



Sorry 'bout the crappy picture - my camera ran out of battery so I had to use my phone.

I still got a few details left, mostly pin-washing, license plates, decals and, of course, basing. But I’m getting there...



I’ll have the next thread up soon – how do you guys want to do it. Most “tales of...” threads set aside the first seven days for pictures of the finished models before opening up for WIP pictures and comments. Should we keep to that or just start commenting right away?

[emperorpenguin]

Those are some nice minis emperorpenguin. Sorry if I missed it, but what scale are they?



I’ll have the next thread up soon – how do you guys want to do it. Most “tales of...” threads set aside the first seven days for pictures of the finished models before opening up for WIP pictures and comments. Should we keep to that or just start commenting right away?

Cheers f2k, they're Perry Miniatures 28mm, plastic zouaves.

I don't mind going straight on, I fear that if I stop for a week it may be difficult to restart....

[Codsticker]

I’ll have the next thread up soon – how do you guys want to do it. Most “tales of...” threads set aside the first seven days for pictures of the finished models before opening up for WIP pictures and comments. Should we keep to that or just start commenting right away?

I would stay with the standard format as everyone is familiar with it.

[Harry]

Stick with that .... It evolved that way because it means the first page is just solid photos .... which is great.

Sorry I have not been around much or contributed to this thread. I have had a difficult month ... but I have painted up some stuff and am looking forward to the next thread and seeing everyones finished work.

[sigur]

@Codsticker: Hey, best of luck to get something done. These deadlines can be real helpful for forcing yourselt to get models painted (if at all possible due to time constraints of course).

@emperorpenguin: Very nice work there. Not really my period (I suppose this is ACW?) but very nice painting. Really looking forward to seeing these guys with a flag.

@f2k: Now that's an unconventional way of basing your 15mm vehicles. Just kidding of course. Great to see how you got that much done even though you've had trouble with the weird Stukas. As for the format of the Tale, I think we should stick to how the other Tales work as well.

@Harry: Looking forward to seeing what you came up with for this month!

Right, as for myself: Building a historical army and all that comes with it in 10mm is a completely new thing for me. On top of looking for manufactureres for minis constantly, looking for additional material, source material and so on I'm the kind of person who's main reason not to get into Napoleonics is because I know I'm the "button counter" guy. So I spent way too many hours at night reading, google'ing and so on. I still won't get it completely right because nobody knows for sure. I think I said it before but to me it seems that in many regards the Thirty Years War is as close to warammer 40k as history ever got.

Anyway, contrary to my estimations I got a fair amount of minis painted. 10mm miniatures paint up beautifully. For painting armies it's almost my favorite scale (if you sit me down in front of a 6mm or 15mm army I'd probably be quick to say that about these scales as well though). It took me a while to figure out the colours and regiment names for each of my units but two nights ago I finally got it all together, found a site that has really pretty flags and ordered them today. None of my units are completely based yet but I got my 150pts together for this month and will post pictures tomorow or the day after.

[f2k]

While waiting for my license plates to dry sufficiently to give them a layer of varnish, I’ve put up the new thread.

Hopefully, I can post my (almost) completed motor pool in a few days time. Right now I’m constrained by having to wait for each layer of detail-painting to dry before moving on. Five minutes of painting, an hour of waiting...

I’ve done some chipping (sadly so small that it won’t really show up in pictures) and I’ve picked out details like tools, spare wheels, license plates, etc. Right now I’m wondering if I should do some weathering with a bit of dust on the lower parts of the cars. However, the paint scheme is already fairly subdued and yellowish-brown so I’m not sure if weathering is the way to go. Perhaps a very light dusting of light-brown dried mud...?

[Codsticker]

@Codsticker: Hey, best of luck to get something done. These deadlines can be real helpful for forcing yourselt to get models painted (if at all possible due to time constraints of course).

I will tell you this: if it weren't for this "Tale of..." I would have just shelved the project until the end of summer when my work load is less. Thanks to peer pressure however, I am forcing myself to paint.

[sigur]

I will tell you this: if it weren't for this "Tale of..." I would have just shelved the project until the end of summer when my work load is less. Thanks to peer pressure however, I am forcing myself to paint.

That's the spirit. If not for the Tale I'd hardly have a reason to to this TYW project either.