Wednesday, November 30, 2016

20th (Central Ontario) Battalion, CEF


With all that stocktaking done (and other brief distractions out of my system – or are they!?), I’m back to working on my Great War Canadians for Vimy…

(Remember: click on the pictures for a bigger version):


20th (Central Ontario) Battalion, CEF

The figures from the 20th (Central Ontario) Battalion, CEF, as with all of the figures in the 4th Brigade, are from 1st Corps.


The formation patch for the 20th Battalion was a green triangle surmounting a blue patch – the blue patch was for the 2nd Division, the triangle indicated the second battalion within the brigade and the green was the senior brigade within the division.


Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

I’m skipping on past the 21st Battalion for now, and going to get working on the 5th Brigade for the moment (because I need to convert/repair a figure to finish up the 21st Battalion and I’m all out of Green Stuff…).

Dwarves!?


Yes, Dwarves… AND an Elf…

While rebasing the highland dwarves (mentioned in the previous post) I realized painting just three more would finish off another unit for Dragon Rampant… so… I kind of painted a few Dwarves over the weekend. (This may become a regular feature of the blog – painting something “fun” in between painting stuff for the Vimy project as in nears the end and starts to feel like a bit of a “chore”…)

(Remember: click on the pictures for a bigger version):


Three newly painted Highland Dwarves and a Horn Blower for a Mountain Dwarf Unit. The Highalnd dwarves are from Old Glory… and I think the hornblower might be from Essex Miniatures?



These are the three units I have complete so far for the Highland Dwarf Warband I am building for Dragon Rampant.

The Highland Dwarves will likely all be classified as Bellicose Foot. I’m kind of torn about the rest of the force. I had thought of making one unit an “elite” unit of them and add “Terrifically Shiny Armour” to give them a bit more staying power on the battle field… but that would make one unit 6 points and the rest would be 4 points and that doesn’t add up to a nice neat 24 points. I mostly wanted to do that because one of the units is made up of West Wind Productions Highland Dwarves – which are considerably bulkier and meaner looking than these (which are from Old Glory)… I may just do six units of Bellicose Foot… but I am FOUR FIGURES SHORT of being able to complete such a force… dammit…


This is the unit the Horn blower was painted for – the Dwarven Jarl and bodyguards for the “Mountain Dwarf” Dragon Rampant warband… Originally I was going to leave it with the five others (saying the Jarl himself is worth 2 strength points) but when I line up the units in the storage box and all the others are 6 or 12… the unit of five just looked out of place (does that seem a bit OCD…? I’m probably a bit OCD…).


I also finished up this Elf Champion – the figure is an old Celtos figure, which are currently available through  Brigade Models - I actually just ordered a few more Elf archers to finish up a second unit of them for another Dragon Rampant warband.

The warband will be made up entirely of Celtos “Sdihe” figures. It will include two units of archer (Light Missile, Sharpshooters @6), two units of spear (light foot, @3), and this fellow as a single figure (or perhaps reduced figure - I might have a standard bearer and musician that could join him…?) unit of Elite Foot (@6 points). I also have a goofy looking magician for the force that I could potentially use (not sure how I’d rearrange the force to field him, though…).


Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

Well with that all out of my system, hopefully I get on to finishing up the 4th and 5th Canadian Brigades for the Vimy Project!! 

Sunday, November 27, 2016

Stocktaking 2016


As I alluded to in the previous post, I spent a good chunk of my hobby time last week taking stock of things – well… taking stock of my 28mm figures, to be precise. As with any large project, I start to drift partway through and have been dreaming about new projects lately and so part of this was to sort of shame or guilt myself into sticking to it. It’s a large part of how I keep my self-motivated on big projects and I’m sure it’s a pretty flawed coping mechanism… but it’s how we get things done around here… (Strangely it doesn’t work at all when others try to shame me into doing things… probably because I know that game all too well – can’t pull that crap on me, I’M the only one that can pull that crap on me… I digress…).

The last time I did this was just over seven years ago. AT that time I had just over 8000 28mm foot figures and just under half of them were done. I also had about 500 mounted, 15 guns, and 41 vehicles – considerable less than half of those were done. Overall about 47% off the total collection was complete – painted and based and ready for tabletop action (because playing with unpainted figures is JUST WRONG! – in my little kingdom, at least!). For a more detailed breakdown of what I had then click on the hypertextified-linky-words at the beginning of this paragraph. 

As with the previous count, I only bothered to count the 28mm figures. I do have a few 15mm forces remaining (3 old Flames of War companies that I was last using at battalions or brigades in Blitzkrieg Commander), and quite a few 20mm Moderns (though I did get rid of all my 20mm WW2 stuff – thanks Bob!), and I have a bit of Micro (6mm) SciFi stuff – like Battletech and 40K Epic stuff. Oh and some homemade Wee Ships and Spacecraft… but they are relatively small collections, comparatively.

So over all I ended up counting 18908 28mm foot figures, 1011 mounted, 63 guns or other artillery (catapults and the like), and 175 vehicles or big beasties. And overall about 51% was painted (In calculating percent complete I weighted cavalry as being worth two foot and vehicles being worth 5) – breaking that down it was 10221 painted 28mm foot (54% complete), 381 mounted (38%), 32 guns (51%), and 48 vehicles (27%). Apparenlty I don’t like painting vehicles or mounted as much as I like painting foot figures (or perhaps I don’t find them as useful in games…?). I would guess this to be accurate within +/- 2% (it was easy enough to count all the stuff that’s actually IN the regular storage drawers, but I also have little boxes of this and that squirreled away all over the place and while I tried my best to dig them out and count them, I am sure there are some I missed – or it is possible I missed one or two when I started going cross-eyed after counting for three or four hours in the wee hours of the morning. In fact as I’m typing this I just realized I didn’t count all the old Blood Bowl stuff – which has been ingloriously dumped in the game box and had sat on the bottom shelf in the corner of the games room for over a decade and I can’t be bothered to run downstairs and count then now (in fact that is why it’s 2% - I originally typed 1%... but there’s probably 100 of them which could bring my error over 1% – most of which are painted, I’ll point out… and looking back at the previous post, I apparently forgot to count them last time as well…)

I didn’t break things down as neatly as I did last time. I tabulated things by mostly drawer rather than by force or collection, but then I moved stuff around in the spread sheet to get some generally breakdowns.

The most complete collection seems to be the Modern (post 1945 stuff), which includes Vietnam (Americans, Anzacs, People’s Army of Vietnam and the National Liberation Front), Afghans (for the war with Russia and more recent conflicts), Germans, French, Americans (Army and Marines), Cold War Soviets, Modern Russians, Cold War British (with FNs), Modern British (with SA-80s), Some generic forces for the Middle East, South/Central America, and Africa, and PILES of civilians and police forces and such… about 85% of the collection is complete - over 1500 of nearly 1800 figures – including a fair few vehicles.

(please note that not ALL of the figures painted are posted in the linked galleries – something I have to rectify at some point….)

The World War Two collection is also one of those closer to completion – about 70% complete – includes Soviets, Canadians, Germans (Heer, SS, Falschirmjagers, DAK, etc), Japanese, SAS/LRDG, British Commandos, Americans (army infantry, Paratroopers, and Marines), Early War French, Mid-war French Foreign Legion, British/Canadian Paras, and assorted partisans and generic-mid-20th-century armed civilians.

The Great War era stuff is also nearing completion – thanks largely to the Vimy Project… about 75% complete (1775 out of 2291 foot, and 109 our of 163 mounted). This includes the Canadians, Germans (early and later war), Early War British, Early War French, Turks and ANZACs for the Middle East, Germans and British in East Africa, Warlord Chinese and Bolsheviks.

l projects are lagging a bit further behind – only about 40% complete (775 of 1956 foot, 25 of 97 mounted) – largely due to great number of unpainted British and Zulus … These include British and Zulus (and other Africans), as well as assorted Victorian Horror and SF characters and forces, Martians, Boers, French Foreign Legion, American and German Marines, Old West, and Canadians and Metis for the Riel Rebellion.

I have a few Napoleonic Era figures, it is one of the least complete collections – though, once I counted, was higher than I’d anticipated… I’ve completed about 19% of the collection (176 of 934 foot and 5 of 29 mounted). Most of the unpainted ones are boxes of Hät plastics I picked up dirt cheap – like $5-7 for a box of 30-40 figures – how could I pass that up?! I may never get to them, but they’re there – should the mood ever strike!

18th Century subjects are about half done (54%) – including Seven Years War British and French, as well as Jacobites, Pirates and other assorted swashbuckling types.

17th Century - largely English Civil War – are 64% complete (342 of 534 foot and 38 or 60 mounted) largely due to some significant headway I made earlier this year.

The Medieval & Medieval Fantasy collection has expanded rapidly in the last year or so – largely due to Lion Rampant,  Dragon Rampant, Frostgrave, and A Song of Blades and Heroes - my painting has not, however, kept apace with the purchasing however. In 2009 I had about 70% of the collection complete, today only about 45% (1091 out of 2302 foot and 73 of 215 mounted!). I have THREE European Medieval retinues for Lion Rampant as well as a generic middle eastern Muslim one (Seljuks, mostly), and multiple DBA armies and Dragon Rampant warbands for Elves and Orcs and Dwarves, LOTR Rohan and Isengard forces, Rats, Undead, Halflings, Dark Elves, a half dozen adventuring parties for Frostgrave, and piles not formed into units that could be used for A Song of Blades and Heroes or assorted role-playing games (playing a bit of D&D 5E these days! And John has been threatening to run WFRP). These will see some loving when I’m done with the Vimy Project…

The “Dark  Ages” collection mostly consists of DBA Armies for Norde Irish, pre-feudal Scots, Vikings, Normans, Anglo-Danish, West Franks, Welsh, and Anglo-Saxons. A fair bit of these are done (about 80%) due to the 2012 Dark Ages DBA Campaign I ran.

Likewise, a lot fewer of the Feudal and Fantastical Japanese (I really need to get some pictures in that gallery!) were it not for the Ronin Campaign I ran for the 2014 Wargaming Birthday Bash Weekend. The collection includes HOTT/DBA armies and individual figures for Ronin – Skirmish Wargames in the Age of the Samurai and Role-playing games. In addition to historical Feudal Japanese the collection includes a great deal many fantastical figures from the Legends of the Five rings. Actually only 45% are done – but it’s be a lot lower if it hadn’t been for Ronin – I went a little overboard picking up the L5R stuff a few years back I have nearly 1000 figures in this collection but over 400 are done, so…

I was a little surprised to find that half of the Ancient and Mythical Greece collection was complete – considering I have five complete Hoplite DBA armies (or 12 elements of spear, 7-8 figures per element) of which I have hardly put any paint on. But all the individually based heroes and monsters and assorted ancient civilians I included added up to quite a few.

I didn’t bother separating out the Romans in the tallies… it would likely be similar to the Greeks – I have one complete DBA army, but enough unpainted figures for three or four more, but I also have a LOT of individually based figures Roman army, Gladiators, and Civilians (which are all mixed in with all the other assorted ancient civilians – which I counted as part of the Greeks)

The collection that is the least complete is the DBA Successors armies. I have about 450 figures for five successor armies (as well as Thracians, Skythians, and Classic Indians) of which 6 foot and one elephant are complete… about 1%.

And what have I concluded from all this…? Well I probably don’t need to be buying much new stuff anytime soon… I have PLENTY to paint. I did a bit of planning and organizeing as I went through – for example I have two groups of Fantasy dwarves – regular ol’ “Mountain Dwarves” as I’ve called them in my little world to differentiate them from the “Highland Dwarves”. I had originally planned to do bot Hordes of the Things armies for both – as well as having a bunch of extras for skirmishing and role-paying and whatnot – and, more recently, using with Dragon Rampant. As I went through I realized I’d need another SIX elements of Highland Dwarves to finish the HOTT army… at 6 figures per element – another 36 figures…. I am loathe to buy more figures at this point – especially for a game I haven’t played for a few years (though I would definitely like to again…at some point…) so I decided to rebase the ones I have painted as well as the ones I had on painting bases that were destined for that force – and now I have enough for a complete Dragon Rampant Warband of them… well… almost… I’d need less to complete a Dragon Rampant Warband that I would to complete a full HOTT army of them – and a Dragon Rampant warband is likely to see more use in the foreseeable future than another HOTT army…

Of course then I spent an evening re-basing figures instead of painting more Great War Canadians… So this thing I did to ease my mind about future projects and prevent distractions, ended up being a bit of a distraction in and of itself… but I kind of expected that, and I feel, in the long term, it will prove to be more help than hindrance.

I think after the Vimy Game is over I’ll move onto other things for a bit. I had though of getting some terrain done for a Passchendaele game in the fall – since I’ll have all the figures for it! And I may still do that… but I also need to do some other things – to keep me sane and loving the hobby. I’d like to work on the colonial projects for The Men Who Would Be Kings and finish up some units for Lion Rampant retinues and Dragon Rampant warbands… maybe play some more Frostgrave and/or A Song of Blades and Heroes…? I also would like to finish up a few more 17th Century figures to play En Garde! and The Pikeman’s Lament.

I’d also like to get back to work on some Ancient and Mythical stuff and play some more Song of Shadows and Dust and try out Faustus Furious (which I picked up a month or so ago and finally got to reading a few weeks ago) and Of Gods and Mortals (which, strangely, introduced me to Andrea Sfiligoi’s rules, but I have yet to actually play!? I’d really like to revisit the idea of running Song of Shadows and Dust  as a wargame weekend campaign – with some Faustus Furious-chariot-street-racing mixed in for fun!!

More on all this in a month or so when I look back at 2016 and plan for 2017…


Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

Some Dwarves – a minor distraction brought about by all this stocktaking an plannificating… Then back to the Great War Canadians… hopefully… 

Saturday, November 26, 2016

German Trench Mortar


I haven't been terribly productive this past week for… reasons… Largely I spent a couple evenings just taking stock. I’ve been getting distracted thinking about future projects. NEW future projects and I thought perhaps it was time to do a little stocktaking – mostly to shame myself into not considering any new projects for the next year or so… but more on that in another post….

I DID manage, in the meantime, to finish up this little German trench mortar team from Great War Miniatures.

(Remember: click on the pictures for a bigger version):


Lovely little kit. Very easy to put together.


I particularly appreciate the little details GWM throws in with these kits – the case with mortar bombs and rifle, etc.


Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

Perhaps another battalion of Great War Canadians…

Or perhaps a bit about the stock-taking I did over the last week. honestly I’m a little embarrassed to post the figures…

Anyone care to guess at how many 28mm figures I have and what portion of them are actually painted?

I tell you what - if I get at least six guesses I'll post the results.  

Monday, November 21, 2016

19th (Central Ontario) Battalion, CEF


And back to the Khaki….

The figures from the 19th (Central Ontario) Battalion, CEF, as with all of the figures in the 4th Brigade, are from 1st Corps.

(Remember: click on the pictures for a bigger version):


19th (Central Ontario) Battalion, CEF


The formation patch for the 19th Battalion was a green semicircle surmounting a blue patch – the blue patch was for the 2nd Division, the semicircle indicated the second battalion within the brigade and the green was the senior brigade within the division.


Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

Hopefully the 20th Battalion… 

Friday, November 18, 2016

More Ancients and Mythological Creatures


So how many “little breaks” do I get to take from a project before I can consider myself “totally distracted”…?

(Remember: click on the pictures for a bigger version):


Ancient Persians from Casting Room Miniatures (who are currently having a “pre-xmas” 20% off sale on their historical miniatures like these – I did not pick these up in the sale. I’ve had these a while. Though  I’m not entirely sure WHEN I picked them up… probably a year and a half ago when I was picking up stuff for Song of Shadows and Dust.


Thracian Women from Wargames Foundry which is the same guys as Casting Room Miniatures… but a different website – which is SUPER annoying because orders cannot be combined If I want to order 4 packs from one and 4 from the other I have to pay twice the shipping I would if they were all from the same website – actually at 8 packs (combined) it would ship free from one or the other…. (unlike… say… North Star Figures which also sells Artizan Designs and Copplestone Castings and Crusader Miniatures and maintains separate websites for each of them – they all go to the same cart and orders can be combined).

I digress…


Here’s what their backsides look like.


Gorgons! The one that is primarily red and yellow (tried to go for a Corn Snake look) is from Reaper Miniatures, the other three are from Wargames Foundry or Casting Room Miniatures… I forget which… I think they may be the one line that is available through BOTH websites! The Black Snake gorgon I actually painted… um… wow I guess it was over four years ago - but I’ve included her here with the others because… well.. they’re all done so I thought I’d take a picture of the group….?

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

Back to the Great War Canadians… no, really… the 19th (Central Ontario) Battalion is the only thing on my workbench and I’m not putting anything else on there until they’re done!

Tuesday, November 15, 2016

Great War Canadian Vickers Machine-Gun Teams


I just finished up the last of the Great War Canadian Vickers machine-gun teams I currently have (I do need a few more, but I’ll probably be waiting until the new year to pick them up).

(Remember: click on the pictures for a bigger version):


The new teams, from left to right: 1st CorpsGripping Beast/Woodbine Design (in back), Wargames Foundry (in front) and 1st Corps again. 




These are all of the teams for the Canadian Corps so far. There will be four per division and represent roughly a company. I need about three more.


Having finished them up I thought I’d do a post highlighting all of them and maybe even taking some comparison shots.














Brigade Games

Here are a few comparrison shots..



Top row, left to right: Great War MiniaturesOld GloryGripping Beast/Woodbine Design
Bottom row, left to right: Brigade GamesRenegade Miniatures1st CorpsWargames Foundry



Here I tried to line them up from biggest to smallest guns - left to right: Renegade MiniaturesBrigade Games1st CorpsGreat War MiniaturesOld GloryGripping Beast/Woodbine DesignWargames Foundry.



As above, slightly different angle.



The biggest and smallest. Wargames Foundry on the left, Renegade Miniatures on the right.



The three big 'uns: Renegade MiniaturesBrigade Games1st Corps. They are all about the same thickness, but the one from Renegade is clearly longer. (With a statement like that I feel a little like a porn reviewer comparing dicks...)



 Great War Miniatures (left) and Gripping Beast/Woodbine Design (right)



Great War Miniatures (left) and Old Glory (right)



Wargames Foundry (left) and Old Glory (right)

I originally took a few more pics but a lot were out of focus or just didn't turn out, but I think the above does a pretty good idea of showing the differences and similarities. I'm not terribly concerned by them. These will be spread out all over teh battlefield - the differences are really only noticable when you line them up next to each other and critically compare.

I wish I could have gotten the Canadian Auto Car Machine Gun Carrier I picked up from 1st Corps , but alas I haven’t had the time to assemble it…

I realized afterward taking and editing all these pictures that I do actually have a vickers team from Battle Honors - but they're in shorts and Wolseley helmets... I guess they'd do to show relative sizes of guns... Ah well... some other time. 

For those that get anxious about the significance of certain numbers – with these I have finished precisely 666 28mm foot figures so far this year. Well behind where I’ve been at this point in some of my more productive years, but I should bring that up over 700 and possibly closer to 800 by the end of the year, which no one can really say is insignificant…


Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

I wish I could say it would be the 19th (Central Ontario) Battalion, CEF, but it won’t I have a few more individual ancient figures I’ve been working on in between units and stuff. I have STARTED the 19th (Central Ontario) Battalion, and hopefully I’ll be posting them later in the week!  Also work has slowed on the 4th Brigade as I’ve stopped to convert a few spare officers into the riflemen I need them to be! 

Friday, November 11, 2016

18th (Western Ontario) Battalion, CEF

On with the 2nd Division – starting with the 18th Battalion of the 4th Brigade. All of the figures in the 4th Brigade are from 1st Corps. The 1st Corps figures a bit on the chunky side, but I actually don’t mind. I think some of the sculpts are really fun and full of character – and in some poses I haven’t often seen in wargaming miniatures – cocking rifles, reloading and reaching into webbing for ammo, etc. 

(Remember: click on the pictures for a bigger version):


18th (Western Ontario) Battalion, CEF

I realized, while painting these that a few of the figures I initially thought were infantrymen (because they were carrying rifles) are actually officers?! One was from a pack of Officers and NCOs – I figured the two with pistols were officers and the two with rifles were NCOs. Wrong-oh! On closer observation (once I actually started PAINTING the guys) one of the guys I thought was an NCO is actually another officer carrying a rifle. The THIRD officer in this unit actually came in the “Advancing/Charging” pack. I suppose I could have done some converting… but I was in painting mode and couldn’t be bothered at that point. I’ll have to look at the other battalions and maybe carve off the officer-ish details on the same figures in the other battalions.


The formation patch for the 18th Battalion was a green square surmounting a red patch – the blue patch was for the 2nd Division, the circle indicated the senior battalion within the brigade and the green was the senior brigade within the division.

I hope to get a couple more cracked out over the long weekend –in between playing a few games - so stay tuned.


Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

19th (Central Ontario) Battalion, CEF - or perhaps some Machine-guns and mortars…



Thursday, November 10, 2016

4th (Central Ontario) Battalion, CEF


I finally finished up the final battalion for the 1st brigade, and indeed the entire 1st Division: 4th (Central Ontario) Battalion, Canadian Expeditionary Force.

The figures for the battalion, as with the recently finished 1st battalion,  2nd battalion, and 3rd Battalion are all from Wargames Foundry

(Remember: click on the pictures for a bigger version):


4th (Central Ontario) Battalion, Canadian Expeditionary Force.


The formation patch for the 4th Battalion was a green square surmounting a red patch – the red patch was for the 1st Division, the square indicated the junior battalion within the brigade and the green was the senior brigade within the division.

I was actually short a figure to make this battalion – so I pinched a couple from the 14th Battalion and replaced those with two spare figures I had from Old Glory. that way the entire 1st Brigade is made up of Wargames Foundry Figures, the Second Brigade is made up of Old Glory figures and the 3rd Brigade is made up of a mix of Wargames Foundry, Old Glory, and home-cast figures. Ideally I’d have liked to have the battalions made up of figures from one manufacturer (and so it bothers me intensely to have the two Old glory figues in the unit of Wargames Foundry figures… but I’ll just have to live with it – because I can’t be bothered to pay $25-$20 just to get one or two more figures).

I’d take pictures of the entire brigade, but while the battalions making up the brigade, the entire brigade is not complete as I have some supporting elements that would be attached to the brigade that I have yet to complete. Same goes for the Division.


Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

On to the 2nd Division – or perhaps some Germans…?

Monday, November 7, 2016

Bronze Age Warriors


Not much work done on the Vimy Project this past week or so. We had a blast of winter-like weather in early October and the rest of the month was chilly, grey and wet and miserable. This first week of November we’ve had a bit more warmer weather and I’ve been trying to get out more – even got out for a little mountain bike ride on Friday (and will probably go for another today!). I did go a bit of assembling of Great War items last week (German mortars – useful for Vimy, and an A7V – not so useful for Vimy… but at least it’s still in the Great War era…). There were a few things I finished up this week – but they had little to do with the Great War…

This fall I started playing in a D&D5E Primeval Thule campaign – the setting is Bronze Age Sword and Sorcery. I recalled that I had these few Wargames Foundry Trojan War heroes that I never got to finishing up when I was working on other Greek myth stuff. The Trojan War – historically speaking – would have been in the Bronze Age, so I painted these guys up with bronze weapons and armour.

I was looking around the Foundry website and got to thinking I might order a few more Bronze age warriors – a mix of European Bronze Age Warriors and Hittites and other Trojan War Heroes to add to this mix, but then I came to my senses and… well.. didn’t… for now.

(Remember: click on the pictures for a bigger version):


Trojan Heroes. I think that’s supposed to be King Priam in the center, flanked by his sons Paris (one the left - without the helmet) and Hector (on the right), and two other guards.


Detail of those shields. I’m not totally happy with them – they don’t look quite centered to me – it’s like I started the front end leaving a bit of space between the front of the hose and the edge of the shield, but by the time I got to the back of the horse I’d run out of space. And a couple of those front legs look gimpy… I’m not bothered with them so much as to repaint them or anything… but not totally happy…


The Achaeans (form left to right): Odysseus, Menelaus, Agamemnon, Achilles, and Ajax (or at least I think that’s who they were supposed to be…)


We haven’t been getting a lot of gaming in lately either, but we did sneak in a game of Forbidden Island last night. This was our second game so we played at the "normal" level and just barely made it off the island! I'm not sure how anyone could play at the "veteran" or "elite" levels! 


Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

Great War stuff.. no really… 

Tuesday, November 1, 2016

Hallowe'en 2016

After posting pictures of the 3rd Battalion we got on with some regular halloweeniness. The kids got bugging me about getting out my new "costume" so I actually got out and tried on this uniform I picked up in Calgary during our summer vacation. It's a long story... (more about that later sometime).



It's actually a replica Canadian Great War uniform that was used in the film Passchendaele - or at least parts of it was... The tunic and trousers were, maybe the cap... the puttees and webbing are new replica items. I have some insignia to add to the uniform at some point, but just haven't gotten to it. Not sure if I got that webbing set up right - but I'm pretty happy with the puttees - the first one took a few tries to get it right.

What the uniform really needs is a rifle... and maybe an entrenching tool... and a leather jerkin...



Messing around trying to make it look like a "period photograph"



(Not actually a Great War Brodie - the helmet is ww2 vintage - but close enough for my purpose)



The Girl also had a costume and wanted a picture with me in mine.



Out of focus because The Boy - who was taking the pics on this rather drab October late afternoon - was giggling too much.



Afterwards we made some halloween-y cookies. Well... okay... they were kind of just regular chocolate chip cookies with yellow, orange and brown Sun Drops instead of chocolate chips... which are sort of halloween-y coloured - or at least autumn coloured.

We didn't get around to carving a pumpkin this year. I don't know where the day went. I'd meant to get one carved AND play some horror themed games in the afternoon... but all we really got done was the cookies...?



After supper when Amanda got home we DID get to play at least one Horror-ish themed game - Forever Young: A Vampire Game from Twilight Creations - they make that Zombies!!! game (which we don't have, but I played once... we do however have Cthulhu: Hastur La Vista, Baby and Innsmouth Escape...). I picked up Forever Young out of Dragon's Den Games bargain bin for maybe $20 a couple of years ago - intending to play it as a Halloween game - but never got to it. (Last year on halloween we played a  Fear & Faith - Flashing Steel mash up horror skirmish game set during the English Civil War).

Forever Young says 45-60 minutes to play... so we'd hoped to play a few more games or maybe go watch a movie after....



But instead the game dragged on for almost FOUR HOURS!? I can't imagine trying to play a 6-player game!? Although once the draw decks got close to running out - it came to a pretty abrupt end in I was knocked out first - The Boy managed to kill my Vampire leader and The Girl discovered my nest... Within another turn The Girl was knocked out of the game and it was just down to Amanda and The Boy - I don't think it took more than another two or three turns - which went a LOT faster.

In the end The Boy won - but it was super close!

(I should have gotten a picture mid-game when there was a PILE of human and vampire pawns and lost of tiles stacked up all over...)

I might play it again (it would be interesting to TRY it with 6  players - just to see how it plays different...). But if I don't, it was only $20 - which is pretty cheap for an evening's entertainment (cheaper than us all going out to a movie!).

What did the rest of you get up to this halloween? Anyone else out there do some horror themed gaming - whether miniatures or board/card games? (I'll bet Terry did!)