I Still Don't Know What These Are Called

The 1:1 pike:musket ratio is just about accurate for some units early in the early Civil War.

 

I have seen this assembly of troops referred to by many names: regiment, battalia, brigade, tercio even. The only thing I'm certain of is that "regiment" is more of an administrative term and that in battle, regiments were split up/combined to make formations of approximately equal size. The Seventeenth Century was often frustratingly vague in its use of technical language.

Oliver's Army

 

"And how much did your father spend on those models?"

The Battle of the Blood Orange

 

 

Prize Haul: Wooden Spoon and "Best Blood Orange" trophy. I'm sure you will agree that my interpretation perfectly matches the brief.

Just in time for Christmas, here's a heartwarming account of Wargaming Seasonal Cheer from, erm, October. I had the fortune to visit distant Nottingham to take part in Andy2D6's 2nd Battle of the Blood Orange 1-day tournament.

Ready for the Great CoK-Up

It was a close-run thing, but I find myself packed and ready for Mantic's very own Clash of Kings tournament with a whole day to spare. Hopefully my ranking can match my punctuality and achieve the dizzying heights of 90th of out 100!

The army in all its dubiously-lit glory. I've gone for a smaller number of big units this time.

What I've let myself in for

A whole 5 models complete! 4 of them weren't painted before lockdown!

 

I'm sure like many of you, my initial optimism about the effect of lockdown on my plastic pile has faded. Not only does painting time still seem hard to make, but self-medicating my mental health by buying models has made things even worse. So, some months before the publication of this update, I found myself needing to paint a dozen knights and two cannon in time for the Clash of Kings in October.

How not to be seen

Private N. E. Seagoon of the 4th Armoured Thunderboxes has presented us with a poser: we do not know which tree he is behind, but we can soon find out.

Yes, it was the middle one.

It's the Taking Part that Counts

Once again, it's almost a month since the tournament and I've only just finished the write-up. In January I went to Stockport again for Northern King's Kings of War tournament, four games and a very substantial lunch. Once again I set off without my phone charger, so sadly pictures are only available for the first two games.

Tanks Again!

My mental health hasn't been great lately. This means plenty of models have been bought as retail therapy and painted in my secluded underground lair so there is plenty of content for the blog. Every cloud eh?

Airfix 1/76 T-34, assembled by my uncle, painted by me. During painting I gummed up the joint so unfortunately the gun doesn't elevate any more.

No Scrubs

After the somewhat ironic title (I've finished quite a few bits of scrub) I hereby present part one of my painting progress.

Marauders marauding amongst 20mm scale scrub.

Slaves to Dorkness

I think my favourite strategy for getting stuff painted is to have four or five projects on the painting table at once, so that the desire to avoid painting one of them spurs you to paint another. Here is a case in point, I've started re-painting my chaos warriors (the first models I ever owned) for use in a future Kings of War army.

Re-painted Chaos warriors, now back in bold, bright colours with little regard for artistic coherence. Just as they should be. Flash used.

Werewolves of London

I've not got a full army photo yet as I spent this evening wrestling my 40mm x 40mm based figures into my new carrying case inserts. I absolutely refuse to attempt that feat again without good reason so you'll have to wait until after this weekend's tournament.

Mierce Miniatures werewolves. Gorgeous models, but at £15 apiece only for special occasions.

A Quick One Before 2019

Merry Christmas, Happy new something etc. Have a blog post for Christmas. I've got plenty of things 'almost done' so I thought it would be nice to show some works-in-progress for a change as I haven't done that for a bit.

I'd also like to mention the recent Meeples and Miniatures podcast where they are brave enough to discuss their mental health issues in detail. I thought this would be worth a mention as I've mentioned my (still ongoing) mental health stuff before and men need to talk about it more.

Peltasts almost finished, including two spare bases to fill out a 100 mm x 40 mm unit for Kings of War. Lovely uncomplicated miniatures from 1st Corps.

CoK Loot and Plans for Next Year

A morose air hung over the camp after the tournament. Two figures sat by a campfire, one a human with both arms in enormous plaster casts and the other a great beast-man with a bandaged lump on his head as large as an extra horn. One turned to the other and said: 

"It's no good. Next time we're going to have bring a competitive army list."

Gaming paraphernalia freebies. Tape measure not included as I'd lost it down the sofa by this point. 

Clash of Kings 2018: The Other End of the Score Table

Very late to the party on this one, but I've finally collected my pictures and consulted my notes on Mantic's Clash of Kings 2018 (held on the 13th & 14th of October). I think my perspective offers an excellent contrast to the (comprehensive and informative) account from Andy Ransome, mostly because he finished 6th and I finished 79th. Oh yeah, spoiler warning for poor performance.

I call this picture 'oh dear'. Other names removed for privacy.

Mordheim: City of the Damp

I am very fortunate that the Wolverhampton housemate crew, including Merlin and Matt, have started up a Mordheim campaign and I was only too pleased to stick my oar in. One fateful day in August we managed two battles AND stayed up until 4 am doing the post-battle admin. Now why can't I give that sort of passion to my real job?

The set-up for game one. Didn't get any pics of the second one, sorry.

Pre-Havoc Blogging

European Data Thingy preamble: Blogger and Google are using analytics, cookies and other data to spy on your house and plan the kidnapping of your dog. I do not personally store any of your personal information. I hope this message is legally watertight.

These are amongst the first models I ever owned, finally given them a proper paintjob.

This post was planned to go up before the tournament report, but it hasn't.

... and let slip the dogs of war!

Image description: a scoreboard. Your blogging hero is placed 24th out of 26.

It's not the winning, it's the taking part that counts. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Almost, But Not Quite

Today's theme is that I have a lot of models that are almost finished, but there remain important details which should not be left undone. Such as the basing.
 

Perry-sculpted GW Lord of the Rings elves, featuring conversion wielding a spear. I've just realised that I forgot to do the mail on the armpits in a steel-tone (hence the title).

Base-ic Instinct

With the new models, I decided I needed some new bases to mount them on. Unfortunately, I underestimated the size of a peeg, so now I have 32 15 mm MDF circles and nothing to do with them, as well as an absence of 25 mm rounds and the suspicion that 30 mm might fit the fast attack options perfectly.

This picture doesn't really do it justice, but the bases are too small

Christmas Comes Late

Met the lovely family for the first time since Christmas. I had a lovely catch up and so on, but more importantly I picked up the parcels I've been waiting for for weeks!

Gunny Peegs [sic] by Bad Squiddo games, with 28mm 'human' for scale purposes.