ImagiNation: The wine must flow!

Yes, another corny title.  Last post I had a dearth in pictures, so I shall remedy it with a few more in this one.  I picked up this fine little piece at HistoriCon.  One of the few "new" releases from Perry that Architects of War had in stock by the time I came by their booth.  It is part of Perry's European Armies range, so it is intended for the 15th Century, but I find it works fine.  The standing model that comes with the cart is dressed in 15th C garb, but I think with some paint, it will be passable.

ImagiNation: Let me play you the song of my people

I guess the title is a terrible reference to how old I actually am...  Anyway, yesterday I had a lot of free time so I sat down and powered through the remaining "combat" models that I have on hand.  Pictured below is the regimental command team of the Cacciatore di Galliano.  Models are from Crusader's Austrian SYW line and are actually the Grenz command.  Originally I wanted to have my entire army using the Grenz uniform, but events (and free models from Dave Hoyt) conspired against me.  Not that I'm complaining any as I can always come back and add a regiment of them...

So, now we come to the question on all two of the people who probably read this blog on a semi-regular basis:  "What exactly do you have left Phil?".  Well I have a Perry Wine / Water Cart, which will of course be a wine cart given the nature of my army.  Secondly I have a Sergeant-Major Miniatures 8" siege mortar from their Indian Mutineer range.  It might be a century from the future, but I'm not really concerned as its really cool and typically useless on an open battlefield.

I should have these models done by the end of the week if I keep up with my painting binge (which is helped along by the nicotine patches that are enabling me to quit the vile tobacco).

ImagiNation: Back to green

My current painting spree continues with the first battalion of the Cacciatore di Galliano.  These are my irregular / skirmish infantry and excel in combat over rough terrain.  I've already started working on the command figures.

These represent the last "combat" models I have on hand.  They were also a nice change of pace for my painting schedule.  The more active poses made it for a bit more intense painting then I had been previously used to.  Painting the flesh was also a little interesting, but nothing unsurmountable.

I rather like this model, he was the "Thousand-Yard Stare" going on rather well.

I'm going to need skirmish movement trays for these bad-boys.  They will serve in my duel project scheme and in the planned F&I Wars rules will act like "Rangers" or "Canadian Militia".

ImagiNation: Painting something other then green...

Actually, I'm lying a bit with the title, there still is green with the next batch of figures.

What you see below is the last batch of Austrian German Musketeers I have currently in stock.  Which means, yes I will have to buy more and paint up the rest.  In the case of these figures, they were the leftovers of a "regiment" box that I purchased from Old Glory back when they still carried Crusader.  Now that they don't and I'm a sad panda, I have to order from the source, get hit with an ugly shipping fee from the UK and of course, I don't get the very awesome 40% off that Old Glory members receive.

Without further adieu I present: Truppa della marina di Frangelico.  Based off of the French & Indian Wars French Troupe de la Marine, my version is similar in that they their primary theatre of operations is the "New World" (aka the setting for my F&I Wars ImagiNation project).  I inverted the standard colour scheme of the Duchy and to be honest, I almost like how these look more then the regular scheme...  Just the like Troupe de la Marine, they are a regular infantry, conscript level (for Maurice). They give some nice colour to the table and add a little diversity to what I do believe in retrospect is a bit of a monotone army.

The lack of bayonets was a the result of a single model arriving with its pig-sticker being snapped.  I decided to just remove them completely.  I don't think it adversely effects how they look and again add a little bit of diversity to my army.

With the project I'm starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel and to continue with the cheesy one-liners, I'm getting into unknown territory.  In that I mean that I have under 20 models left on hand to paint and well under 50 still planned.  Not only have I breached the 100 models mark (now sitting at 107), but I have never really reached the completion mark for any 28mm projects.

ImagiNation: The Battle of the rainy desert...

After our gaming night on Friday we decided to keep the large tent up in anticipation of the arrival of Dave from much ado about nothing and his ImagiNation army.  After some fantastic weather the night before we left the gaming mat on the table.  Murphy's law dictates that if something bad can happen, it will.  Somehow the wind picked up around 7AM on Saturday and managed to blow the massive and heavy tent onto its side.  Thankfully the table was not damaged in anyway and when Mike went to fix the tent (I was trying to pull on my pants at this time, still asleep) he was able to lift and return the tent to its original location.  The weather, which has nicely held off the night before decided it was a perfect time to start raining heavily... just as the gaming mat was exposed to the elements.  With the now rather wet mat being useless, we had to resort to pulling out some tan mats that were laying around.  For a while we contemplated going "old school" wargaming and using just the wooden table, but that idea was quickly shelved.

With that we set up the table with a couple of buildings, so trees and a little bit of other terrain.  This was the second time I have played Maurice and I'm still as excited and happy about using this ruleset.

The weather was again rather horrible for the first few hours of the game, but as the fate of the Duchy of Libations was sealed, it became very nice and sunny out... just as I put away my camera...

As you can see, the original lines quickly devolved into a melee in the centre-left with units breaking left, right and centre.  After a protracted battle, the units under Mike's command finally relinquished the town and the loss of that last infantry battalion lowered our armies moral to zero, giving Dave the victory.

Overall another very fun game of ImagiNation.  Had the weather been nicer, the pictures would have turned out better and I would have been inclined to take more.

Finally, I present to you the 100th model I have painted for this army:

This particular one was the test model for my "Marine" regiment.  As you can see I inverted the usual colour scheme of my figures.

Double Header! Gaming nights 14th & 21st Sept

I had planned to post last weeks gaming report last week but the world conspired to strip internet away from my computer and halt any attempt to do so.

It has become a little bit of a tradition to cook steaks before the gaming begins and I might have gone a little overboard this time around...  As per usual now it rained rather heavily (it seems Kingston has been transplanted into England by our rather poor weather), so cooking on the BBQ was a pain in the rear.

My attempt at homemade "Steak Frite".

On the 14th we had to play indoors as the heavens opened up and hammered Kingston with thunderstorms and heavy rains.  Not a huge deal as we had decided upon playing some spaceships, but space was limited and a bit uncomfortable to work around.  This game saw Federation vs Federation in an alternate storyline civil war to Star Trek.  One side was using more advanced ships, but only four of them while their opponents had 14, but lower quality.  In the end I made a silly mistake and this cost us the game.  Having rather brittle, but powerful ships give little to no wiggle room.

Shoddy pictures are due to the horrible lighting in the living room... we could have set up some spot lights, but toughed through it instead.

The weather report for the 21st was just as grim as on the 14th so our glorious host Mike Hoyt decided to sign out a MOD Tent from supply and we set it up prior to the arrival of our gaming buddies.  In the end... the stopped raining just as we finished setting the tent up and the weather was rather nice for the rest of the night... go figure...

We learned our lesson from the gaming night of the 7th and made sure to have spot lights so that we could see what we were doing when the sun set.  The bonus of these 500W lights are they heat up a space pretty well, which means we might not need a space heater when the snow starts falling and we set up a more permanent tent.

The game on the 21st was a continuation of the storyline from our first BattleTech game.  The goal is to slowly introduce new elements to each game, preventing the newer players from getting swamped with new and increasingly complicated rules.  This time around we added in infantry and IFVs.

On my end, I quit smoking and have been on the patch + gum for a bit over a week now, but I was instructed by the Military Health Care worker that I need to treat myself once a week to something, just as a "good job" sort of thing, so this week was a small cigar.  I did little to no wargaming for the first hour and a half of the game, content with sitting in a fantastically comfortable chair, listing to some golden age jazz, slowly enjoying my cigar and top shelf VQA wine.  After about 3 glasses of Burning Kiln wine (absolutely smashing beverage) it became a little difficult to take a steady picture....

Lace and Tights

At the start of the summer I was rather bored of painting green (the chief colour of my ImagiNation army), so I pulled out one of my three dozen or so Malifaux models laying around my painting station and went to work.

Named Colette du Bois, she is the master of the "Showgirls" crew and was very fun to paint.  Like all Malifaux models, she is 32mm and used a round lipped base.

Not sure what plans I have to complete any of my four Malifaux crews.  I don't really have much of a timeline to complete them as I don't really play all that much, nobody else in my club plays and the local gaming store only has a couple of sporadic gamers.

Wargaming how it should be

With my now former wargaming club in a death spiral since the executive committee stepped down, the former president and best friend Mike Hoyt and I decided it was time to start up something new.  At the beginning of the summer he moved into a new apartment with a quite lovely back yard that was just finishing a complete renovation.  We built two of four planned 6" x 4" tables to use and recruited most of the remaining members of the old club.

With access to a BBQ, good beer and good company, thus was born a new club.  The name has not been set yet, but hopefully something witty and smart will pop into our collective minds at some point in the near future.  When the Canadian winter inevitably hits, we will move into the house or maybe even set up some sort of tent with a space heater so we can continue playing in the outdoors.

Another aspect of the club that we have planned is to host a podcast after the gaming is finished.  We usually start around 5:30PM and if we end at 10PM, we all still have a lot of time to host a one hour podcast.

The inaugural game for our new club was our first attempt at playing Classic BattleTech.  Most of the club members had not played a game yet, so it was a slow process getting everybody up to speed with the rules.

One of the nice things about BattleTech is that it is scaled in 6mm, which happens to be the chief gaming scale of Mike, thus all the terrain was already available.

Feel free to ignore the unpainted figures, BattleTech has been on the back-buners for me over the last couple of months as I concentrated on my ImagiNation project.

This scenario pitted a Private Mercenary group of four Mechs and four tanks vs a hodge-podge group of 10 Mechs Militia.

As the drinking and gaming progressed, we all realized that the one thing forgotten was a viable light source.  For this coming week we will have a couple of spotlights so that we can continue gaming into the night.

ImagiNation: Forth my Children! Go Forth!

I'm happy to announce that I have been on a bit of a painting binge lately.  Given that I have single digits in hours of class a week, I have way to much free time and have been filling it with painting.

On an ImagiNation front, I have decided to rework again the organizational structure of this project.  This comes after a long conversation with my gaming buddies.  I've reverted slightly from the 4 sabot structure to a two "battalion" and one commands worth of sabot.  This means I'm now working on a regimental level instead of a battalion one for my units.  Each of the "battalions" is a unit in Maurice.  The benefit on an visual point is that the command is actually in the middle of the regiment.  Anyway, onto some pictures!

The figures I've painted over the last week, minus the Front Rank Officer.  10 figures in four days... Considering I painted 16 figures over the course of the entire summer, I think I'm on a bit of a roll right now.  I still need to order the remaining eight models for this regiment.

Another regiment of Regular Line Infantry.  While having identical facings, the two main regular infantry units will be distinguished on the table by their flags (Which reminds me I need to put an order into the Flagdude for them...).  Fluff wise, both of these regiments were raised in the Capital of the Duchy of Libations and were sponsored by the same wealthy gentleman.

This regiment will be played as a lesser trained line infantry unit, having been raised in the border towns within the Valley of Montepulciano.  Within the fluff of Libations, Montepulciano is the only route North-South through the Trebbiano Mountain range and is the site of all the major battles between Libations and its southern neighbour سلطنة الكبرى من الشراهة (Grand Sultanate of Gluttony, an Ottoman stylized nation).

Combined grenadier regiment.  Each of the battalions are normally raised from the best soldiers from the two regular line infantry regiments.  This regiment does not have standards, thus the two senior NCO's vs the single in most regiments.  I still need to finish the staff of the second NCO.

I plan on dedicating my next post to explaining the fluff of each regiment and my ImagiNation as a whole.

The dreaded 20 questions post

Yep, seems like it has become a sweeping trend within the wargaming blogosphere to post 20 Questions and answers.

1.   Favourite Wargaming period and why?


Currently my favourite wargaming period is the 18th Century.  Tricorns = Fun Corns... yea that does not sound really good...  Be it ImagiNation, Seven Years War, War of Spanish Succession or French and Indians Wars, I like them all.  They are a bit different from the hordes of Napoleonic projects out there and still have a huge amount of quirkiness that I really enjoy in my projects.

2.   Next period, money no object?

French and Indian Wars Skirmish (Historical and ImagiNation based)... War of Spanish Succession... Jacobite rebellion... actual Seven Years War... Great Northern War.... uhhhh I'm a magpie gamer, I'm always attracted to the shiny new things.  But to be honest, I'm gonna say a French and Indians War ImagiNation Skirmish game (which actually, is my next planned project... if it manages to fight off my want of a ACW skirmish game...)

3.   Favourite 5 films?
A Bridge too Far
Kelly's Heroes
Star Wars (all of them...)*
Lord of the Rings*
Ocean's (the trilogy)*

*HA! I got around that awkward question.

4.   Favourite 5 TV series?


Hell on Wheels
Miami Vice
Lie to Me
Sons of Anarchy
Blackadder Goes Forth

"People in stucco houses shouldn't throw quiche."

Sonny Crockett

5.   Favourite book and author?

The Hobbit, J.R.R. Tolkien

6.   Greatest General? Can’t count yourself!!

Joachim Murat.  A rather rakish and dandy man.  Not the greatest of Napoleon's Generals, but was a fantastically dressed man.

7.   Favourite Wargames rules?

Ahhhhhhhhh, this is a hard question because the rules I usually play, I really like.  Top wargames rules are Maurice, Sharp Practice, Die Fighting and Through the Mud and the Blood.

8.   Favourite Sport and team?

I'm Canadian and I was born and lived a good chunk of my life in Toronto... so naturally I am a Toronto Maple Leafs super fan.

9.   If you had a only use once time machine, when and where would you go?

Hmmmm this is a hard one.  My answer has nothing to do with wargaming or historical stuff what-so-ever, but actually fits in rather well with the last question.  I would want to travel back somewhere in the mid 1950s when the Maple Leafs were a dominate hockey team and were winning the Stanley Cup on a regular basis.  Maybe even to 1967 to watch the last time they hoisted the cup...

10.   One meal to have before you die?

I changed the title on this question slightly.  Originally it was "Last meal on Death Row", but I don't really like the idea of thinking about it.  Starters would be Rum-Candied Bacon (a recipe I created..) followed by the most opulent sushi dinner and finished with a chocolate mouse cake.  Of course the entire meal should be accompanied by a truly biblical amount of fine wines and cognacs.

11.   Fantasy relationship and why?

Don't have one.  I've got all the relationship I need already with my better half.

12.   If your life were a movie, who would play you?

Sean Connery... I want James Bond to play me.

13.   Favourite Comic  Superhero?


Not a Superhero, but an anti-hero: Deadpool.  Without a question the most entertaining and troll like character ever created in comic book fiction.

14.   Favourite Military quote?


"NUTS!"

General Clement McAuliffe, 101st Airborne Division

15.   Historical destination to visit?

I would like to tour all of the major American Civil War sites.  To date I've been to Fredericksburg and Gettysburg, but I would very much like to see them all.

16.   Biggest Wargaming regret?


Not starting when I had the chance in the late 90s...

17.   Favourite Fantasy job?

If I did not have to worry about a steady income to help support two people, I would love to be a wargaming store owner / run my own wargaming company.  I would not say I could be a professional painter, as it would take me a year to fill out a single order, but that would be fun as well.

18.   Favourite Song, Top 5?


I don't really have a top 5 favourite songs, I listen to pretty much anything that is not country or gospel....

19.   Favourite Wargaming Moment?

I have two favourite moments.  First was back in 2010 when I participated in a New Years Day game at MIGS.  It was the recreation of the Battle of Borodino and featured over 2,000 figures.  Very impressive for a young wargamers mind.  The second was my first ever trip to HistoriCon this past summer.  While I've been told it was not nearly as good as in years past, I got a chance to meet some new wargaming friends, buy to much toys to expand my collections and enjoy a couple of games with likeminded individuals.

20.   The miserable Git question, what upsets you?


Having to travel over 4,000 kilometres to visit with my better half.
Not being able to paint a figure to my standard on the first try.
Playing rulesets with to much math, I like feeling the flow of a game, not having to crunch the numbers for every movement.