Kingston weekend gaming

Spent an enjoyable afternoon gaming in Kingston with Michael and Phil, pitting my ImagiNation army against Phil's wine-soaked olive-eaters! A selection of photos of the game below...

The might of the the Grand Duchy!

 

Irregular forces meet on the flank of the main armies.

Les Grenadiers de Boursin rashly attempt to charge the main enemy line!

Stepping back into my ImagiNation

Having dived back into the painting, I elected to try my hand at some of the enormous lead pile that makes up my ImagiNation project. I accomplished three things in my first foray back into serious painting (my previous post about adding WWI ships notwithstanding). First, I finished the command figure below. This is a Crusader figure that will command one of my KaiserReich regiments but I have not yet decided which or even his name. I was happy enough just to complete him (although he was already half-painted). My apologies for the quality of the photo (not sure where my camera is and my iPhone had to stand in). Second, I started on some musketeers of Regiment de Pont L'Eveque for the army of the Grand-Duc de Gourmandie. That was a bit more of a struggle. Many of my paints have dried out and need to be replaced. And while I was pleasantly surprised to find, when painting the figure below, that my hand was as steady (or unsteady, depending on the interpretation) as ever, painting in an assembly line format will take some discipline again. Audio books will work well in helping with this, I think. Lastly, I pulled out some of the gorgeous Crusader SYW hussars to clean and prep. I may be a little optimistic about getting at them with a paintbrush, given my output over the last year, but they are so pretty that I'm happy just to have taken them out of their dark hiding place under my desk.

Back in the Saddle?

After almost a full year of painting inactivity, I finally returned to my desk with some trepidation. Of course, cleaning the accumulated dust and paraphernalia of several months took more time than I expected. But, with several hours to kill, I dove into the unfinished projects that had been staring at me every time I went in my office. First up we're some GHQ WWI boats to add to my Royal Navy contingent. These had already been based and primed so the painting took little time (mainly dry-brushing). Finishing the bases took a bit longer; this requires wood filler for the bow and stern waves and several layers of paint and dry-brushing. You can see the result below of two new battle cruisers, HMS Queen Mary & HMS Princess Royal, to go with the pre-existing HMS Lion. I need only one more for David Beatty's battle cruiser squadron, HMS Tiger (but that will require an order to GHQ or a trip to Cold Wars). Also added to my Brits are HMS Phaeton and HMS Undaunted, both light cruisers. Now to put them to sea...

Imagination 2012...still here

It seems as though months have passed since my last post...lo and behold, it's true. A major shift of focus in my life has had me absent from the hobby for the most part although I've still been paying attention to the comings and goings in the hobby. Most especially I was struck by Old Glory's and Crusader Miniatures' decision not to renew their manufacturing and distribution agreement for North America. I took full advantage of the remaining time before December 31 and ordered the rest of my planned ImagiNation collection, knowing full well I was in a deep painting funk and wouldn't touch them for a very long time. But the 40% discount was difficult to ignore. Luckily, I'm now set up for quite some time. And we won't talk about the WWII Fallschirmjaeger platoon I also ordered

So, having said all that, I've been able to generate a little more interest in the hobby over the last couple of weeks. Of course, this may be the result of my impending trip to Cold Wars in March. I'm hoping the trip will fully rekindle my hobby interest. In the last couple of weeks I've been able to finish the basing and standards for a couple of new ImagiNation units that were painted way back in October & November. The largest addition is the Regiment der Grenadiere Oettinger, my first unit for the Das Kasierreich, arch-enemy of Le Grand-Duche de Gourmandie. 

Once again I apologize for the quality of the pictures. My trusty camera is on its last legs and must soon be relegated to the scrap heap.

  

Regiment der Grenadiere Oettinger. Crusader Miniatures painted by Karl Friedrich. 

I particularly like the sapper on the right side of the picture. If you'd like to contact Karl about painting commissions, let me know and I can pass along his email address.

 

Regiment der Infanterie Kromabacher. Crusader Miniatures.

This is only the first division of the battalion. When finished it will have three divisions of eight figures each, plus command and a 3lb battalion gun and crew.

 The might of Das Kaiserreich, as it stands so far.

 

And the breadth of power available to Le Grand-Duc de Gourmandie.

New things and a gift!

Not to belabour the point but it seems this has become a monthly posting exercise. And as before, I've not been idle even though my gaming has been sparse. The ImagiNation project continues apace with the addition of several new units. At Council Fires (about which a post will follow soon), I contracted some painting out as an experiment to a local painter. I've heard good reviews of his work but I'll reserve naming him until I receive the first commission (don't wanna recommend someone without first seeing his work) and I check with him to be sure it's OK. Currently he's working on the first unit of Das Kaiserreich, Regiment der Grenadiere Oettinger, modeled on Prussian grenadiers with the very nice pointy caps!

Meanwhile, I've managed to finish up a couple of units and come closer to finishing the (first stage of) the forces of Gourmandie. You can see the photos below with some explanations but perhaps the most interesting development in the Grand Duchy of Gourmandie has been the raising of a new unit by the Grand Duke himself, Le Garde de Gourmandie (painted and gifted to me by my good friend Bob Lehman from Ohio). This is a small infantry unit recruited from the landed gentry, and sons of wealthy land-owners and businessmen. Not intended as merely a ceremonial unit, Le Garde has already been fielded once with the army of Le Marquis de Fromage, standing up well for its first time under fire.
 

 Le Garde de Gourmandie.

Crusader Miniatures, painted by Bob Lehman (and gifted to yours truly with much thanks!)

 Les Chasseurs de Chevrotin.

Crusader Miniatures, two divisions of chasseurs with command party in the center. These were painted with the dip method, which has not quite captured my imagination yet. I haven't given up on the technique for horse & musket armies yet. These figures took longer than they should have, I suspect because I was playing around with the technique. Once I discover the sequence that works for me, I believe it will shave my painting time significantly (without sacrificing quality).

 

Chef de Battlaion Henri LeSanglier, Chevalier de Merlot, accompanied by Capitaine Phillipe Dangereux, Seigneur de Chapeau Rouge and musician.




Les Grenadiers de Camembert.
Crusader Miniatures, three divisions of grenadiers with command party and led by Colonel Jean-Jacques LaPierre, Comte de Champagne (Front Rank figure). I didn't think I'd ever finish the last division of this battalion but I drove my way through them. Each of the three divisions has a different facing colour (red/buff/blue).

 

Le Comte de Champagne. 

Behind him you can see the last division of the battalion finished with blue facings.

Shameless Plug!

OK, yes, a shameless plug for Council Fires 2011.

For those of you who don't know yet, Council Fires has been resurrected and is taking place on October 1 at the Cambridge Newfoundland Club. You can see all the details here and follow us on Facebook here.

We now have eight vendors for your shopping pleasure, a full breadth of games and, of course, Vidal's smiling face as you walk in the door. For the astoundingly low price of $10.00 CAD (that would be $10.11 USD for our American cousins) you get a full day of gaming and emptying your wallet. 

And I'd be happy to concoct excuses for your wife/girlfriend/boyfriend/significant other to explain the dip in your bank balance and/or your unexplained absence.

Remember, Playing with Toy Soldiers is Really Just Playing with Toy Soldiers.

Imagination Game and campaign thoughts

I hosted a small ImagiNation game last weekend to give my Gourmandie troops a chance to stretch their legs. My friend John came by to partake of the toy soldier goodness. I decided to take Field of Battle out for a spin, something I hadn't done in a long time. If you look back through the Napoleonic posts on this blog, you'll see that I really gamed the hell out of these rules. My compatriots at MIGS and I played at least 100 games using Field of Battle and a couple of campaigns.  But once I sold off my Napoleonic and War of 1812 collections, coupled with so much FoB gaming, I decided to take a step away from the rules. The game Sunday reminded me why I like these rules so much. They give quick results in the normal Piquet fashion, with lots of uncertainty and drama.

The good news is that my Gourmandie army was able to fight its first battle without a defeat. Now, I'm not saying I won...but a draw is at least not a defeat! Check out the pics below for a short synopsis of the game.

The forces of Gourmandie deploy for battle under the watchful eye of le Marquis de Fromage. Ordered to the border with Andalonia in order to face incursions by the army of Don Pedro, the intrepid Marquis has thought to be bold and make the first move. He has moved his small force to the town of San Miguel, a known Andalonian base, to try and draw out Don Pedro's army into a precipitate assault.

Don Pedro encourages his men to attack the brash move by Gourmandie. And yes, they do bear a remarkable resemblance to another of my collections...suspend your disbelief.

The first Andalonian units begin their assault on the Gourmandie line. Le Marquis' plan is coming together...really!

 

 Andalonian lancers await the chance to pounce!

 Les Grenadiers a Cheval Boursin move to support the artillery of the Gourmandie line.

While I haven't been too active on the painting front, I have been gaming and thinking and planning. One focus of late has been campaigning. This internal conversation was sparked by a recent external conversation with Daniel about his and his brother's prospects after graduation from RMC. Both will be posted about the country (or deployed abroad) and our chances of gaming together will be severely limited. To keep in gaming contact, I thought it would be interesting to play a campaign with them but there would be some significant challenges. We couldn't count on getting together to play out the tactical battles so the ability to solo game the battles or play them out with friends in our respective vicinities would be necessary. Fortunately, when Daniel, Michael and I build collections, we usually build both (or multiple) sides or factions. Unfortunately, we don't build the same collections. So, we could find ourselves in a situation where Michael is posted in New Brunswick with his 1/285 WWII and Modern collections (oh, and his spaceship fleets), Daniel is in Manitoba with his 28m WWI collection (and maybe a new 28mm Thirty Years War collection?), and I'm here in Ontario with 28mm Carlist Wars, 28mm WWII, and 28mm Imagination. What to do? It's clear we couldn't play a conventional campaign, such as WWII or horse and musket.We need a system that allows us to play a map campaign and fight the tactical battles in whatever genre, scale, or historical context we have available and choose at the time. So one battle initiated by Michael may be fought out by him and his local gaming group using 1/285 WWII and another battle initiated by Daniel may be solo-gamed by him using 28mm TYW.  Bizarre? Perhaps, but the campaign system itself needs to be generic enough to accommodate different tactical battle possibilities. Perhaps a point system to translate from campaign map to any of the specific tactical rule sets? Or maybe only worrying about ensuring proper ratios between forces fighting a battle need be considered? The interesting thing to consider is how each campaign participant may look at the exercise. If the map and campaign system is handled properly, one player could see it as a WWII campaign, another as a horse and musket campaign. It wouldn't matter much really, I don't think, just a matter of perspective. Anyway, things to ponder...