Casualty Markers and Wash Tests

While waiting for my 1/300th North Africa divisions to arrive I thought I'd paint up some casualty markers using old Airfix figures (you know, those ones that came in every box and were next to no use!) With our SLS rules 9and others)  we mark damage with smoke puffs, which also gives a good sense of where the battle is happening, but once a unit has only 1 damage left it is "spent" and retreats and can't advance until rallied - so you a) have units out of the action surrounded by smoke-puffs and b) have lots of smoke puffs tied up doing nothing really! So in 6mm I have casualty markers that equate to "spent" for units and I thought it would be useful to do the same in 20mm, esp with the Waterloo 60 planning (that's going to need a lot of smoke puffs!)

I'd also promised myself some time at the start of the year to review my painting style. I still don't think I'm up to doing 3-shade approaches. I might try the off highlight, but its the use of better washes where my biggest and quickest improvements can probably be made. I used to use Nuln Oil ink diluted, but GW now sells it as a wash, which I don't think I'd noticed so was still diluting it! On 6mm it still looked OK, but in 20mm it was giving too much of a dullness to everything and not filling cracks. So I decided with these casualties to finish in 4 different ways:

• No wash at all, just to show the impact that the washes do have
• My existing 50:50 Nuln Oil wash
• Neat Nuln Oil wash
• Army Painter Strong Quickshade applied by brush ( OK I know that Alan and my brother both mix their own from furnisher polish but I haven't the time/confidence in consistency!)

All had a Vallejo Matt varnish, brush applied (after several disasters with spray).

Here are some of the results - I think I have the captions right!

50:50 Nuln Oil Wash and Water

Neat Nuln Oil Wash

Quickshade

Unwashed

50:50 Nuln Oil Wash

Quickshade

So actually neat Nuln Oil and Quick Shade both giver pretty good results, and Nuln Oil dries  a lot faster, doesn't smell, and Quickshade still needs the matt varnish.

So I think my plan is (since I have a £20 tin of Quickshade!):

• Use QS on the WW2 1/300th armour and figures I'm about to do as it will look good as dirt as well as shading
• Since my next "batch" is 20mm ECW or WOTR so more forgiving than Napoleonics do a unit in each of neat Nuln Oil Wash and QS and compare the results.

Then I can take stock and make a final decision. Whilst that QS tin looks expensive will be interesting to see how fast I get through neat Nuln Oil at GW prices!

Still won't ever win any painting competitions though!

Troops in progress - 20mm Newline French

My switch from plastic to metal 20mm continues with two battalions of French line in greatcoats - just awaiting basing. Figures are Newline Designs. been really happy with their sculpts so far, and although the infantry are a tad smaller than 20mm most modern plastics I don't think you'll notice on the table top - and in fact Google tells me that the French are about 1cm shorter on average than Brits anyway!

To hit our Waterloo @ 60 target I need to do about 8 French units a year for the next 5 years, so that should be fine.

First 20mm Metal Napoleonics

Whilst all of my 20mm Napoleonics to date have been plastic there is definitely something nice about the heft, detail and uniformity of metal figures so I thought I'd buy some and see how well they fit in with the plastics. Seeing as I'm not (currently) buying masses cost isn't really an issue - and actually they work out cheaper per days painting than 6mm!

I had a good look around at Salute and settled on the Newline Designs figures and bought a pack of French Line Infantry and have finally got round to painting them up.

I must admit I'm very happy with the results. I just painted to my normal (poor) standard, possibly went a bit heavy with the ink wash, but otherwise they look fine.

The figures are really nicely proportioned but are for 20mm plastic on the short side. So I based them on a double thickness of 1/16" play (rather than my standard single thickness), and the net result gives something that fits in really well.

The image below  shows the Newline figures compared to a variety of my plastics (including some 40yr old Airfix!).

The Newline are in the middle. And that's Castigilone going on in the background.

Very happy, and will probably give some cavalry a go later in the year.

Bavarian and Wurtemburg 6mm WIP

Quick work-in-progress shot of my current 6mm painting batch - a Division of Bavarians, and a brigade each of Wurtemburgers, Bavarian Cavalry and Wurtemburg  Cavalry. Also three Bns of light infantry too. About 2/3 through the painting process, should sort the bases weekend after next. Nice colourful uniforms with the skyblue jackets for the Bavarians, and both countries having a nice mix of lapel colours including red, yellow, pink and sky blue. The cavalry look good too. Nice way to bolster French numbers without having dark blue on everything.

Late Medieval Army - Tranche 2

Destined to fight its way through the War of the Roses and the Hundred Years War my second tranche of Baccus 6mm Late Medievals was completed this last month - just need flags and unit labels. I should now have enough to do all major WOTR/100YW battles at 1:33, possibly even 1:15.

First up later this month will be Bosworth, and I also just bought the Anne Curry book ready for Agincourt next year.

Four early artillery pieces with dismounted men-at-arms and hobilars behind (just love hobilars). (even more so after Salute where whilst browsing the Lance and Longbow stand - and buying an excellent book on WOTR Livery - I overheard some guy asking about Lord of the Rings stuff - he mistook hobilars for hobbits!)

Richard III mounted men-at-arms retinue.

The third tranche next year will be mostly French mounted men-at-arms!

Afghan Gaming - The Brits

Like many wargamers I've always been a bit wary about gaming ultra-modern conflicts like Afghanistan, Cechneya and the Ukraine. However I've just started painting up an "early" Afghan force, circa 2008, so I must be thinking that there is enough distance beginning to build up there, and the conflict in its initial form has certainly come to an end.

There are though a few extra reasons why wargaming this period/setting is of particular interest to me:

• The very asymmetric nature of the combat lends itself to a different kind of wargame. Judging by the helmet cam coverage just one wounded Brit is enough to call "endex". It looks like the Too Fat Lardies forthcoming Fighting Season rules make a good attempt to capture this, with every operation being judged more or less on how it might look in the Daily Mail the next day.
• I'm on the look out for a set of near-SF skirmish rules, but most that I've seen so far are either too gamey or too much into snazzy weapons. An "updated" modern set might be just what I'm after.
• There are some very real debates at the moment about what the modern force should consist of. What should be the load-out of the fire team and the section - particularly the mix of GPMGs and LMGs. Also should fire support be at the company not battalion level - or even a fourth section at platoon level. What will be the impact of the new wheeled MIV? Being able to game these current debates brings a new angle to my (our) games.
• My day job puts me at the edge of military simulation, so who knows I might be able to find a commercial way to put modern wargame rules to use.

The photos here are of my British platoon. Figures are TSS/QRF 15mm. I'm no great painter but hopefully they pass the 2ft test. Next up some Afghans, a WMIK and some suitable houses.

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