Categories
Intermission 21c
Categories
Virtual VAP2021
I thought I might console myself with a virtual VAP this year via this site. So first up is something about traders.
Vapnartak is run by York Wargames Society volunteers and has a sizeable trader attendance. The York Racecourse site allows plenty of space although the organisers always ensure we all just about fit in!
In more recent times breakout space has improved yet I get the impression the number of traders remains unchanged? Maybe some of the games space has reduced. I am not sure on that.
The traders I have most often shopped with over the years have included
- Caliver Books – no links at present
- Dave Lanchesters Military Books – no links at present
- Irregular Miniatures
- Magister Militum
- Magnetic Displays
- Museum Miniatures
- Pendraken Miniatures
- Peter Pig
- S&A Scenics
- Sally 4th
- The Dice Shop Online
- The Last Valley
- Tumbling Dice
- Westwind/Forged in Battle
Caliver Books have always given me a steady supply of books and especially rule books.
I have also dipped into their figures occasionally plus the odd terrain purchase. At the show Caliver are the nearest thing to a street general wargames store before they became gaming cafes or just cafes and now just empty buildings!
Dave Lanchesters books have been a great source of the older Ospreys and I have often picked up Pen & Sword or Helion publications at great prices.
And Dave has some really excellent condition out of print books.
Irregular Miniatures provide simply a vast range of figures and items that is staggering. Always something tempting to buy.
No pic, I hope to have some news in another post in Irregular.
Magister Militum, Westwind/Forged in Battle and Museum Miniatures have been my preferred 15mm suppliers – mainly ancients.
All their figures have character despite their small size. I owned some 6mm Naploeonics back in the day but never got the bug so 15mm is as small as I go.
Funnily enough Peter Pig is another 15mm supplier yet it is his rules I have loved over the years – RFCM (Rules for the Common Man) remain the only other ruleset for pick up games I automatically think of for WW2 outings aside from my house rules based on the venerable Don Featherstone offerings. OK I do own Too Fat Lardies rules which really are the most engaging game rules in my view. However I have to be in the mood to play them!
Peter Pigs Bloody Barons have also found out my interest in the past although the figure scale has been 28mm or even Mike Tittensor’s SOA Bronze Age deriviative that saw 1/72 plastics take the field.
S&A Scenics have given me some excellent scenery of the “precise” kind and which give a nice “gamey” feel to a table top.
In stark contrast Last Valley offer you trees and hedgerows which do feel very realistic to me. I like both – and yes use both together on occasion!
Sally 4th have offered various companies products and I have often bought the Foreground pre coloured laser cut wood kits along with original citadel paints.
Dice are always in demand even if I don’t need them. The Dice Shop does what it says!
Pendraken Miniatures have also yielded some nice dice and I invariably get my bases from them. Alas their delightful figure ranges are just too small for me.
I have a soft spot for 1/72 or small 25mm or large 20mm (take your pick). So Tumbling Dice have supplied some nice Dark Age figures.
Last but not least are Magnetic Displays although I always remember them as Coritani. I buy their paintbrushes and occasionally paints. While their range of terrain features are always compelling and Renedra plastics have often figured in my purchasing, I always obtain spear reinforcements from Trevor & Paula who I just find are simply the most helpful and engaging of traders.
And of course there was the “infamous?” bring & buy scrum alley where pitches were offered on a time restricted basis. I could never make up my mind if it was any better than an ordinary bring and buy, except it crucially saved the wargames club members acting as intermediaries – double handling cash and items.
I managed to make some purchases. I never bought bad due to the selling mechanism so thats a good thing.
Whatever your wargaming activity I hope you are able to support your favorite traders despite the pandemic and the decimation it has caused to so many people in so many ways.
Happy Wargaming.
Categories
Intermission 21b
Categories
Vapnartak 2021
No pictures for this weekend show. Usually VAP is the Wargames show that kicks off my year, I often spend quite a bit having saved at Christmas for a show that to my mind always offered an excellent mix of traders.
So what to do ?
Well I will run a few posts for a virtual VAP.
Over at the Duchy of Tradgardland blog the pleasure of well illustrated uniform books was raised.
So, I thought I would put some of my favourite uniform books on parade.
Before I do that, I am parading a book that many wargamers will not be familiar with. I picked it up in a shop clearance in Exeter. A book on costumes might seem irrelevant to wargamers: Army uniforms were designed to meet the needs of warfare. That is true, also true is that civilian fashion will have driven those aspects which were not entirely driven by the practice of warfare.
For my latest project – the Wars of the Italian Unification – I can say that civilian costumes for men seem fairly static from 1800 to about 1880, loose trousers and frock coats abound, even tailcoats are still in evidence. Prior to 1800 the combination of tricorne, short waistcoat, knee breeches and stockings spanned roughly 1750 to 1800.
I noticed that if anything military uniform seems conservative with mid 19th century Kingdoms like “The Two Sicily’s” still equipping some troops in what looks like 50-year styles, without tricornes though.
So, looking at the civilian costumes makes me feel more relaxed about what soldiers would be wearing and when during those 1800’s. When you add in regulations being only periodic and often reliant on funding and supply you can make the case for some latitude in what a unit was wearing.
On the other hand, Wargamers love military uniform books and probably cannot survive without the certainty of that presentation. That assumes the uniform you want is the one shown!
Onto the book parade
First up are “ageing nicely” my four Funckens, Ancient Egypt to the 18th century; 18th century to the present day plus the Napoleonic Wars Parts 1 & 2. I have had these 40+ years.
I really like these books because the artwork is literally that. Paintings where the brushstroke give an enduring roughness to the figures and horses. These books ideas are most transferable to wargames figures in my view.
Next up are two smaller A5 sized books from Denmark – authors Niels Saxtorph (illustrated by Stig Bramsen) and Preben Kannik having their work translated into English and published by Blandford. These are more sharply defined figures with crisp artwork. Yet the style is still visibly “pre-digital”.
Rounding off the “old style” are the three volume Funckens – “the Age of Chivalry Parts 1,2 and 3. Fantastic is an understatement.
Modern day wargamers might say – no need for this book lark as I get all my images online. Well, I guess that is so, although many will be photos of publications including those I have mentioned and possibly not attributed.
More to the point is the issue of OSPREY publications – the elephant in the room. For sheer volume there is no competition. Osprey have delivered the hobby an immense range of work for decades. Most of it as good as the Funckens or Blandford’s or superior and often backed by better research which is to be expected.
And yet despite the illustrations becoming ever more “accurate” digitally there seems to me something lost.
I can best illustrate this with my final offering.
4 Ospreys from their “men at arms” series Nos. 323, 329, 512 and 520.
The Austrian Army 1836-1866 parts 1 & 2. Both written and illustrated by Darko Pavlovic they are an excellent read and the colour plates well chosen and detailed. Yet there is something cold about them.
And this is illustrated by the Armies of the Italian Wars of Unification 1848-1870 parts 1&2. Written by Gabriele Esposito and illustrated by Giuseppe Rava the illustrations are richer and warmer. They hark back to the pre digital Funckens in a way that perhaps Darko Pavlovic’s Austrians pay homage the work of Preben Kannik instead.
So, in this digital era I still think there is a place in uniform illustration for roughness, approximation and a level of abstraction – which is what wargames really are about.
And I really do enjoy opening a book and turning a page – no amount of digital paraphernalia currently does the same thing.
As Leo Tolstoy wrote “if you look for perfection, you’ll never be content”.
Categories
Mythical Realms
What happens when you meet your doppelganger?
Actually it is best not to.
In my case – creating a Mythical Realm is not normally a problem because I tend to invent some totally separate location that just happens to have the same oxygen, societies, nature, science and warfare of the period I want to plunder.
And then occasionally real history just cries out to be used. Italy is a regular case in point for me. Most recently I was on a Normans in the South (NitS) splurge before crashing into Faux Napoleonics by Renaissance Troll.
One thing has led to another and one minute I was on the Wars of the Italian Unification (WotIU) – kepis, garibaldi and kettels, next I am thinking how to do Napoleonics without Napoleon, Wellington or Blucher etc.
Well I have solved the problem – it is a Vardoger Planet – ok maybe it is a sort of doppelganger.
The story is this.
Once upon a time there was a planet – called Earth and in front of it so to speak was another planet called Earth which experienced everything just that bit earlier. And so the worlds trundled along except that one day there was a small ripple and it was a very small ripple.
No one noticed because no one knew. Well I guess someone knew because I would not be telling you this.
We live on the first planet, or lead planet. The “Vardoger” one. Now our following planet is just slightly different.
Welcome to “Fauxterre” where things are just slightly different.
It is 20 years since Wikipedia arrived and in that time I have benefited from the huge range of articles published about History. History is a living thing and written history is revised continuously. So it seems that Wikipedia is today very appropriate for making history more accessible.
I am clear that written history books and wikipedia are not the same thing. For example wiki material is necessarilly functional and has some brevity. Historians through their published “works” can devote far more time and effort on any aspect of their subject. They offer depth and understanding which through their publishing which would be otherwise impossible to access.
So Wikipedia has given me that ability to find out something quickly. Crucially I have gone on to read history books that I think I might not have done. I have read about periods of history I had not expected to and enjoyed the discovery.
Wikipedia aids my pursuit of history read for pleasure and it has increased my enjoyment as a result. So I am also happy to say I have donated to Wikipedia simply because I value what I have been able to access.
Happy 20th anniversary Wikipedia!
By way of an example – it is not just history – I happened upon this very nice image which I will use in another post shortly.
This image I obtained from wikimedia commons. The site aims to promote shared use of images while acknowledging their source.
D J Shin, QSH Tin Wind Up Astro-Scout Doppelgänger (Journey to the Far Side of the Sun) Movie Homage 2, CC BY-SA 3.0
Please support Wikipedia so we can enjoy being surprised and informed through the shear variety of information made freely available.
The first milestone is complete. I have a unit of Piedmontese for the period around 1850. Probably the first figures in this era I have painted (well since the year DOT Airfix ACW figures that started me off wargaming).
Next up on the painting board are some Austrians looking quite serious and on the other hand Bersaglieri – complete with capercaillie feathers.
I first used budgie grit on my 28mm Perry WotR forces and I liked the surface finish although the dark colour choice – english mud – I never liked. When they get another run out things will be lighter.
And following success with my Normans in the South I have retained the lighter colouring for my Piedmontese who are the first of my Wars of the Italian Unification (WotIU) project.
I pva some budgie grit around the figures, then give everything a burnt sienna undercoat. Then I use a discontinued B&Q tumeric – yellow ochre I guess. This is haphazardly brushed on. Finally I dry brush with a Valpasar yellowy cream. I found this colour was not so intense as using white.
The foliage is woodland scenics from the USA – I use the bush material and mix an olive green with a brighter green colour.
In the wings
In the lead photo you can see Austrian Artillerymen, Austrian Line Infantry and Italian Bersaglieri.
busy busy……..
I have had some very satisfactory results moving to large bases as suggested by Impetus Rules when using 1/72 figures. So 80mm x 60mm basing has been almost exclusively the preferred basing method.
With my latest enchantment – Wars of the Italian Unification (WotIU) I have moved onto something different. I intend using PIQUET rules amongst others. In their ruleset 1700-1900 Field of Battle, Brent Oman suggests that units composed of a few bases not only work for his rules but look good.
I think he is right. So I am going with a standard unit of 4 bases, each measuring 40mm x 40mm.
This will allow 1×4 columns, 2×2 blocks and 4×1 lines. As you have probably gathered, scale is not my priority on the battlefield. I like a combination of “look”, proportion, abstraction and playability.
And being a solo wargamer “look” is simply my preference.
So these pictures show my first Piedmontese Line Infantry unit.
The only other consideration is figure arrangement. Going with PIQUET, I have settled on 3 figures per base. So you can either have one figure at the front or two to the front, assuming your not having 3 in a row.
I am going with 2 to the front.
The Wargaming Erratic 